Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forums

News Credits: 3 · by **Fistful of Energon** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 7:00 pm

Swindle01 wrote:dont you think you should all be ashamed of yourselfs?

this guy was making these on his own to give us something. He was trying to give fans something....alot of you just sit on your fat arses and complain and never actually give this fandom anything aside from fueling stereotypes

this guy tried to offer fans something and he actually tried to GIVE back to this community and the fandom but insted all he got was crappy negative feedback and bad comments from people who have done nothing but sat in there armchairs and moaned at HIM for actually doing something

the whole reaction to this guys figure just made me feel sick and really showed how pathetic ALOT of people in this hobby can be. I mean saying something like - lame way to get sympathy............ The guy got screwed over by a con artist. It isnt his fault yet HES the 1 who has to sell his entire collection. Even then with all the money from his collection it might not be enough for all the refunds. I doubt hes having a choice on this and is being FORCED to sell his collection more than anything else

This guy tried really hard ON HIS OWN to make something for the fandom and instead he gets all these bad comments from people who he was trying to make happy

You should all be ashamed for giving this guy abuse and crappy comments. Maybe you should actually try doing something for the fandom and making/creating something instead of just complaining at a guy who decided to get off his back side and make something for all you ungreatful people. He got screwd over by a con artist who took the money and ran. It isnt chads fault, we have all made screw up money mistakes in the past or have been scamed with a trade 1 way or the other. Its just this was on a big scale

i for one am sad this item has been cancelled and i also feel real sorry for the guy who was trying to make this. After all the crappy comments im not suprised he just cant be bothered anymore considering how ungreatful you all sound. Hell even if he does sell all his figures what if the money isnt enough to refund everyone? hes gona have to get the rest of that money somehow. Look at your collection and try to put yourself in his situation

Thank you! :APPLAUSE:

by **Mechastrike** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 7:02 pm

wasn't this the "Powermaster Optimus" that kinda looked like crap? (trailer was stupid, gun was wobbly)

News Credits: 1 · by **Lord Onixprime** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 7:17 pm

Fistful of Energon wrote:
Lord Onixprime wrote:didn't think anyone actually wanted this thing to begin with. Sucks he has to sell off his collection, though it kind of seems like a lame tactic to try and get sympathy from those screwed over in this whole deal.

Weak dude.."lame tactic to get sympathy"? I assure you it is not. I know Chad personally and have recently talked to him regarding this issue. the dude feels horrible and he doing the most stand up thing any of us could do and is selling his collection to generate refunds. Can you even imagine how horrible that would be???

Chad has poured his heart and soul, and not to mention his own money into trying to provide a affordable alternative to botcon for us all to enjoy.

Have a little more respect before throwing out accusations like that please.

I can imagine. I had every piece of my collection ready to sell while we waited for the mortgage company to decide whether they'd adjust our loan or foreclose on our house. It is tough. I'm sorry for offending, I just felt it out of place.

by **Aluus** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 7:30 pm

While i sincerely feel for chad and respect him for willingly parting with his collection to issue refunds, i kinda feel this was a doomed endeavor from the start. Parting it out as 2 exclusives was bound to kill sales, especially with competitors like the Xovergen Trailerforce TF-01 coming out. Granted, the Xovergen is too much like the resulting love child from Armada Overload (trailer mode) drunkenly and brutally raping Energon Omega Supreme (bot mode) for me, but the bot mode of the Vector Zeta is well...****.

If the Vector Zeta lived up to it's concept images, i think we'd have had a killer figure. Unlike the Xovergen, it actually USES the bot mode of the figure, as opposed to simple having the truck plug in and fill a gaping hole in the chest. Truly... it's a shame this project fell apart.

