Ashley Wood 3A Stuff

Halo stuff, Portal 2 stuff, MaK stuff, it all looks incredible. They're shipping and company policies annoy me, but I can't quit them.

Introducing Prometheus Rising Studio.
[prometheusrising.net]
I make 3D printed mecha action figures.

Not terribly interested in a Krote, though it DOES look beautiful...and gives me hope that if 3A does more MaK stuff, it'll at least look gorgeous. But I'll wait for a SAFS or Melusine before throwing down...

A Melusine would be the best news ever. The SENTINEL 1/16 SAFS is amazing, but I'd much rather 1/12 scale for bot and figure scale compatibility.

Introducing Prometheus Rising Studio.
[prometheusrising.net]
I make 3D printed mecha action figures.

The SAFS and Melusine are potentially better as toys than as model kits, because they can open up, and at larger scales you could even have a full pilot figure, like the 1/6 figures. Stuff like the Krote, though, basically just stands there.

-Paul Segal

"Oh, the anger is never far, never far." -SteveH

Prometheum5 Wrote:
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> Halo stuff, Portal 2 stuff, MaK stuff, it all
> looks incredible. They're shipping and company
> policies annoy me, but I can't quit them.


Dude, I know what you mean...There is so much to dislike about the nature of how they do their business, but I'd be lying if I did't say their work is beautiful...I am, however, not that interested in most of their new licences. I still think that their original stuff is the best.

My first WWR Caesar arrived last week. It's a humanoid monster. This is Rothchild Internal Police 002, and I have a weathered Desert Corps one on the way. I'll do a review on CDX next week after graduation. This guy's fully four months late, but the end figure is incredible. The fit and finish are 3A's best yet.





Introducing Prometheus Rising Studio.
[prometheusrising.net]
I make 3D printed mecha action figures.

Caesar is indeed gorgeous...Pristine 001 and 002 look amazing next to the grungy other bots. The fit and finish are in fact amazing. Really rams home that internal security concept.

Now they just need to get over growing pains...

fel9 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Caesar is indeed gorgeous...Pristine 001 and 002
> look amazing next to the grungy other bots. The
> fit and finish are in fact amazing. Really rams
> home that internal security concept.
>
> Now they just need to get over growing pains...


The tone on the 3A forum has been getting really nasty lately due to delays and a couple of QC issues that have popped up. The news guy claims that a while mess of stuff is shipping in May now that they're done dealing with the Reventure show items, which would be nice.

Introducing Prometheus Rising Studio.
[prometheusrising.net]
I make 3D printed mecha action figures.

Yeah I have been following the kerfuffle over there as well as on a couple of other boards. It would seem that planning and having a Show/Con/Get-together with pick up exclusives before finishing and shipping a whole mess of product that has been bought and paid for was not really a wise business move. It would seem that a lot of the good will garnered earlier has been lost as time and ship deadlines slip into the rear view mirror. Especially, since a very small part of the 3A fan base was able to attend.

To me this seems like a watershed moment for 3A. They are very close to alienating their audience. People are beginning to feel like they have paid for vaporware. I for one have decided to lay off the new stuff and wait out what I have ordered, and to see what changes. I love their work, but it is time to pay off on the promises they have already made before moving on to the next thing...

I would say I agree with you, but I still can't bear the thought of missing a big bot or figure that I know I'll still want down the line but not be willing to pay aftermarket prices for. There's two figs that came out last year that I skipped because I was annoyed with them, and now all I can do is lurk ebay and the KR BST thread waiting for them to pop up.

A lot of people seem to have had enough, tho, and they're certainly not wrong for thinking that way. One think I think has happened for me personally is that I've been so busy this year with school that I just haven't had time to get worked up over the delays. Every couple of months or so a bunch of stuff shows up, and I', happy with pretty much all of it. I would rather it was a more constant stream of shipping in line with the constant stream of preorders, but just hasn't been a big enough issue for me when I have other stuff to deal with. Once I find a job and get settled, I'll probably spend more time worrying about it again ;)

Introducing Prometheus Rising Studio.
[prometheusrising.net]
I make 3D printed mecha action figures.

