Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Oh but you raised it in one of your points above. That I was makin demands and that was getting a few people's panties in a bunch.

KTG17 wrote:
Oh but you raised it in one of your points above. That I was makin demands and that was getting a few people's panties in a bunch.

Well, you certainly seem to be behaving a tad more aggressively than absolutely needed, you know?

EDIT: Oh, hey, turns out it really is easy to check posts made by someone here. Literally two mouse clicks.

RULE #1 (Be Polite) and RULE #2 (Stay On Topic) - both are mandatory.

Also, KTG17 - please get to the point already?

Dancing around questions and making disingenuous polls?

Not helpful. Please stop.

Ok I am going to explain my position here. Pardon the typos I am banging this out on a iPhone and will no doubt do some fat-fingering.

Now, the origin of this story begins a few decades ago. When I was a young whipper-snapper growing up in Hong Kong. I am an American, but spent many of my early years jumping around South East Asia. The cool thing about that experience was that I was in ground zero for many of the classic anime robot series that came out in the 80s, such as Gundam, Xabungle, Dougram, L-Gaim, Dragonar, Dunbine, VOTOMS, and so on, with of course, Macross and Mospeada.

Now you have to understand how Macross turned the world upside down for my friends and I. Even as impressive and timeless do the technical designs are today, they were revolutionary at the time. And it wasn't just because planes could turn into robots, but also the gritty art at the time. The details, weathering, dings and scrapes in the armor, etc. it was all pretty amazing. And besides all the toys and models I was getting, many of these shows were shown on TV in such places as Hong Kong.

So we would race home from school, tune into one of the Chinese TV channels, and watch Macross dubbed from Japanese to Chinese, and of course I could neither read or speak either. I had a couple of Chinese friends who would do their best to give me some details on the story and robots, but much of it I would have to make up in my head. And I didn't this for a lot of Robot shows. And I would have to say that while I loved Dougram and VOTOMS and a few others, Macross was the top of the mountain as far as designs went. Until Z Gundam came out, but that's another story.

So eventually I move to Indonesia which at the time might as well had been purgatory. One one TV channel at the time, and it was static most of the time. This predates the internet btw, so it was like living in a black out. But I had a friend at school who had some 'Robotech' on VHS and was translated into English. I was so excited. I knew a little about Mospeada for example, but nothing on the story, so was stoked about The Next Generation. I ate it all up.

But it wasn't until I moved back to the states and saw the comics did I realize what Harmony Gold did bringing three series that had nothing to do with each other, and found so many ridiculous plot concepts to bring them together. But since I was so interested in the technical details Ineven bought the PB Robotech RPG books, and even played a few games!!! So embarrassing. Anyway, I dropped the Robotech nonsense and just accepted the original versions of the stories.

When Robotech RPG Tactics came out. I sprung and got it. It seemed like a well put-together game set. The models didn't bother me as I am a model builder anyway, and prefer more options than less. But I wasn't thrilled with the game mechanics and since then the game has sat on my shelf.

No I have seen the previews for future releases, and many of the Macross designs never turned into anything but resin models would be awesome. Like the original Ghosts. But I have so little appreciation for Harmony Gold and PB at this point that if both went out of business it would be better for the planet. If some of you lost money on the Kickstarter (which I didn't really follow as it was going on), that sucks. I feel bad for you. But at the end of the day it's all supporting a perverted concept of a superior concept anyway. I mean, we are to believe that the Robotech Masters create the massive Zentradi and their massive battle pods in order to fight small Invid and their several meter tall Shock Troopers? Ridic.

Anyway, for those that grew up here and didn't see it in its original form back in the day, I can understand the appreciation you might have for it, but now with the internet and the availability of info on the net, you don't really even need HG or PB to enjoy these anime anymore. I know that won't satisfy all of you and thats understood.

NOW ANSWER ME NOW!!!!!!!!!!!

What's your point?

