Premium Pandora's are annoying and slowing down the PreOrders

[Bosbeetle]

thats it!!!


I will be donating a small amount tonight

Thanks, I'll PM you my PayPal details.

well I thought I send them some money since they've already sent me 4 pandoras (sadly three of them were RMAs off course)

 

[trix]

Preface:


I'm a 1st batch pre-orderer that upgraded to Premium. I might have had mine by now anyway (no idea where I was in the queue, never asked), but I love this project and when I saw the opportunity to both help the team out AND get mine somewhat quicker, I was like HELL M'F'IN YEAH! Anyway I got mine a few days after placing the order (guaranteed shipping within 7 days, mine arrived 4 days after upgrade... sweet!), and I've been using it since. In fact, using it for school (Computer Engineering major @ University of Wisconsin) and play, I've been way too busy making love to the dpad, nubs, and USB 2.0 host port to be on here all that much. Lately I've been trying to set up a dev environment on the Pandora for the Pandora so I can try to port the dev version of freedroidrpg. Anyway that's not what I meant to say, that's just a kind of "who the hell is this guy". I just wanted to respond to a few people.


To the OP:


Dude, calm down. Seriously. Take a breath. First, it's just a gadget. An awesome gadget, to be sure, but it's not like the delay is banging your wife and daughter. Second, if you are going to accuse someone of lying, or call them a liar, it would make sense to not only have some sort of evidence (or better yet, PROOF) of your claim, but at the very fuggin least to be clear as to what lie they actually told! I mean, did somebody say they shipped 3000 units total and you have reason to believe they did not? No. They are trying to remain positive and emphasize the good news over the bad. DUH! They want us to keep the faith! If everyone gets all negative and cancels, you don't get your damn unit anyway. So really, man, smoke a joint or something. Do something meaningful with your life.


To craigx:


Dude, calm down. Seriously. Take a breath. First, it's just a gadget. An awesome gadget, to be sure, (and THANKS FOR MAKING IT!!!), but it's not like the OP is banging your wife and daughter. Second, as much as I've always been a huge fan of your non-customer-service "fuck you asshole cancel i dare you" approach to these types of posts over the years, you should really let EvilDragon be the first official response before you come in and get irritated about someone being irritated. This is the internet, EVERYONE here is a troll. I know you guys are working your asses off (I have my Pandora, I can tell {especially as a Computer Engineer in training} that this thing took insane amounts of perfecting and love), I know you are all tired, irritable, and throughout all the years of busting your ass to make the dream come true you've had to deal with this same never-ending series of "omfg you said Two Months you liar vaporware corrupt blah blah and you should do things THIS way cuz I said so" topics from gp32x and here, and mostly I know that you guys want to get them all out and sit back and take a deep breath and finally get to say OK ALL SHIPPED ASSHOLES ENJOY!. But, come on, responses like "I wish I could ban blah blah troll blah blah cancel then, bitch!" have got to be giving a very bad impression of your entire team to anyone who hasn't been around long enough to understand why you respond the way you do. So really, man, smoke a joint or something. You're doing something meaningful with your life.


Hell, send me your Paypal info and I'll buy you a pizza and a movie so you can have a night off.


To EvilDragon:


Once again I am impressed with your patience and that smooth way you have of bringing positivity to a very negative thread. Seriously, man, you are an amazing asset to the OP team. Every single one of your posts (and I've read at least 100 of them) puts me in a better mood and makes me smile. I don't mean to kiss your ass so hard, but you really do have a talent for throwing a very calm, level-headed, logical, and reassuring post at even the most ridiculously offensive trolls around. Somehow you out-troll the trolls without even trolling. Props, man.


Oh, completely unrelated, but I just had to mention that stuckie's efforts to help us dev on the pandora for the pandora are AWESOME!


Anyway, that's my 2 cents, I'll get off my soapbox now.


- trix

 

[Link]

This is my first post from my pandora, and I must say, this is way awesome. I'm giving jr a bath, and i would like to play my new 3DS, but sadly it is charging.


So I guess I'm just here to say the Pandora kicks much Ass, and units are being delivered, and the extra funds are being put to good use. So just sit back and take easy, more news and updates will happen when the team knows something new.


Chris

+1


I had no dead pixels on any unit I've received. Newest unit has a mm gap around the unit whereas no others had this. Most solid unit received thus far! Many thank you's.

