Put Us Out Of Our Misery!

[Sphinxter]

I've been in this project pretty deep, sucking up info like a sponge.

squeezes and wrings out mali over the sink

 

[Sphinxter]

I wonder who here has put up their whole house as collateral just so they can sell an underdog games machine to a bunch of teenagers/aging geeks? Craig, thats who.

Sure, you might feel you've invested a lot of money - 300 bucks - but you know who is going to lose his house if this project doesn't ship and make a profit? Craig, thats who.

So, try to have a little context. My nose might be brown but at least I'm not going to lose everything if we all cancel Pandora orders ..

So you're saying this cost over 1.25 million usd?

 

[urjaman]

I've been in this project pretty deep, sucking up info like a sponge.

squeezes and wrings out mali over the sink

Poor mali, that sounds *ouch* :/

 

[b1llygo4t]

what amuses me most about these forums are the multitude of defects from every camp there seems to be.

the daily moaner whos bile persists like a hangover from the various problems we have, relentless in their critisism but with nothing better to do and nowhere better to go than to just stick here

the information junkies who need hard facts immediately but are never going to get them

the exploding trolls who will turn up every few months and either jump in the deep end screaming and cursing everything to do with pandora or who just blow up with frustration at the above two categories

the AWOL witness, content to see people spout crap all day but wont put themselves remotely on the line to put anyone right

the troll feeders, who will try and reason with idiots until they cancel their orders in their own frustrations

etc, etc

this place has seen more retard going on that ive seen anywhere other than /b/ and its almost incredible that a group of supposedly civil intellectual people could end up involved in something so ridiculously self debasing. in fact, a lot of the people who have an almost /b/-like sense of humour here are actually the far more level individuals which really says something.

from my part i am well aware that i am in the exploding troll category, but then noone has limitless patience.

of all the things that go on here though, i do not understand the critisism towards people like the unofficial blog team. sure, someone like poisoned v was relieved of his duties but he was always going to incorporate his own opinion into what was going on rather than attempt to report on whatever news was available. they do a good job considering the climate and i just dont understand the critisism.

this place seriously needs to get a grip.

rules 1 and 2!

and trust ebaums is worse than this.

 

[Poem58]

If I'm not mistaken these charges or their potential are supposed to be declared when purchasing and I wsas told it was paid in full and to wait for shipping confirmation and enjoy my Pandora.

Hi, Poem58. You may have missed it when I responded to this in another thread recently, but import duties on stuff for personal use are generally the responsibility of the buyer to be aware of (at the very least, I'm not aware of any requirement for a store abroad to tell a person that the country the buyer is from may or may not charge the buyer a fee when the goods arrive in the country - do feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though! ). It's an easy thing to overlook if you don't often import things, or if you usually import goods at or below the threshold for goods for personal use (in the US, that's $200, if memory serves - where I'm from it's only £18 ). I recall that I didn't realise this when I first imported stuff.

You'll sometimes find that stuff about import duties in foreign lands may not be mentioned by some online sellers, partly because it's the buyer's responsibility to deal with those things, but also partly because there's never any guarantee that you will or won't be charged customs duties by the officials in your country once your goods arrive there (and of course, the sellers have no way of knowing which way that will go, either). I tend to get the impression that stuff seemingly gets picked at random for checks and/or charges. :lol:

This is (and has been for a number of years) my experience of importing, anyway. If anyone knows better, then please feel free to correct this information - I can only speak from experience and from what information I've gathered elsewhere during that time.

I wish I could provide information that's more useful to you than that, but I'm fairly sure that the above is all that can be said about it.

EDIT: Whoops, I forgot something. Sometimes fees can also depend on the shipping service you're using. My experience with, for example, Royal Mail, UPS, DHL, and the like, is that whilst the customs fees can actually be quite small, the shipper's handling fees (for dealing with the customs stuff and the package) can sometimes be a bit pricey.

Yes, I know this is fine. My point was that they have said many times they have the whole thing worked out, planned etc. However it won't be for another week or so that they can even answer if they will or will not ship the US orders from the US or not? These "inconsistancies" as Mali put it are the kind of thing one would find annoying. the wait I can understand, this is a difficult project, however all things we have never gotten an answer to and the lack of a response as to what the plan even is makes one feel a bit worried. It also makes things like the possible import tax fee's hard to know to expect. I appreciate the fee is my responsibility, however knowing if they are going to ship from Location A versus location B, and not knowing that yet, seems just a tad strange. At least one would expect a "we want to ship from Location A and will unless some issue prevents it" it's been listed as a "maybe" that's all.
At the time I was highly concerned as our Pandora's were supposed to finished in approx 2 months and I had just been laid off. It's been nearly 10 months from when I inquired and they still cannot answer. Thankfully the answer should come soon, and despite being laid off work yet again, it may come in time for me to plan for a fee if necessary or cancel if the prospected fee is unreasonable (once guesstimated as high as $150 which I would find completely unacceptable for this device on top of the original cost) Having done international shipping for awhile they shoudl be able to answer basic questions about this.
Hopefully it ships from Texas and no further problems happen. I still say when we get our Pandora's we will no longer care about anything that has bothered any of us, as we will be having too much fun playing!!!