That the original anime source material are IYO superior to the HG Robotech?

Good for you. What bearing does that have on this Kickstarter, and the failure of it to deliver?

Is there a gaming alternative you can recommend? Or are you just trolling people who have money tied up in this project that they should move on because you think Macross is the superiot product?

This thread is about the game, not the shows. And people do need HG and PB if they wanted to have a game with a scope larger than people's basements.

Morgan Vening wrote:


What's your point?

What bearing does that have on this Kickstarter, and the failure of it to deliver?

Is there a gaming alternative you can recommend? Or are you just trolling people who have money tied up in this project that they should move on because you think Macross is the superiot product?

Good questions.

We'll give KTG17 a post or two to answer them, and pending those answers...

You guys are trolling me far more than I am trolling you. As a matter of fact, I am not even trolling at all. Just making conversation.

Almost 400 pages of discussion on this topic and a guy comes in with some fresh new opinions and points of view and people lose their gak and start stalking and harassing me. You guys should be embarrassed.

Part of me wants the best outcome, people to get their money back. I don't like to push the world scam very hard, but This is just half a step up from total non-delivery.
In a way I think it's worse. Pretty sure the majority of people know wave 2 just isn't going to happen. Most KS scams just drop off the face of the earth or just never bring it up again. Palladium just brings it up over and over again for backers on kickstarter, but anywhere where palladium have any direct control, they stifle the conversation.

Between all the drama, the lies, the regurgitated information, and the delays until the rights are gone, it feels like watching a documentary.

While I want the best outcome from this debacle, the likely hood of it happening is nil. If Palladium had done their due diligence, this would have been a resolved issue a long time ago. However they didn't. Whatever advice they received was either ignored or Kevin "I AM PALLADIUM" Siembieda stepped in thinking his ideas were better.

At the end of the day, when everything is said and done this debacle lies purely and solely at Palladiums feet. Period.

They should very well be held to task for it, and they should own it.

Is this a drama fest? Yes.
Have their been lies? Yes.. more lies than a Washington Politician.
Have they been regurgitating information? Yes. Just so they have the appearance (ha, ha) of doing something while giving their backer's the universal symbol of 'I hate you.'
Have they delayed? A reasonable delay is 3-6 months (and that's stretching reasonable). 3-4 years is outright criminal.

I've seen documentaries... if this can be titled: "Don't give your money to Palladium Books!"

I agree Seawolf.

It's a shame this Kickstarter doesn't get more mainstream attention for what it is. It has to be one of the worst kickstarters for the sheer fact that it just keeps going.

KTG17 wrote:
You guys are trolling me far more than I am trolling you. As a matter of fact, I am not even trolling at all. Just making conversation.

Almost 400 pages of discussion on this topic and a guy comes in with some fresh new opinions and points of view and people lose their gak and start stalking and harassing me. You guys should be embarrassed.

Er....no.

Knowing what we now...'know'...do your posts going forward plan to follow Rule #2?

Unlikely.

Will they follow Rule #1?

Doubtful.

Please make sure you're going to be adding something that makes sense - and follows the rules of the site - before posting again.

KTG17 wrote:
You guys are trolling me far more than I am trolling you. As a matter of fact, I am not even trolling at all. Just making conversation.

Almost 400 pages of discussion on this topic and a guy comes in with some fresh new opinions and points of view and people lose their gak and start stalking and harassing me. You guys should be embarrassed.

No, you are definitely trolling.

You came in with a fake poll to stir the pot. It would be poetic if we force you to lick the spoon clean.

I'm not going to play your game. Buh-bye.
____

Ninja'd by Alphy!

Well, I was going to pick up a random Rifts sourcebook as a nostalgia fueled bathroom reader.

But now, feth Palladium. They aren't getting any of my money.

