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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Yep... the Kickstarter backers have repeatedly attempted to take Harmony Gold to task over a lack of substantial news, a lack of anything resembling a production plan, pledge tiers whose "rewards" are completely out of proportion to the amount being given, and the utter absence of stretch goals. Thus far, they've gotten nowhere and received only platitudes from McKeever about the supposed "big news" in store, which has been pretty underwhelming. If you're using your Kickstarter updates to announce products completely unrelated to the Kickstarter, like the Robotech comics and art books that Udon is supposedly publishing, then you're doing it wrong. Nah, I doubt they'll continue forward with this after such a negative reception. If they'd gotten say, to $480,000, they might have had an incentive to continue work on it on their own nickel. This is turning into Robotech 3000 Mk.II, a disaster so momentous that killing it with fire will probably be their outcome of choice. (After all, Harmony Gold management was so fond of Robotech 3000 that they'd opted to cancel it TWICE just to be sure.) I don't think there was any ulterior motive behind the Kickstarter, they just saw the frankly embarrassingly huge amount of dosh the Robotech RPG Tactics Kickstarter raked in and said "Man, I gotta get me some'a that!"
  2. Seto Kaiba
    My initial projection for the end total was $286,912 give or take two bucks... it's looking like it won't even get that far. Over on the Kickstarter's comments, they were speculating for a while that SDCC actually damaged the Kickstarter's chances, since the days immediately following the SDCC panel were pretty bad even by the pretty dismal standards of this Kickstarter's performance. It probably won't help matters that there are several backers at unspecified levels who have announced their intention to remove their pledges if things hadn't significantly picked up by today, as a sort of protest over Harmony Gold's handling of it. Wow... SideKick predicts a 0% chance of success.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Truly, the subtlety of their naming is masterful... my favorite one was Arroq. Yes... "A rock". Carl Macek was one hell of a writer. The downward trend has slowed a little, they're only losing about 2% off the top now instead of 3% on a daily basis... with their projected final total now sitting well below $250,000 and the projected low-end at just a hair over $204,000. Still, the odds that they'll reach their goal have always been pretty poor, though I have to admit that this performance is actually WORSE than my more dismal opening-day projections. I'm a pessimist by nature, it's not often I'm surprised like that. You forget, my friend, this project is being peddled exclusively to people who are in it for the nostalgia. Another retcon and they'd be dropping out, not piling in. There are already several people on there talking about withdrawing their pledges in protest due to what they see as Harmony Gold's chronic mismanagement... though they seem to believe that Harmony Gold might actually learn from it, which is rather doubtful considering the low esteem in which they hold their customers. Duke, buddy, speaking as someone who has actually read (and yes, owns paper copies of) the old Sentinels comics... don't go throwing stones at the Protodeviln. Macross 7's story is SERIOUS BUSINESS compared to most of the crap that went to print in those old Robotech comics. Imagine all the corny, high-camp nonsense of the old Star Trek animated series... that's about the level the Sentinels comics were at when they were being subtle. There are points where it got Plan 9 from Outer Space bad... and that's not counting horrifying nonsense like the swimsuit spectacular. Hell, there were parts where it got so awful even the most devoted Robotech fans wouldn't stand for it. (After having to recall that horrorshow, why do we not have an Exorcist-style projectile vomiting smiley?) I can't believe I was able to get through the entire thing... though it just left me feeling like this schmuck was a second Pizza the Hutt. Someone who'd been taken in by the antagonistic moderators on Robotech.com and turned into a trollish sock-puppet for their derpy behavior.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    I know Maverick_LSC got banned for trolling... thought MEMO got banned at around the same time for the same offense. Kevin got canned for racist remarks, IIRC. I don't think either of the Yunes has made an effort to come over here, though Tommy is still a self-professed Macross fan, AFAIK.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, that's a Robotech fan reciting the Harmony Gold company line about why they've yet to launch any kind of a successful or commercially viable continuation of Robotech. You boil it down, and with the sole exception of Robotech 3000, it comes down to "the stars were not right". Robotech 3000 stands apart, on the grounds that Macek himself actually a took a moment to admit its concept was a terrible idea that showed they were out of touch with the fans in the foreword of the Shadow Chronicles art book. Some would say that Harmony Gold is very trying. Still, I've heard... and been the subject of... crazier Robotech fan conspiracy theories. According to some of them, I have enough pull at Harmony Gold that I can have them arbitrarily kill off fan projects I don't like. According to others, I have no influence at all and manipulate Harmony Gold through falsified legal documents. The fun part is that both of those came from the same guy and were posted within a week of each other. I think he's still in two minds about how evil I am. Kinda reminds you of the sort of "You don't understand me!" generic teenage angst you get from a kid who doesn't fit in... though if he's been to any of a wide variety of anime forums where fans have tried to pitch the Robotech Kickstarters, one can't blame him for feeling a tiny bit persecuted. I've seen a few where they all but started calling to tar and feather the well-meaning but very badly misguided Robotech fan. Macrossworld just seems to be the favorite target for Robotech fans to project their persecution complex upon because it's high visibility, as websites go. 