HardlyNever

Looks like the prices are creeping up. I bought mine from etoy (the first one of those) for 22,028 yen before shipping. If you're out there still fence sitting, I'd decide either way soon.

Joined the others and went with Amazon Japan for the Max 1A. A few thousand yen mark up for something that was crazy hard to get at PO seems like a gift. I also think the Hikaru VF-1S won't be this easy on release. I'd love to be wrong, but I don't think we should assume we'll get this lucky twice.

I believe they only did a PF version, not a "regular" and PF version. And the PF version was pretty close to what they sell their "regular" super parts valks for. Just for the VT-1, though.

As long as it continues to sell. But they didn't try it with the VE-1, so maybe that's progress? Personally, I wish people would quit buying their products until they settle on one release per mold, and on something resembling a decent price. But I'm at least a little bit guilty here, too. I bought the PF SDF-1 (the only PF product I've bought from Arcadia), and I don't even regret it. Was it expensive? Yeah. Was it worth it? ...yeah. But I'm not here to tell people how they should spend their money. However, it is reminiscent of the whole "pre-order bonus" scam video game companies have been doing for years, that is entirely anti-consumer (and benefits the video game companies enormously). We'd all be better off if people stopped buying into it, but the market can't help itself. So it continues.

This PO day for the VF-1S Hikaru has already passed (it was early June). We don't know when the next one is yet. If you're trying to secure one at release, we don't know the date yet (it will just be later November). Like you're seeing with the Max, though, they kind of trickle out at various times at different vendors; there is no set time for that. Also, the "official" release date for the Max is/was Sept.21 (in Japan). But as you can see, several places will sell it early, even by Japanese time. So basically a few days before the official release date, you'll want to be checking vendor sites.

You can see it here, but it is listed as discontinued. It might come back up, but I doubt it.

There was some shenanigans at the HLJ page. The Max vf-1a was showing as in stock, and you had the option to add it to cart, but then when you did it errored out and said it was order stop. This continued for like 30 min. Now it is just listed as discontinued. I dunno whether they actually had some stock for sale at some point, or it was just a database error fighting with itself. It seems more like that latter, but maybe a few lucky people scored a Max somehow. I know I didn't That's one more option down.

The Max VF-1A is available on amazon japan in the 22-23k yen range. I'm holding out for somewhere like AmiAmi or HLJ, but I might just go with Amazon japan if I can't get one from one of those.

This is a little out of date, but most of those are pretty reliable and still in business. AmiAmi, Hobby Link Japan, Nippon Yassan, CDJapan, Anime Export tend to be pretty popular. But there are other options out there.

O... sufficientemente!

Basically the plot of Macross Zero, appropriately.

Heh, I was thinking about this exact thing earlier today. Like, if it were totally random, shouldn't we be seeing something like a normal distribution of errors? So 25% RR, 25% LL, 25% RL (right on the left side, left on the right), and 25% correct. At least something close to that. But based on what we are seeing, there are hardly any that are correct. So there must have been something systematically wrong, in the production and/or assembly process. My guess would be the assembly part, but there is no way to know. I think this lends maybe a touch of credibility to what @Slave IV said about intentionally bad production. It doesn't prove it outright, but I'm really struggling to imagine a situation in which this could be a just individual error. This has to be something systematically wrong in the production process. But I doubt we'll ever know.

Arms race:

The exhibition details are up now. HMR is listed in the event under "Robot Center!" So there is still hope:

On other releases (VF-0D and A), peoples' legs were falling off the toy, sometimes right out of the box. Arcadia did nothing. This seems a bit more widespread, but I wouldn't count on Arcadia directly doing anything, especially for international customers. You'll probably be left dealing with your particular retailer, if you get any kind of support at all.

Either way, it's pretty terrible for a $350+ product to have this kind of issue. Bandai gets so much crap for their QC and production practices, but Arcadia has similar issues, at 175% the cost. Honestly, I'm glad I skipped on this particular release. I was on the fence about the whole design and price to begin with, if I would have gotten one with a QC problem at this price, I would have lost it. And I'm fairly forgiving when it comes to minor QC issues; but at this price point they better have that stuff figured out. I still might gamble on one if it goes on steep discount, but for now, I'm steering clear.