Fake poll?!? I asked:

I want to know for each and every one of you:

1) That you played the game and liked it, and want more

or

2) Played the game and didn't like it

or maybe

3) Was only in it for the models

I asked for people to pick one of three options out of curiosity on the feeling peeps had on this game. Not sure how I am blowing rules 1 and 2 doing that.

This is absolutely ridiculous.

KTG17 wrote:
You guys are trolling me far more than I am trolling you. As a matter of fact, I am not even trolling at all. Just making conversation.

Almost 400 pages of discussion on this topic and a guy comes in with some fresh new opinions and points of view and people lose their gak and start stalking and harassing me. You guys should be embarrassed.

This is a group of people who have had any number of individuals come in over the years and challenge 'why are you so angry?', 'why are you still talking about this?', 'gawd, just get over it already!' and other unhelpful statements and stances. At 400+ posts on Dakka, one would think you might have picked up that ALL CAPS DEMANDS don't generally go over well in terms of polite discourse.

You didn't have 'fresh new opinions', you demanded to know things about us without any prior engagement other than a few random posts that showed little interest in actually finding things out, but instead making declarations and assumptions about those who've been here in one capacity or another for nearly half a decade.

So, funny that, most didn't bow and scrape before you. Welcome to Dakkadakka.

Also, 'looking at your profile' isn't 'stalking', no matter how much you may wish to cloak yourself as a victim. The fact that you've barely ever said anything in these threads is what stands out. As I said, it wasn't work worthy of Sherlock Holmes, and as was pointed out, it's literally two clicks (once on your forum handle, once on the subforum in question). We have had plenty of bad-faith participants in here over the years, and seeing a handful of statements that did little to engage made this 'poll' no different.

Not to pile on, I do see that others (including an official, alt-colour text and all, response has been given), but if you actually want discourse, if you actually want to understand this thread, its participants, and history, but don't want to do the heavy lifting of reading through hundreds of pages to date, maybe not charging in with reckless abandon would go over a bit better.

And really, just how important are our original intentions anyway? Your follow up context says nothing about why it was SO IMPORTANT to hear why we backed the project, NOW. You love the anime? Cool story. I bet most of us did here on some level. But nearly half a decade later, after all the shenanigans PB has put the project through, the missteps and lying and delays and more lies, our reasoning back in 2013 is almost charmingly quaint in how irrelevant our participation to this day in this thread and chatter elsewhere might be.

For the record, my friends and I backed because we all loved the show and wanted to recapture epic battles from it with figures we built. Then we got around 2/3 to 3/4 of the figures we were owed, but it was mostly the 'pawns' and maybe some Rooks and a Bishop. Most of the meat of the game felt missing. And the models were a pain in the ass to build compared to the games we also played, with minimal (to us) enhancements in detail or posability. And the rules were nothing special at best, and bloated with unnecessary nods to the RPG that isn't all that good in the first place (this I can speak from experience, having played one form or another of Palladium RPB for over half a decade in my younger years, and once owning nearly everything they'd ever released).

Which is mostly tangential to 'PB took a bunch of money from a bunch of people, delivered a fraction of their promised materials, and have shown naught but token effort to presumably try to keep even cursory legal challenges at bay, have been lying to us for years (even just in hindsight), and aside from a new face spitting out the old lies, not much has changed or is expected to change until maybe half a decade more from now when maybe the IP rights clusterfeth becomes an even bigger mess'.

:-D

KTG17 wrote:
Fake poll?!? I asked:
I want to know for each and every one of you:
1) That you played the game and liked it, and want more
or
2) Played the game and didn't like it
or maybe
3) Was only in it for the models
I asked for people to pick one of three options out of curiosity on the feeling peeps had on this game. Not sure how I am blowing rules 1 and 2 doing that.
This is absolutely ridiculous.

I must admit Forar has made a very courteous explanation of the state of things.
"Fake poll" is just because it critically is lacking in focus so that any answers would be pretty much meaningless.

Plus the only "fresh" element of your questions is the newness of the person asking them: the questions themselves are not new.

