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 CptJake wrote:
The only possible issue I can see with using Ninja Division is if you get hosed up product (I've seen folks report missing items for example). We don't know if Ninja Division will be able to address those types of issues or if we have to go through Prodos. I suspect the latter.

Thats definitely a concern of mine. I can only imagine how helpful Prodos will be with sorting out shipping errors, given their excellent track record with the rest of this so far. I'm not sure how ND would be able to straighten out shipping errors unless they start opening boxes and doing it that way, which of course would mean some backers would wait even longer. I don't think that Prodos could have fethed this up any worse had they set out to do it in the first place.

 Grumpae wrote:
Has anyone had any dealings with Ninja Division before? How are they to deal with?

ND handled distribution of Super Dungeon Explore : Forgotten King, a $1.1M KS. Distribution and communication went pretty well, I think. Tracking information was sent in a timely fashion, and screwups were minimal. I think ND does a good job for how big SDE:FK was, esp. for it being their first major product KS. I am willing to buy from ND again.

OTOH, according to Kevin S, ND totally fethed up the Robotech KS in a big way, and none of it is (or was) Palladium's fault for trusting ND and following their lead.

biggusdoggus wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

biggusdoggus wrote:
while it pains me to defend Prodos, I feel it should be pointed out that at absolutely NO POINT during the project have Prodos said they NEED your pledge manager closed before they can ship you wave 1 product.

I beg to differ.

16 May

Prodos KS Message wrote:9. Pledge manager changes and address update. By Friday we'll have an update for you with instruction how to do changes in the PM, postal address update and locking the PM. PLEASE make sure that you have done final alternations to your pledge, including the updated postal address by 31st of May. IT will affect the shipping date if the pledge manager is not locked.

They implied it or stated it a couple of other times too.

Then I'll humbly stand corrected.

They've definitely said a few times that it didn't matter if it got reopened though, they'd still be able to ship to you.

And that is part of the problem. Their inability to communicate effectively and consistently coupled with contradictory information disseminated across a slew of mechanisms just screams Cluster feth Of The First Order. A guy who gets his info from one facebook group will know something the KS message guys does not, and between the two they may have been told 'definitively' three different and mutually exclusive things.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
OTOH, according to Kevin S, ND totally fethed up the Robotech KS in a big way, and none of it is (or was) Palladium's fault for trusting ND and following their lead.

Well, I don't know ND, but I've dealt with PB before and read some really disturbing stuff about Kevin, so I wouldn't put it beyond him, to blame everybody but himself/PB.

Wait. So Prodos did tell us to close the pledge managers or it would affect shipping.

Huh. How about that.

 cincydooley wrote:
Wait. So Prodos did tell us to close the pledge managers or it would affect shipping.

Huh. How about that.

They told us after they opened it without telling us (so many folks assumed theirs were already closed), and then they also said they would issue instructions some folks (like me) were waiting on in order to ensure addresses were correct.

 cincydooley wrote:
Wait. So Prodos did tell us to close the pledge managers or it would affect shipping.

Huh. How about that.

IIRC they said that in a message that said they would follow up with (a) a link to the pledge manager and (b) details of how to close it, but did neither.

Resulting in some people who don;t file their emails efficiently like what I do (or just never delete anything) having lost the link to the pledge manager and not knowing how to find it or how to close it once they got there.

Soda Pop is pretty easy to deal with

(and have supplied replacement parts to a mini I bought that had parts missing, despite it costing them more in international postage that I paid for it in the first place which is a real test of customer support)

but

they are really backed up from gencon (and don't seem to have the largest warehouse staff)

so don't expect everything to get into the post at once (I'm sure you don't but it does bare repeating).

Depending on who is responsible for the shipping emails you may find them arriving after your boxes if for example ND have to send the info to Prodos who then have to send it to you

(this is what happened with the UK forgotten king stuff, the drop shipper had to send ND the shipping info which they only did once everything was in the post, and then ND had to send it out to us... hopefully ND will be able to email you direct, but don't count on it)

 Moses Bad wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
OTOH, according to Kevin S, ND totally fethed up the Robotech KS in a big way, and none of it is (or was) Palladium's fault for trusting ND and following their lead.

Well, I don't know ND, but I've dealt with PB before and read some really disturbing stuff about Kevin, so I wouldn't put it beyond him, to blame everybody but himself/PB.

Oh great. So either they are crap and totally screwed over PB (doubtful PB needed any help with that...) or they are gluttens for punishment and assume that Prodos won't give them the same treatment? Haven't they seen how Prodos dump all the blame on Fox, now at least they'll have someone else to blame.

So tell me, which option is more appealing, laugh, or cry.

Ninja Division is legit, don't worry about them.

At this point, if you don't have in-house US distribution, I think the two major choices are CMoN and ND.

