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

[limburger 21698xp 0]

I think there were ways around it from day 1 …

It never hurts the ones it should, because they do generate a lot of cash flow for Kickstarter.

Anyways …

@jamescutts if this was any other kickstarter I would have believed the ‘everything is handed off’ bit, but then why don’t they say so ?
Why talk about hubs having missing items but at the same time not mentioning which ones those are and what our options are?
Or did they burn through all of their funds and can not give us any options at all ?

Again … we are missing so many details that the team don’t share or are unable to share.

I doubt we will ever get a post mortem about the entire thing, but I bet there’d be some interesting things in there that may explain everything.

And yeah … November isn’t happening as that’s too close to the Christmas rush.
After that anything that has to be ordered at a factory runs into the Chinese new year things, so …

I’d say April 2025 is when we will have the first bits on hand. There’s been nothing to indicate any additional speed.

Oh … the Battle Systems kickstarter posted an update telling us that a ship from China had needed 10 instead of 5 weeks to cover the same distance.

(again … yet another kickstarter that manages to know where their products are and when they’re due to hit port … )

A lot of the issues are likely due to the complexity that CGL itself created within this kickstarter.

[tankkommanderParticipant 6421xp 3]

I am writing this KS off. If I ever get anything I paid for then it will be a pleasant surprise.

Multiple failing KS’s, poor comms (with updates that contain not real information), and looking to start at least 2 new KS’s soon.

Looking more and more like Mythic Games.

I’m glad some folks got stuff, and that I didn’t go big on this one. Chalk it up to experience and move on.

[limburger 21698xp 0]

Mythic learned from its mistakes …

These guys ? Not so much.
Every update is one step forward and at least two back again.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cgl/battletech-mercenaries/posts/4212520

“The Enamel coins are from THIS campaign, and these were the ones we were short …”

How the heck ? Did they manage to forgot a zero in their order ?

“For Europe, Asia, and Australia/NZ, hubs are still waiting for all shipments to arrive before beginning fulfillment.”
This part I can’t understand either.
Do these hubs really have to wait until ‘everything’ is available before shipping a single thing ?
I thought the logical thing to do is to ship whatever is completed as soon as possible so you don’t have dead stock taking up valuable storage space.
I’m guessing the shortages are much bigger than they’re willing/able to admit.

[limburger 21698xp 0]

Rumour / unconfirmed … but it appears the missing/understock items are either the challenge coins or dice.

Reposting from a previous messageKnown stock shortfalls affecting orders per QML and emails:

Clan Blood Spirit Dice

Clan Burrock Dice

Clan Cloud Cobra Dice

Clan Coyote Dice

Clan Fire Mandrill Dice

Clan Ice Hellion Dice

Clan Jade Falcon Dice

Clan Mongoose Dice

Clan Snow Raven Dice

Clan Star Adder Dice

Clan Steel Viper Dice

Star League Pin

House Arano Coin

 

Also, another person posted that he was missing Eridani Light Horse Challenge Coin.
There are still 6 or 7 missing items. According to CGL, most of the international orders are missing the same items.

 

I think all of them produced by the same 3rd party which I think someone named as ‘Norse Foundry’.

[dawfyddParticipant 11926xp 3]

Kindof insane that they are delaying pretty much everyones deliveries at this point for tertiary items that can (and should) be shoved in a padded envelope & sent out once the restock finally arrives, pissing backers off in the process.

And yes I get that there is an extra cost there but seriously, for the amount that we’ve all been charged for shipping this is some justified karma coming into play for CML for their gouging and CGL for not challenging them on those charges from the start….

[tankkommanderParticipant 6421xp 1]

It may be that backers are paying for handling as well? CGL low on cash and could not cover the costs?

And it seems that some force packs are also on the no-stock list, but getting clear info is hard.

[limburger 21698xp 1]

I suspect CGL ordered just enough to cover what was in the kickstarter and not a single bit more.

ie : 10 items picked … so they order exactly 10 instead of adding in an extra margin to account for losses and failures.

