Introducing the VPC WarBRD

[tintifaxl]

We're aiming to get a large portion of the pre-orders dispatched within the next few weeks.

 

... Let's wait until the end of the month.;)

 

What makes you think they'll ship in the next 5 business days, when they state "aiming ... next few weeks ... large chunk".

 

I'll ask for a refund.

[tintifaxl]

I'll ask for a refund.

 

Done.

[sze5003]

Done.

My buddy asked for a refund but they ended up shipping it anyway later so just make sure to follow up or don't sign for it if it actually arrives.

[dburne]

What makes you think they'll ship in the next 5 business days, when they state "aiming ... next few weeks ... large chunk".

 

I'll ask for a refund.

 

Wow that is certainly an interesting email and has a very different sound to it than what they have been stating recently. I have not pre-ordered one (throttle) but am watching with interest, was looking forward to hearing some reports on the new throttle here in the next few days...

 

The two "boutique" hardware guys are offering us some great equipment for what we do, but I think they both somewhat suffer from being a little too optimistic in their announcements at times. I have had disappointments on this from both of them previously. Still though very glad I have their equipment now.

[sze5003]

Well with the other company not going to have stock here in US until September, no choice but to wait if you want or need new hardware. Really sucks that they were too optimistic in their delivery quotas.

[Hellcat]

I'll hang on till' I get mine..

[mdee]

We will see. My order was placed very early on, literally hours after they opened pre-orders, no movement since then. They are stalling. They obviously have major issues fulfilling pre-orders.

 

What "news" we are supposed to get?

"We are aiming at maybe shipping your pre-paid order from two months ago if we feel like it, To avoid further disappointment we will open another factory and tentatively move shipping date to August 17th 2019. Stay tuned for another delay announcement and thanks for financing us, we have 34 new exciting products to announce soon, so our staff will be very busy and won't answer your e-mails." ;)

Edited July 23, 2018 by mdee

[mdee]

Well with the other company not going to have stock here in US until September, no choice but to wait if you want or need new hardware. Really sucks that they were too optimistic in their delivery quotas.

 

I'd be very positively surprised if people who ordered during last month or so would get anything before September.

 

TBH, I am starting to think people who ordered in April (like I did) won't get anything before September. If they had a product to ship, they would. They aren't shipping anything. They are still "aiming", LOL (btw I got email from support a couple of days ago that they were "aiming at July". Looks like their aim isn't very good as now they aiming at "few weeks").

[sze5003]

I'd be very positively surprised if people who ordered during last month or so would get anything before September.

 

TBH, I am starting to think people who ordered in April (like I did) won't get anything before September. If they had a product to ship, they would. They aren't shipping anything. They are still "aiming", LOL (btw I got email from support a couple of days ago that they were "aiming at July". Looks like their aim isn't very good as now they aiming at "few weeks").

I was hoping those of us that ordered in April would get it by September. But if not then I'd be moving and I'd have to change my address or cancel the order and wait forever for a refund. I really hope they can start shipping preorders soon.
Edited July 23, 2018 by sze5003

[dburne]

Those guys really should communicate with a more detailed update on the forums, especially for folks that pre-ordered and I am sure a nice chunk of them are from this community.

 

They advertise their products on these forums, they should communicate better here as well I think for those that have invested into them.

[Forcit]

Would be interesting to know how long it takes to assemble one unit. Both on the warbrd base and on the throttle.

Could maybe give us some insight in waiting time.

[mdee]

Would be interesting to know how long it takes to assemble one unit. Both on the warbrd base and on the throttle.

Could maybe give us some insight in waiting time.

 

My guess is that assembly time is the least of the problem they have

Edited July 24, 2018 by mdee

[crab]

Assembly time has nothing to do with whats going on here. Any one of us could have probably assembled every order they have by ourselves during the time period they've delivered all these failed promises.

 

 

Mrs Crab is Russian, despite her rather impressive academic credentials and years as a professor she still cant quite explain to me how it is they tolerate all the fail involved in just about everything over there. Trying to get your car repaired? Expect many broken promises about when parts will come, when the work will actually get done, and once done without fixing the problem about how the next attempt will fix it. Of course every Russian knows the next fix may or may not fix it because thats how it alwasy works and most such promises have the word maybe attached to it. "Your car will be ready on Thursday. Maybe."

