Yamato Lover

So in essence, what you are saying is that HG or TP could legally seek the cessation of the remainder of Macross Zero or any future Macross projects planned by BW, if BW seeks an international distributor for the Macross license, right? If so, then here's the cold, hard reality of the situation that BW has backed itself into: * Anywhere else in the world, with the exception of Japan, HG/TP owns Macross...and could technically challenge any internationally released "derivative" of Macross. * Outside of Japan, Robotech's "The Macross Saga" (Rick Hunter, Lisa Hayes, etc.) is to be considered the "real" version of Macross, since HG holds the international copyright (and therefore creative rights) to the TV series. * The original "Master" reels of SDF Macross could be used as nothing more than an office doorstop for HG's CEO...and there's nothing BW, nor anyone else can say nor do about it. These are the facts, people...whether we like them or not. The corporate machine is an evil one in most cases, and one company "protecting its rights" while screwing another company over in the process is just cut-throat business tactics...(survival of the fittest and all that rot). That's just how things are, unfortunately. Big businesses forge and severe ties because of crap like the BW/HG/TP-Who-Really-Owns-Macross mess all the time. This is nothing new in the corporate world. But strictly speaking from a merchandising viewpoint, the reality of this whole situation is that it really doesn't stop any of us from obtaining toys, models, DVDs or anything else connected to the original version (the "illegal" BW Japanese version for all you RT fanboys ) of Macross. C&D letters to internet retailers haven't slowed the import of Yamatos or Bandai reissues...in fact, it seemed to cause the opposite effect, rallying those retailers to become more defiant in what they can and can't carry in their stocks...all because HG couldn't back up their claims to "All-Things-Macross". The fact that Suncoast or Blockbuster doesn't carry Macross Zero hasn't stopped anyone from getting their own copies of Macross Zero, DYRL or any of the other Macross series.

That's unfortunate. I was hoping your last encounter with the Yamato staff had produced some 1/48 info, but alas. I'd be more than happy with a Max/Millia release; they have to do something with the 1J head mold. My greatest hope is for a VT-1 though. I'd rather have it in 1/48 than 1/60 scale. Any word on a 1/48 Launch arm; or was that only confirmed for the 1/60 line? I've noticed that ever since Quadrono went rogue and posted Yamato's alleged "Future Releases" list, Yamato has clammed up on what's coming out. Even Graham seems to have been cut off at the source since that incident. But apparently she WAS right about the 1/48 VF-1J coming with FPs and possible GBP armor, so I can't complain on that front. ...I hate Meltrans that screw it up for all of us Miclones, Zentrans and law-abiding Meltrans who want to stay on top of things... Ben

Whatever color they are, those bad boys are supposed to be around $1500 apiece...and that's just the helmet itself. The body armor will skyrocket the price even higher.

Too true. Too true. But take Js's advice and just chill. If you keep getting pissed off and offended over trivial crap on these forums, you'll soon be branded the above title. It happened with another person on here about 4 or 5 months ago and she became basically ostricized by mods and members alike. There near the end, before she just decided to leave MW for good, no one really took anything she posted seriously. Her posts were either attacked by trolls at every chance or just outright ignored altogether; all because she had been branded a drama queen, attention whore, etc. And the sad part of the whole affair is that she had been one of MW's better denizens way back in the day. Just take it easy. So what if there is a double standard here? We all know that it's been that way since these forums have existed. The mods pick and choose what content is acceptable and what isn't...that's their job. So here's my offer... Everyone meet up at the Kindest Cut Steakhouse. Dinner and a bottle of sakie is on me! Have a seat, order a 76 oz. medium-rare porterhouse and set our differences and frustrations aside. (Just make sure you're all off duty at the time! )

I play on the Naritus server...and although PKing has been done away with in SWG in the "traditional" method (simply walk up to a NOOB and beat the hell out of him/her, then loot the corpse), players have found ways to ruin the RP experience through exploiting faction missions. When you run an Imperial or Rebel faction mission, it automatically gives your character a Temporary Enemy Flag (TEF), making you susceptible to attack by opposing faction players or NPCs. The Rebel players (especially the RAID guild) have now taken to camping at Imperial mission terminals, and ganging up on unsuspecting Imperials who want nothing more than PvE missions. I've lost countless Stormtroopers this way...after earning all the faction points to hire/purchase them. So I finally just gave up on running Imperial missions altogether after having this happen about 7 times in a row. It gets old hearing these Rebel players stand over you yelling "RAID ownz u!" Also, the Rebels on Tatooine in Anchorhead and around Bestine are definitely only in this game for the PKing and looting. They act like punks while in town, trying to pick fights with every covert Imperial they can. And the average player, sadly, can't tell the difference between a Bantha and a Rancor (in terms of how they fit into the SW universe). I've been "in character" while trying to converse with other players only to have them stare at me and say, "WTF, dude? I have no idea what ur talking about." But these same people chat back and forth with each other in almost purely internet lingo...which ruins the immersion that the game is supposed to provide players. And don't even get me started on the player-driven economy. On the Naritus server, players have price-gouged items until a NOOB really can't afford anything worth using. I mean, why does a weaponsmith feel the need to charge 350k for a T-21 rifle? Outside of outright greed, I mean. Me and another Droid Engineer out of Mos Espa got together and started selling our droids at prices far less than other DEs (8k for an advanced protocol droid, for example). After about 2 weeks, our business was booming...even if the droids are fairly worthless, they are novelties that people will buy for low prices. We both got the "Harmony Gold" treatment...literally. Several other DEs around Tatooine and one on Corellia sent us rather nasty "Cease & Desist" emails within the game, citing that we were maliciously undermining the economy by charging such low prices (making it impossible for them to sell their 45k droids).