 

[djaychela]

I think maybe a simple solution might be helpful here, if Craig is able to do this. Once a queue milestone is reached he could say "Now shipping in the XXXX range" so those who are wondering where they stand could get an Idea just how much farther the whole thing has gotten. I remembered someone had said, quite a few weeks ago, they were around 1100 in the queue and Craig had posted that theirs should be shipping from the next batch made. I think it's over a month now since then and I have no Idea where they are now. Being around the 1600 mark and hearing around 2000 Pandoras have been made, and hearing more are shipping premium or not, doesn't help me know where I stand at all.


I'm all for patient waiting but it can alleviate the wait by knowing just how much closer you are. Hope this is a doable and helpful idea.

Makes sense to me, and I say that as someone whose Pandora has arrived today (but I'm at work so need to wait a few more hours!) - a lot of the negative feeling on the boards would go away if sensible updates were posted on the site in a regular fashion. It wouldn't take much work to do it, but the problem is that OPT seems committed to being pig-headed about this situation; whether that is because of genuine disarray, a lack of perception, an attempt to spin the situation or a personality culture I have no idea, but whatever it is it's not helping those who have invested money a long time ago in the unit. Clearly the whole queue situation is a mess, which doesn't help matters, but using a fairly simple database system would have meant none of this would have happened. I'm no programmer but even I could have knocked up something worthwhile in a day or two. I just hope that OPT learns the lessons of this and that the future looks brighter - I'm certainly pleased about the Pandora finally being here, and I also appreciate that the Premium devices were a necessary evil. I just hope the unit has a future, as does the team.

 

[hakmanplayer]

this troll would love a free pizza and a movie.

 

[Exophase]

Tell me how they're supposed to make your pre-order unit at a financial loss. From what I understand, the pre-order units were sold below cost in order to jump start the project.

OP would never knowingly offer a product at a loss. They lost money on unforeseen costs that happened later, for instance the nub company screwing them and the overhead associated with a high number of RMAs.

Here's how it works. A company designs a product. They want to sell it. So they find investors to help them start up the company.

Here's how I kind of figure it works. In OP's case, they found investors, YOU, to pay for an under-cost unit to be delivered at an unspecified time to secure the contracts to start building the equipment.

This is absolutely not how it worked - OP took preorders, not investment money, and it wasn't for delivery at an unspecified time, it was for delivery at the end of November 2008.

In theory, more Premium orders means more production, which means more pre-orders get shipped out. So a piece of advice I have for you is that you could try to get more people to buy the product.

So long as there isn't another bottleneck. To OP's credit, I do believe that they've increased production for a while due to the extra money (although it doesn't sound like it was an awful lot). But now they can't if the board production rate is the limiting factor, which according to ED is currently the case. Hopefully this will change. But right now more orders is the last thing OP needs to increase production rate. The premiums are limited quantity so there's a cap - after that I'm not sure if OP is taking more preorders at all (don't know if batch 2 was completely filled) but they'd probably be at $500, and it's not really compelling to pay that for something that'll be a long time coming. Not when there could be a bid for more premiums instead.

 

[trix]

trix, you should consider being a helping hand at Pandora Press, your writing skills are AWESOME! :lol:

Thank you for the compliment! However, as a full time student aiming for a PhD in Geek, Arby's employee, avid video gamer, Linux/Open Source hobbyist, and the very strange fact that I have a hot girlfriend that demands large quantities of my remaining free time, I don't even have time to sleep more then 4 or 5 hours a night, let alone do some freelance writing on any official basis.


When I posted that and another big post in another thread, that was one of the very rare occasions when I have the time to truly speak my mind, as well as actually having something meaningful to contribute.


Besides, English was one of my least favorite classes. Just because I can do it doesn't mean I find it particularly enjoyable.


I do appreciate the compliment though, I wasn't sure how many people would bother to read through that large wall of text.


- trix

 

[UberDub]

Investors......too complicated, or too many hands in the cookie jar? There I said it. Call me a troll, I dont care any more.

 

[Blue Protoman]

Too many hands in the cookie jar. If OP wants investors, they should be from the community. These people can get extremely greedy.

 

[Asiyura]

I love how you seem to think that OpenPandora makes massive amounts of cash when they barely manage to survive…

 

[Blue Protoman]

Me? I know damn well that they're NOT rolling in cash.

 

[Scntrblob]

Maybe he just has a pandora with x86?

 

[UberDub]

Too many hands in the cookie jar. If OP wants investors, they should be from the community. These people can get extremely greedy.