Don't get me wrong...if a new cool looking bot or trooper show up for preorder I'll cave. What I'm not chasing is a "rare" release or a variant "with new hat" type of release. A lot of the 3A freaks want every single different version of a character. I'm fine to settle for the one that I like the best of any given release.

Hey which ones did you miss that you wanted? I have a couple of duplicates (by which I mean I have a couple of the same fig/bot in different decos) that I would be willing to part with for the sake of space. You can pm them to me....

fel9 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Don't get me wrong...if a new cool looking bot or
> trooper show up for preorder I'll cave. What I'm
> not chasing is a "rare" release or a variant "with
> new hat" type of release. A lot of the 3A freaks
> want every single different version of a
> character. I'm fine to settle for the one that I
> like the best of any given release.
>
> Hey which ones did you miss that you wanted? I
> have a couple of duplicates (by which I mean I
> have a couple of the same fig/bot in different
> decos) that I would be willing to part with for
> the sake of space. You can pm them to me....

I get that entirely. I have one of each character from Adventure Kartel (I consider Cherry Shadow a different character) and am satisfied, although I am thinking about picking up another Zomb or two. For Popbot stuff, I like having a variety of different TKs and TQs, but I still only grab one flavor of each model. I really wanted a TK and a YQ from the Reventure stuff, but I'm sure we'll see similar stuff down the line as a general release. Having the toys ready to ship right now made me want them way harder, though.

I do get the multipacks on the Portable bots, tho, because the deals are just too good :P I'm certainly no completionist, tho.

Introducing Prometheus Rising Studio.
[prometheusrising.net]
I make 3D printed mecha action figures.

[collectiondx.com]

Here's my review of Caesar. I love him. I've got a bunch of 3A bot reviews in the pipe to get caught up from this year's releases. Big bots, small bots, old bots, and new bots.

Introducing Prometheus Rising Studio.
[prometheusrising.net]
I make 3D printed mecha action figures.

Apparantely 3A is doing Microman....the last I heard it wasn't going to happen, but now this popped up ont the production blog....

(http://www.threeaonline.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/microad1.jpg)

My second Caesar arrived, along with Rothchild, who is suave and sinister and perfectly complements his pet security bot.



Clint-E really pops with his squishy counterpart:





Also received Queeny, the first Tomorrow Queen from the Popbot line. Really liking the styling on her, as well as the re-improved lady body that balances articulation with looks the best yet.




3A's been shipping stuff with a vengeance, and I really have no complaints about it. Everything's been flawless and wonderfully made, along with fun. Hopefully they can maintain this sudden burst of momentum.

Introducing Prometheus Rising Studio.
[prometheusrising.net]
I make 3D printed mecha action figures.

The Action Portable Pop-butt and Bad-butt showed up at my door last week. Which is cool. Because I thought they were headed to my office instead. But 3A's customer service came through and literally changed the shipping address by hand at the distribution center when I asked if it was even possible. Badass!

The Good: The figures are, as usual, expertly painted and weathered. The card art is gorgeous. While the two robots' designs are similar, the "gut tubes" spilling out of their chests are different sculpts. And, if I remember correctly, they were actually released by the promised deadline. Nice!

The Bad: The card backs are needlessly huge, waste a lot of space in shipping, and can't really be reused for storage. The ankles on both Pop/Bad-butt are so floppy the figures cannot stand unassisted. Many of the joints are thin and fragile.

The Ugly: The range of motion on the elbows and knees is pretty limited because of the design. Pop-butt's eyes are the same color as its head.

Your Moms: Overall, the cost-to-satisfaction ratio is average. If you like Pop-bot, you'll probably want to pick one or more of these up on Evilbay.

Prometheum5 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They're shipping and company policies annoy me...


