BattleTech: Mercenaries – CGL does a shipping booboo? Internet rages!

[kiranamida 5791xp 1]

Could they have fumbled any more?

That seems a question to tempt fate at this juncture if ever I saw one.

[limburger 21642xp 0]

yeah … best not tempt fate.

I’m surprised the cookbook is merely a collection of random recipes from the interwebz.

I thought that a setting as big and old as Battletech would have had more than its fair share of recipes linked to the setting in some form. As such a cookbook would have been a mere formality.

It’s also yet another thing that backers have had to point out to CGL & co. it’s one thing to discover typos and indicate text that could be improved in a beta version, but having such major issues in what is sold as a ‘final’ product stinks of amateur hour.

Given that the update on the kickstarter is more than a week after their livestream I was hoping for more clarity and not having to parse what ‘sequence’ is and how that relates to the standard terminology of ‘wave’ that is used by pretty much every other kickstarter on the planet.

It’s a flippin’ miracle the system survived for decades with this level of incompetence in management. I wouldn’t trust them to update the rules at all at this point.

[tankkommanderParticipant 6411xp 0]

Translation. We wanted a cookbook. We wanted it cheap so we made more money. We like money. We got caught. Now we are giving the money to unspecified charities. But it is now all okay. Nothing to see here. 🙂

CGL are very lucky that Battletech has been such a success despite their best efforts. Imagine of GW get their act together and people flock back to 40k 🙂

I look forward to getting my KS stuff some time in the winter.

[jamescutts 6903xp 1]

Read the Kickstarter update, nice to see them finally acknowledge internation customers, still the choice of calling US “domestic” speaks volumes, I know Firelock for example always referred to actual region name e.g. North America or US. I find the terminology “secured VAT” a bit odd, they must mean customs clearance as you clear customs checks and pay any import duties and VAT?

It looks like we might possibly see shipping start with the next month or so, depending on those estimates of shipping understocked items, that US shipping started first doesnt bother me, its pretty common. It would have been nice if they included infomation on whos actually doing the distribution and shipping though! Otherwise, is nice to see them give a clear and defined update, why it’s taken them that long to get that organised will forever be a mystery.

On the other hand, the cookbook seems a complete self inflicted booboo, it was a stretch goal so I think people are quite reasonable to expect something better to have been put together, what we got was basically google things out of copyright and give them cool names, even the imagery is a bit of a give away, its lacking a consistient style. That said I didn’t expect it to really be anything much more than a bit of fun, as a pdf its a nice lightharted inclusion, I wouldnt be happy if I paid for it though!

In fairness to CGL the end product of the books and the mechs for BattleTech as a whole is a good package but I will agree @tankkommander that the cook book does seem to illustrate how they operate, take money and then cheap out where they think they can to maximise profits, also illustrated by a community manager on a contract rather than as a permanent member of staff. I’d much rather they employed more permanent staff to manage organise and communicate for a project than have a world wide tour for the higherups.

 

[limburger 21642xp 0]

I think they want to be “accurate” while not having a clue what they’re actually telling us.

So yeah … that VAT thing sounded more like an excuse and less like something that is part of the process.

CGL should consider themselves lucky that the end product itself is good, but I can’t help but wonder if that is part of the problem. They behave like they have been licensed to print money so quality is no longer part of their mind set as people will buy their stuff and won’t complain once they get it.

I’d argue that things would have been a thousand times easier if they had focused on the new bits with maybe the core rules as an extra for new players. Now they’re effectively having to restock their entire inventory, which makes it extra complex for hubs to know if they have ‘everything’ while they also are using this to restock their entire inventory (at least that’s my impression from the status update).

Self inflicted complexity powered by greed.
That’s how I’d summarize this kickstarter in a post mortem.

[grantinvanmanParticipant 2121xp 0]

I find the cookbook thing absolutely hilarious – every part of this KS just seems to be going in circles.

[limburger 21642xp 1]

It would be hilarious if it hadn’t been so sad.
It’s almost as if this is their first kickstarter ever and the company started a week ago from inside their parent’s garage.

[tankkommanderParticipant 6411xp 1]

A heady mix of greed, incompetence, and self-righteousness. CGL looks like TSR before the fall 🙂

[limburger 21642xp 1]

I noticed that Catalyst Gaming Labs is in a booth near Mantic at GenCon.

I wonder what kind of late news we’re going to get this time. 😀

maybe they will be distracted by halo 😉

 

[sundancer 42848xp 1]

as long as they (CGL) don’t start selling Mercenaries there before KS fulfilment.

[jamescutts 6903xp 2]

I’d put money on them (CGL) selling mercenaries sets.

Maybe Mantic can share some wisdom on how to actually run a global Kickstarter.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by  jamescutts.

[limburger 21642xp 1]

The list of kickstarters that have been done better has more names than just Mantic

I’ve seen one man garage bands handle global kickstarters better.

[grantinvanmanParticipant 2121xp 0]

I honestly have been attracted to Battletech, again, from this debacle; I did the right thing (I think) and just ordered Legions: Imperialis. ?

[limburger 21642xp 1]

it’s a race … will GW restock Legion before CGL finally ships your pledge 😀

Place your bets now.

[sundancer 42848xp 1]

Straight from Discord:

Rem Alternis:
It has been brought to our attention that several European retailers received notifications from their distributors that shipments were on their way for items from the Kickstarter that are not due for release yet. Our sales manager has contacted all distributors to put an embargo on those items, and to stop any shipments they can to stores. Our release dates were communicated in July, and we expect our partners to communicate and honor those dates. Thank you to the retailers, fans, and friends that reached out to us to tell us about these issues.

Can they fumble this any more?

Yes… probably… JEEBUS!

[Author]

Posts