TheHandsomeDan's page

Hi Everyone,

Again, no update on this for this week.

John

-Feb 25th

Hi Everyone,

No update again this week.

John

-March 4th

Hi Everyone,

No update for this week.

John

-March 11th

At some point can there be an update with real info not kick the can along. Cause all I see is side stepping when asked if ninja Division is able to deliver their part...that's an update I woukd confirmed..

-March 12th

@John Feel the silence on this is deafening. You've clearly acknowledged the consistently asked question, and told us that you're going to get answers, but months later you're effectively pretending it never happened rather than telling us what's up.

Point blank, this is a terrible sign. John clearly knew that there's a growing (and frankly, valid) concern regarding Ninja Division's ability to even cope with shipping costs and basic logistics. Silence here indicates that either A.) The situation with fulfillment for backers has changed, and ND won't be able to fulfill, or B.) Archon isn't sending the products to ND to fulfill backers. Simply put, if there was "good news", or if things were still simply on track to provide backers with their product via Archon manufacturing, John could have relayed that confirmation to us to alleviate concerns here. That's a win for him, and as a guy handling marketing/pr here, you can bet he'd jump.at the opportunity if he honestly could. Instead, he's gone totally silent and chosen not to respond since someone called him on this point blank.

I'd love for John to come back here and post something that genuinely refutes what I've written. I would sincerely love to be wrong. John, please feel free to pop in and prove me wrong about this. Otherwise we can take this as confirmation that the promised mass fulfillment to pre-archon customers has effectively been cancelled.

Hi guys!

I'm Kamil - Social Media ninja sent by Archon Studio. If you have any questions about the miniatures - feel free to ask :D

I love that an Archon rep literally makes a new profile, posts one time offering to answer questions, and then just pulls a 'peace out', never posting anything anywhere in this entire forum again.

I understand that Archon effectively offered to 'rescue' a lot of backers from something that would have otherwise been a total wash, but the communication could certainly use some work.

I fortunately found out about the Starfinder minis after the initial funding ended but I was seriously considering becoming a late pledge after the fact; ultimately, it was the involvement of ND (who wasn't yet showing their true colors on Starfinder) and my experience with Robotech that convinced me to instead just wait for the project to potentially hit the shelves or to buy out a pledge on the secondary market once it delivered. I'm glad that I was able to avoid this minefield unlike my first experience with crowdfunding.

In all reality, the true colors were WELL known before the Starfinder KS campaign launched. Within minutes of launch, they were being swarmed with users from previous campaigns warning others about ND/SPM's history of lies/delays/failures.

Their initial response? They tried to pretend that ND and SPM were different entities with different employees and different owners. It took 1-2 hours for so many backers to pull public records PROVING that was a lie before they backpedaled on that too.

Numerous users with understandable grievances against them flooded the comments with specific and detailed accounts of why nobody should trust the folks at ND. So much so that others got irritable with them over it. This is realistically the single biggest red flag that a crowdfunded project could have. It started on day one, and ran the entire funding campaign. People saying they didn't know either COMPLETELY ignored the comments or are lying. Only two options on that.

Many of you have expressed that it was my vouching for Ninja Division in the early days of this project that pushed you over the line to make a pledge. If that’s the case with your decision to back, I also apologize to you. I certainly had much higher expectations that have not been met. I was very impressed with Ninja Division’s sculpting abilities and design expertise, and at the time we partnered with them they gave me reason to believe that the various setbacks they had encountered up to that point were unique and in the process of being handled. That gave me faith in them that they have not backed up with action, and I understand your frustration—and share it.

I realize that what I'm about to ask might be a bit tough to answer, but I think it may be genuinely helpful for us to hear your thoughts and answers.

During the campaign, when backers and potential backers saw Paizo putting support behind Ninja Division for this Kickstarter, you received emails -perhaps not you personally Erik, but I know that numerous people emailed customer service and even some of the specific folks in charge at Paizo. Many expressed very serious concern, and the specific reasons that they felt you (again referring to Paizo overall here) should NOT be partnering with them for this or any other business venture.

I'm not talking about generic angry cursing and outrage emails. I saw some drafts people were sending over, and many of them were very well formulated messages. I've only heard of one or two of those people getting a response, which was fairly generic, if they had sent their email to customer service. But nothing else, nor from anyone else.

Knowing that Paizo received a strong reaction such as this, with people reaching out to share very specific causes for you to be concerned, these questions come to mind:

-Why did Paizo not "pull back", "reconsider", or outright cancel this joint venture? Was too much contract ink set in stone before we heard anything about it?

-Why did Paizo continue to speak so positively on their behalf, despite all these warnings?

-Many of the decision-makers associated with this (and numerous other crowdsourced games that have failed to deliver) have jumped over to new companies, where it seems likely they will repeat the same decisions that led to the current ND situation. This makes things a bit more complex than "just don't partner with X company". What will Paizo do differently in the future, to prevent/mitigate this sort of thing from happening to its own fanbase again?

Again, I understand and recognize that ND appears committed to making all of their obligations work. And I respect that they want to see things through. I think many of us simply question whether or not that's possible at this point, and in that regard only time will tell. Fingers crossed, for the sake of everyone who put cash down on ND products.

Thanks for replying, at least I know my message wasn't just lost or ignored.

I reached out via email last week regarding a broken/incomplete miniature in my order, and made sure to include photos with my inquiry.

I haven't heard anything back since emailing last week though. I know you've been dealing with some outages, as I've observed trying to get here a couple times this week, but how long should I expect before I get some assistance?