Oh... so you've decided to re-interpret her translation due to her unfamiliarity with the proper term? And how did you come to conclusion (or even find out) that she was interpreting it too literally? And how did you find out the correct interpretation? Are you second-guessing your own translator? If memory serves me correctly, we had someone here once who knew English AND Japanese quite well, who was also quite good at not only translating, but also interpreting between the two (there is a difference). Hmmm... But you second guessed her as well. That's what it sounds like to me, actually. Just from reading the old thread and this one, I'm kind of in agreement with white drew carey on this. It almost seems that if the translator is: A. female B. of Japanese descent* C. can read/write/speak Japanese* ...then wrylac tends to not fully trust the translation that has been proffered before him. Oh well. But the bottom line is that Quad's translation and this other Japanese chick's translation say the same thing. This is nothing new that we haven't already known since way back at the beginning of the year when the first translation was given to us. * B and C seem to be interchangable

The most unfortunate thing for us in the US about this whole mess, is that Harmony Gold will continue to blockade every attempt at international Macross releases no matter what happens. The only "acceptable" course of action that HG seems like it would agree to is if Big West hands over ALL rights to Macross (Mac +, Mac II, DYRL?, etc.) to Tatsunoko, thereby giving full access to the derivatives as well.

It seems like things have simply dried up on this one since May or so. There hasn't been anything else forthcoming about the Q-Rau since Summer Wonderfest, when the 1/48 FPs were publicly displayed. The 1/60 Elintseeker and Super Ostrich had some sort of update every other month or so, but the Q-Rau has gone into hiding! Quad's infamous release list said that it was planned for an early 2004 release, but I also understand that the list turned out to be completely bogus. So does anyone know if Graham has mentioned the status of the Q-Rau lately? Ben

Okay, I've been playing SWG since June, when it was officially released and I have a few gripes, comments, questions about it. For anyone else here on MW that plays the game, do you all see this as being possibly the most one-sided MMORPG ever or am I just being too damned picky? I started out as an artisan in hope of working my way up to Droid Engineer...and quickly found out that I picked the most broken and passed-over profession ever. DE is one of the slowest and most resource-intensive professions to gain XP (experience points) in. All droids pretty much do the same thing in the game, no matter what type of droid it is. An R5 unit serves the very same function as a much more expensive Threepio protocol droid! The only difference is in appearance and price. Both droids hold the same types of modules (medical, item storage, data, etc.) and aren't specialized at all. On the other hand, all "combat-class" professions (marksman, creature handler, scout, bounty hunter, commando etc.) are given huge amounts of XP for doing relatively little (blow something up or kill something). The game is patched about every 3 to 4 days with weapon or armor improvements, but hardly anything is even remotely planned to fix the non-combat professions. And the game developers themselves seem to listen to the players who prefer warrior-type characters more than any other group in the game. Here's a prime example: Droid Engineers were planned to have Droidekas, B2 Battle Droids (Roger, roger droids) and IG-88 assassin droids added in a few months...but Creature Handlers were outraged over these upcoming additions. They claimed that by adding heavy combat droids to the game, it would kill the market for high-level creatures in the game. Their argument was that a CH has to earn a certain amount of XP to be able to tame higher-level creatures like Dewbacks or Rancors. A total NOOB with enough cash could just go to a vendor and buy a droideka with just as much attack power as a full-grown Rancor. Bottom line: the devs scrapped the combat droid idea. Fair? No. Frustrating? Yes! There is currently no market in SWG for droids as they stand right now. Several people have also complained that the game simply moves too slow for their tastes. SWG is basically "The Sims: Star Wars" It's completely open-ended and there is no level-progression like in Jedi Academy or X-Wing Alliance. This leaves several players with a "Okay, I'm done with my faction missions; what do I do now?" feeling. With the tremendous unbalancing of the game mechanics, game bugs, endless resource gathering and the huge amount of people closing their accounts, I dunno if this game will last nearly as long as LucasArts or SOE had planned for it to. The planned "Space" expansion pack has already been postponed until around Summer of 2004 (it was supposed to be ready by January 2004), but I've learned not to get my hopes up about any part of this game anymore. Okay, I'm done with my rant. Just needed to get out a little of my frustrations over this game. And the sick thing is I keep playing it, hoping that I'll finally see some light at the end of the tunnel in terms of improvements. Ben

Sort of like asking George Lucas to explain exactly HOW long ago and HOW far away "Long ago in a galaxy far, far away" is in relation to our galaxy and timeline.