Ehh... kind of. Running source only will give you a slight edge, but that is nothing compared to the speed a bot has. There are definitely bots buying these at split-second speeds. Anything a human can do, a bot can do as well, and faster. (Good) bots don't interact with pages waiting for them to load images and what not. They interact with the source directly, and do it faster than a human would looking at the same source. Like I said above, anything a human can do on a computer (and especially a website) you can theoretically program a bot to do. Any counter-measure you can develop, can be defeated with enough time and effort. For instance, in your example, once bot makers learn what is going on, they would just put in that amount of delay, to make their bot pass the test. It's an arms race like anything else. You can definitely take steps to make your website more bot-resistant. But as long as you want to have actual human beings go through the check-out process, you'll have an avenue for bots to take, if they are sophisticated enough. Honestly, I'm surprised we don't see more CAPTCHA used on these sites. It wouldn't completely eliminate bots, but would have a big impact, at least initially. I think the frustration to the end-user, and the the vast majority of users being... less informed... and not understanding what is actually going on and why we need to CAPTCHAs to make purchases, might be preventing it. But even with all that, you'd still have actual humans buying stuff up at high speeds. So it wouldn't really feel that different to us on pre-order night. Or you can go the lottery route, which NY seems to be doing (intentionally or not), where you just let random people in to the check out screen. This doesn't defeat bots exactly, but levels the playing field between human and bot by pushing it mostly to chance. You can still put your bots in the random queue, though.

No announcement one way or another has been made. I'm watching the exhibitions page for the October event (it isn't up yet). Hopefully, we'll get a mention of HMR there. If not, we'll have to wait until the event itself. Some people are speculating that if we don't see/hear anything at all about the line at the next event, it is dead or on indefinite hiatus. We just don't know. I doubt Bandai would outright announce that the line is discontinued, even if it were, though.

This is my experience with every Arcadia product I've ever had, except maybe the VF-1J GBP set. It's like their trademark, or something.

You can see the full line here. They haven't really done re-releases. The VF-1S Focker got sort of a double release (but not a re-release). The Regults were kind of, sort of reissued, but with new markings and accessories. Re-issues aren't really a thing with the HMR line, so I wouldn't count on it.

That is the 3rd or 4th CF vf-1a I've seen at manda in the past few months for 8k yen. I've been watching them for a while, but always end up passing, usually for something else. Be patient, and I'm sure another will show up at that price.

Also finally got an NY shipping notice for the armor.

We can see the current stock-count in the API at various sites. It is an interesting discussion in itself, and how they are different. but it seems like HLJ and AmiAmi have around 100-200 (like you said). NY, of course, plays a different game were they seem to never have their stock go down, because they do the thing where they secure it from other vendors/sources, at a mark-up. Basically all those places have per-customer limits of 1 or 2, so you'd have to send a wave of bots all at once (with different accounts ofc), and all try to get in and secure more orders.

So... I am actually a web developer, but I don't do much automation scripting. I've absolutely considered making a bot to get out of this, but ultimately, imo, it isn't worth it. Let me preface this with saying I'm not saying to NOT do it. If fact, I still might. Also, I'm not an expert on scripting bots in particular, so you might find someone that is more willing and knowledgeable to give it a try. But here are some things you need to consider: 1) The new website architecture at AmiAmi and HLJ make botting those particular sites very hard. You'd basically have to get the page before the pre-order opens (which they stopped doing) and change your bot to fit that specific page. This itself could possibly automated, but you'd lose precious few seconds having a script self-correct. 2) NY, in true NY fashion, isn't really more "bot resistant," as much as it is just plain stupid and anti-user, because they use an insane ticketing system that seems nearly random. So you could run your bots on that site, increasing your odds and saving you the headache of doing it your self, but you'll just be put in the random queue with everyone else. 3) Some of the older sites are absolutely "bottable" and those are the ones I would target. The problem here is latency. Most of the botters (it is theorized) are operating out of China or somewhere else in that area. So they are closer the vendor servers than you are. So unless you find a VPN or some other remote solution that is willing to run your bot from that location, you'll be at a disadvantage still. So you can run bots on it, but you still might come up empty-handed, because their bots have a latency advantage. It still might be worth trying, though. 4) Most of the scalpers that use bots do this "professionally." In other words, they scalp a lot more than Macross products, so they have the resources like server farms to allocate to botting whatever it is that they are targeting at that time. Basically you'll be a small fish in a big pond of botting. Of course we already are, when we do it manually. Having "Macross World bots," imo, is fantasy land. You'd still be lucky to score more than 3 or 4 releases using a number of bots, so you'd still have way less supply than demand. You're honestly just better off botting for yourself. Then there is the moral question and all that, but, that is different kettle of fish.

It's entirely possible/likely scalpers are using bots, although the newer websites from HLJ and AmiAmi are what I would call "bot resistant." But they are still "bot-able." Older websites are fodder for bots. On a real pre-order madness night™ you should have any and all available vendors you're willing to use open in multiple tabs. You'll be very lucky to score one, when it comes to the DX VF-1 valks (out of 6-8 vendors). The Focker release might break the internetz. If you still have your sanity after a pre-order madness night, you're doing it wrong. People are not exaggerating this, it is that bad. Many of us question continuing with this hobby if it continues to be this bad. You're basically recreated the discussion that happens after every pre-order madness. I know you're new, so it's fine. Just be aware this entire discussion (scalpers, bots, what we can/should do, quitting the hobby) repeats after every pre-order madness night. Come hang out with us in the DX threads next pre-order, and you'll see it in real-time.