I was just thinking about this. It looks like the 3A Action Portable Zombs will end up arriving around nine months after they were ordered. That's pretty well past the target deadline. 3A spins this as being a quality assurance issue, and I have no doubts that they're committed to quality, but it just ends up feeling like they're over-extended. The occasional you can suck it if you don't like it attitude doesn't help things much. On top of this, they revamped their forum so you can't even browse it unless you have an account and are logged-in. Killing lurkers is just backwards.

While their products almost always kick ass, here's my fantasy wish list for improvements to their customer experience:

1. The Pipe - a widget with "real-time" release info.
A. Just The Tip - an at-a-glance mini-view of the widget on their homepage that shows products that have been sold-but-not-shipped sorted by their currently proposed release dates (most recent first) which also shows their status (early, on-time, delayed) and includes links with pop-up product views.
B. Balls Deep - a massive release database of all 3A products from inception to the present (including vapor-goods) with expanded, searchable data similar to Just The Tip.

Why they should do it: It would address the majority of customer questions/complaints right off the bat. This shouldn't be a huge project if 3A has been keeping house since the beginning. A little time and money on the startup, but easier than organizing their newsletters and blog posts in the long run. Likewise, it wouldn't interfere with any of the other associated PR outreach. If they can do a count-down timer for sale-drops, they can do this.

Why they won't do it: It takes a little time and money to set up, and fuck you if you aren't cool enough to like not knowing when the shit you paid for is eventually going to arrive.


2. Your Guts: a re-vamped account interface.
A. Integrates data from The Pipe so you can see the current status of what's going on with the shit you bought.
B. Includes real-time updated tracking info with the option to email you when something goes from "Hatching" to "Shipped" in The Pipe.
C. In-house payment processing. Because, fuck Paypal.
D. The ability to change the shipping address on open orders.

Why they should do it: Again, this would automate a good percentage of the customer service issues that currently need to be resolved by hand. It would also make the account system relevant because, at the moment, it literally does nothing beyond listing orders you have placed within a certain time period.

Why they won't do it: Because this type of improvement requires some logistical coordination between account management and inventory control. It also costs money to setup and, frankly, they'd probably rather spend that money ironing out their production side first.


Most businesses aren't going to go out of their way to improve things they can get away with not improving. 3A is a small company and maybe we shouldn't expect them to make these kinds of improvements; the return could simply be too small. But, then again, 3A is a really innovative company that proves time and again how they can come up with seriously cool shit. So there's no reason they couldn't step up their game in this regard.

Anyway, one can dream...

Succumbed to one pristine, loose 'zero day' Popbot Sangreal for roughly 60USD, originally part of a 4-pack. The clean orange finish allowed me to appreciate the design in its industrial awesomeness more than any of the others on display. I found it to be a good fit amongst my 'other' robots... like a mix of the pit droid and Scud the disposable assassin :-) That, and the Figma Drossel are the only new stuff on my shelf in over year since moving into my own place.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/2012 07:13PM by drifand.

Drif, you're not getting the Rio:Bone Canti figures? I know those old Kaiyodos are good toys, but I hear the new ones are amazing.

-Paul Segal

"Oh, the anger is never far, never far." -SteveH

Oh, I'm SURE those would be splendid, but a part of me has mellowed and I just try to enjoy what I have, in the space that I have. For example, the recent model-quality incarnations of various Ultraman spaceships had me smiling for a while (if not exactly drooling), but I just need one glance at my fully playable XIG fleet et al and the desire to acquire a more perfect version diminishes quite quickly. The size of the new Canti would also probably throw the spatial relationship with the other 'bots out of whack. This AP Popbot overcame my aversion of most other threeA stuff because of three things:

1. Pleasing design and proportion (i.e. not a walking penis)
2. Nice size and price (not insanely inflated yet)
3. Spanking clean 'zero day' finish (stands out from the otherwise amazing lot)

Picts of the finalized Krote....I must say it is pretty tempting even at $190.00 US....goes on sale this week...