's MEMO, Mav, and banky so far, I think... though those first two are volunteer mods not actual employees.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    There aren't many Robotech fans who were all that fond of the Sentinels aliens... they had very little relevance to the plot in the old Sentinels comics, and their relatively generic-ness didn't endear them to many. The ones that seem to have been the most popular with the fans were the Garudans, wolf-people who were crazy mystics that lived on a planet where the air could get you high or (depending on the version) give you superpowers at the expense of killing you if you ever stopped breathing it. The old Palladium Books Robotech RPG did the most to sell those concepts to the fans. Throwing the reduced number of Sentinels Council ambassadors into Prelude seems to have been enough to satisfy any desire the fans might've had for the return of those hokey aliens though... and they likely would have a reduced role now that Tommy's retconned in a very WH40K-ish "Don't trust the xenos!" mentality for the Expeditionary Forces. I'll go on record and say I like Flaming Guantlet's version of the Children of Zor better.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    That, my friend, is a male Karbarran. Keeping it short and sweet, the Karbarrans were one of several new alien races created by Carl Macek for the failed Robotech II: the Sentinels project in the 80's. Yes, the name IS a pun on the Care Bears. Yes, all of the new alien designs for Sentinels were that awful, and were all pretty generic alien tropes... your rock alien, your planet-of-the-amazons alien, your conehead alien, and the obligatory sentient robot and anthropomorphic aliens (bears and wolves). That particular torrent of foulness is Karbarran ambassador L'ron... who is, yes, named for L. Ron Hubbard (gag choke puke). Tommy Yune redesigned L'ron and the other Sentinels ambassadors for their brief cameo in Robotech: Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles, so now he just looks like a bear standing erect and with human-like hands. Those Sentinels aliens were all pretty stupid, honestly... so it's no wonder Tommy doesn't seem to want to revisit them if he can get away with it. He salvaged the Haydonites (robot people) to be the antagonists in Shadow Chronicles, probably because they were also your obligatory "secretive alien" bunch and also the least offensively cliche of the lot. Not since 2006, anyway...
  8. Seto Kaiba
    I dunno, most of the big donors on Kickstarter have come out in the comments section already, including the schmuck who put in ten grand. I think he's just one of those pissed off fans with a webcam and the mistaken belief that people won't immediately troll him on YouTube's comments section. Yeah... trying to make a point by YouTube video blog is pissing up a rope no matter how well-prepared you are, but the guys who go on this sort of pro-Robotech tirade are easily in their thirties. You'd think by now they'd have learned that looking like a slob... and a basement-dwelling slob at that... is not going to get you taken seriously no matter how articulate your argument is. If they'd just tidy up a bit or move their computer to a place that looks like someone other than a crazy hoarder might live there would do a lot to improve their standing. If he'd done a little basic research before embarking on his rant, he probably would've realized the smartest idea would have been to keep his mouth closed, since Macross does have plenty of novelizations and manga and other stuff like that... it's just that a lot of it hasn't been fan-translated.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Because Harmony Gold is pitching this as their way of resuming the Robotech II: the Sentinels story, and they've already more or less confirmed that, until now, the Waltrip bros. Sentinels comics were at least pseudocanon thanks to Prelude. Since this is at best a side story to the Sentinels proper, whether or not it would make any retcons that would affect the primary story is up in the air, though aesthetically they've already torpedoed what human military tech is supposed to look like for their chosen time period... though they've thrown a built-in excuse for some of that in the pitch, since these mecha and ships are apparently disused prototypes that'd been mothballed on Phobos.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    No, they did not. They were canceled before they could get that far... the last issue of the Robotech II: the Sentinels comic series was the same story that was later recycled for the first issue of Robotech: Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles (quite literally copied panel-for-panel), where General Edwards betrays the Expeditionary Forces, murders Kyle (Kaifun), abducts Minmei, and flees out into space. EDIT: To clarify, the Sentniels comics were canceled before Harmony Gold gave up on comic books, it died as a title with Academy Comics in 1996. A halfhearted attempt to keep it going called Sentinels: Rubicon was tabled and subsequently canceled after two issues under Antarctic Press without the involvement of the Waltrips, who said their planned story was only about 4/5ths complete when it was canned.