Banhammered!

As many people know, as of Wednesday, I have been Banned from the WWX forums. Forever. So, I probably won’t be giving any reviews, good or bad, of their product. I am also fairly certain I won’t be playing the game as they have cut me off from the tournament rules, announcements of the locations of tournaments, and anyone that could possibly want to play, with the exception of one. Sadly, I’ve left behind a few people that I have no other way of contacting. Fortunately, I get to leave behind the pompous prick that was Romeo, same guy from battlefoam and a hundred other incidents in internet infamy.

Now, let me start out with the two things that really got me kicked out.
The post, saved on the internet by my friend and Google
and my Podcast Interview.

Take note that they are from Jan. 24 and Feb 28, and that I only was banned sometime between 3/17 and 3/27. After the Podcast, I felt very cathartic and hand’t even posted a whole lot on the forums. I asked about Irontooth, the new catman Warrior nation dude, and Chatted with a few people here and there. I would check for official rulings on this rule or that, because they were written by someone who is terrible at ironclad rules.

Before I go any further, though, I want to state this: I have no problem With Sean and Ross, two of the admins, and with anyone else in the company, that I know of, outside of Romeo. I know from listening to the Gamers Lounge that Romeo isn’t even really a part of the creative forces behind WWX. He was approached as a financial aid that I think will single-handedly end the game, and cause it to die a slow, painful, bankrupting death for the people who had a good idea and a solid thought process for a game. Romeo’s heavy handed actions, his inability to take criticism, and his unwavering defense of poor concepts and Ideas is beyond a doubt the only reason that the game will fail. I will state, though, that I have had a beer or two with Romeo and his wife, and that even though Battlefoam was being litigious pricks at the time, I defended him. Why? Because he is not an act. The Romeo you see on his Battlefoam commercials is exactly what he is everyday. Supposedly he is different while gaming, but I’m not particularly convinced. He’s a salesmen through and through, and it just seems to be his blood.

Ok, so. WWX’s ban is so mind boggling to me because it took so long to come around, with nearly a month passing between when I had the podcast aired and I got banned, with no warnings. I didn’t get any capacity to see the gears churning and find out that what I did was completely not going to float. Now, I know the bear I was poking, and I figured it was simply a matter of time before I got a warning or a temporary ban, but I never expected them to go so far.

Every post deleted.
Every thread nuked
My account deletedEvery IP address banned.

They treated me like I was some sort of apostate. But, now that I think of it, it happened before. One one of my threads a few posts just out and out disappeared, and I thought nothing of it. Turns out, this is the method of banning: Complete censorship. Its like I never even existed to the forums.

Forgive me if this seems out of line, but is this any way to treat an investor? Someone who backed you when you had no money at all? Someone who bought into the game, gave you money to make it because it looked like a pretty good idea, and then complained not that the game was bad, but that the game needed to be improved? Its abysmal. Is beyond insane.

Now, is the game bad? I’m pretty sure it is. I’ve gone on at length about why its bad on both the podcast and the post, so I won’t tread old ground again here. The game is going to continue being bad, however, until Romeo and Outlaw miniatures part ways. His updates on kickstarter where simply whining complaints targeted at the customers themselves for being so needy. Lemme pull one up here, how about the first one. I’ll use bold to call out the parts I found to be condescending. Maybe I am to touchy, but here we go.

Hello backers, We are starting a progress thread to keep everyone up to date.

These will go up on Tuesday and Friday of each week until we can confirm without a doubt that the final package has been shipped.

This will also save everyone the trouble of emailing us and asking what is going on with their package. Please do not do that. 😉 We really are moving as fast as possible and do not have the man power right now to dedicate to reply to general emails.

We will do our best to answer emails within 48 hours but don’t get upset if it takes a day or two longer. Again, we want to dedicate all available staff to shipping.