‘shipping costs’ is always a vague term.
It never is just transport cost, but (should) include the inevitable handling and custom fees that anything international has to deal with. How much of all of this is for backers and how much the project itself pays for is never ever crystal clear as backers never get to see the financial statements involved. It would be nice if projects did that, but even then you need to be an accountant to make sense of the numbers.

Anyways …

I agree that things like dice and coins are not the kind of stuff that should stop an order. But then at the insane shipping prices that their webstore has for anything outside of the USA that kind of decision makes sense. Any other kickstarter would have fixed this within days of discovery. These guys are probably don’t understand that there is life outside of the USA so they handle everything like it was a local issue.

I’ve already seen several backers comment how they don’t feel like running demos for the game, because of the shenanigans going on. I also doubt Battletech will gain a foothold in Europe with all of this going on.

a 40+ year old game killed by mismanagement of a kickstarter.
The only reason this game will be kept alive is because 3d printing and a community exists.

*blergh* I hate to be so negative, but I’m not getting any positive vibes from what little info is posted on this kickstarter.

[jamescutts 6924xp 1]

I’ve seen it in a few places that there’s also issues with force packs, just rumours but it would both fit in with the current status that several of them are short and also explain the hesitance in announcing it.

• IS Assault Force Pack
• IS Recon Force Pack
• Clan Direct Fire Force Pack

Those are the ones I’ve seen a few times, I also seen it rumoured that the main Mercenaries box may also be one of the shorted items, which to be honest I don’t find that extreme of a rumour anymore.

If it’s more than just swag stuff like coins, which as @dawfydd says shouldn’t be justification for holding up orders as those can just be mailed then it’s very worrying news indeed.

As to why these items are short is anyone’s guess, could be anything from supplier shorting, incorrect order through to loss through transit or even theft. What we do know is distributors and even retails got stock in at least a few places, which is not a great look.

Tuesday News Day was a bit of a farce once again, with Rem stating when asked when the shortages should ship and arrive at hubs “i’m hoping for the end of the month, but im not a logistics person” would seem a pretty clear answer that they are clueless. If its airmail thats a possibility if its going via sea freight then i think we can say goodby to any hopes of the KS arriving this year.

 

 

[jamescutts 6924xp 1]

Maybe November… can’t say I’m hopeful though

[sundancer 42957xp 2]

“should” be the key word here.

Not holding my breath that this KS is delivered in 2025

[grantinvanman 2175xp 0]

It’s genuinely hard to believe the level of incompetence involved here. Almost like they’ve never run a company before. How does anything like this happen?

[jamescutts 6924xp 0]

I think it’s complacency rather than incompetence.

CGL is a small and passionate team of fans, they outsource the majority of the business from production to fulfilment, while I don’t think that excuses the mistakes on this KS I think it possibly explains them.

They have been far too forgiving on their contractors and trusted them too much, to and extent that  it reflects badly on them.

How exactly such extensive stock shortages have taken this long to begin resolving is a bit beyond me though.

[limburger 21698xp 0]

Important to note : “Rest of the World” does NOT mean UK/Europe …
That’s a separate category in their usual updates.
So … don’t expect anything if these are estimated at ‘November’

Complacency / too trusting … yeah, that makes sense. I’ve seen that happen to others, but not at this scale.

It’s kind of amazing that they’ve made it this far before running into issues related to that.
Heck … if anything the pandemic should have taught them to look into these aspects a bit more closely.

Feels more like a garage publisher that somehow managed to get hold of a product that is massively popular, but is refusing to scale their operations to match demand. There’s only so much you can do as a small team before you need to get an investor to fund everything. There used to be a show called ‘The Profit’ on tv that highlighted exactly these types of problems with small companies like this.

[tankkommanderParticipant 6421xp 1]

CGL won’t even be honest about what is short stock and holding everything up. It seems like deliberate obfuscation rather than incompetence at this point.

Multiple undelivered KS projects, and two more about to go live. Who does that remind you of?

[kiranamida 5791xp 1]

*looks at my incomplete Darkest Dungeon stack as a single tear runs down my cheek*

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