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Doubly ironic, since Harmony Gold officially disowned Robotech's "expanded universe" titles in 2003 and cited the overwhelmingly poor quality of that licensee-created material as their reason for doing so. They built an expanded universe all right, and then got rid of it when they realized it was rubbish and a massive liability.* Part of me can't really hold his ignorance about Macross against him, since a lot of the titles that would be considered "Expanded Universe" for Macross are not accessible to western audiences, and Harmony Gold has done a lot to encourage its fans to ignore anything related to Macross. * On this, I actually agree with them... having read many of the old comics and the McKinney novelization, saying they were no longer part of Robotech was probably less condemnation than most of them deserved. There was probably an ulterior motive there though, since many of the comics contained VERY blatant copyright infringement including tracing from TV shows and movies, and whole plots, designs, and characters lifted from other shows My favorite is the one where Brent Spiner's character from the movie Independence Day has an unauthorized main character role, though the one with the VF-4s and Captain Higgins from Macross Plus was funny too.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Probably three, if it fits the pattern of the other multi-tube micro-missile launcher pods... though that's a new one on me, since the only VF-0-issue micro-missile pack I have info on is the 8-tube GH-28A that was used on the VF-0A near the end of Macross Zero and that's got 24 (so 3 per tube). 's no problem. Just glad folks are enjoying it.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    That's not a huge change from the last week or so, actually... just on a lark (and because I need the practice building macros for Excel) I've been running my own predictions for the estimated final total and other values, and they tend to be a little more dismal than even Kicktraq's trend-line projection. As bad as it looks that the amount they need to raise per day jumped almost $2000 overnight, that's simply a function of the gap between where they are and where they need to be shrinking. Yesterday was actually better than average for them, in light of the fact that they got $1,822 in pledges. That's $385 better than the current trend-line average of $1,437 a day. (That day that they got only $1,111 dragged the average down a bit.) ... ... ... and now I feel like I need to go take a shower with bleach and steel wool. EDIT: After trying to view that YouTube video, I have to say the only thing that surprised me was that it isn't dougbendo going on another frothy-mouthed rant. I'm not sure why Robotech fans who video blog seem to think that the best place to do it is in their untidy basements. Way to fulfill a negative stereotype when this campaign has largely bucked all the other negative stereotypes of Robotech fans whoever the hell you are, video guy!
  14. Seto Kaiba
    At least the comics will be done at a higher level of quality than the stuff they did in the 90's. That's something, right? Robotech Academy's not going to get made, barring a sudden and completely unforeseen backer dumping a quarter million into the project, so that art book they're talking about is off the table. That leaves them with their supposed new line of comics, their re-release of the grainy broadcast version of Robotech (which is a real "why bother" moment, you can get the old editions off of eBay for $14 a saga), and whatever they might or might not be doing with Shadow Rising. Definitely enough to give you a very distinct feeling that they're just going through the motions. Well thanks, I'd like to think I'm useful for something besides light entertainment. The ugliness bothers me less than the fact that, both aesthetically and technologically, they just don't fit with the period that they supposedly belong to for Robotech. The Predator-thing looks out of place in Robotech as a whole, and it contradicts the canon they had in place before that established that the first variable drone fighter was the 2044-model Shadow Drone. Likewise, that stealth bomber-lookin' recon plane is way too streamlined to fit with the very chunky, blocky designs that were Earth standard in 2015-2044. That new manned VF just plain doesn't fit ANYWHERE (the 2nd Generation rival program was YF-4 vs the VF-X-6) and its designation overlaps with that of an existing design (Beta prototype No.1, VF-X-7).
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Eh, I think you're crediting me with more than my fair share of it... but there is a certain pleasure in noting that the Robotech fans have proven to be much more discerning folks than we usually give them credit for being. I suppose it could be argued that I've got an indirect interest in the success or failure of the Robotech Academy Kickstarter, due to the way the negative press that it's generated across the net will affect efforts to build store-level interest in Robotech RPG Tactics. (I've got a bit of a soft spot for Palladium Books, both because they're local and because they helped foster my interest in Macross II.) Speaking of, I've been having a bit of a discussion about the impact that the controversy over Robotech RPG Tactics have had upon the Robotech Academy Kickstarter. Quite a few of the RRT backers I've talked to have suggested that the problems that Kickstarter has had put them off the idea of backing Academy... Reception of that stealth recon drone seems to be pretty lukewarm too... the recurring theme they keep coming back to is "Why wouldn't they have done something more traditionally AWACs looking?".