For whatever reason, Prodos picked ND (likely because CMoN distribution is packed solid with CMoN KS product feeding into the holiday season).

I just hope ND knows what they're getting into with Prodos, and protected themselves financially and contractually.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I just hope ND knows what they're getting into with Prodos, and protected themselves financially and contractually.

And if they did, who's willing to bet, another contract, Prodos haven't either read carefully or haven't understood in it's full?
OK, that's evil, but they sure are no business people ...

 Moses Bad wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I just hope ND knows what they're getting into with Prodos, and protected themselves financially and contractually.

And if they did, who's willing to bet, another contract, Prodos haven't either read carefully or haven't understood in it's full?
OK, that's evil, but they sure are no business people ...

To my mind, that sums up Prodos in a single sentence. They make nice looking minis, that much we can be sure, but they appear utterly clueless about how to manage the customer/supplier relationship or indeed (thinking of their dealings with Fox) the licensor/licensee relationship. They are oblivious to the concept of keeping to their word, and when you can't,k then explain why and explain early. Underpromise and overdeliver is totally lost on them. I knew we were in trouble when I was told (by Prodos staff) that Prodos management were mightily pissed off with another successful and highly customer savvy kickstarter purely because they were being shown up and made to look incompetent. They didn't understand that the only reason they appear incompetent is because their actions back that view up.

My bet is that Prodos will slowly withdraw from the front line and go back to doing what they do best - producing figures for other companies. (and even that they can't necessarily get right - I notice they are being blamed for the lateness of Micro Art Studio's KS.

They are being blamed for the lateness of MAS' Wolsung KS; by MAS themselves.

I would not be surprised to see Demigods suffer the same fate after switching to Prodos from Titan Forge for their minis.

Absolutely correct that Prodos makes amazing miniatures, it's their disrespectful behavior, lack of professionalism, absence of business accumen and terrible fulfillment capabilities that will sink the company (and I have no doubt that will happen).

 Alex C wrote:
They are being blamed for the lateness of MAS' Wolsung KS; by MAS themselves.

Indeed. Not that I like that - I think it's gak that Prodos have spent much of this KS blaming Fox - we don't have a contract with Fox, we have a contract with them, and their inability to manage their relationship with Fox and understand Fox's processes is entirely their fault as far as I'm concerned. It's very bad form to pass the blame onto a third party. So likewise, it doesn't impress me to see MAS blame Prodos openly to their backers. It's just plain unprofessional.

I work in customer support, managing a team of 1st line engineers in a call centre. We pride ourselves in providing excellent service and taking full ownership of our customers issues. If any of them were ever to name a supplier by way of laying blame for a problem, they'd be out of a job so fast they wouldn't know what's hit them.

I'd assume, talent in one field sometimes leads to weird behaviour ... I'd like to use Justin Beaver as an example ... but he has no talent other than to annoy ...
Kidding asside.
It's odd, Demi haven't checked back with the progress of Prodos' KS to see, if they are up to it.

Biggus
So it's rather
We haven't ordered in time to provide the necessary sparepart.
instead of:
We've ordered, but they haven't shipped yet.

Just thought of another reason why I'm ok with the Kingdom Death delay over AVP. Kingdom Death was delayed, but the box grew post fundraising and extra value was added with extra weapons and items etc. iirc AVP has added very little, (unfortunately a backer passed away and I think Prodos said they'd sculpt a head for him in remembrance?). As the AVP project has continued I think my pledge has been devalued, be it an increase in print run, allowing post KS pledges, preorders, and ultimately coming second to an identical retail release. The KD:m box never claimed to be limited/exclusive and KD has also allowed post KS pledges and preorders but the price of doing so has steadily increased, possibly in part reflecting the additional value. Whilst I haven't the rules of either game yet, based on reviews alone, the AVP boardgame sounds like it's best played using the minis and tiles with a separate system, possibly because the rules appear rushed. Part of me wants KD:M to beat AVP to my doorstep just to show how presumably a smaller company can fulfil a boardgame, despite being manufactured in China and managed from America when Prodos are possibly just a couple of hours drive from me. Unfortunately AVP (as a boardgame) will probably gather dust on my shelf, I wouldn't be surprised to see the remaining retail copies being discounted further in the meantime.

for me the difference is simple. We all know KS projects are going to run late; though Battle Systems have just delivered their second consecutive project effectively on time - that's two projects, a year apart in the time it's taken Prodos to fail to deliver 1 - both companies started their project - AvP and Battle Systems Sci-fi (their first of the two) in the same month, had the same end funding date give or take 24 hours, and had the same delivery month (May 2014). Granted BS didn't have IP to deal with, but I believe you'll be pushed to find a single disgruntled BS backer, largely because they've communicated openly and honestly and made backers part of the process - literally! But ultimately we can (and usually do) forgive creators when their projects run late, if, and it's an important if, if they keep us in the loop.

