Delayed Robotech RPG Tactics - Palladium

[Nocturne]

Main Box and Wave One Battle Cry received. Now just to wait for my couple of Wave Two add-ons and the rest of Battle Cry.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Nocturne

[Suden]

Wow.

 

So I never really expected this to finish fulfilling. For the last couple years updates have basically been saying wave two is 'coming' with no actual concrete updates on anything resembling progress. I figured they ran out of funds, maybe they were expecting better sales after the ks to pay for the later waves, similar to what All Quiet on the Martian Front experienced. Who knows. So of course there have been some very antagonistic posts, that have only gotten worse over the years.

 

A couple days ago, someone named Carmen Bellaire posted a blustery post in the comments saying basically that he was going to launch a Rifts board game with minis, and if it did well he might 'save' the wave 2 for this kickstarter. And threatened to let Robotech 'burn' if Robotech backers tried to interfere with the success of his Rifts project. Needless to say, with the negativity already present, it was like trying to douse fire with gasoline. And for the next several hours Carmen and several backers had a very argumentative back and forth which seemed to accomplish nothing and ended with Carmen saying he wouldn't return to the page. Carmen's posts start here if anyone is interested in reading them: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rrpgt/robotech-rpg-tacticstm/comments?cursor=15949591#comment-15949590

 

Fast forward to yesterday and Kevin Siembieda posted a new update here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rrpgt/robotech-rpg-tacticstm/posts/1811029

 

The gist of it is that Carmen tried to commit suicide, and Keven blames the kickstarter backers.

[Smokestack]

That's sad. I feel bad for Carmen. I think he was wrong for what he posted, but can see his intentions were not bad when posting them. The whole situation is sad. I loved Rifts and Robotech. They were my go to games in early highschool. This whole fiasco has soured my memories of the games. I still have all my palladium game books but mostly because they are not worth anything to try and sell...

[John Fiala]

Wow, that's crazy. This may be the first kickstarter that almost killed someone. I hope he recovers quickly.

[petrov27]

Sad thing if true, but wow is that a antagonistic post he started with - its almost like a troll post designed to really push some already unhappy folks over the edge....

 

I just have real challenge believing he thought he was going to get reasonable responses with that approach given how upset and toxic folks are there over the lack of any progress for years....

[ced1106]

Carmen's been closely associated with Kevin for a *long* time, and, though the update says "He had not been around Palladium Books much the past 3-4 years", Carmen's name is listed in the game designer credits for RPG Tactics, and he was (part of) rewriting the rules. Dakka has about 256+ pages of the Robotech KS, and his name comes up every once in awhile. My impression of Kevin and company, including through their censorship on their forums, is that they really don't know and don't want to know what gamers think of their company. I'm guessing that Carmen made the mistake of believing this view to be actual, and took it to the KS comments to post.

 

You can see Carmen 20-some comments here: https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/415122038/comments

 

And this is what he really should not have said: " I read nothing but posts here how everyone wants to kill my KS (my personal dream) and if that happens I hope the RRT burns."

[TheAuldGrump]

Dear gods, above and below....

 

The Auld Grump

[JackMann]

I feel bad for Carmen. He shouldn't have said that crap, but ultimately I blame Siembada for throwing him into the lion's den to take the heat for him. And then after, he throws it into the backers' faces. Class act, that Kevin.

[ShadowRaven]

yup. After i get my stuff, if I ever get my stuff, Palladium will cease to exist for me. I shall have no more to do with them. 

[dice4hire]

Wow, that is pretty shocking all around. 

[ced1106]

At least this happened *before* the KS. I imagine that during the KS, comments would be *MUCH* worse, or at least hard to handle -- Carmen cannot freely censor posts on KS like he may be used to on the Palladium forums.

 

Running and fulfilling a KS is *extremely* stressful, and if he considers or tries to commit suicide after two hours of KS backlash on RRT, I think there's a much greater chance he'd carry it out during (or after) a RIFTS boardgame KS.

[DocPiske]

Funny, I live in the same town where Palladium is located and I have never visited. Kevin seems to be the Donald Trump of the gaming industry. He has had some great ideas, but he seems to think that anyone that disagrees with him is not only wrong but a bad person. Blaming a bunch of internet trolls for your or another's problems instead of shouldering at least some the responsibility yourself seems less than a successful strategy.

[JackMann]

Read Bill Coffin's description of how Kevin treats freelancers sometime. It's illuminating.

[Olaf the Stout]

I'm not a Robotech backer thankfully. Having seen Palladium's name attached to it, I knew it was best to stay well away.

 

I honestly feel bad for Carmen and I hope he gets the help he need. No one should ever feel that things are so bad that they need to end their life.

 

In reading the comments section in Kickstarter, it seemed like Carmen came out of the gate really aggressive, threatening people to not mess with his Kickstarter when it wasn't clear that there had been a heap of people suggesting they would be trying to do that. There were a couple of backers stating they would back for $1 and troll the comments section, but it was hardly a mass uprising. So he just created a raging fire out of something that wasn't a big issue.

 

Reading Kevin's update, I think it is terrible to try and use this as an opportunity to emotionally manipulate and blame his Kickstarter backers for what happened. Carmen had nothing to do with the Robotech Kickstarter and the vast majority of the backers likely don't even know who Carmen is, let alone did they have anything to do with what happened.

 

It reads like he is trying to guilt his Kickstarter backers into leaving him alone, despite the fact that he took $1.4m of their money and has not delivered on what was promised, despite being 3 years overdue.

[Darsc Zacal]

<<<MOD>>>

A pre-emptive warning not to let the discussion stray offtopic from the Kickstarter.

I know that a lot of what's happened is interconnected, but the focus of this thread has to remain on the Kickstarter.