Stormonu wrote:
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.

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

Spoiler:

*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.

 Krinsath wrote:
On the list of shenanigans, the GenCon "vote" (non-responses would be counted as "It's fine to sell at GenCon") and the "the first containers were nothing but Core boxes" meaning that very few KS pledges could have possibly been processed out of that initial supply (the "sweet spot" pledge level had extras not in the Core) seem worth calling out still. Despite their promises, they were clearly hell-bent on selling things, likely for near-retail prices, at GenCon.

It does beg the odd thought though. If PB had managed to not enrage karma, would those sales have 1) sold through some of their (over)stock and 2) actually generated a small bit of buzz to move more of it and make it less of an insanely stupid maneuver to have ordered so much? Kind of moot now since the horse is out of the barn, but it beats the nothing that PB delivers to talk about.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

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

Spoiler:

*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.

As always, Forar gives an excellent summary of the situation.
tl;dr - Palladium took our money in a bait-and-switch scheme, delivered part, and isn't doing a damn thing about the rest.

Soundtheory wrote:
Were the rules for Robotech Tactics ever put online as a PDF? I am curious to see them, but not really interested in the models, and do not want to give Palladium any money.

Soundtheory wrote:
Were the rules for Robotech Tactics ever put online as a PDF? I am curious to see them, but not really interested in the models, and do not want to give Palladium any money.

 n815e wrote:
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1858847/open-note-robotech-fans
Two companies getting game licenses for 2018...

 Genoside07 wrote:
I almost feel sorry for the guy.

 Genoside07 wrote:
But the good news is, this will make him very popular at gaming conventions and other public events..
If your are going to upset a large group of people all at once .. Stealing a million dollars from Five Thousand
people is a good starting number..

 Forar wrote:
Maybe I'm getting softer in my old age, or just more realistic. We've never had a dozen backers upend their useless core boxes on the PB booth in protest, or something similarly extreme. I doubt his work here (whatever that may be) will cause much of a ripple either.