Get MADE! Mob-Themed USPCC BICYCLE (KS)

[Widdee]

Tell me about it. I THINK I went for two gold, two silver and two ULE. I'm not even sure anymore.

I keep a Kickstarter folder in my e-mail and transfer updates to it so I'll have a record of them. I just started deleting these there were so damn many. It was like being tied to a chair and forced to watch a four week fireworks display.

[DragonSoul]

Spreadsheet! I couldn't live without it. Well, o.k. I could but, it definitely makes keeping track of my pledges and non-KS purchases much easier!

[Sher]

As dizzying arrays goes, this has been THE dizzying array of dizzying arrays. I pledged early and quit trying to keep up with it. Will pick up anything else I want off Backerkit when I can sit in peace and things don't move around.

Tell me about it. I THINK I went for two gold, two silver and two ULE. I'm not even sure anymore.

If you go to backer history and click on a project, there is a section where you can put notes. You can list your add ons there so you don't forget.

[Eoghann]

thanks. It was meant as a joke. As in I increased and lowered my pledge so many times I lost track of what I was pledging for.

[Mike Ratledge]

Hey guys, I'm not married to the idea, I just figured people would want some sort of seal on them. So you all are saying no on the standard seal? We can do that

no to the seal. just cellophane. is my vote

Yup, me too.

Custom seals are so inexpensive any more: we can get MPC-made 54-seal sheets, fully custom - for $3 / sheet up to 5, 6+ it's $2.50, and they can get them to you in about a week to ten days. (fully custom)

I can sell them a bit cheaper, as well. It's part of our partner arrangement with Quality Printing (QPP.com - owner of MPC).

I'll get in touch with Scott: too easy and too quick not to do, and I totally agree that the USPCC standard seals just won't look right with these decks.

[mmiikk]

i doubled my pledge, when there was talk of going without. i personally think in general the standard decks in this series look better without them.

[Gareth]

I'm getting progressively more annoyed about this deck. It was 'estimated' for delivery in October.

A quick timeline;
July 24: Funded.
Aug 30: Backerkit Lockdown
Oct 17: "proofs from Bicycle yesterday for MADE and sent them the approval"
Nov 5: contract received, but "contract issues that USPCC needs to correct"
Nov 15: "Contract signed"

And today we have;

...a quick update to let you know that we're STILL waiting on Bicycle for production. I'm REALLY sorry about this, but apparently, this is Bicycle's "busy season", so there's not much we can do about it other then complain to them about how long it's taking.

I've left a comment on this update, but I doubt I'll see a response; (<CRANKY_MODE=ON> )

So... it takes 3.5 months to go from becoming fully funded to sign a contract... and then you're complaining that they're not printed in a month..... Hmm... In perspective Golden Spike (USPCC), Colonial Unrest and Sawdust all funded after 'MADE', yet have been printed and in most cases in the backers hands..... and you're giving us excuses.

I guess I shouldn't be too upset, it's not like CK doesn't have a reputation for being late, but heck, each update seems to be rubbing the salt in more. (Not to mention that each update has been at least two thirds promotions for new projects - primarily Feudal or Orbiter).

[louizz]

And today we have;
Scott King (KS Update) wrote:
...a quick update to let you know that we're STILL waiting on Bicycle for production. I'm REALLY sorry about this, but apparently, this is Bicycle's "busy season", so there's not much we can do about it other then complain to them about how long it's taking.


I've left a comment on this update, but I doubt I'll see a response; (<CRANKY_MODE=ON> )
Gareth (in KS comment) wrote:
So... it takes 3.5 months to go from becoming fully funded to sign a contract... and then you're complaining that they're not printed in a month..... Hmm... In perspective Golden Spike (USPCC), Colonial Unrest and Sawdust all funded after 'MADE', yet have been printed and in most cases in the backers hands..... and you're giving us excuses.

I guess I shouldn't be too upset, it's not like CK doesn't have a reputation for being late, but heck, each update seems to be rubbing the salt in more. (Not to mention that each update has been at least two thirds promotions for new projects - primarily Feudal or Orbiter).

Hey there, Gareth! Why wouldn't I respond to this? No cranky mode! Turn it off! TURN IT OFF!!!

I'm really sorry about how long this is taking, but all I can say is that we're truly waiting on Bicycle. I don't really know what else to tell you, other than that. I do agree, that this has been a long process, and again I'm sorry for that. But, at the end of the day, I can assure you that you'll receive you order, and you'll hopefully love them.

Also, I do not shy away from situations like this, so please don't assume I won't respond to you. That would be rude on my part

[Jock1971]

I`m glad i dropped out on these before funding, and have just dropped out on the Feudal decks as well.

WHY ???