Seems they already pulled their investments from the community...... So, just want to make sure I got this right. Its ok to take thousands of peoples money for years, to finance your company, but its not ok, and their greedy if they want a piece of the pie? Plain an simple to me. Why would Craig give up a piece, when the community has already invested, and paid for it, with no gain, but their product years later? Well, hopefully..someday....get their product. Then when things finally start rolling, put those investors without shares/customers on the back burner to make room, for "premium" johnny come lately customers. Heaven forbid sharing profits, and offering those people a share, to bring in cash flow. Oh, and if they get frustrated, or complain about it just tell them to go fuck themselves. Sorry, but not much of this project has made good business sense to me. I hate saying it, but it seems like the response from Craig is..oh you dont like it? Fuck you, Ive already had your money for years now. Go buy a PSP. Is that really how you talk to people that youve been hanging on to their money for years, to finance your company? Ive been biting my tongue for a while, but I cant help but feel as if the community has been taken advantage of. And before someone starts spouting off about, well they havent made any real profits to share with any one. They havent made any money, cause the business end of this is one big cluster fuck, on the communities dime. I just think the upfront approach, and ethical thing to do, from the onset, would have been to take investors from the community, not use thousands of peoples money for years, to finance their business. Seems we are just a bank to Craig, with no interest rate. Everyone is just supposed to sit back, shut up, and wait.....indefinitely. Im sorry massive amounts of preorders from the community is no way to ethically finance, or upstart your company. IMO premium orders were not the ethical thing to do. If OP needed cash flow, they shouldve offered the community(who without them none of this would exist)shares. But that would mean sharing the cookie jar, like all the preorderers did with OP.

 

[craigix]

Too many hands in the cookie jar. If OP wants investors, they should be from the community. These people can get extremely greedy.

Seems they already pulled their investments from the community...... So, just want to make sure I got this right. Its ok to take thousands of peoples money for years, to finance your company, but its not ok, and their greedy if they want a piece of the pie? Plain an simple to me. Why would Craig give up a piece, when the community has already invested, and paid for it, with no gain, but their product years later? Well, hopefully..someday....get their product. Then when things finally start rolling, put those investors without shares/customers on the back burner to make room, for "premium" johnny come lately customers. Heaven forbid sharing profits, and offering those people a share, to bring in cash flow. Oh, and if they get frustrated, or complain about it just tell them to go fuck themselves. Sorry, but not much of this project has made good business sense to me. I hate saying it, but it seems like the response from Craig is..oh you dont like it? Fuck you, Ive already had your money for years now. Go buy a PSP. Is that really how you talk to people that youve been hanging on to their money for years, to finance your company? Ive been biting my tongue for a while, but I cant help but feel as if the community has been taken advantage of. And before someone starts spouting off about, well they havent made any real profits to share with any one. They havent made any money, cause the business end of this is one big cluster fuck, on the communities dime. I just think the upfront approach, and ethical thing to do, from the onset, would have been to take investors from the community, not use thousands of peoples money for years, to finance their business. Seems we are just a bank to Craig, with no interest rate. Everyone is just supposed to sit back, shut up, and wait.....indefinitely. Im sorry massive amounts of preorders from the community is no way to ethically finance, or upstart your company. IMO premium orders were not the ethical thing to do. If OP needed cash flow, they shouldve offered the community(who without them none of this would exist)shares. But that would mean sharing the cookie jar, like all the preorderers did with OP.

There are no profits you wall-of-text loon. The goal now is simply to complete the project and ship all the units for us to all enjoy, then have a rest. Then start another 'console idea' thread.

 

[Asiyura]

Me? I know damn well that they're NOT rolling in cash.

It was not aimed at you, but at him ↓↓↓

Seems they already pulled their investments from the community...... So, just want to make sure I got this right. Its ok to take thousands of peoples money for years, to finance your company, but its not ok, and their greedy if they want a piece of the pie? […]

 

[htl2001]

Investors......too complicated, or too many hands in the cookie jar? There I said it. Call me a troll, I dont care any more.

Early in the project (before preorders etc):


Too many hands trying to grab the wheel and steer them off the road


Recently (I actually tend to bring this up every so often when money is discussed, since I'd invest):


Craig indicated that it is indeed a very complicated issue. It does create a whole new set of liabilities, so you have to be VERY careful with it.

 

[Link]

Investors......too complicated, or too many hands in the cookie jar? There I said it. Call me a troll, I dont care any more.

Early in the project (before preorders etc):


Too many hands trying to grab the wheel and steer them off the road


Recently (I actually tend to bring this up every so often when money is discussed, since I'd invest):


Craig indicated that it is indeed a very complicated issue. It does create a whole new set of liabilities, so you have to be VERY careful with it.

