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Post by Jaymz on Apr 8, 2014 13:57:12 GMT
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Post by Jaymz on Apr 8, 2014 14:02:45 GMT
I honestly see a lot of no answering happening.....
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Post by badsyntax on Apr 8, 2014 15:03:28 GMT
I honestly see a lot of no answering happening..... Ditto. Here was the email I sent that got that last reply, it was a bit too long for the KS comments section: I appreciate the responses, but I blew over $5k on this, and don’t really need a fluffy answer. I am still sufficiently excited to see it, but the miniature design looks more like a 1/144 plastic model (I have some, seriously, they are nearly the same), not a 1/285 miniature. Myself, like most of the other folks that are currently concerned, just want that clarification (without the fluff) so we can all hear that they are being worked on. We all understand what early 3D prototypes are, and they aren’t as good as final ones. We do not understand why many of the parts were split right down the *front* center, where it would be most obvious. We do not understand that the prototype miniatures from before the Kickstarter even started, such as www.winterdyne.co.uk/maz/images/commissions/paulson/tomahawk_scaleshot2.jpg, appear to be of such a higher quality, when they were also 3D printed. We don’t understand why in the image at palladiumbooks.com/cuttingroom/Official/Robotech-RPG-Tactics/20140313_145425.jpg, the torso’s are 2 pieces with a seam running down the front, why the hand mount is 2 pieces, why the legs are 2 pieces, why the upper and lower torsos are all 2 pieces. If there was some reason for that cool, but nobody seems to be able to explain that to the masses. People just want some more information and we are being left in the dark. Heck, there have been over 1500 comments on that last picture alone, and 11 days later the only update we get are the foam bags. For projects that are funded by individuals, in this case over $1.4M, a different level of communications is expected by those that pledged funds. While normally a company can keep quite on this stuff until a release, spending a few minutes each week to shoot out a quick update, a couple camera shots of a work table, and a few positive/negative things that happened keep the 5000+ users engaged in the kickstarter. It also keeps them excited, keeps them talking positively, and keeps the momentum going. Right now, the momentum is gone, the excitement plummeting, and the positive thinking is quickly vanishing. That will not only hurt this product when it launches to the public, but it hurts all future kickstarter projects as well. Robotech may have been the first for many of the backers, and a bad taste screws all sorts of future projects by preventing them from getting the funding they really need. Please, just get some communication going with the backers. Answer 1 just question per day in the comments (or I can shoot you a new one each day, you can just reply to and I can relay) with an honest answer and let us keep the community motivated, excited, ready to play, and for your sake ready to buy, whenever the game is finished. |
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Post by mike1975 on Apr 8, 2014 15:12:50 GMT
Excellent, I hope this gets some good results. I hope we get at least a few of the questions answered this next update. The faster we get the update the better.
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Post by Jaymz on Apr 8, 2014 15:19:09 GMT
mike - he already got a response to that email though. it's the last one at the top
Still lot's of non-answering to pretty specific questions. If anything I think this may highlight the fact Ninja Division is likely not allowed to comment publicly on such things.
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Post by mike1975 on Apr 8, 2014 15:26:59 GMT
Who is Ross in the PB organization?
NVM, He's a Soda Pop guy. Missed that part about talking to others on the first read.
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Post by Jaymz on Apr 8, 2014 15:33:45 GMT
No worries. Thus why i think it is a highlight to ND not being allowed to really say anything publicly....which is stupid if you ask me because they are SUPPOSED to be the experts at this not PB.
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Post by MacrossMike on Apr 8, 2014 15:49:51 GMT
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Post by badsyntax on Apr 10, 2014 1:31:33 GMT
I feel dumber having watched that, and can't see any relevance nor humor, thanks for that. I can never get that minute back from my life.
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Post by MacrossMike on Apr 10, 2014 18:28:17 GMT
I feel dumber having watched that, and can't see any relevance nor humor, thanks for that. I can never get that minute back from my life. Really? I thought the message was clear. RRT is doomed. |
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Post by mike1975 on Apr 11, 2014 14:18:24 GMT
I don't see it as doomed at all. It's not in great straights but with the last update a lot of backers who do not usually post have come out positively and a few more have gone the refund route.
