The Energon Pub

Seibertron wrote:I'm sure the timing of all of this hasn't helped. A lot of fans are pretty hot about the First Edition absurdity and now this. I know it's not intended this way ... but the fandom has taken quite a beating during the past two weeks. I'm looking forward to the upswing when it kicks in. Hopefully Toy Fair 2012 will help turn things around. Or that could continue the fandom's beating. Guess we'll find out in 12 days.

Not to mention a lackluster BotCon set, the whole hotel deposit fiasco, and several Twitter PR nightmares with snarky comments directed at or about paying customers. Fun Pub is not making friends with any of this.

Vicalliose wrote:Edit:

Counterpunch wrote:You are following up on a year where the club exclusive sold out in a day. That followed up on a year where the club exclusive figure was flat out under-produced.

Astro Train and Airazor happened. Which funnily enough, Airazor is probably my favorite exclusive, she seems kinda underrated to me. But they did not sell out for a long time. It seems that that one mistake was enough to permanently convince them to produce as little as possible so they can sell them all out immediately rather than sitting on stock.

Astrotrain and Airazor happened 5 years ago. If they think that 5 years back has any effect on what is happening today, then there's more problems than we see.

Mkall wrote:

Vicalliose wrote:Edit:

Counterpunch wrote:You are following up on a year where the club exclusive sold out in a day. That followed up on a year where the club exclusive figure was flat out under-produced.

Astro Train and Airazor happened. Which funnily enough, Airazor is probably my favorite exclusive, she seems kinda underrated to me. But they did not sell out for a long time. It seems that that one mistake was enough to permanently convince them to produce as little as possible so they can sell them all out immediately rather than sitting on stock.

Astrotrain and Airazor happened 5 years ago. If they think that 5 years back has any effect on what is happening today, then there's more problems than we see.

It does have an impact. Hopefully lessons were learned, but it appears to me that they weren't. Airazor is an amazing figure in my opinion. Great head sculpt, underrated like Vicalliose said. However, it would have been better to have had that type of 2nd tier character as a convention exclusive or paired with another toy that fans would be rabid about. I don't think an update of Airazor was on the top of fan lists. Astrotain was definitely not the figure that Airazor should have been released with, especially with the failed head sculpt that doesn't look much like the designs we were shown. Unfortunately, the problem with Astrotrain didn't end with Astrotrain. The lesson wasn't learned from that situation as there have been many problems with head sculpts and character choices since then.

While we're being really tough on the Club/BotCon right now, I hope they understand that it's a form of tough love (at least from me, it is). I think we all ultimately really want the same thing ... we want to see them succeed. We really do. It's just frustrating that every year there's something and that this has been going on for 8 years. At this point, between Transformers and GiJoe, this whole process should be pretty seamless. I just want them to get to the point that, problems like this are few and far between (instead of waiting for the next problem to arise), and that they become so successful that there are exclusives coming out every month ... or that we get to the point where there are "figure" subscriptions (similar to MattyCollector.com) where we get an exclusive figure that we PRE-ORDERED every quarter or every month. That would be awesome. That would mean that the Club business model was a success. It should be so successful that they're taking on other brands besides Transformers and GIJoe (unless they have an exclusive contract for Hasbro only brands) ... but then where is My Little Pony or other brands that Hasbro owns?

I want to see the kinks removed from the system, and see this thing go to places none of pictured them growing to. I want to see their business model be a success, see us fans happy, and see them grow as a business!

Just got email we can't order till tmrw

Seibertron wrote: It should be so successful that they're taking on other brands besides Transformers and GIJoe (unless they have an exclusive contract for Hasbro only brands) ... but then where is My Little Pony or other brands that Hasbro owns?

And of course the My Little Pony/Transformers crossovers.

Ultra gordon wrote:Just got email we can't order till tmrw

On the plus side the email also includes a link to allow those who were not sure if their order went through or not to confirm it. That's a very good thing.

Diem wrote:

Ultra gordon wrote:Just got email we can't order till tmrw

On the plus side the email also includes a link to allow those who were not sure if their order went through or not to confirm it. That's a very good thing.

At least now I can stop starring obssesivly at twitter, facebook, and seibertron waiting for updates.

Dr. Heavy B wrote:

Diem wrote:

Ultra gordon wrote:Just got email we can't order till tmrw

On the plus side the email also includes a link to allow those who were not sure if their order went through or not to confirm it. That's a very good thing.

At least now I can stop starring obssesivly at twitter, facebook, and seibertron waiting for updates.

On the other hand I just blew an entire day I could have used to go out of town and run errands.

I could have also been doing something else productive, come to think of it. All I've done is stare at this screen, watching videos, eating chips and keeping an eye on TFCC to make sure I don't miss it.

Yes judging by my words today I'm considerably more enthusiastic than I was yesterday, and nervous I'd miss my chance.

TFCC has issued another updated on the pre-order status of the 2012 club exclusives Over-Run and Shattered Glass Drift. They are switching to a new credit card processing company and pre-orders are not expected to be back up until tomorrow.

Diem wrote:

Ultra gordon wrote:Just got email we can't order till tmrw

On the plus side the email also includes a link to allow those who were not sure if their order went through or not to confirm it. That's a very good thing.