We would also like to point out that now that we are getting into some of the large orders with 200 plus models it has gotten slower to ship. The biggest issue is no two orders are the same. We allowed backers to completely customize their rewards and that forces us to check and double check each shipment to make sure the correct items are heading out.

Even with a well thought out plan and dedicated people in shipping it does take time. We are doing our best and will simply update on Tuesdays and Fridays what amount of packages have shipped up to that point.

Please don’t let the number scare you. Shipping 20 corrupt level pledges is like sending out 100 wicked levels. This is just the nature of the beast at this point.

We also ask and suggest to send all emails to info@outlawminiatures.com. We will no longer check this comment area for questions.

We just do not have the time or people to do it correctly. The forum may also be a easier way to get in touch with us.

 Now, As I said, maybe I am touchy, but each of those could have been said in a less negative light. Seriously? The first thing you learn in Customer Service is tell people what you can do, not what you cannot! Lets skip a couple days ahead. Same exercise.

Total shipped so far.  

285 orders  

Please understand that progress is slow to guarantee that each of you get great models that you ordered. If we rush we may make a mistake and just upset you more.  

The reason for the slow shipping is the option we made available to all backers allowing for complete swapping of all goods in the kickstarter. This has led to no two orders being the same.  

That makes well over 1000 different orders each with specific needs and wants. Some larger order will be getting well over 200 models and each of those need to be checked.  

International customers are still being gathered for the final combined skid scheduled to ship later this month.  

Please remember that UK and EU customers have to ship together so that all international backers save on customs and duties. Only one pallet can be shipped to our UK partners for reship.  

Until all international orders are done the entire shipment is held up. Currently we are finalizing those boxes and waiting on a few more backers to send us their spread sheets.

If you are an international customer and you have not sent in your spread sheet by November 27th we will miss the mass shipment. 

This means you items will be shipped standard USPS and may be subject to additional charges in your country.  

We simply can not hold up all customers after the 27th. Our goal is still to complete all order before the holidays.  

More on Friday.

Honestly, just opening up with the lines that he did just keeps blaming the customer, but he just calls it shooting straight and being honest. Its not honest to tell customers that its their fault that the products aren’t shipping, its bullshit. Your taking none of the blame for yourself, nor are you allowing the customers to be considered intelligent enough to already know whats happening. Its a kickstarter, the company is small, there aren’t enough people. We know. Stop telling us its our fault and get working.

Also, there is the pledge levels that the Kickstarter had. They just didn’t feel organic. There was no way to just buy a single faction and all its friends unless you wanted to spend a kajillion dollars. Everything unlocked was an add-on, or only free to the very expensive packages. Bones did it right. 100 bucks gets you in and most of the products. Tack on some really cool addons, and call it a day. 100 bucks should be the good point, not 300. And while some discussion of the models looking foolish was heeded, many of them were not. I was completely psyched for the Wave 2 Warrior Nation Light Support to be revealed. However, when they finally were, they were a complete disappointment. The light support wave 1 was very cool looking Braves on Energy Beasts, that looked and felt right. The wave two were terrible wagons with guns strapped on. They had lost all originality already, and we’d not even made it from the kickstarter.

While I am disappointed that they banned me for life, I’m not going to stew on it. The forum tends to be a groupthink echochamber most of the time, with everyone fawning praise on Outlaw Miniatures in fear, or maybe in sycophantic desire to be noticed, while no one does anything constructive. I tried to get List discussion going on Irontooth, and on the Geronimo, but no one bit. I don’t think the rules are good, the forum can’t have me, the tournament system is trash (but getting better), and the spokesperson is a livid idiot. I hope, for the good people at Outlaw, they they can distanced themselves from him as soon as possible.

Now, I’ll sit and wait for my pledge repair kit to comes, so I can finish half the models in this blasted, ruined waste of space. Its only 4 months after I received my kit, and only a cursory response back in January. I may keep some of them, as they look like they’ll be amazing to paint and I’ll really learn how to paint skin, but I also have both bones kickstarters to paint, and that may take me the rest of my life.