I honestly don't see the refunds ever happening. The ones that people say have happened are due to temporary credits given while the credit cards request additional information from Amazon. Those will likely be reversed in a month or so once Amazon shows proof that the sale was valid.
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Post by MacrossMike on Apr 11, 2014 16:37:56 GMT
I don't see it as doomed at all. It's not in great straights but with the last update a lot of backers who do not usually post have come out positively and a few more have gone the refund route. Really now? Ordinarily, I'd just state the painfully obvious by pointing out that this game is a Robotech project, and therefore fundamentally destined for failure in a way that hurts everybody stupid enough to back it AND be of excruciatingly poor quality. That's just how Robotech rolls... snake eyes. This seems to be doomed from practically every front and it isn't even out yet. Palladium and Ninja Division sold you lot a bill of goods, and you never bothered to question it until it was far too late. Now the game's tiny audience is going into this royally pissed off, thanks to the inexplicable belief that Palladium would somehow deliver THIS on time when every other deliverable is already months late, and because the models look like complete arse and, from the demos, the rules suck. This is a game that already didn't have staying power because the IP "owners" have already hacked off other, more mainstream franchises and it has less brand recognition than the pool cleaner and sex toy it shares its name with. Now that its own audience has turned on it, this will be one and done, like every other Robotech project. |
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Post by mike1975 on Apr 12, 2014 14:06:53 GMT
Time will tell
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Post by MacrossMike on Apr 12, 2014 14:10:50 GMT
True, it will... but past performance is usually a pretty good indicator of future results, and I've seen a LOT of tabletop games come and go during the 14 or so years I've been doing the war games thing. There's a distressing amount of ill will being directed at both Ninja Division and Palladium Books right now. Any good PR man would be in full blown "panic at flood stage" by now. |
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Post by mike1975 on Apr 16, 2014 21:12:37 GMT
I've tried to nudge them in the right direction a couple times.
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Post by MacrossMike on Apr 16, 2014 23:04:31 GMT
I've tried to nudge them in the right direction a couple times. Bless you for trying, at the very least. We can only hope they listen. |
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Post by kryptt on Apr 18, 2014 16:14:24 GMT
PB won't listen unless it's rainbows and unicorns. I've already accepted the fact that this game is a failure and the other eras won't get done because of PB. I was a fan of PB back in the 90's and when the ks began. A year later I want nothing to do with PB and I don't want to give them any of my money or support.
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Post by raiden on Apr 19, 2014 4:33:52 GMT
I'm with you kryptt, I've already begun my boycott on Palladium books products across all lines. I'm done with the company. Between the staffs attitude towards all criticism, constructive and otherwise, and their board moderators getting away with insulting customers, I'm just done.
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Post by MacrossMike on Apr 19, 2014 16:30:41 GMT
PB won't listen unless it's rainbows and unicorns. I've already accepted the fact that this game is a failure and the other eras won't get done because of PB. I was a fan of PB back in the 90's and when the ks began. A year later I want nothing to do with PB and I don't want to give them any of my money or support. To be frank, that kind of failure of feedback is a serious problem that many small businesses have to learn to cope with. The Palladium Books staff is a small, tight-knit outfit who are on very close personal terms with each other. In other small businesses, it's usually family members, in-laws, close friends, and that sort of thing. This causes a lot of problems because, when the boss and staff are that close, they're not nearly as likely to give each other honest feedback about where things are being done wrong and where processes need to improve. Kevin has, or so he's indicated, a somewhat problematic personal life... and because his employees are close friends, his employees don't want to add to his burden by telling him things need fixing BAD. They want to give him positive reinforcement, and that's not conducive to fixing broken processes. Palladium's loose association of freelancers isn't in any position to register their complaints either. They're not a part of Palladium's day to day operations, so some of the problems simply slip past them unnoticed. When they DO notice a problem, it becomes adversarial... Kevin has been told time and time again by his close friends and family that he's doing a perfect job running the company, so when some guy on the outside tells him he's doing it wrong, he's more likely to dismiss them as ill-informed or ignorant of the "true" situation. So it turns into mutual hostility between Kevin and the freelance/contract writer, which ends either with the writer backing down to keep his job or Kevin losing his shit and informing them they're persona non grata at Palladium now. Corporations small and large have the advantage that their relations with employees are cordial but impersonal... so