 

[Asmo]

I wonder who here has put up their whole house as collateral just so they can sell an underdog games machine to a bunch of teenagers/aging geeks? Craig, thats who.

I hear he sold a kidney and one lung to finance the extra memory on the Nand.

 

[Kyo]

I wonder who here has put up their whole house as collateral just so they can sell an underdog games machine to a bunch of teenagers/aging geeks? Craig, thats who.

Sure, you might feel you've invested a lot of money - 300 bucks - but you know who is going to lose his house if this project doesn't ship and make a profit? Craig, thats who.

So, try to have a little context. My nose might be brown but at least I'm not going to lose everything if we all cancel Pandora orders ..

Yeah, I'm sure he did that to give little kids pandoras and not for profit reasons. Honestly, what kind of argument is that? The guy risked something to get his project done so everything he does is completely justified by that and he gets a "get out of criticism" card? This is not monopoly, my friend

 

[Prometheus]

@Poem58 - Ahh, I see what you mean. Here's hoping that the US orders do get shipped from the US, eh?

I completely agree about having too much fun playing stuff, too.

 

[mali]

Poor mali, that sounds *ouch* :/

*joyful*
j/k
Glad I got rid of that ballast

 

[mali]

So, where were we? Ah yes, Pandora my dream handheld

 

[MonkeyChops]

didn't you say that you didn't pre-order mali? or has that changed?

 

[Chest Rockwell]

what amuses me most about these forums are the multitude of defects from every camp there seems to be.

the daily moaner whos bile persists like a hangover from the various problems we have, relentless in their critisism but with nothing better to do and nowhere better to go than to just stick here

the information junkies who need hard facts immediately but are never going to get them

the exploding trolls who will turn up every few months and either jump in the deep end screaming and cursing everything to do with pandora or who just blow up with frustration at the above two categories

the AWOL witness, content to see people spout crap all day but wont put themselves remotely on the line to put anyone right

the troll feeders, who will try and reason with idiots until they cancel their orders in their own frustrations

etc, etc

this place has seen more retard going on that ive seen anywhere other than /b/ and its almost incredible that a group of supposedly civil intellectual people could end up involved in something so ridiculously self debasing. in fact, a lot of the people who have an almost /b/-like sense of humour here are actually the far more level individuals which really says something.

from my part i am well aware that i am in the exploding troll category, but then noone has limitless patience.

of all the things that go on here though, i do not understand the critisism towards people like the unofficial blog team. sure, someone like poisoned v was relieved of his duties but he was always going to incorporate his own opinion into what was going on rather than attempt to report on whatever news was available. they do a good job considering the climate and i just dont understand the critisism.

this place seriously needs to get a grip.

rules 1 and 2!

and trust ebaums is worse than this.

4chan isn't a secret anymore. Every middle school kid in the world knows about it. Stop pretending you're in an internet cool kids club for going there.

 

[Poem58]

poem, we had this out in that thread, but my own initial response was a result of my own frustration, checking the board too often, a run of similar demanding sounding threads (ill accept a language barrier as a possibility, but if i read it the way it sounded it would seem very patronising) and a low patch in a trough of bipolar depression. you got the sore end of that stick and im not gonna patronise you by apologising. i was wicked pissed.

either way though, i think its presumptuous to think this project has been a carefully and intentionally orchestrated endeavour. any plans went out of the window with the credit cards and the economic crisis and since then, things have just been done as and when they could be done. i dont know any of the OP team at all, but noone is stupid enough to think "fuck it, ill make my life a misery and lie to you all, see how long i can drag it out". information has been unreliable because everyone the company has worked with has been unreliable. there has been problem after problem and they've had nothing but shit and poor information from everyone. just look at this china business. both ED and craig expected all this done months ago, but when its out of your hands you just have to sit it out til its done. so craig has tried to engage and assuage the fretting of the pre-orderers, well the more you relay someone elses bad information the more you open yourself up to critisism. and where do you think everyone gets their information? do you think one person asks one source, and someone else asks another better source? they tell us the same things from the same sources in the end and its sad to think that holding back actually makes you somehow more acceptable to public opinion.

this whole project has been a nightmare but i just think people are lashing out at the nearest people available rather than just looking at the situation we are in and accepting it is out of everyones hands. how can you manage any better when no matter how much you plead and pester, its gonna get done when it gets done?

if anyone can give me one genuine way that this project could have been delivered any better for the same costs and with the same materials then i will be amazed