I`m still waiting for my Cards from the Card for Conquerors campaign... i can understand and expect delays etc..
what i don`t expect is the Project creator selling the cards on e-bay before fulfilling all pledges.
And i`m not talking about any old e-bay seller.YOU have been selling the viking decks on e-bay for the last month.
Don`t you think that the people who actually help you fund these cards deserve to get them before you start selling them off on e-bay.
Anyway because of this i will not be backing anything you do on Kickstarter from now on.

[louizz]

I`m still waiting for my Cards from the Card for Conquerors campaign... i can understand and expect delays etc..
what i don`t expect is the Project creator selling the cards on e-bay before fulfilling all pledges.
And i`m not talking about any old e-bay seller.YOU have been selling the viking decks on e-bay for the last month.
Don`t you think that the people who actually help you fund these cards deserve to get them before you start selling them off on e-bay.
Anyway because of this i will not be backing anything you do on Kickstarter from now on.

Hi there Jock! I completely respect your decision in this matter. But, I feel as though you should at least know a couple of things first.

Crooked Kings Fulfillment department and Business department are two entirely different units in the company and act as such.

The fulfillment department's soul purpose is to fulfill orders from projects. They are responsible for sending out the packages to all of the backers and supporters of our KS projects.

The Business department is responsible for managing things involving the sale of products after a project ends. This includes ebay, wholesale distributors, re-sellers, etc...

I completely understand your frustration with seeing ebay items for sale when fulfillment is still underway, but you have to figure that it's two different departments handling two different focuses, and it's much easier for the business department to sell and ship onesies/twosies on ebay opposed to the 900+ backers requiring very specific fulfillment requirements.

I assure you, that you will indeed get your cards, as we are not in the business of ripping people off, and as a new company we obviously have some kinks to work out in regards to our processes.

At the end of the day, you liked our cards enough to back them, so we're obviously doing something right in that regard, but our back-end support definitely needs some ironing out, which we are more then aware of.

I hope you reconsider our projects at some point, as we're only going to get better at support, and our goal is simply to provide folks like you with awesome cards that we really enjoy making.

Again, I apologize for you feeling this way, but I do want you to know that we're working on fulfilling all of the orders and nearing the end. Thanks!

[Jock1971]

Thank you for Replying to my post.
First off i would like to say that yes i do like the cards you have been doing.
Secondly,whether or not you have two different divisions doing seperate things, it is still the same company . and unfortunately until that company decides that backers come first, i will not be backing any of your company`s ventures in the future .
I could have bought the viking cards from at least 7 different places weeks before i actually get the cards, how many backers do you think are thinking the same thing at the moment. If all your backers start thinking like this you`ll not get funding on a future project as people will think why bother when i could get the cards much faster on the aftermarket.

[Sher]

And today we have;
Scott King (KS Update) wrote:
...a quick update to let you know that we're STILL waiting on Bicycle for production. I'm REALLY sorry about this, but apparently, this is Bicycle's "busy season", so there's not much we can do about it other then complain to them about how long it's taking.


I've left a comment on this update, but I doubt I'll see a response; (<CRANKY_MODE=ON> )
Gareth (in KS comment) wrote:
So... it takes 3.5 months to go from becoming fully funded to sign a contract... and then you're complaining that they're not printed in a month..... Hmm... In perspective Golden Spike (USPCC), Colonial Unrest and Sawdust all funded after 'MADE', yet have been printed and in most cases in the backers hands..... and you're giving us excuses.

I guess I shouldn't be too upset, it's not like CK doesn't have a reputation for being late, but heck, each update seems to be rubbing the salt in more. (Not to mention that each update has been at least two thirds promotions for new projects - primarily Feudal or Orbiter).

Hey there, Gareth! Why wouldn't I respond to this? No cranky mode! Turn it off! TURN IT OFF!!!

I'm really sorry about how long this is taking, but all I can say is that we're truly waiting on Bicycle. I don't really know what else to tell you, other than that. I do agree, that this has been a long process, and again I'm sorry for that. But, at the end of the day, I can assure you that you'll receive you order, and you'll hopefully love them.

Also, I do not shy away from situations like this, so please don't assume I won't respond to you. That would be rude on my part

I understand that as of right now, there is nothing you can do to speed up the process since production is totally in USPCC's control. However, I'm curious... why did it take over 3 months after getting funded to sign the contract?

[Gareth]

I'm really sorry about how long this is taking, but all I can say is that we're truly waiting on Bicycle. I don't really know what else to tell you, other than that. I do agree, that this has been a long process, and again I'm sorry for that.

Thanks for the reply louizz. I don't doubt that you/we are now waiting on USPCC. I guess my frustration is simply that it seemed to take a LONG time to get to USPCC, but then the cheap shot is blaming the printer that it is now waiting on. (And that other decks funded more recently have been printed by USPCC and are in delivery now...)

Honestly, re-reading all the updates since the project funded to double-check the timeline it became obvious that almost every update had considerably more plugs for one of the newer projects than actual information about this one. I guess it comes off a little like a sleezy salesman trying to push new widgets rather than caring too much about the one you've already paid for.