Each of our history or profiles are a means of credentials of sorts.
It is an easy thing to check and I have no issues with mine being looked at (would be honored anyone could be bothered).
Participate in a meaningful way and the history will speak volumes.

RRT has dragged on long enough that the only questions we really have are the following:
- What have you done or are doing with RRT? Model build? Paint? Play?
- What can be done to get our money back or some kind of compensation or closure for what remains?
- How many people have any real reason to believe in wave 2 ever happening?
- How long can Palladium Books can keep this farce of Wave 2 ever happing going? We appear to have a licensing due-date coming so in the eyes of the law we may have a hard-stop ending date.

So there you go.
I honestly believe people have been terribly civil with you.
You may want to hang out in reddit or 4chan for a bit to gain some perspective.

So you are saying that is someone answered my poll that they played the game and didn't like it, that that answer would be meaningless? Fake poll followed by a fake answer then? This is brilliant.

How about, if you didn't want to contribute to my poll, just don't answer and move on to another part of the discussion?
I mean you've obviously thought I have wasted your time, and I certainly feel you have wasted mine.

Not sure why you keep banging on about this, at this point it almost seems llike you might be simply a Palladium stooge simply trying to cause aggravation, come on NMI it is you isn't it trying to get us back for posting the John Candice SNAFU

As several people have already posted (Forar with his usual polite but firm response) the people here are simply disgruntled backers of a project that we were all excited about those four plus years ago. We are of an age that remembers the first runs of Robotech and its impact. We saw the blurb, liked what we were seeing and put up the monies. What happenned the nis easily traced through this thread (and its earlier brother) or a quick perusal of the KS site.

Many did build the first models, played a few games and as Forar said waited for the main course. That never happenned and the game and models went back on the shelf.

Going forward the vast majority will probably say that wave 2 will never happen (but ....nah is is not) and so are here generally to make sure Palladium are still held to account, nothing more nothing less.

Having a bash at us is a little churlish,over the years the regulars here and on the KS comments have sometimes had spats with each other but do respect others viewpoints, in a far more friendly way than many forums I visit.

Perhaps you may want to drop this now?

And yet still no real response to those who actually answered the "poll".......i am shocked i tell you SHOCKED by this. fething troll.

Even I don't see much reason for what KTG17 has posted, and most people think I'm trolling this thread.

Jefffar wrote:
Even I don't see much reason for what KTG17 has posted, and most people think I'm trolling this thread.

This is spoken by a moderator on the Palladium Forums.
Jefffar has been polite enough to me so I see no troll here.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

KTG17 wrote:
So you are saying that is someone answered my poll that they played the game and didn't like it, that that answer would be meaningless? Fake poll followed by a fake answer then? This is brilliant.
How about, if you didn't want to contribute to my poll, just don't answer and move on to another part of the discussion?
I mean you've obviously thought I have wasted your time, and I certainly feel you have wasted mine.

My mistake, I was silly enough to think you wanted something meaningful out of this "polite" poll.
I have been known to bang my head against a wall on occasion and get curious about other strange people's motivations... seems oddly appropriate for a forum on RRT and Palladium Books.
If I was worried about "wasting time" I would not enter a discussion about Palladium Books.

Last attempt before I hit "ignore".
Get to the point: what do you really want?
An answer to something?
You got actual answers and when faced with ANY criticism you get all hostile.
Clarify your thoughts or earn the label of troll.
Attempting to give benefit of the doubt here.
I am really feeling I am wasting my time NOW and it appears others do too, feel free to prove people wrong.

Maybe he should ask on the PB forums - it'd be interesting to see if they still acknowledge the project exists.

I think we have given this diversion all the attention that needs to be given and should return to our normal commentary about the state of the RRT Kickstarter, or the lack thereof.

A number of the posters to this thread have put a lot of time and effort into getting the word out in a constructive informative manner and I would hate to see it closed because of the actions of a few.

