J-Bone's page

Hey all,

Looking for opinions on what some of the best horror adventures (AP or SFS scenarios) are out there.

None of it works unfortunately. I can pull it up on my Kindle Fire but I like the text to voice feature I get from the Legere app.

I like to use the Legere PDF AI text to voice reader for my pdfs. However, I can't load this one into the app. I've tried adding it per chapter but that also hasn't worked. Anyone have any advice or work arounds?

Been a long time since I checked in on this. I hope this upcoming announcement is good. Might actually get me excited enough to play some Paizo games again.

Still nothing... still not buying Paizo.

Checking in, still nothing. Still not buying Paizo.

PEACE

Looking in, same situation. Big fat nothing.

Sadly this fiasco ruined my love of Paizo products. I've moved on to other games. I can reflect fondly of my old days with 1E but really feel no inclination to give them more money after getting burned on this kickstarter.

Still nothing... still ridiculous

Checking in after several months and still seems like a big fat nothing. At least I've stopped blowing money on Paizo stuff after this debacle.

Has anyone managed to take the grid and room numbering off the maps for this AP? I like to run over a VTT and find those grids intrusive.

That's unfortunate

I ask because I really hate the grids that are labor intensive for me to remove. Thanks in advance.

Has there been any kind of ETA on this yet?

Hopeful that this works out. It would be nice to get these minis. Hopefully that will inspire me to play Starfinder which has had a bad taste in my mouth after the ND fiasco.

I confronted them last year at GenCon too. They just filled me with promises and platitudes. Now I'm glad I'm skipping GenCon this year as I reckon I'd be a lot less easily placated.

Even if I get the minis I probably won't play. This has left a stink on the game for me. Sadly a stink that's permeated all of Paizo. Good gaming to you who are able to overlook getting baited and ripped off. For me, the idea of playing just reminds me that I'm a victim in this mess.

J-Bone wrote:

Vic Wertz wrote:

Even if Ninja Division had been sailing along flawlessly with a lively resin line, we would still be working with WizKids on Starfinder Battles.

Shame you guys just didn't wait instead of exposing your fan base to risk.

In that alternate universe we’d still be here, it’d just be a thread on why they didn’t go with someone else other than Wizkids to get Starfinder minis sooner.

and I'd be $500 richer and playing Starfinder

Even if Ninja Division had been sailing along flawlessly with a lively resin line, we would still be working with WizKids on Starfinder Battles.

Shame you guys just didn't wait instead of exposing your fan base to risk.

I keep coming back to this thread hoping for some progress.

I stopped my subscriptions due to Ninja Divisions stunt and don't participate, organize or GM Starfinder games anymore.

I thought the scenarios where fantastic and was so invested in the story. But now I have only anger when I hear of Paizo. I really hope that'll change someday, so I keep coming back here to this thread.

That's pretty much where I'm at too. Five Star GM, ran/played in most of the APs, now I can't wait for the last of the AP games I'm in to end so I can wash my hands of the company. Sad... I used to buy all this stuff.

Believe it when I see it...

No way will I back this after getting ripped off on the Ninja Division Starfinder minis and crap results from Goblinworks. What a shame as this is the best of the APs but I've just lost my trust for Paizo crowd sourcing.

Good Luck y'all

Wiz Kids minis.... N O P E! Not unless there is some kinda discount for those who got ripped off with the Ninja Division debacle.

Too little, too late and I'm still out over $400.

Putting more money into Starfinder miniatures is on the last-things-I'd-want-to-do list.

Buy him a beer? Paizo should be buying all us beers for the $400 we are all out thanks in large part to their getting in bed with and endorsement of Ninja Division.

My post was a response to a series of posts that have since been removed. Without them being present it loses much of its impact and all of its context.

Yup seems like a bunch of posts got the axe. I guess that's where we're heading to now.

Is Erik going to post or is this another vague promise we have to wait on?

What does it matter if he does? We aren't getting our minis or our money back. Hearing a "sorry, my bad" at this late date won't change that.

Burro-crat wrote:

And to be clear, it wasn't "ND or nothing,"

It was go with ND and hopefully get the minis or guaranteed get no minis at all, I wasn't implying otherwise so don't put implications in my mouth.

You don't know that for sure. There has never been mention of other potential companies that produce minis except WizKids, Reaper and ND. So perhaps you shouldn't put implications in Paizo's mouth.

It'd be nice to know more on how this happened. Were those other companies approached? If so why did ND become the winning bid? As a grieved party, I kinda want to know what my loyalty to the company was worth.

I got the auto-response from Archon but nothing more going on about a week.

Was that not clear enough for you?

Are you saying they wouldn't go with who they saw as the most viable?

Yes. But "viable" to me isn't the company that had failed on Robotech and was way behind on other projects.

Do you really think so little of Paizo to claim that they would intentionally choose the worst of their options instead of the best? (Again, speaking of them using the best of their knowledge.)