Hands down, between the two images above, if given a choice between the two, I think most of us would go with the bottom one. I have to ask one thing though... Why is it fansproject seems to be the only 3rd party manufacturer that can make a trailer that doesn't look retarded when attached to the truck?

by **RAcast** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 7:32 pm

Mechastrike wrote:wasn't this the "Powermaster Optimus" that kinda looked like crap? (trailer was stupid, gun was wobbly)

I still dig it, shame we'll never have a chance to give it a proper chance.

by **Swindle01** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 7:37 pm

you know what i dont understand is why chad doesnt just say **** it and instead of making this an exclusive item he just emails igear?

i know afew guys who have actually made figures that igear have produced and igear themselves are pretty stand up people. If chad gave igear 1 of his figures they could get it mass copied and sort his whole problem out. He wouldnt have to sell his entire collection then.

fistful didnt you say you knew chad?? cant you get him to email igear about the whole thing? i know for a fact if he has a 100% finished prototype thats all full functional and with no issues with it that igear would probably pay him for it and then mass release it. It should be enough money to sort the problem hes in and save him from having to sell his collection

by **Aluus** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 7:44 pm

RAcast wrote:I still dig it, shame we'll never have a chance to give it a proper chance.

shame we'll never have a chance to give it a proper chance

chance to give it a proper chance

chance to give it a chance

Sorry. Couldn't resist. Too much time on 4chan! :BOOM:

I agree with the igear idea. they could probably fix the issues as well and sell it at a better price. It wouldn't be an exclusive anymore of course, but that might not be a bad thing.

News Credits: 2 · by **xyl360** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 7:56 pm

People gave the figure a hard time because of how the prototype looked, that doesn't mean that the artist who created it had any right to back out on what he was being PAID to create without any refund back to Chad and the others that run the convention he was creating it for.

People have their opinions on figures, and they are allowed to express them, whether it be a con exclusive, a third party toy or a licensed Has/Tak product, period.

Now, as for getting iGear to produce it, I think that's a nifty idea, but I don't know how they would feel about it knowing that it was created by another artist, thus the design would not technically belong to them (unless rights to it were given to Chad and the other guys who run the convention).

by **Rated X** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 8:12 pm

So why does this Chad guy have to sell his collection ??? What did he do with the money he took ??? Did he pay the producer up front and get robbed, or did he blow all the money instead of keeping it in the bank ???

News Credits: 1 · by **Lord Onixprime** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 8:37 pm

Rated X wrote:So why does this Chad guy have to sell his collection ??? What did he do with the money he took ??? Did he pay the producer up front and get robbed, or did he blow all the money instead of keeping it in the bank ???

From the sounds of it he got robbed buy the guys making the figure.

News Credits: 187 · by **GetRightRobot** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 8:43 pm

Rated X wrote:So why does this Chad guy have to sell his collection ??? What did he do with the money he took ??? Did he pay the producer up front and get robbed, or did he blow all the money instead of keeping it in the bank ???

I'm hazy on the specifics, but Chad is involved with the production of Slagacon and became the voice of the event and consequentially, the Vector Zeta upgrade. Similar to how Pete Sinclair likes to take beatings in the name of Fun Pub on fansites. The "manufacturer" had material and equipment costs that claimed the bulk of the preorders. As more and more people backed out, the profit margin vanished. When there was no more money to issue remaining refunds, this guy Chad took it upon himself to protect the fans of Slagacon and the reputation of Slagacon itself. Pretty noble.

And we all know, if a company continues to rip you off, you won't go to their convention. :BANG_HEAD:

by **Swindle01** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 9:26 pm

trust me igear wouldnt give a crap if it was his designs. If he talked to them and agreed on a price then they would pay for the figure off him and mass release it by getting solid plastic copies made. I know the guy who made igears ratchet and ironhide and he just did the prototype for them and there mass releasing it. He has nothing to do with it now. Did all the plans, got prototypes made and then when finished igear started mass making them

i know afew other guys who did some stuff for igear. To be honest if chad just spoke to igear and gave a fully finished version with no flaws then igear would pay him a fair price for it and the rights and then mass release it for us all. Would save his reputation and save his collection from being sold