Which leaves the outstanding question from Sher;

I understand that as of right now, there is nothing you can do to speed up the process since production is totally in USPCC's control. However, I'm curious... why did it take over 3 months after getting funded to sign the contract?

[louizz]

Sher- Sorry for not responding back! I normally get updates when someone reply's to a post, so I must have overlooked this one. Good thing Gareth reposted!

So, that's a good question, and here's a breakdown of the timeline:

JULY 31/AUG 1 -- Surveys sent out, but since I use an AOL email account, it was causing issues for Backerkit on their end and not sending all of the emails out. I manually sent out links to backerkit as people were notifying me.
AUG 6 -- Backerkit fixed their issue, and emails were sent.
SEPT 2 -- Closed backerkit
SEPT 8th -- Sent final counts to USPCC for production and uploaded files
OCT 17 -- Received and approved proofs from USPCC
OCT 28 -- Received contract from USPCC (did not announce this one, as it was completely wrong- resent them an email notifying them)
NOV 4 -– Received updated contract, but it contained minor errors- sent back again for modifying
NOV 14 -– Received final contract. Paid.

Hopefully, this timeline will answer any questions you might have had. As you can see, we allowed a little over 1 month for backerkit surveys to be returned to us, and for us to send USPCC final counts. From there, it was over a month before we received the digital proofs back from USPCC... and almost another month before we got the contract nailed down.

So, here we are Dec. 23, 2014 and I STILL don't have the cards from USPCC...

Gareth, why would you doubt that we're still waiting on USPCC for production? I'm just curious as to what you're reasoning is.
Unfortunately, I have no way of "proving" that I don't have the cards, other then it would make no sense for me to have the cards and not be mailing them out. If you feel so inclined, you could even call USPCC and ask if these have been printed yet. They're not hard to get in contact with, and then you can hear for yourself that I don't have them yet. Bottom line is, that we got put into their busy season time frame and it's been a lot of "hurry-up and stop"

I'm really sorry about the timeframe on these, and do agree that this is RIDICULOUS, but truly there's nothing I can do in this situation other than wait. I really am an honest person, who really just wants to make fun decks of cards. I don't want to upset anyone or make them mad, but I've never been anything but honest in any of my projects, and I plan to continue to do so. I don't have the cards. The timeline is accurate. And, Bicycle's busy season started in late October and goes through the end of the year. I welcome you to contact the USPCC, as they're really not that difficult to get in touch with, to confirm any of this.

[Sher]

Thanks for the clarification, Louizz.

[ecNate]

To be fair, this was a MASSIVE project as well with multiple decks, tucks and add-ons. A very simple project has the option to simply sign before even all backers close out their surveys because of minimum run requirements - if you made more than enough to cover the minimum order and the number of decks requested was under that then yeah those can get signed super early. This one, not so much, I can't blame them for taking longer, there are certainly a lot of things to account for before signing.

As a side note, massive add-ons annoy and don't interest me, but waiting a few more months to let others get them is fine by me. Especially if somehow that helps get a better deck made with more funding.

[volantangel]

Of course you dont have your cards yet, its been barely over a month since your contract was finalized.

The real question here is that why couldnt you do some of the processes during the time at backerkit, like sending in the images for proofing etc basically lengthy stuff that would really cause bottlenecks in your processes. At the end of the day it came down to poor planning, the delays culmulated a total of about 3 weeks, and here you are going into your 3rd month late.

Did you do everything to ensure that the turnaround time was minimized ? Or was the priority spread out between this and upcoming projects. I think we can all be the judge of that ourselves.

[CBJ]

Getting closer.....

[volantangel]

These are in the proofing stage ?

[louizz]

No, these were photos from last week that the uspcc sent me. They got the tucks in, and I had asked them to send me photos so I could share them.

[CBJ]

They've started shipping!

[Eoghann]

Huzzah! Another set of decks I won't be getting anytime soon!

[Yashi]

Didn't jump in on these because of the amount of decks they dished out but gotta admit that I like that cotton club deck.

[ecNate]

Got mine today (Empire & Gold decks only). They really should have been embossed, that's my thing - all tucks should be embossed. Anyhow, I quite like them from an artistic perspective, especially since they have that art deco theme filtering through. It looks like the LE deck were hand signed afterall, which would be 2,500 of them between the 2 limited signed decks! Maybe that explains the delay too! The gold on black looks awesome and I really like the pips and indices.

What I found weird is how it came with an ad card for the Orbiter (v1) which never funded and oddly is advertising a product that doesn't exist (yet).

Anyhow, really glad I got these and don't regret not getting the other 4 either.


EDIT - Almost forgot, it came with this pin that I have not idea what I'll do with. Don't remember that being part of the deal, was that just an after thought freebie?

[cosmicsecret]

Those have hit the magic stores and i´m glad that i can pick them up cheaper then during the Kickstarter campaign (because of int. shipping cost).