Unless you are Facebook and Goldman Sachs, then you make your own rules.

 

[Poem58]

Unless you are Facebook and Goldman Sachs, then you make your own rules.

I see nothing wrong with Golden Sacks, they hold all my coins whilst I ride my unicorn. Although my name is Mike, I will temporarily be Frank and exclaim anyone with the face of a book, or who has a book full of faces may need to seek medical attention.

 

[bzar]

UberDub: Everything makes so much more sense if you think of openpandora not as a business or a company, but a project to get a small group of people what they want instead of what businesses and companies offer. Don't think of profits or business ideas, think people putting their money together to buy a pizza. In this case buying ingredients for a meal, and the cooks doing all the work get to keep the leftovers.

 

[UberDub]

Too many hands in the cookie jar. If OP wants investors, they should be from the community. These people can get extremely greedy.

Seems they already pulled their investments from the community...... So, just want to make sure I got this right. Its ok to take thousands of peoples money for years, to finance your company, but its not ok, and their greedy if they want a piece of the pie? Plain an simple to me. Why would Craig give up a piece, when the community has already invested, and paid for it, with no gain, but their product years later? Well, hopefully..someday....get their product. Then when things finally start rolling, put those investors without shares/customers on the back burner to make room, for "premium" johnny come lately customers. Heaven forbid sharing profits, and offering those people a share, to bring in cash flow. Oh, and if they get frustrated, or complain about it just tell them to go fuck themselves. Sorry, but not much of this project has made good business sense to me. I hate saying it, but it seems like the response from Craig is..oh you dont like it? Fuck you, Ive already had your money for years now. Go buy a PSP. Is that really how you talk to people that youve been hanging on to their money for years, to finance your company? Ive been biting my tongue for a while, but I cant help but feel as if the community has been taken advantage of. And before someone starts spouting off about, well they havent made any real profits to share with any one. They havent made any money, cause the business end of this is one big cluster fuck, on the communities dime. I just think the upfront approach, and ethical thing to do, from the onset, would have been to take investors from the community, not use thousands of peoples money for years, to finance their business. Seems we are just a bank to Craig, with no interest rate. Everyone is just supposed to sit back, shut up, and wait.....indefinitely. Im sorry massive amounts of preorders from the community is no way to ethically finance, or upstart your company. IMO premium orders were not the ethical thing to do. If OP needed cash flow, they shouldve offered the community(who without them none of this would exist)shares. But that would mean sharing the cookie jar, like all the preorderers did with OP.

There are no profits you wall-of-text loon. The goal now is simply to complete the project and ship all the units for us to all enjoy, then have a rest. Then start another 'console idea' thread.

Thats great kid. You dont have to be a dick about it. Fuck do chearta Béarla. Such an internet tough little limey boy. Keep drinking milk, and someday.... LOL, something tells me your not that mouthy in real life. Ive been watching since day 1. Im the type, instead of helping things along by preordering, and waiting for years, I couldve invested say 40-50k, but whatever, its been fun to watch. I was that interested at one point. Have a good one.

UberDub: Everything makes so much more sense if you think of openpandora not as a business or a company, but a project to get a small group of people what they want instead of what businesses and companies offer. Don't think of profits or business ideas, think people putting their money together to buy a pizza. In this case buying ingredients for a meal, and the cooks doing all the work get to keep the leftovers.

Sorry, thats what it takes to get a product to market. Sad, but true. If it had been thought of that way, people wouldve had their units long ago, and the next console would probably be on the drawing board already. Not hatin, just statin. I hear ya, really, I do. Its just not a realistic outlook, for the longevity of OP, IMO. You really think you can keep going on this business model? Like it or not, it is a business. Money talks boys, money talks. Its the way of the world. As they say dont hate the player, hate the game. Money is what keeps the wheels on the bus turnin.

Investors......too complicated, or too many hands in the cookie jar? There I said it. Call me a troll, I dont care any more.

Early in the project (before preorders etc):


Too many hands trying to grab the wheel and steer them off the road


Recently (I actually tend to bring this up every so often when money is discussed, since I'd invest):


Craig indicated that it is indeed a very complicated issue. It does create a whole new set of liabilities, so you have to be VERY careful with it.

Any thing worth doing is complicated. I had MBA's willing to donate their services for free to get it done, just because they thought it was a cool linux project. Well, that and they want to show it off to their friends at activison, who happen to be next door. Its an old friends firm, hes based out of LA, owes me a couple favors too.