If anything chad needs to read this but i dont think hes even on these boards. I know hes a 2005 member but im not registered on that site

by **RAcast** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 9:29 pm

Swindle01 wrote:trust me igear wouldnt give a crap if it was his designs. If he talked to them and agreed on a price then they would pay for the figure off him and mass release it by getting solid plastic copies made. I know the guy who made igears ratchet and ironhide and he just did the prototype for them and there mass releasing it. He has nothing to do with it now. Did all the plans, got prototypes made and then when finished igear started mass making them

i know afew other guys who did some stuff for igear. To be honest if chad just spoke to igear and gave a fully finished version with no flaws then igear would pay him a fair price for it and the rights and then mass release it for us all. Would save his reputation and save his collection from being sold

If anything chad needs to read this but i dont think hes even on these boards. I know hes a 2005 member but im not registered on that site

There's been at least one mention of people that know the guy, so I'm sure the message will get to him one way or another. I certainly hope it does, I'd love to see this thing get released. And more importantly for this poor guy to not be ruined by a single poorly-studied decision.

News Credits: 668 · by **Autobot032** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 10:04 pm

I knew it was bound to fail. I'm just sorry it hurt innocent people. The con artist needs strung up.

News Credits: 16 · by **It Is Him** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 10:04 pm

Chad Williams must be standup guy to take responsibility like that, and to liquidize his collection to do what he feels is the right thing. Few people would be willing to go that far to right a wrong. :APPLAUSE:

News Credits: 8 · by **Flashwave** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 11:22 pm

Agreed on all counts, I hope there's some way that Chad can at least recoup in court, but I think we all know that would take years of going in circles.

Admittedly, I wasn't that impressed witht eh Prototype when I saw it, the cast solid heels would have to have gone,drilled out, replaced with sometinhg on an axle, and the tongue that attached it to Prime was going to meet Mr. Dremel and be reloaceted underneath something with a lifted wheelbase, but even with my (lack of) talents it wouldn't be that hard. I bought the figure because I wanted to support an Indiana convention, my home state, and the sketches wore very promising. I stuck with it for the same reasons, and I hate to see it end up killing an Indiana fan's collection because of it. I've moved on from Classics Prime anyway, he'd just be a token to the Hoosier fandom in the armor, but I didn't mind.

It's too bad though, this whole scene.

News Credits: 767 · by **Dead Metal** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 2:40 am

This thing was failed from the get go.

The kitbasher who made this originally intended to produce this by printing out the kits in shapeways, then after that proved too stupid to do he decided to cast it all by hand in resin. Plus the promo pics for this did not even show the actual product, but just half of it, they wanted 150 just for this:

Then you were expected to wait another year and pay another 150 to get all the blacked out parts in this picture:

Oh and the production didn't even reach prototype stage 3 weeks before the convention this was intended to be the exclusive of.

It's really weird that Slagacon actually believed this lying f**k would actually keep his promise of producing all of these in his garage by himself.

And now Chad has to sell his collection to refund those who bought this at the stage it was just a drawing based on a City Commander kitbash, that sucks.

Also how the hell is Chad supposed to sell the design to iGear? He didn't design it and as far as I know, he doesn't even have one of the prototypes, since as far as I can remember, all the pics that were released of this came from the guy who was supposed to produce it, iGear would have to reverse engineer it based on pics, and then redesign it due to all the hate the design got since day one.
It would be easier for them to just design one from scratch, it would also look way better.

Seriously, having to sell your collection to refund money that was stolen from you is pretty harsh.

Slagacon has had nothing but bad experiences when it comes to exlcusives :-(

News Credits: 2 · by **xyl360** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 3:18 am

Does anyone here know if Chad (the poor guy selling of his collection for the sake of taking care of the fans), has a PayPal account to send donations to?