the management and staff aren't hindered by fears of hurt feelings when the time comes to report a problem with how things are done. People who identify an issue with the company's processes and suggest action to correct it are usually rewarded, rather than fired. For those companies, what's really important is staying in business and delivering a competitive product... not making sure the boss has his daily allocation of the warm fuzzies. Put bluntly, because being blunt is one of my favorite ways to be, the Robotech RPG Tactics game was always going to be a failure. Why? I'll tell you why. Because it's Robotech. As a metaseries, it has virtually zero name recognition in the United States, which it regards as its core market for future releases. The original series never got more than marginal ratings in the 1980s, and by 1992 its own industry had come to regard it as a product of a bad process (rewriting). Every venture it's ever embarked upon, save perhaps for the original Palladium RPG, has been a massive failure because the people involved genuinely don't understand the industry they're in. The legal restrictions alone ensure we will never see a viable sequel or reboot, and because Harmony Gold is on bad terms with the IP owners they're forever stuck looking over their (metaphorical) shoulders in fear of a lawsuit for copyright infringement. It's ultimately meant that nobody but the truly desperate want to work with them. Harmony Gold and Palladium's decision to get into tabletop war gaming could not have been planned or timed worse. They started to work on it when the tabletop gaming industry was in freefall because of the recession. Their collective reputation was so dire that securing the services of a modeling studio was only ever going to net them a third- or fourth-rate outfit, which would ultimately mean that the product of that unlovely union would look like complete crap next to top-tier games like Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, and Warmachine. Making an entry into one of the most cutthroat and locked-up parts of the games industry was a bad idea to begin with. Doing it with an IP that they don't own and a brand name that provokes profanity from those who know of it and is more closely associated with sex toys and pool cleaning machines by those who don't was suicide. Ever though Palladium and Ninja Division will eventually roll out the Masters Saga portion of the game, they're not going to do anything else unless some kind of miracle occurs. Even then, the infinite power of your god of choice isn't enough to make the Masters Saga marketable to 99% of Robotech fans, let alone tabletop gamers. Their next logical port of call is a saga so unpopular that Harmony Gold's own partner companies won't make merchandise for it because they're convinced it won't sell. A saga so unpopular that, to pander to fans, they made the military's supreme commander a rabidly xenophobic, violently seditious terrorist responsible for mass murder and many other war crimes and almost nobody complained. It's pretty telling that even the overly-optimistic souls at Ninja Division and Palladium Books said that that saga, if done, would ALSO be a Kickstarter... because there's no way in hell any sane company would gamble on it, especially since it was so poor a performer in Japan that it got canceled halfway into its run. I'm with you kryptt, I've already begun my boycott on Palladium books products across all lines. I'm done with the company. Between the staffs attitude towards all criticism, constructive and otherwise, and their board moderators getting away with insulting customers, I'm just done. Since my own area of interest in Palladium's products is very narrow, I'm not going to bother boycotting everything. I'll continue to be the only person in my game store's local area to buy the Robotech RPG books, but that's all I'm going to buy. I won't even bother looking into RRT, because my store's owner is far too intelligent to actually risk stocking it and it's obvious the game has no future. |
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Post by badsyntax on Apr 20, 2014 17:18:54 GMT
Ok, did I miss the news that RRT is a "failure"  I see lies, I see an absolute lack of communications, vague answers, and horribly complex models prone to poor quality. But I don't see failure anywhere. I have more to lose with this KS than most, having spent too much on it. I'm also typically considered negative as I'm a realist, and know people are greedy and suck far more often than they don't. But, I knew about PB's reputation before this and still went in. Their reputation was horrible, but they are a company, and still releasing products, because that is how Kevin feeds his family. This is the last generation of 3D miniature games anyway, as within 5-10 years we'll all be able to have a 3D printer, next to our 2D one, and we will be able to print high quality miniatures all day long. I've seen lots of evidence of PB doing business as PB does, but nothing to indicate this is a failure. Note: I pointed out the "lies" about the rules being "done" before the KS even began, and people told me to STFU and stop being negative... funny. |
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Post by Jaymz on Apr 20, 2014 17:37:41 GMT
sadly, while I am on board with this game I honestly see no way for it to actually BE a success......it'll be niche. Which is fine. i am sure many KS mini games are just that. The sad part is the crapton of pisspoor management of this campaign will essentially neuter any chance of further generations as much as PB claims that they will do them.