In a bit of irony, I had to open my spam folder to even find the e-mail. I actually got several e-mails from them, one of which confirming that my order had in fact gone through.

As far as the delay, I think the fandom would be far more forgiving if they didn't always have such a short window laid down by FunPub on the other end which in the past has included things such as a day or less for an exclusive (and this year the BotCon hotel, for the most part) and less than a week for last year's BotCon Primus packages.

I'd just like to formally say this is all my fault,...i was the guy who goaded them into starting the pre-order when they did,...(go look at their facebook page, and read the comments on the SG Drift picture on their wall,...I'm Jay) https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=290913730967612&set=a.152760178116302.31570.151255348266785&type=1&ref=nf haha

anyways, to make a long story short, I at least got my order in,....i'm pretty sure my lightning fast fingers got the VERY first order in,...my order number is 60600,...and I double dog dare someone to have a lower number,...if ya do you win a nice shiny penny! (maybe we can have a mini-contest here to see who DID get the first order, i'm just kinda curious actually)

Your skills are weak, young jedi. 605XX's are the realm of the dark side of the force.

Well, my order still shows up using the link they provided, though I never did get a confirmation email. Hopefully my order did go through. I won't know for at least a few more days though most likely, because my bank is quite slow at updating recent transactions to my account. That means if it didn't go through, by the time I find out for certain, it will likely be too late as they'll be sold out.

I have two options here: 1. Leave it be and hope for the best (i.e., assume the order did go through as their website shows) 2. Purchase a second set and potentially end up with 2x the figures I wanted and end up wasting all that money.

I'm going with option 1. for now, I just hope I'm right .

edit: I just checked my email (again), and I finally DID get an order confirmation. Thank goodness. Looks like I was one of the lucky ones.

I hope that everyone else is able to get their figures as well once the site goes back up.

Court Jester wrote:Your skills are weak, young jedi. 605XX's are the realm of the dark side of the force.

haha, i use the Schwartz anyways, so it's all good,...and yea, i got the "up" side of the Schawartz, cause the "up" side is always more powerful than the "down" side....

I knew something like this would happen so I'm glad I opted out this year, just never had the luck with picking up the popular exclusives and didnt really feel like stressing out on it.

vaporretarder wrote:I'd just like to formally say this is all my fault,...i was the guy who goaded them into starting the pre-order when they did,...(go look at their facebook page, and read the comments on the SG Drift picture on their wall,...I'm Jay) https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=290913730967612&set=a.152760178116302.31570.151255348266785&type=1&ref=nf haha

anyways, to make a long story short, I at least got my order in,....i'm pretty sure my lightning fast fingers got the VERY first order in,...my order number is 60600,...and I double dog dare someone to have a lower number,...if ya do you win a nice shiny penny! (maybe we can have a mini-contest here to see who DID get the first order, i'm just kinda curious actually)

60575 for me.

Diem wrote:

vaporretarder wrote:I'd just like to formally say this is all my fault,...i was the guy who goaded them into starting the pre-order when they did,...(go look at their facebook page, and read the comments on the SG Drift picture on their wall,...I'm Jay) https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=290913730967612&set=a.152760178116302.31570.151255348266785&type=1&ref=nf haha

anyways, to make a long story short, I at least got my order in,....i'm pretty sure my lightning fast fingers got the VERY first order in,...my order number is 60600,...and I double dog dare someone to have a lower number,...if ya do you win a nice shiny penny! (maybe we can have a mini-contest here to see who DID get the first order, i'm just kinda curious actually)

60575 for me.

looks like we have a leader in the ranks so far haha

God damnit. Another evening that I came straight home to preorder that I could have used for doing errands. This is whole ordering process is stupid.

Well my order is showing and I got an email yesterday confirming so I presume I'm in!

Strangely I have now received another email which appears to be a confirmation for a half completed transaction showing no shipping info

harrogatebantam31 wrote:Well my order is showing and I got an email yesterday confirming so I presume I'm in!

Strangely I have now received another email which appears to be a confirmation for a half completed transaction showing no shipping info

Ummm, ok? Glad to know they have their crap together.

Delicon wrote:

harrogatebantam31 wrote:Well my order is showing and I got an email yesterday confirming so I presume I'm in!

Strangely I have now received another email which appears to be a confirmation for a half completed transaction showing no shipping info

Ummm, ok? Glad to know they have their crap together.

It appears to be an order status update so I'm guessing relates to the actual pre-order that has gone through. Other than my membership each year I've never actually purchased anything as the shipping costs to the uk are so high so I'm not sure how his will all work.

To add to the funtastic funsanity, my newly paid (as of a day ago) and invoiced membership is now expired!

It's like a sadistic Saw game of musical chairs... weeeee!

Court Jester wrote:To add to the funtastic funsanity, my newly paid (as of a day ago) and invoiced membership is now expired!

It's like a sadistic Saw game of musical chairs... weeeee!

:lol:

My membership update was screwed up as well, I had to call and they took care of it really quickly and pleasantly.


Unfortunately I was not able to get any of my attempts through before the shut down, so I have to try again.

Thanks B, I'm on it.