I would love to be able to help him out with this, and hopefully help to allow him to keep as much of his collection as he can.

News Credits: 2 · by **Simes** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 6:12 am

I've known Chad for a while now and Auto Assembly has supported Slag-A-Con as an unofficial sponsor supplying them with items to give away to their attendees. The last thing he would have wanted was for any of his attendees to suffer with this but whoever had been commissioned to develop this for him had obviously insisted on payment in advance for the production of the exclusive so all of the funds from pre-orders would have gone to them and for all of us non-profit making events generally would have to do the same to get anything made without external support.

When we have had IDW exclusive comics in the past, we have had to work in partnership with Transformers dealers to make them happen because of the production / import costs as we simply couldn't afford to pay the upfront costs for 1,000 comics but to accuse Chad of wanting to rip anyone off, pocketing the money or anything else is highly offensive.

Irrespective of what you may think of the toy, Chad placed a great deal of faith in this manufacturer who not only let him down but screwed him over as well. Without any sort of refund and faced with a lengthy legal battle to get that money back, Chad has taken an incredibly brave decision to take this debt on personally so fans can get a refund. I hope that people will appreciate this gesture and will show their support by continuing to attend Slag-A-Con, send him a few dollars via paypal, or buy him a toy or two at the convention to try to help him re-build his collection or - if they are truly able and willing to as a real sign of support for Chad - email him and write off this as a bad experience - not with Slag-A-Con - but with a rip-off third party producer who deserves to be named and shamed.

I know that if I had pre-ordered this, I'd have already told Chad not to refund me and to write it off completely and I hope that there will be some out there who will do that.

News Credits: 3 · by **Fistful of Energon** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 7:23 am

I have sent a link to this thread to Chad, hes normally pretty quiet when it comes to he boards but Im sure he will read it. It will mean alot to him.

Heres his (not slagacons) FB account http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001269824208, he has a list of what is currently for sale. Pretty decent prices too. (snagged me the MP SW and Beachcomber) I even paid him more than what was asked.

The I gear idea is something, not sure if chad has any prototypes though. I know there are a couple floating about as I saw one at last years con.

Plese be nice guys, Chad is a super nice guy and maybe he was a little to eager, ambitious and trusting when he tried to have his own exclusive. But he flat out got screwed, and hes doin all he can to rectify it.

Most any of us can do, besides finding the Vector Zeta guy and making him pay up, is go to his convention if you can. Its very affordable and fun! its a 2 day event this year and he even has FRENZY/RUMBLE teaching a customizing class!

at least check out the site and see whats already been scheduled, more im sure is to be announced. http://www.slagacon.com/

News Credits: 5 · by **Matrix_Holder** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 7:35 am

Dead Metal wrote:This thing was failed from the get go.

The kitbasher who made this originally intended to produce this by printing out the kits in shapeways, then after that proved too stupid to do he decided to cast it all by hand in resin. Plus the promo pics for this did not even show the actual product, but just half of it, they wanted 150 just for this:

then you were expected to wait another year and pay another 150 to get all the blacked out parts in this picture:

Oh and the production didn't even reach prototype stage 3 weeks before the convention this was intended to be the exclusive of.

It's really weird that SLAGACON actually believed this lying f**k would actually keep his promise of producing all of these in his garage by himself.

And now Chad has to sell his collection to refund those who bought this at the stage it was just a drawing based on a City Commander kitbash, that sucks.

Also how the hell is Chad supposed to sell the design to iGear? He didn't design it and as far as I know, he doesn't even have one of the prototypes, since as far as I can remember, all the pics that were released of this came from the guy who was supposed to produce it, iGear would have to reverse engineer it based on pics, and then redesign it due to all the hate the design got since day one.
It would be easier for them to just design one from scratch, it would also look way better.

Seriously, having to sell your collection to refund money that was stolen from you is pretty harsh.