Yeah, because a certain Meltran is no longer a MW member to instigate arguements with them. Ben-Man aka DestroidsRage never had any problems with Quad. His banning was for other reasons. Not everything negative revolves around hate for Robotech or Quad. Oh, I know that. I had nothing against Quad or her arguments either. I was just being funny (or a feeble attempt at funny)

Yahoo! Japan News Article It was started as a thread in the TV/Movies section, but it looks like a judgement has been reached in the appeal of the Tatsunoko/Big West copyright case. After almost 9 months of waiting, the very same ruling has been reached in the appeal that was reached back in January: Tatsunoko/HG = SDF Macross TV series only Big West = Line art, characters, etc. So basically, nothing has changed. The wait continues... <_<

Yeah, because a certain Meltran is no longer a MW member to instigate arguements with them.

Dude, Rune! Just how far from the ground were you when you dropped it? 20 feet? 50 feet? Playing with your Valkyries on skyscrapers again? If its the "A" bar piece that the boosters attach to, that is high-impact plastic! Are you sure that it wasn't already broken right out of the box? That's very possible, considering that the small antenna on the armpiece on mine was later found in the plastic tray inside the box. Ben

Er...that's actually supposed to be Minmay in a standard EVA suit, the same ones worn by Misa and Kaifun when they chased after Hikaru's VT-1 in the "Rabbit" shuttle. Personally, I think the helmet sort of has a "mouse-ear" look to it.

Graham has already revealed that Yamato WILL make an SDF-1 at some point, but it may be the last Macross item made; sort of like the proverbial icing on the cake. And I remember that it may be the DYRL version, although I can't remember where I read that part. Ben B)

What these constant lawsuits against P2P sites will do is simply force downloaders to switch to setups like the iMacross servers. These servers have the material (music, video, games) uploaded to them instead of people browsing each other's computers to do so. Also, the iMacross servers are significantly harder to log on to--password, IP address and preset usernames, so it isn't as easy for "industry informants" to simply run the program and gain access for the sole purpose of monitoring a user's actions. If KaZaa, Napster, WinMX, etc. were set up similar to this, the MP3s contained on those servers wouldn't be so easy to distribute. There's also the issue of bandwidth. Only a certain number of users are allowed onto the server at a time, as opposed to the millions of users on KaZaa at any given time. Just a thought. Does anyone see where I'm trying to go with this rambling? Ben

Now don't get me wrong, I still love my Yammies. But for all the time and redesign that supposedly went into the Elintseeker and Super-O, I would have expected at least a few of the smaller problems seen in earlier 1/60 releases finally addressed, since these are the last of the 1/60 line. Honestly, I wasn't expecting miracles here, but at the very least fix the loose-hip problem that makes the FAST Packs too heavy for it. If that had been addressed, I'd have been singing my usual praises for Yamato. I can even get used to the big fugly hardpoint for the radome. Probably with a little more persuasion, I'll end up caving in and buying the Super-O too. I'm too much of a Valkyholic to pass up a design that hasn't seen the light of day since 1984. The final product was just a little off-setting, that's all.

I just got my 1/60 Elintseeker today from Twin Moons Anime, and was stoked about it...until I took it out of its packing box. The fighter was packaged with the backpack in FAST Pack position to hide the stubby stabilizers, but at the same time shows the permanent (and VERY noticable) radar arm hardpoint. So far, I wasn't impressed. I took it out of the box and did a once-over of it. The nosecone is fugly to me. Its too round and looks like a banana with the bright schoolbus yellow that was used on it. The pilots look like resuses of the VF-1J Max pilots and tend to have the pencil eraser look to them, like the Guld pilot that came with the 1/72 YF-21 FP earlier this year. The head unit looks WAY too small, even for an Elintseeker and the radome has major problems staying up when in battroid mode. And the legs are somewhat loose at the hip joints, making the mecha want to do a backbend because of the FAST Packs. Overall, nothing has been improved on this new generation of 1/60s at all except the new backpack lock. I'll be passing on the VT-1 now that I've seen the alternative.

I came across a closeup pic of the Yamato VT-1 and noticed something that shocked me. The tailfins are tiny! It almost looks like it couldn't fly in an atmosphere with tailfins that small. Did they make them that small to accomodate the weird FAST pack placement or are they actually that small in DYRL lineart? PS: I do like how they included Minmay with the SO instead of a nondescript copilot.