I'm speaking from the point of view of not knowing anything. I'm not the one making assumption that ND was the most "viable" option. Perhaps they were selected because they promised more of a kickback on the kickstarter? As for "thinking so little of Paizo" until they explain this debacle they expose themselves to such speculation.

The only viable option, as evaluated by Paizo at the time. Hindsight is 20/20 and all.

How do you know that? Paizo hasn't been at all forthcoming in the decision making process so either your making an assumption or know secret knowledge. Maybe if they did let us all in on how they came to ND at the exclusion of so many other options we could avoid a lot of this discussion.

Are they able to do sci-fantasy miniatures? What is their turnaround time? What was their product schedule like and did they have openings?

We know the answers to those questions from Ninja Division.

N O P E !!!!!

Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:

J-Bone wrote:

I need to know why this decision was made

you've been informed multiple times. It was take a gamble on ND, or a 100% chance of no minis at all.

Are CMON minis being drawn from the ether? ND was not the only possible option, it was the one that was chosen. "It was this or nothing" is giving a free pass to someone(s) who made a poor decision at the expense of actually learning from the mistake.

I know, right! And this notion that ND was somehow more capable than all these other non Wizkids/Reaper mini producers when ND have never demonstrated it could competently complete a Kickstarter is a joke. But suuuuuuuuuure, they were the only option... uh huh.

All this to say - until and unless Paizo come out with full disclosure on what the process looked like from beginning to end (from decision-making around partner selection, through to where we are today) we have no real way of knowing what happened and the rest is (perhaps well-educated, perhaps not) speculation.

Sure we have to speculate on the details that went into the decision to go with ND. However what we did have at the time of the Kickstarter was a very clear trail of failure from Ninja Division. Yet Paizo still got into bed with them. So like you, I need to know why this decision was made and why they felt comfortable and secure enough in this company to encourage their fans to give a significant amount of their money into it.

Maybe, maybe not. These forums can get most unpleasant.

Yeah as we are seeing. Playing with people's trust, money and expectations can do that.

To me it seems pretty crap to make a really bad gamble on a company with a really bad history of failing to complete kickstarters with your fan's money and good will. I guess that's just the kind of company Paizo is now. A better move would have been to wait, help a better company get to the point where they would have been better positioned to complete this and then make a deal. That just seems like good buisness sense.

And as to:

And a bunch of forum threads complaining that Paizo didn't have minis made.

Which would have been infinitely better than a thread full of fans who are complaining about lost money and no minis. Ask Paizo staff, I'm sure they'd tell you which they'd prefer.

If everyone had got their minis this wouldn't be a problem. But that's not what happened. Paizo gambled their reputation and fan base's money on a shady company. Now most of us have nothing and those that actually do have something waaaaaaay overpaid for it, especially so considering the reports of crappy quality.

^^^^ and animosity of one's fan base.

It should have been. Better planning and judgement would have avoided this mess.

I keep seeing the response to anger over the selection being boiled down to Reaper and WizKids said no, so they had to go with ND. Actually, I would say no they didn't. If the first two options are out, going to known crooks isn't the logical third option. Its a really bad option however you cut it. Maybe option 3 should have been to hold off on miniatures until something came along that didn't endanger the money and good will of your fan base.

Paizo allowed a company with a history of failing to complete projects to pick up the license - with a manufacturer that also has a history of failing to complete projects.

I think that 'not making customers a priority' sums things up quite nicely.

Due diligence should have been enough to put the kibosh on this KS, instead it got this far and then imploded.

Exactly. I don't get how not doing your job and making sure the partners you get into bed with are legit is something folks let slide.

I also feel its entirely fair to complain that we only have the online version. This is the character generator that is licensed by Paizo for use with their product. The player base had been using one model of for the better part of a decade, now the choice is gone going forward for the only two continuous products from Paizo. So they hold the official license and are using it in a way that inhibits people's ability to make full use of it while at Cons or Game Stores where quite a lot of it is used. So yeah... this sucks, now I have to either goof around with PC Gen with all the limitations within it, mess around with paper sheets which suck with a game of Pathfinder/Starfinder levels of complexity or switch to less complex games.

Found on the internet:

Christopher Birkenhagen
Director of Sales at Ninja Division Publishing LLC
Location:
5311 N. Glenwood St., Garden City, Idaho, United States
Company:
Ninja Division Publishing LLC
HQ Phone:
(208) 286-4135

Then googled using google map... This is now...

Industrial Storage Systems Inc
5311 N Glenwood St, Boise, ID 83714, États-Unis
MP39+FM Garden City, Idaho, États-Unis
iss-solutions.com
+1 208-376-1111

If this is true, now you can understand what hope there is left of getting anything...

So my question is now: DOES NINJA DIVISION STILL EXIST, OR IS PAIZO MAKING FOOL OF OURSELVES? ... for instance by hiding these very truth ...

Yup... another nail in the coffin. Bye Bye $400...