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Post by MacrossMike on Apr 20, 2014 23:26:01 GMT
Ok, did I miss the news that RRT is a "failure" I see lies, I see an absolute lack of communications, vague answers, and horribly complex models prone to poor quality. But I don't see failure anywhere. Eh... it's a matter of where you want to declare "failure has occurred". Do you want to classify the point of failure as the point where no recovery is possible and disaster has become inevitable, or would you prefer to define it as the point where the inevitable disaster occurs and takes the stillborn game with it? The only appreciable difference here is in the timing... your choice is between "destined to fail" and "already failed". Between the overall poor quality of the game's miniatures and the way most of the people who've actually laid eyes on the rules say that the game is a train wreck, I'd say we've already reached the "destined to fail" point. The game never had a chance of success, mind, as they were industry near-virgins releasing a game into a glutted market with a name that's hated by the few who know it. Now that they have hundreds of Kickstarter backers baying for Kevin's blood and screaming shrilly about how they were betrayed, the only question left would be "Will this failure take Palladium down with it?" This is the last generation of 3D miniature games anyway, as within 5-10 years we'll all be able to have a 3D printer, next to our 2D one, and we will be able to print high quality miniatures all day long. Having recently had a conversation with the lads in rapid prototyping about this sort of thing just this past week, I think this might be a little optimistic. 3D printers have come a long way, but there's a real problem with the long-term sturdiness and high-detail precision of printer technology that will have to be addressed in a cost-effective manner before we'll see 3D-printed minis. |
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Post by badsyntax on Apr 21, 2014 15:00:33 GMT
Well to me failure is an absolute. Failure means I need to contact a lawyer about a small claims suit for my $5k back (plus lawyer fees of course).
Right now it just seems that PB is doing business the way PB does. However, they do eventually get stuff out as far as I know, late as it may be.
I'm the first to call BS about stuff, and did early in the KS campaign and was told to "stop whining". Now though, its funny how I am somewhat defending them.
But PB/KS are surely in the business to make money, they are a company, and to make money they have to eventually release products.
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Post by MacrossMike on Apr 21, 2014 17:04:05 GMT
Well to me failure is an absolute. Failure means I need to contact a lawyer about a small claims suit for my $5k back (plus lawyer fees of course). [...] Er... as definitions go, yours might be slightly unreasonable. An absolute worst-case, utterly apocalyptic failure isn't likely at this point, as none of the three (four?) companies involved is likely to go bankrupt in the very near future and they've at least managed to produce their prototypes for miniatures. There are many other, lesser degrees of failure that would still kill the game forever and leave you having spent your money in vain. The most likely outcome... the one which is rapidly approaching becoming a certainty... is that the miniatures will be completed and they'll ship the boxes to you all, fulfilling their minimum obligation, but the game and the miniatures will be such an unholy mess that there will be zero chance of the game actually selling to anyone who didn't buy it at the Kickstarter or in direct sales from Harmony Gold. But PB/KS are surely in the business to make money, they are a company, and to make money they have to eventually release products. Just releasing a product doesn't guarantee success... it has to actually sell, and all indicators are that even the people who backed that game in the Kickstarter are suffering preemptive buyer's remorse. |
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Post by raiden on Apr 21, 2014 20:21:31 GMT
Right now it just seems that PB is doing business the way PB does. However, they do eventually get stuff out as far as I know, late as it may be. And that's the problem. They are late on the majority of their products, and then they just go, "aww shucks guys, we're sorry. We'll do better next time. We promise." And then the "real" fans pander to them and tell them, "As long as you did your best, it's ok." And business goes on as it does. This is not ok. They made over a million dollars, you'd think this would have lots a god damn fire under their asses, but it seems that it's done nothing at all. Unfortunately, it's apologists and defenders that seem to be heard, gently patting PB on the back and saying "Its ok, we still love you," while anyone critical of the glaring BS of this situation get shouted down, told to "Stop whining," or get labelled at "trolls." |
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Post by MacrossMike on Apr 22, 2014 2:09:38 GMT
They made over a million dollars, you'd think this would have lots a god damn fire under their asses, but it seems that it's done nothing at all. Unfortunately, it's apologists and defenders that seem to be heard, gently patting PB on the back and saying "Its ok, we still love you," while anyone critical of the glaring BS of this situation get shouted down, told to "Stop whining," or get labelled at "trolls." Well, to be precise, the million-plus dollars which Palladium and Ninja Division raked in from the Kickstarter isn't profit... the money that they brought in from that must be used on development expenses for the Robotech RPG Tactics game. Legally, if they use that money for other purposes, they are in the deepest of shit. It's covering the development, tooling, and manufacturing expenses of the first run and the cost associated with providing merchandise to the backers. The longer they drag this crap out, the more money that they're paying to have the game produced, which means the amount of actual profit they take home from the Kickstarter pre-sales is shrinking by the day. They drag this out long enough, and the game may end up "selling" at a loss... and selling a game with such painfully limited appeal would be the death knell for an already-doomed project. |
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Post by raiden on Apr 22, 2014 7:51:16 GMT
I know that million dollars is not, nor is it meant to be, profit. What I mean is that they raised a million god damned dollars for a property that has shaky popularity at best, you'd think they would look at that, then at their original goal amount and be like, "Holy Fuck! We need to do this right!"