SLAGACON has had nothing but bad experiences when it comes to exlcusives

All incorrect uses of "TFCON" in your post have been replaced with the correct SLAGACON .

Let me correct you on this. There is no connection to TFCON at all in this! TFCON is THE CANADIAN premier Transformers Convention run by Cybertron.ca and they have no connection with this whole mess. This was all Slagacon...which is a completely different convention altogether. TFCON's exclusives are always bigger and more reliable 3rd party companies that deliver the goods. There was a problem with some of the Nightbirds but other than that one all of the other exclusives were very high quality. companies like fansproject, headrobots and perfect effects are some of the companies that provided TFCON with exclusives. It would be appreciated if you could edit your post and correct this mistake because comments like those have a habit of being mistaken for facts when they are not. The manufacture of Slagacons exclusive figure should be names so other conventions know not to get involved with this crook. Looks like Chad took a chance on this guy and saw some potential in this exclusive but was taken totally by this guy. I feel bad for him, he wanted to bring a great exclusive to the table for you guys and got taken advantage of. I hope there are legal options for him to go forward with so he can make this MFer pay for what he has done. The crook should be name and banned from all TF sites and shunned by the community as a whole.

News Credits: 767 · by **Dead Metal** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 8:02 am

Matrix_Holder wrote:
Dead Metal wrote:This thing was failed from the get go.

The kitbasher who made this originally intended to produce this by printing out the kits in shapeways, then after that proved too stupid to do he decided to cast it all by hand in resin. Plus the promo pics for this did not even show the actual product, but just half of it, they wanted 150 just for this:

then you were expected to wait another year and pay another 150 to get all the blacked out parts in this picture:

Oh and the production didn't even reach prototype stage 3 weeks before the convention this was intended to be the exclusive of.

It's really weird that SLAGACON actually believed this lying f**k would actually keep his promise of producing all of these in his garage by himself.

And now Chad has to sell his collection to refund those who bought this at the stage it was just a drawing based on a City Commander kitbash, that sucks.

Also how the hell is Chad supposed to sell the design to iGear? He didn't design it and as far as I know, he doesn't even have one of the prototypes, since as far as I can remember, all the pics that were released of this came from the guy who was supposed to produce it, iGear would have to reverse engineer it based on pics, and then redesign it due to all the hate the design got since day one.
It would be easier for them to just design one from scratch, it would also look way better.

Seriously, having to sell your collection to refund money that was stolen from you is pretty harsh.

SLAGACON has had nothing but bad experiences when it comes to exlcusives

All incorrect uses of "TFCON" in your post have been replaced with the correct SLAGACON .

Let me correct you on this. There is no connection to TFCON at all in this! TFCON is THE CANADIAN premier Transformers Convention run by Cybertron.ca and they have no connection with this whole mess. This was all Slagacon...which is a completely different convention altogether. TFCON's exclusives are always bigger and more reliable 3rd party companies that deliver the goods. There was a problem with some of the Nightbirds but other than that one all of the other exclusives were very high quality. companies like fansproject, headrobots and perfect effects are some of the companies that provided TFCON with exclusives. It would be appreciated if you could edit your post and correct this mistake because comments like those have a habit of being mistaken for facts when they are not.

Oh god, how the hell did that happen? The thread even reads Slagacon.

But But then again, there are nicer ways of pointing it out. :roll:

News Credits: 5 · by **Matrix_Holder** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 8:13 am

sorry, I just got off the night shift and saw this first thing. I apologies for the sharpness of my reply. I should have worded it better. I was already ticked at the whole scammed situation and saw that and I overreacted a bit. my bad, lol. #-o

News Credits: 2 · by **xyl360** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 11:27 am

Simes wrote:...I hope that people will appreciate this gesture and will show their support by continuing to attend Slag-A-Con, send him a few dollars via paypal...

Any idea what his PayPal address is? I really want to help the guy out with a donation.