 

Russians expect things to fail, they don't believe any promises about when work will be done and know it will probably be far longer than estimated for everything and anything. It's completely pervasive in every aspect of their lives. They will schedule a day to do an errand there that I would set aside an hour to accomplish here and they're not wrong; often enough they'll need the day to do something that should be so much simpler.

 

And no, I don't hate em, I love em. I first started going over there in the early 90s to train engineers in my field. When you first get there it seems the people are cold because they don't smile as a pleasantry as we do here. When you do it older people they can become upset because they think you may be mocking them: Why else would you be smiling when nothing funny happened? Get to know them better and you find they are a warm and generous people who I greatly like. Their country on the other hand is downright broken in many respects.

 

No one there who was buying a joystick from a Russian company would have expected it to ship because they know all such promises are hollow at best and highly unlikely to be realized. Russian people will often wait for an apartment they purchased in a building that is already almost done for a year. Sometimes years. These things are ubiquitous and sellers are almost expected to make promises that everyone knows will not come to pass any time soon.

 

I'm not sure I've done a great job of explaining this because I often find these things inexplicable despite having seen them for a good many years now. It's hard to say exactly whats going on with these orders. Did they use sold orders as finance money? Maybe. Did they try and score some black market parts from a friend of a friend who has an uncle that can get the goods cheap on the black market and it all went sideways? Maybe. Did they fail to pay off the right person and the orders are all awaiting some bureaucratic sign off? Maybe. The only thing you can be sure of is assembly has nothing to do with it. You could have trained the cat to assemble these things faster than they're shipping.

[tintifaxl]

On the positive side, Virpil has refunded my paypal account a few hours after I canceled my order. That's excellent!

Edited July 24, 2018 by tintifaxl
fixed typo

[mdee]

They aren't Russian, they are Belorussian.

 

As much as I am pissed off with this situation, I'd not generalise based on where they are from. They screwed up, we don't know why, usual suspect in situation like that is lack of accounting liquidity and bad logistics or last minute design changes but in this particular case we don't know.

 

I am going to wait for a month and refund it. Certainly not going to buy from them direct, except if they rebuild their credibility, which in my eyes, they've lost.

 

They do need to start working on their comms and stop lying - false promises are read as lies in many parts of the world, since they operate in global market their comms must reflect this.

 

p.s. I worked with eastern european companies for decades, there are differences and they can be a bit of lose cannons, but the same is true for any other startup out there, no matter where they are located.

Edited July 24, 2018 by mdee

[Hellcat]

Those guys really should communicate with a more detailed update on the forums, especially for folks that pre-ordered and I am sure a nice chunk of them are from this community.

 

They advertise their products on these forums, they should communicate better here as well I think for those that have invested into them.

 

 

That's wishful thinking....they don't respond to questions on their "own" website forum :doh:

[sze5003]

At this point I don't even care about an update anymore..it is known that there is another delay for who knows how long. Please warthog set don't break on me now..

 

I think it sucks that they shipped out a unit to YouTubers but there's no point to that either as they can't post their review until the rest of the units are available and released.

 

My friend was lucky to be able to mount his stuff and he found a t-50 base and grip on eBay..got it in 2 days. He keeps saying how nice it feels compared to the warthog and also keeps asking when I'll get the warBRD so we can compare.

 

I stopped preordering video games a long time ago. I guess I learned my lesson here too, no more preorders, especially when buying from a niche market and the only availability is from overseas.

[crab]

They aren't Russian, they are Belorussian.

 

As much as I am pissed off with this situation, I'd not generalise based on where they are from. They screwed up, we don't know why, usual suspect in situation like that is lack of accounting liquidity and bad logistics or last minute design changes but in this particular case we don't know.

 

I am going to wait for a month and refund it. Certainly not going to buy from them direct, except if they rebuild their credibility, which in my eyes, they've lost.

 

They do need to start working on their comms and stop lying - false promises are read as lies in many parts of the world, since they operate in global market their comms must reflect this.