Yeah, I don't recall having it out as you put it. And never did I insinuate that they are dragging it out by lying intentionally. My questions in that thread as I stated at the beginning before even asking them were ones I had collected that were asked in other threads yet never answered. I asked them in a less demanding way, and clarified they need not give definite's but the plan of what was to happen would be nice to know to make everyone calm down and instil confidence where people were crying foul. I even asked that if someone didn't know the answer they refrain from commenting as I wanted to give OP the opportunity to address these to calm everyone down. I'm not sure what language barrier there might be, but your english seemed quite good and very understandable. for some reason you were hung up on the fact that many of my questions had "What is the Plan?" as the actual question. You made the fact that is was repeated as some sort of negative, and then people joined in. the fact is that the thread would have been just fine if no one had said anything, then it would have showed they chose not to answer cause there was no plan yet, instead it became a bashing thread and melted down to ridiculousness. The very thing I asked not happen as I was trying to help by asking the questions in a less demanding way. Instead we got not one ounce of information, so what did all the crap serve? Oh, I guess it served to tell me that If i noticed no answer to a question then I am not allowed to ask for any details or it means I don't trust the team or they are lying. Whatever. the point it there are still questions unanswered that should at least have tentative answers by now. I don't even have a vested interest in many of the questions I asked, it was for others.
I just want my Pandora. I have waited and will continue to wait. Just like others, even if I think something is foul about an aspect of the process, as long as I get my Pandora, I will deal with it. I do want it that bad. Kyosys has every right not to give Craig his money, just as he's not judging someone like me for giving him my money. We all know that this project has had some less than fully honest things happen, some can argue that they are justified, some argue they are not, some will say I am wrong for this very statement. This is what makes this project beautiful. The community around this is so passionate that we all believe different things, so many things have gone wrong that would have destroyed any other project. At the end of the day, when the Pandora's ship, I hope the team has learned what was good and what was bad about how this went down and try to avoid problems from now on. Also, at the end the project will succeed just because of what it means...community. No matter what this is the thing that makes the Pandora. This is what will make it succeed or fail, not how the difficulties of batch one went down, but how things go for batch 2 and beyond.

 

[mali]

didn't you say that you didn't pre-order mali? or has that changed?

Oh, I almost forgot :lol:
No, still 2nd batcher. I've not definitely decided to not try to come back in the first batch, but signs point to staying prepared for the 2nd batch. Info trawling is part of the fun for me. I'm one of those people who like the thrill of anticipation

 

[MonkeyChops]

I'm one of those people who like the thrill of anticipation

plenty of that here, that's for sure.


Edit:
Confirmed: Mali has a balloon popping fetish

 

[kingoddball]

Mali: You what!?

2nd Batch? Wow. After all the knowledge you have and how much effort you put into these forums to make it easier for everyone - I would have thought you ordered early days! andora2ut4:

 

[Poem58]

@Poem58 - Ahh, I see what you mean. Here's hoping that the US orders do get shipped from the US, eh?

I completely agree about having too much fun playing stuff, too.

This is why I keep saying once they ship, we can forget all about the wait for batch one. So much bad has happened to slow the team down. I'm sure they have made mistakes that have delayed the project. we could do no better, which is why we bought from them in the first place! The thing people need to remember when they bring up things like Sony and Nintendo is that none of them asked us to pay before they made say the PSP or the DS. SO yes to a degree, we do have the right to comaplin and ask questions and expect at least an idea of what to expect, however, we too make mistakes and sometimes go to far, or ask wrong or say something out of anger. We have to remember that we want this device so much that the depressed feelings of the wait add to the tension and make people more upset. Once the first batch is out, the software starts showing up, the firmware gets debugged, and we are all sharing how GOOD it is to use our Pandora's, we will only look back to this time and say "Man that was hard to deal with, but it's so worth it." Kinda like Childbirth? You forget the pain of the delivery only to do it again. I know most of us will be right back here when the Pandora 2 is announced, ready to send in our payment. Hopefully next time, it will go a little better. We can hope right!? LOL

 

[MonkeyChops]

Mali: You what!?

2nd Batch? Wow. After all the knowledge you have and how much effort you put into these forums to make it easier for everyone - I would have thought you ordered early days! andora2ut4:

you think that's crazy? I'm pretty sure Gruso is not in first batch either but he might get a free one anyways...

 

[mali]

Mali: You what!?

2nd Batch? Wow. After all the knowledge you have and how much effort you put into these forums to make it easier for everyone - I would have thought you ordered early days! andora2ut4:

I was order number 5 in the German shop and the German preorder began _before_ Craig's preorder, so that was pretty near the top of the List
I told the story before, I had a rough "discussion" with a MOD of the German boards and was already wounded by the keyboard layout discussion where I lost all my tiny little sweet umlauts. It was a reasonable solution to cancel at that time, because trawling the boards really took too much time and my motivation was rather wiped away.

 

[Kyo]

Man, it took me like half an hour to finish my order. I ordered right after it came online, too.