I know I would. It'd inspire me to go out and make god damned sure the game would be a success, and not just proceed with "the usual way of doing things."
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Post by MacrossMike on Apr 22, 2014 15:15:53 GMT
I know that million dollars is not, nor is it meant to be, profit. What I mean is that they raised a million god damned dollars for a property that has shaky popularity at best, you'd think they would look at that, then at their original goal amount and be like, "Holy Fuck! We need to do this right!" You'd think that... but the unfortunate reality is that a struggling outfit like Palladium Books is actually going LOSE any motivation to get the job done right and in a timely fashion if they're allowed to pocket the money first. Once they've taken that check to the bank, their future's secure for a while and, thanks to having somebody else to blame, the tangible pressure to produce is lifted because the Kickstarter release dates are only estimates and they made no promises of quality. This is why crowdsourcing is a very bad idea for irresponsible companies like Palladium. I know I would. It'd inspire me to go out and make god damned sure the game would be a success, and not just proceed with "the usual way of doing things." It's Robotech dude... the game was never going to be a success. If they thought it had a chance, it would've started with Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles, because that's where the alleged ongoing story is. They started with Macross because they knew that would, as long experience has demonstrated, be the best way to convince the terminally gullible to throw money at the game. If Robotech fans have demonstrated they want one thing from the franchise, it's more of Macross. They just don't want to actually call it Macross. |
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Post by kryptt on Apr 22, 2014 17:58:53 GMT
Yeah, since it's RT I should have known better. Just because it's RT it probably really is doomed from the start. Still doesn't mean PB couldn't try their best. If this is their best, then it's no wonder PB is a slowly sinking ship. RRT will just help it sink faster.
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Post by MacrossMike on Apr 22, 2014 22:54:15 GMT
Yeah, since it's RT I should have known better. Just because it's RT it probably really is doomed from the start. Still doesn't mean PB couldn't try their best. If this is their best, then it's no wonder PB is a slowly sinking ship. RRT will just help it sink faster. Well... I'd wager Palladium Books itself was at least hoping that Robotech RPG Tactics would turn out to be a big seller that would revitalize the company and speed their recovery from the steady downward trend in sales and customer feedback. The problem is they were probably the only ones who actually thought that might happen. Harmony Gold's own management has long since given up on the idea of Robotech making any kind of "comeback". They've been putting progressively less effort into trying to hide the fact that they've given up on it too... they won't develop a new series unless a network approaches them first (which means there will never be another series), they came clean about RTSC II having been on hold, they've given up on waiting for the RT LAM to save their bacon, their hopes that Warner Bros was going to make Robotech a tentpole franchise were dashed... so they've got nothing left to them except shallow cash-grabs like Robotech: Love Live Alive and yet another rerelease of the original series with a few more minutes of DVD extras. (There's a REASON Harmony Gold refuses to quantify success.) What I think really boded ill for RRT is that Harmony Gold's other licensees, incl. Toynami, won't make merchandise for the Masters Saga because they're convinced it won't sell... |
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