PB has a hard earned reputation in the gaming industry. Between the "Mechanoids in Space" coming soon for 20 years and most books on average (IIRC) taking 3-4 years past the forecasted dates, PB appears to have the most amazing procrastinators of any US based business.

After being banned back in '07 from their forums for simply mentioning concerns that KS had overstretched his commitment based on their delivery record, and letting NMI know my further thoughts, I was dumbfounded when I received a call from PB in 2015 asking for my CC. Evidently I had preordered a book in '06 and they couldn't charge my old card.

The only positive thing I could say about the company is that they keep good records - not of previous "updates ", but of customers CCs.

I feel for all of you who put out your hard earned money for a product and a vision, and have had someone figuratively smack your face for asking for a refund. The other tragedy is the spark that died in so many who have become disillusioned.

I'm not sure what KTG17's intent is, but I get a whiff of "The Macross and Mospeada stuff is superior, why are you wasting your time with this HG crap?"

Which really is the question we ask day to day. Most of us here, I assume, got introduced to Macross and the like through the means of HG's Robotech (I did, back when I lived in California during the 80's, on I think it was channel 46 - it blew my mind). I only learned about the original source material it was drawn from a couple of years back (during the KS campaign actually). Having been raised on Robotech, I found the source material and the subsequent material (Macross II, Macross Zero, Macross 7, etc.) confusing for a while - until I had the chance to watch the original, unaltered, undubbed version of Macross. Now that I'm familiar with it, I've come to believe that HG's Robotech is laughable, utter trash.

Unfortunately, HG has made it the only way us folks in the states can get hold of Macross stuff is through them, and this terrible kickstarter. Our only other option is try and get stuff via e-bay or (what I only recently discovered) Hobby Link Japan. Both of which are annoying methods that take a considerable amount of time (compared to running down to the local FLGS).

Would we take a better alternative? Sure we would. Would we like to dump HG & PB and have another company take over production? You betcha, in a heartbeat.

But Kevin at PB has our money, and won't give us our toys or acknowledge the project is truly dead. It's a schrodinger's cat scenario, with our money in the box instead of a cat.

So, generally we gather here to mock PB's "progress" in the vain hope some legal authority will take pity on us and sue PB into oblivion - if 2021 doesn't end this debacle for us.

We've long past actually playing the game around these parts because everyone who had interest stopped playing a few years ago when it became obvious that nothing else was coming out for the game and despite PB's promises of support for the game, that it was a hollow promise as well.

I don't mean to dredge up bad memories, or necro old posts, but how did this turn out? I remember hearing about this when it was first envisaged, although i didn't buy in. Then the 'robotech-style' epic started regarding actually delivering on pledges. Now - silence.

Is it as bad still as it looks? Or am i about to get the thread locked? I am genuinely curious how this turned out.

 Torga_DW wrote:
I don't mean to dredge up bad memories, or necro old posts, but how did this turn out? I remember hearing about this when it was first envisaged, although i didn't buy in. Then the 'robotech-style' epic started regarding actually delivering on pledges. Now - silence.

Is it as bad still as it looks? Or am i about to get the thread locked? I am genuinely curious how this turned out.

Or



To the point, PB got out the base box and the original add-on boxes, but we're still waiting for the second half - which will never come.

PB's trying to drag things out so they don't have to refund anybody, but I doubt anyone believes they are putting a good faith effort in anymore.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words..... Those 2 pics seems to sum it up. Which is a shame. I'm still listening to robotech music on youtube. But yeah, sad to hear that the mini game fell through. :(

Hrm, the short version would this, off the top of my head (and since you asked politely, unlike our other recent conversation);

*Note: this is heavily abridged, glossing over a ton of things large and small. These shenanigans have been going for about 4.5 years, we really could write a book on this shameful clusterfeth if we so desired.

