otherworld wrote:Anyone heard any recent news?

Allan posted a bit of info in the "Delta Green" thread in the Non-TSR area. Basically, Rob is still fighting an illness.  My suggestion was to get him to log onto USPS.com and see about shipping the items from his house.  If he has a scale at home he's all set....just needs some stamps (or to print his postage) and the mailman will pick up from his house. Unfortunately unless they go out this week we won't be seeing them this year I'm afraid...

Mike B.

I would love to receive Bottle City this year, but Rob's health is far more important.  I'm content to wait as long as necessary for him to recover.  I'm sure BC will be shipped sooner or later.  I'm so confident of this, I even placed an order for a couple of copies of "El Raja Key's Arcane Treasury and Daemonic & Arcane" a couple of days ago.

Update:  http://p085.ezboard.com/fpiedpiperpubli ... =429.topic

grodog wrote:Update:  http://p085.ezboard.com/fpiedpiperpubli ... =429.topic

Wow, thanks Allan...straight from the horse's mouth!  Hopefully Rob will recover from his illness and get caught up.

Mike B.

What about ordering Bottle City now?   Is it still available?

The limited edition was always really really limited.  

grodog wrote:News from Eric Shook, who dropped by to visit Rob just before the holidays:
http://p085.ezboard.com/fpiedpiperpubli ... =432.topic

Wow.  This is really awful news.
   Is there a point where someone who knows Rob can go by his house and pick up the orders of Acaeum members?  I would willingly give that person permission to pick up my order and hold it as long as it took for me to get it....or pay them to ship it to me.  It looks like that is the only way we'll ever see these items.
   I know this sounds redundant, as I have stated it before, but is Rob under the care of a physician?  I can't understand why someone in the condition he is in isn't at a hospital at this time.

Mike B.

Badmike wrote:Wow.  This is really awful news.

Mike, I agree that Rob's health doesn't sound good, but...

Badmike wrote:I guess at this time I'm just going to write off any hope of ever seeing the Bottle City stuff,  and I would advise anyone thinking of ordering from Pied Piper not to....reading between the lines, I don't think anything is going to ship out ever again.  Very unfortunate.

...I don't (personally) think that it's quite that bad (yet):  things may get to that point, but I don't think that we're there yet.  I hope that his health will have improved over the holidays, and that the new year will invigorate him further.  Time will tell.

Badmike wrote:Is there a point where someone who knows Rob can go by his house and pick up the orders of Acaeum members?  I would willingly give that person permission to pick up my order and hold it as long as it took for me to get it....or pay them to ship it to me.  It looks like that is the only way we'll ever see these items.

Like Deogolf I also offered to fly up there and to help with shipping, but Rob turned me down (for the nonce).  

Badmike wrote:I know this sounds redundant, as I have stated it before, but is Rob under the care of a physician?  I can't understand why someone in the condition he is in isn't at a hospital at this time.

Rob has seen a doctor for the pneumonia he likely had all summer long.  Beyond that I don't know what additional treatment, if any, he's receiving at the moment

Deogolf wrote:
I did offer my services and will probably help out in the future. But, when Rob is up to it and ready to tackle the other bits, it'll start moving. When I saw him a couple of weeks ago, he looked pretty bushed.

The module does exist - I have seen it!! Just a bit of collating, signing, and packaging to be done (which is actually quite a bit!).  So, I guess patience is the best medicine at the moment.

I really don't want to be the voice of unreason here...but is it completely out of the question that Rob CANT mail the items due to money problems?  I don't wonder if the items exist...obviously they do, as Grodog and others have attested to it...but perhaps Rob doesn't have money to mail them out?  I find it hard to believe that anyone, no matter how sick, cannot mail a single item in three months.  I'm sorry, that's not sickness, that's a near death experience and the individual needs hospitalization.  Being as Rob is not in a hospital, I cannot fathom someone no matter how sick having not one hour a month in three months to take care of business.  Sorry, it doesn't pass the smell test...

Several years ago I had one arm in a cast and the other in a sling, and managed to not only send out all my orders but to completely catch up on my shipping.  Sure it took an hour to package, address, and tape up a single order, but it got done, because I had customers who had paid me money awaiting their orders. The only explanation I can see, since Rob is NOT in a hospital hooked up to an IV, is that financial circumstances have led him to a spot where he has no money to pay for shipping. Nothing else really makes any sense at this point, and any evidence to the contrary (sorry, I've called in sick to work plenty of times, so someone saying your sick because they saw you acting sick, or you saying you are sick, doesn't mean very much...) is merely anecdotal.  What is a fact is that the product has been finished for three months and hasn't shipped.

While I feel bad for Rob's apparent financial difficulties, he is presumably a business man running a business, and owes his customers at least an honest accounting of his plight, instead of the utter lack of contact that he's shown so far.  I, or anyone else on this forum, would be hammered if I took money in advance and didn't ship items for three months after the items were available.  

The fact that Rob has turned down offers from Grodog and Deogolf to help him ship really, really raises suspicions in my mind.  I cannot imagine anyone turning down help in a time when it should not only be welcomed but solicited. If a similar illness downed me for a considerable length of time, I would shut down my ebay store (which Rob hasn't done; his website is still up and presumably soliciting business), contact my customers (which Rob hasn't done), and fill my orders to the best of my ability (Which Rob hasn't done), or find someone who would volunteer their time to fill the orders for me (which Rob hasn't done) in a similar situation arose.  Reluctantly, looking at the above information, I have to conclude Rob doesn't have the means to mail out the items, and the reason is obviously financial.  It's not a terrible knock on Rob; successful game designers are not necessarily financial genius's, people get behind on bills....

While I feel for Rob's plight as I would for anyone facing financial problems, I am also out money, not as much as some others that ordered a limited edition, but the circumstances are perhaps worse than the loss of money itself. .  I still think the "pay for publish" model can work in this industry, but I will definitely take a "wait and see" approach with any future game designers attempting this method.

Mike B.