Licenses shouldn't be given to companies that are creating barriers of entry or limiting the use of a game. Doing so limits how that game can be enjoyed. For people like me who play at Cons and game stores, this is a barrier to the enjoyment of the game. That said, I don't know how the final draft of the character sheet for 2E will look. Maybe it'll be super simple and a third party product like Herolab won't be a major part of the play-ability of the product like it is for 1E. But the intense math of Starfinder, from what I've seen, does benefit greatly from a product like this. However that is limited in this level of limited functionality which will impact my consumer choices going forward.

I don't think ND is competent enough to even find a lawyer on their own.

Competent enough to bamboozle Paizo into thinking they could handle this KS.

With the new Pathfinder 2.0 and its Herolabs program also being online only and the future of PF 1.0 in doubt I'm having a hard time justifying any purchases for either system.

It really bothers me that Paizo allowed my love of there games to end because of bad decisions by 3rd party partners and what looks to be lack of oversight or caring on Paizo's part.

Damn... I didn't even think about online Herolab for 2E. Great, another hurdle between me and these new games.

I agree that a creative player can come up with reasons to be an exception, having Tianxia blood ties in the past. But it doesn't feel like an "exception" when everybody wants to play an Asian based character.

But in the end exception or not it simply does not matter. Tian Xia is a big place and there is no reason that a character from anywhere else in the Dragon Empires can't find Minkai "exotic." It's like saying I can't find Mexico exotic because I'm from Canada. "Wha?"

Now I get'cha and I follow the idea of it's "post to be about..." but in the end it's not our story. My point is, I rally against this idea of "it doesn't make sense if..." in regards to the fact it's their game. If they want to all play the ninja turtles to Ameiko's "O'neil" who knew she was the princess all along and came to bring her home, more power to them. It's their job alone to figure out what makes sense and what doesn't for them in the kitchen sink D&D setting that is Golarion.

Honestly I see this come up a lot, but the AP is supposed to be about a band of adventurers from Varisia (the West) traveling over the top of the world and visiting the exotic far east. How is it going to feel exotic, if PCs are samurai and other Asian based classes (ninja, kensai, etc.) already - it doesn't really fit to play PCs from Tianxia. They are NOT from Tianxia, they are going to Tianxia for the first time. It doesn't make sense to play Tianxia race/classes - its supposed to be someplace new for the party.

Not so, but to be fair as blackbloodtroll said, "Still, with the right flavoring, any class works." I'm playing a Kensai/Bladebound Magus. He is the orphaned son of an Ulfen Bloodrager and a Tian-Min Samurai who was a former retainer to the Kaijitsu's family. His skills were nurtured by a Tengu friend of the family who raised him as his own. He has never been to Tainxia, knows nothing, like Ameiko, about his heritage or ancestral culture from EITHER of his lineages. The journey for him is literally figuring out who he is from a genealogical standpoint.

So almost anything can make sense if the players are creative enough. Lastly, I want to point out one small thing. The four iconics for this AP are a monk, a witch, a druid, and a samurai.

I sold my account to the guy above. Enough said right?

Secondly, just because you're a hypocrite doesn't mean you're wrong.

"Who better to tell you not to drink alcohol than an alcoholic."

I hate gamers that are jerks. Sometimes, I hate myself. See above.

Assuming they take all of the required skills & feats will PC's gain access to a permanent base or location with the needed labs and generators for crafting sometime in the AP? I can see a lot of PC's being disappointed in taking Craft Cybernetics or Pharmaceuticals but yet never get a chance to use them because they never have access to labs long enough to make it worth it.

@ Horo: I'm pretty easy. My vehemence is oratorical.

...and sometimes erroneous. That's why I'm always here to help.

@Bluddwolf Oh sorry! /bonk

I missed all the "seriousness" in the rest of the tomfoolery. Acts like static you see. But hey I knew you could be clear when you wanted. Cheers!

Edited my original post thanks to your correction. That hour edit window is murder!

It's worth noting that the major dissenting voice - Bluddwolf - is the voice of The UnNamed Company, so this wasn't some random person raising objections, but instead one guild's representative taking part in a discussion for guild representatives.

Oh that's soooooooo cute. You think he was JUST "discussing"! Hahahahaha.

EDITED: For for Truth!

Don't thank me. I plan on killing your members starting with Andius.

Course my hit list has expanded thanks to this thread so maybe I should thank you.

Andius wrote:

...I'll remember that when you ask us for our help in the future. As surely any group who fails to prepares for the harsh realities that come with an Open World PVP game will end up doing.

...

Fear-based decisions seldom have positive results, and intimidation is not negotiation.

Your organization is clearly less NG than it is LN.

Hey boys why don't you take it easy. Sure Andius could of used taking down a peg or two but let's not start calling alignment shifts and potential other blanket statements about his organization. Slippery slope. Stay on target.

I do love all the trolling in this thread masked as "discussion." Delicious.

Nothing screams intimidation like net memes and Star Trek villains. I'm all for comedic evil, I like it.

Signed,

Horo: Independent Bread Maker