The Kickstarter Campaign ran in early 2013, with a full delivery target of late 2013 (December). The statement released prior to the campaign said that Ninja Division would be doing most of the heavy lifting, PB were just the license holder.

When the campaign ended, literally the next day, Kevin Siembieda sent out an update noting that they were so confident that they could do it, that they might even deliver in November or even October.

While many will note how they had a bad feeling much earlier, I think the first major warning sign was when the Pledge Manager didn't open until July or so, and ended in early September. Going on for months, there were comments noting that delivery might slip back a little, January perhaps? Maybe February or March? But in Jan 2014 they admitted they were way behind, and would be splitting the project into 2 waves, both of which were to deliver that year, one in the middle and one at the end (give or take).

This proved to be a half truth.

During the prototyping stage, it became clear that these were not going to be 'half dozen piece figures', but scaled down mini-models. A single Battloid, roughly an inch and change tall, had something like two dozen pieces. The arms were each made up of at least 4 pieces! Per arm!

This caused... consternation.

There were some shenanigans around Gencon (we were promised to have the product first, repeatedly, and then they claimed they might sell some limited supply at Gencon to 'build hype and buzz!'), but due to shipping delays (there was a longshoreman's strike, a fire at the port, and they got held up in customs for quite a while, basically karma just pointed and laughed at them) it didn't happen. However, despite a container arriving in August, shipping to the broader backers didn't begin in earnest until October. Most North American backers got their stuff in the month or two that followed, but non-NA backers could end up waiting half a year or more.

So, a confident delivery target of late 2013 is now late 2014 to mid 2015 for a fraction of what we were owed.

2015 and heavily in 2016, there were fairly regular promises that 'things were heating up!', that the PB team were 'working like demons', and that RRT would be completed that year, no really, totally! We'd get a couple of renders or a couple of prototypes, and then silence punctuated by unreassuring reassurances that they totes were making progress, totally!

There have been a series of names attached to allegedly providing us information (and failing to do so). There have been flame wars and declarations of Legal Tsunamis pending. There have been lies, damned lies, and statistics.

The sad thing is that if they had just managed to do what they said they were going to do, we wouldn't be here. The models are fiddly to build, but people have managed to do good things with them all the same. The rules aren't great, from my reading, but seem workable, and some people have house ruled or moved to other systems that better fit their needs. So it's not that the models are terrible or the rules are unworkable, it's that none of the above are particularly great AND we've been lied to more times than can easily be counted.

Few but the 'true believers' actually think that it takes half a decade to produce 3 dozen'ish models. Hell, PB and ND managed to do the first dozen or so within about a year from models to prototypes to production to delivery of the first boxes.

Would it have ever been great? Probably not. Apparently PB took ND's rules and had them re-written to RPG them up some. But it would've been a niche product with nostalgic appeal and probably been fine vying for space with all the other niche minis games. Never a big dog, but plenty of companies do just fine identifying demand and catering to that user base. To this day, sales on eBay show that demand for Robotech/Macross/Whatever products exists in substantial quantities, plus Battletech and all the other spinoff uses one might find.

Instead, we have lies, hot air, a Giant History Of Everything And How PB Brought Anime to North America (June or July 2015 updates, it's 'a thing'), a suicide attempt after the lead on the Rifts Board Game tried to engage the backer comments section in one of the least advisable ways possible, and more.

Is it the biggest mess ever on Kickstarter? No. That we got anything puts it head and shoulders above the worst, but that's damning with faint praise at best. But in terms of campaigns pulling in ~$1.6 million from backers (assuming what Wayne said about getting maybe 10% extra in the pledge manager is true), it has been an ongoing disappointment, and a masterclass on how not to engage with backers, how to fail to support a game line, and how to take a tidal wave of nostalgia and good intentions and turn it into a quagmire of toxicity and frustration.

As I noted above, I've missed or intentionally skipped a ton here, but off hand, as I settle into the office and work slowly on my coffee, I think that covers a good portion of it.