 

p.s. I worked with eastern european companies for decades, there are differences and they can be a bit of lose cannons, but the same is true for any other startup out there, no matter where they are located.

 

 

I've been there, they do what I described just as I described it and you are living that "generalization" right now. It doesn't matter if you're talking Belorussian, Georgian, whatever, this behavior is ubiquitous across the whole of the former Soviet Union and only the extent really changes. In my mind calling it a generalization is a bit of a push because you could grab anyone off the street in Russia or any former soviet state and they would have predicted what you see here.

 

 

I don't agree with it and you're not wrong, it's a very poor way to do business across much of the world where we expect things to actually work; I say this having run my own business for more than 40 years. Mrs Crab works as a consultant helping enterprises from Russia and various former soviet states reach out into the wider world and she would tell you much the same as she deals with this and related issues on a daily basis but understands it in a way I never will. Those things you say they need to do make up the bulk of her work.

 

As to the reasons, they could be those you listed but you're thinking like a westerner. There are a hundred others that fall into the everything is broken category; we're are talking about production in a place where the rule is things don't work very well and working well is an expectation held by no one.

 

I'm in the market myself and lusting after new hardware but didn't pre-order and I'm surprised you did knowing how things work over there.

[Mars Exulte]

I can't really say how much it is influencing the current situation, but having substantial ties to eastern europe myself, and some of the... interesting things I've observed there, yeah... none of what's being discussed would really surprise me :) It's only "baseless generalisation" if it's actually baseless :P

[mdee]

I can't really say how much it is influencing the current situation, but having substantial ties to eastern europe myself, and some of the... interesting things I've observed there, yeah... none of what's being discussed would really surprise me :) It's only "baseless generalisation" if it's actually baseless :P

 

Of course I predicted all if it, including silent delay we are having now, even made a post about it on other forum where I got down-voted to oblivion :megalol:

 

Thing is I like the gamble and I really liked the idea - and was willing and still want to give benefit of the doubt. Happy to help with the change, so to speak. I have T-50 which is really good product, only took about 2 months to arrive ;)

 

By the way, you forgot about "boasting" about everything :lol:

 

Let's see what happens next!

Edited July 24, 2018 by mdee

[SinusoidDelta]

This is kind of concerning. Did they require payment at the time of preorder? Or charge when it ships?

[GriffonBR]

This is kind of concerning. Did they require payment at the time of preorder? Or charge when it ships?

 

We did the payment. That's why we are worried:noexpression:

[ram0506]

Gents, cool down a bit! Tintifaxl has recently written, that he got his money back immediately after asking Virpil to cancel his preorder. So, I see no danger here.

I am already an owner of a T-50 base, which I also payed in advance. It took a while until it was shipped, but no problems there, too.

I am sure we will get our units after they sorted out their production problems or whatever issues there are.

And yes, some infos on the delay would be welcome.

[mdee]

This is kind of concerning. Did they require payment at the time of preorder? Or charge when it ships?

 

These are all fully paid orders made mid April. Original date of shipping was aimed at (sorry can't resist) sometime shortly after 20 May. Maybe. ;) All "updates" so far were mainly announcements of further delays + excuses/PR.

The delay we are enjoying now is a silent one, 2+ weeks of no concrete information, except of course "aiming" and consistently missing. They said items should be "in hand of a courier" on 16th of July.

Edited July 24, 2018 by mdee

[crab]

Of course I predicted all if it, including silent delay we are having now, even made a post about it on other forum where I got down-voted to oblivion :megalol:

 

Thing is I like the gamble and I really liked the idea - and was willing and still want to give benefit of the doubt. Happy to help with the change, so to speak. I have T-50 which is really good product, only took about 2 months to arrive ;)

 

By the way, you forgot about "boasting" about everything :lol:

 

Let's see what happens next!

 

 

I took a lot of heat when I said much the same in a discussion about VKB. And if I may say so, also made some purchases that might have been considered a risk by some. It's all good if you go in eyes open. I am BTW rooting for you and all the rest of the folks with orders in, and for Virpil for that matter. I might just test the waters myself if things start looking up. :)