  16. Seto Kaiba
    http://www.macross2.net/m3/macross7/vab-2.htm Hmm indeed... Kinda reminds me of the MQ-90 Quox from Ace Combat.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Really? I thought that was something that even Robotech fans had long since started taking as read. Mind you, they single out specific people at Harmony Gold, but the meaning's the same. Most of the Robotech fans that I talk to on a regular basis have been resigned to this thing being a flop from the word "go", but they'll probably announce another box set two years down the road with the Robotech Academy trailers and concept art on an Extras disc the way the original DVD collection did for Sentinels. Please take me at my word when I say there's no malice in what I'm about to say... You're mistaking me for someone who cares. Not about your personal stance on anything, mind you, but about Robotech in general and this Kickstarter in particular. I know that my dry, somewhat blunt way of putting things may give you the mistaken impression that I care, but the simple truth is that I honestly haven't had any strong feelings on Robotech either way for at least five or six years now. If Harmony Gold were to put out something Robotech that was actually, truly original and not just another half-assed attempt to cash in on the nostalgia that their fans have for Macross's characters, I would watch it. I look at this unholy mess they're calling Robotech Academy and all I can really muster emotionally is a vague feeling of pity for my friends in the Robotech fandom who are the ones getting sold the bill of goods here, some amusement at how Kevin's attempt to build a campaign on a web of lies is blowing up in his face, and a little irritation at how half-assed this all is and how they're trying to surf the coffin of a dead man to success. That's all. Had Harmony Gold actually bothered to put in the effort to develop an original idea, to fully invest their time and their energy into realizing a vision for a new story that wasn't clinging helplessly to the OSM as a crutch, there's a decent chance that I would have thrown them a few hundred bucks. At the end of the day, the problem with Robotech Academy is that it's half-assed from start to finish. It really is that simple. The pitch was half-hearted at best, amounting to little more than "It's Robotech, give us your money!" and "Do it for Carl!". Their story concept is an atypically obvious half-assed effort to build a Robotech story out of existing parts... it's pretty much Robotech-by-numbers, and one that depends very heavily (almost exclusively) on Macross nostalgia. The effort to pitch is as the pilot for a new series showed that they'd half-assed their planning, since it depends almost entirely on references to portions of the original series that any new audience wouldn't have seen, and that's not counting the references to a show that was never even made. I'm dismissive of Robotech Academy not because it is Robotech, or because Harmony Gold is involved, but because the people making this clearly don't care about it any more than we do. They're just going through the motions, and have zero intention of this actually becoming something. Literally and figuratively, there is no investment on their part in this. Quite a few of the fans I know have seen this too, and that's why they're not backing it. There's supposedly going to be a new Robotech comic series coming out... maybe.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Because no peer-reviewed study has ever been biased or presented inaccurate information, of course. Seriously now, while torrenting is in common use there are still plenty of folks who would prefer to have a legitimate release that they can buy from a store and thus support the show. Heck, plenty of people who download fan subs also seek out and buy the legitimate releases when they become available. Just because piracy satisfies all your wants doesn't mean that everyone is OK with having fan subs be the ONLY option for getting Macross in the west in a language they can understand. Would you and your straw man like a moment alone to get better acquainted? I wouldn't say that I hate Harmony Gold. I do find their perpetual incompetence annoying and the occasionally trollish behavior of their staff obnoxious, but at the end of the day I'm buying my Macross stuff directly from Japan, so their jackassery's impact on me is minimal... unless you'd like to count the many Robotech fans who continue to bring their OSM-related questions to me by e-mail and Skype, but I'm just glad to help them find the information they're looking for. Yeah, they did... but the only people who saw it at any tolerable resolution were the ones at SDCC, only one of which has since been posted on the Kickstarter... today, in fact. The Robotech fans don't seem to find them terribly thrilling either. That's "legitimate channels", buddy.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Studies which are of questionable integrity at best, since in order to reliably measure behavior of questionable legality you have to get people to own up to actually doing it first, and with torrents often using multiple trackers, the numbers of clients downloading a given title is skewed upwards. Yes, torrenting is increasingly common, though it is by no means universally accepted. The point is that these people DO exist, and that there are people who would much rather have (or dearly hope for) the ability to support the franchise through legitimate releases instead of having to pirate the shows. Some of those people are making those wishes known on the Kickstarter, as unlikely as it is that Harmony Gold will actually listen. I don't doubt for a minute that there are no shortage of people on MacrossWorld who would be overjoyed if Macross shows and goods were suddenly available outside of Japan in their local language and through legitimate channels. Just because you're happy with your fansubs doesn't mean everybody is, my friend.