Archiv der Kategorie: Catalyst Game Labs

BattleTech: Mercenaries – CGL does a shipping booboo? Internet rages!

Battletech, ,

So the fulfilment of the latest BattleTech Kickstarter „Mercenaries“ is drawing near. Backerkit has already collected the VAT for the pledge. All fine. Now the want to collect postage & delivery fees. Also fine except one thing:

In the campaign CGL said „local shipping rates“ would be to be expected for 90% of all backers. (see picture from campaign)

Now, here in Germany the main delivery service is Deutsche Post/DHL and a 10kg box, 500€ insured, tracked and up to 120 x 60 x 60 cm comes in at 10,49€.

Let’s have a peak on what backerkit is trying to charge:

$35.46 or 32,85€ – more than three times the usual shipping rate. Or almost 50% of my original pledge.

So how did this happen? Did CGL get greedy? I doubt it. Has Backerkit fucked up at some point and is calculating shipping from the US and not the promised EU hub? Maybe? Is there even a EU hub yet? I don’t know. Did some programmer just simply fucked their code up? Also a possibility. Easy to guess that the KS comments and the Facepage groups are „a bit up in arms“ right now.

And what does CGL say? I quote from the KS comments:

Hi there backers,

We have received notifications from backers that the shipping charges for orders, primarily internationally, have been above what was expected for this project. This is to say, we absolutely agree.

For some context, these are not charges that have been generated by BackerKit or Catalyst ourselves. Our fulfillment house has generated these shipping charges based on the current price of shipping as they see it and how it is to be shipped (PO boxes, sizes and amount of boxes to effectively ship, etc.) These charges are not meant to make profit on any backer’s order as they are being paid separately by us.

While we knew going with a higher quality shipper would be pricier, we did not know it would be to this level for some of you. There could be packing inefficiencies with especially small and large orders that could be leading to higher shipping charges to the best of our knowledge. We’ve spent last night spot-checking and pulling some of the more pricey charges to bring to our fulfillment house to see exactly how these charges are being calculated. If there is any part of these charges that does not seem correct to us, we will let you know and have these charges re-evaluated, likely pushing back our lock date.

There is a chance that these charges are correct and this is just the state of mass distribution. If that is the case, Loren and the distribution team plan to come up with a solution to help us stand with our backers.

We can assume that they will not be able to get back to us until after Easter weekend, where we should have a statement that I will post here updating all of you about the re-evaluation.

My next steps will be:

  • sit back
  • watch the mob run around headlessly with torches and pitchforks
  • have a cup of coffee
  • and wait till end of next week.

If it’s an honest mistake it will be sorted. If someone just fucked it up it will get sorted. If CGL comes forth and says „yeah, those *are* the shipping cost“ then I will grab my torch and fork and join the mob.

Have any of you backed at higher levels? How are your shipping costs looking?

Get Ready for BattleTech: Mercenaries

Battletech, Catalyst Game Labs, ,

Well well well… time moves fast. Yesterday CGL already shared details on the Battletech Mercenaries Kickstarter.

At first I was all „oh no! the last KS was much cheaper“. And *technically* I am correct. My last pledge was:

Clan Invasion:
Pledge US$ 50 or more
STAR COMMANDER

Command an entire Star of the Clans‘ finest war machines. This pledge rewards you with a new piece of BattleTech fiction (digital format, delivered during the campaign), a copy of the Clan Invasion box set, and your choice of available Clan Challenge Coins.

MECH COUNT: 5
Includes:

Free Short Story (digital format, delivered during the campaign)
Clan Challenge Coin
Clan Invasion Box Set

So ignoring all the stretch goals that was 5 mechs for 50 USD

Now if we take a closer look on the Merc box picture we see:

MECH COUNT: 8
Vehicle count: 4
1 Challenge Coin
„Double Blind“ digital novel
4″ Timber Wolf

That is 8 ‚mech for 80 USD (same price per mini) PLUS you get 4 vehicles and a 4″ display Mad Cat/Timber Wolf.

So did the „base pledge for new product“ get more expensive? Yes. Do we get more stuff? Also yes. It’s still „more money“ and there is no news yet on what shipping and import fees might add up to.

But I am excited!

Was schaffst du in 15 Minuten?

Allgemein, Battletech, , , ,

Nun, die Antwort hängt immer vom kausalem Zusammenhang ab. In diesem Fall: Miniaturen bemalen.

Und die Antwort ist

*dramatischer Trommelwirbel*

10 Battletech Mechs wenn man 31 Tage lang jeden Tag 15 Minuten pinselt.

Das ganze war eine Aktion vom YouTube Kanal Tableschmock und aus einer Bierlaune heraus habe ich einfach mal mitgemacht. Hier die Ergebnisse:

Persönlich bin ich sehr zufrieden mit dem Ergebnis. Besonders, weil ich in dieser Zeit üben konnte mit einer Lupenlampe zu malen.

Ja, das Alter und die Augen. Narf. Zorg!

Im Großen und Ganzen war es eine nette Sache, aber ich bin auch froh wieder in meinen Rhythmus zu kommen. Den ganzen Prozess habe ich auch im bewegten Bild festgehalten und beim letzten Teil gibt es dann auch noch 360° Ansichten der kleinen Racker. Wie immer, zu finden auf meinem Kanal:

Kampftechnik

Battletech, ,

Battletech fand ich ja schon immer gut aber es war irgendwie… tot? Am dahin siechen? Untot? Jedenfalls nicht ganz da aber auch nicht wirklich weg.

Als Catalyst Game Labs damals die Neuauflage ankündigte, war ich also sehr erfreut. Leider hat es dann sehr lange gedauert, bis CGL das Spiel wirklich raus gebracht hat. Und dann auch nur auf Englisch.

Ich habe mich ziemlich vergeblich bemüht herauszubekommen, wer es wo und wie in Deutschland vertreibt und ob es denn auf Deutsch kommen wird.

Dank der Morgi aus dem Magabotato Discord weiß ich jetzt etwas mehr. Denn sie hatte mich auf das hier gestoßen:

Zitat von Michael Mingers:

BattleTech

Wir arbeiten weiter daran, die alten Romane neu als Ebook verfügbar zu machen (und einige der ersten Veröffentlichung zu überarbeiten). Zeitnah wird Blindpartie erneut erscheinen und sehr bald kehrt auch endlich die legendäre Warrior-Trilogie zurück!

Für die Spielreihe sitzen wir an der Übersetzung der neuen Einsteigerbox von Catalyst. Wann diese dann aber auf Deutsch verfügbar wird, können wir leider noch nicht sagen.

Es kommt also wieder auf Deutsch, wenn auch erst einmal (scheinbar) nur die Einsteigerbox. Dann warten wir jetzt also alle mal fein ab ;)

Ich tippe auf Weihnachten 2019. Uhr ihr?