I'm not a KD:M backer, but though I'm well aware of the huge delays in that project, my understanding is that Adam has communicated throughout the process, and been very open when he's done so. I'm sure there are backers that have gotten tired of the wait, but openness and honesty from the creator goes a very very long way towards buying good will.

That's just not something you can say about Prodos. I do believe that Prodos have tried to do the right thing, they're just not very good at it. It's more than possible that at some times their hands have been tied, but putting aside all the mess of the KS being brought down (an episode for which we saw multiple conflicting reasons, none of which really stand scrutiny) and the various other issues they had during the KS design phase, once they got the all clear on the boxed set from Fox, they had absolutely no good reason not to be anything other than honest and open with backers, and yet we've proved that they have continued in the same mould. That tells me that Fox was never really the problem, the problem has always been of Prodos' own doing. They have a habit of saying things without fully thinking it through, without proper planning for all eventualities, and time after time that lack of professionalism has reared up and bitten them. They change their story almost on a whim, they are conservative with the truth seemingly for no good reason other than perhaps they are scared to tell us reality for fear we'll be annoyed, and they totally fail to appreciate that when we catch them out (and we have done so multiple times) that makes us more angry than if they'd been open in the first place. That's not how companies should behave, it's not how adults behave. Hell, it's a lesson that even my youngest child has learned - better to be honest than be caught lying.

That's the real issue - that's why I (and I suspect many others) will never help to fund another Prodos project should they have a change of mind and decide to do another.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
and lo, the thread on facebook in which a UK store had openly admitted to having been offered a restock, has now been deleted. I wish I'd cut and pasted it for posterity now. Still, plenty of backers saw it, the truth is known, they don't seem to understand that rumours that become fact don't disappear quite that easily.

yeah,
Ninja division have touched Prodos willingly. They are now tainted forever.

Panic...

After some thought, I think I have figured ND's strategy here. They were smeared by PB blaming them as being the source of delay. They probably feel like if this turns out poorly, it won't hurt them, much. But, if they make Prodos customers happy with distribution, they will be heroes. Makes sense, sorta.

I'll be glad when I actually get my stuff, so I don't have to keep coming back to this thread for the slightest fething sliver of information in relation to the project. Ughh.

 Grumpae wrote:
After some thought, I think I have figured ND's strategy here. They were smeared by PB blaming them as being the source of delay. They probably feel like if this turns out poorly, it won't hurt them, much. But, if they make Prodos customers happy with distribution, they will be heroes. Makes sense, sorta.

And their Relic Knights kickstarter was very delayed as well (over a year) and caused the breakup with their first partner, CMON. They're certainly no saints but ND seems to have improved somewhat since. I'm not sure dipping their toe in Prodos' sewage filled pool will help their image but their savng grace is that they're coming in at the very end (of wave 1) and all they have to do to not piss off backers themselves would be to simply mail things out when they get it. It's clear that they're not involved in the actual design and production and are instead acting as a sales and post office for stuff that is already made.

Frontline Gaming on Youtube (sorry no link at the moment) posted a video battle report. I admittedly didn't watch the whole thing but instead just the bookends. No surprise who won there.

 warboss wrote:

 Grumpae wrote:
After some thought, I think I have figured ND's strategy here. They were smeared by PB blaming them as being the source of delay. They probably feel like if this turns out poorly, it won't hurt them, much. But, if they make Prodos customers happy with distribution, they will be heroes. Makes sense, sorta.

And their Relic Knights kickstarter was very delayed as well (over a year) and caused the breakup with their first partner, CMON. They're certainly no saints but ND seems to have improved somewhat since.

It's no accident that CMoN launched a direct competitor to SDE and a direct competitor to Confrontation at the time of the ND breakup. Given how ND/SPM handled RK post break, I think the breakup may very well have been more on CMoN than ND.

I don't get some of that - CMON still 'owns' the rights to Confrontation, don't they?

 Alpharius wrote:
I don't get some of that - CMON still 'owns' the rights to Confrontation, don't they?

Most of them, yes.

 Alpharius wrote:
I don't get some of that - CMON still 'owns' the rights to Confrontation, don't they?

I think CMoN just distributes Confrontation. I don't think it's a CMoN property.

With CMoN no longer producing or distributing SPM / Helldorado, etc., that's where ND comes in as an alternative distributor.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
I don't get some of that - CMON still 'owns' the rights to Confrontation, don't they?

I think CMoN just distributes Confrontation. I don't think it's a CMoN property.

It is, but last I heard they did not own all digital rights (they were split).

That's neither here nor there, and isn't at the heart of why Confrontation hasn't resurfaced.

Anyone in the US got a notice from Ninja Division yet?

I have not.

Nor I.