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    A dozen people in one place, in a short span of time. I've run into plenty more besides. MacrossWorld is probably not a good representative sample, all things considered... but I've even run into it here in the past. It seems to be an especially common reason why Robotech fans haven't explored more Macross. Not because they don't want to, but because they can't get it by normal channels.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    For as long as fan subs have been a thing, is that so surprising to you? There are plenty of anime fans who don't feel comfortable with the idea of downloading something dubiously legal like fan subs, or are uneasy about using methods like torrents to get them. Just from my own experience, while I was helping out on a Macross MUSH late last year, I ran into upwards of a dozen people who really WANTED to see more Macross, but were hesitant or unwilling to get it by questionable means like downloading a torrented fan sub. Some were concerned about the safety of torrenting, while others were leery about downloading shows at all. I'd have a hard time naming a fan community I was involved with where I hadn't run into one or more people who were uneasy about DLing a fan sub. I've even run into it here on MacrossWorld. It would be unwise to assume that just because you or I are comfortable with it, that everyone is. (The trend I've been seeing has been that reluctance to download fan subs have gone up as the number of streaming sites that carry current anime increases... but that's far from scientific, since it's just my own observations.)
  22. Seto Kaiba
    True, though as uncomfortable as some fans are with the idea of downloading (pseudo-illegally) fansubs or paying a premium for material in a language they can't understand, you can hardly blame them for hoping that if Robotech fails hard enough, someone somewhere in authority at Harmony Gold is going to realize that one or more of those unrealistic (in the current situation) ideas is actually not a bad idea business-wise. Again, even those hopes are not necessarily mutually exclusive either... though many are profoundly unlikely for various reasons. People are going to hope, even if those hopes are unrealistic. (Of course, as often as they're being lied to by Harmony Gold, is it that surprising that their hopes are often a poor fit for the objective reality?) On the designs front, there are people calling Harmony Gold on the similarity over on Robotech.com...
  23. Seto Kaiba
    I've seen flimsier cases end up in front of the courts in my day job... unlikely isn't the same as impossible.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    I dunno man, Tom Bateman seemed to think that whoever pitched the idea of a Kickstarter to Frank Agrama is going to be in a bad place if it fails... and Harmony Gold has "dismissed" and replaced staff in the past when they ran projects into the ground in the past. They replaced Carl Macek himself when Macek finally managed to produce this same kind of non-starter in Robotech 3000. We don't know how severe the consequences will be for whoever proposed this at Harmony Gold, but to say that it's out and out impossible would not be accurate. As far as Macross products making their way into the west... not as a direct consequence anyway, but if management is paying attention to the Kickstarter comments they'll probably spot the recurring theme of "stop squatting on the Macross rights and DO SOMETHING". To me, this situation is too similar to Robotech 3000's crash-and-burn failure to think that there won't be consequences... and there's historical precedent for consequences in situations like this shaking up the status quo for Robotech. Since this kind of failure has happened before, the question is "What will the consequences be the second time around?". Will Harmony Gold's senior management, who have progressively lost faith in Robotech over the last fourteen years start exploring what they could do with Macross? Will they can the whole thing? Will they try to fall back on Shadow Rising and refuse to acknowledge that this ever happened for the next ten years? There are a bunch of possibilities, not all of which are mutually exclusive. Not a lawsuit, surely... but I wouldn't rule out a cease-and-desist. Harmony Gold's gotten so fond of sending them, and they are treading close to Hasbro's designs, and you can bet Hasbro is going to defend a cash cow like Transformers vigilantly. Of course, even if Harmony Gold DID receive a cease-and-desist, they'd comply without letting the viewers know that they'd even received one... they'd claim not using the design was a creative decision on their part.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Don't forget Big West and Studio Nue! My dad knows that there's a limit to how retro I'm willing to go... I'm not audiophile enough to shell out for a quality turntable, so vinyl is right out. 'course, he's still got a reel-to-reel player... But hey, if Kevin gets fired over this (and most folks seem to hope he will be), maybe they'll actually hire someone qualified to do his job. His degree is in theatrical lighting, after all, not business management or marketing. He's only job he's really qualified to do is ask "Would you like fries with that, sir?". Of course, if they were clearing out people who were horribly unqualified to do the jobs they do, they'd have to let Steve go too.
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