warshipbuilder
What I can say for certain, is that my promised 'review' kit never did materialise, not that this would have made a blind bit of difference.
So, you say you ignored Rob's offer of a kit, and then you try and suggest surprise that your review kit never came. What address is he supposed to ship this to if you don't respond and give him one?
Let clear up a couple of things, because WarshipBuilder is stating things are are untrue. Whether or not he just does not know any better or is on a campaign to smear Dragon I don't know and I really don't care.
There is only one person who has been paid directly by Dragon for work, and that is Rob McCune; he is currently working on CAD for them as a contractor and is not a permanent employee per se. I would LOVE to see him in a more permanent roll there as he has made the process of getting the kits out MUCH better. TO give you an example, we started work on the CVL two and a half years before the kit was out. Scharnhorst was started a year after that point, and it came out well in advance of the CVL.
I was essentially project lead for the CVL; that means that when Dragon CAD engineers released a revision of the CAD I would pour over it, find mistakes, and then poor over photos and plans I had and copy and paste selections into screen shots of the CAD highlighting what changes to make. Dragon CAD guys are not ship guys, nor are they really even model builders; their specialty is plastic molding. They are very adept at making model kits, but one could not say "move the starboard midships bits forward five feet" to them. With Rob, that's not even a consideration, we just feed him research and let the boy fly.
For that two and a half years of work, which was admittedly part time (say 5-10 hours a month depending) I received three kits. None of them were promised me when we started; there was an opportunity to help make a kit better and I jumped on it. All three of them were promised to other people who gave their time and other help to get the kit released. So, that's how much I got paid. That's pretty much the same thing that has happened with everyone else who has helped; there is non-monetary compensation of some sort, sometimes. When we ask someone to help out that is all we do, ask for help. We've never said, "hey, want a free kit?" The main goal is to get the best kit out that we can, and the team is made up of some people who are giving a lot for no promise of compensation. So, that's why a few of us get a little perturbed at Warship Builder's inflammatory posts about "active paid members."
Rob offered you a kit not because he was trying to buy your silence. None of us trust you that much. No, the reason Rob offered to send you, for free, some of his compensation for the time he spent on the CAD, was because of his passion and belief in the kit. Surely you can see some of the value if you have it in your hands and can witness the quality of the parts? But no, you didn't want to give the kit a chance.
Now, on to the crux of Dave's (WarshipBuilder) assertions, that Dragon is ripping off customers and not providing value. Dave thinks he is the sole arbitrator of value. If it is too expensive for HIM, then it is a rip off. If HE doesn't want the detail, then it is obviously over-engineered. If HE doesn't think that it is a good product, then obviously the manufacturer is out to fleece the modeling public.
When I started building Trumpeter's CV-13 kit, I started by looking over the kit and comparing it to photos, much like we all do, and much like I did with the CVL. I spent hours making notes; I had something like 80 categories of omissions or incorrect details before I even hit the island (working from bottom up). One of the VALUES of the Dragon kits is that I don't have to do that; I know that honest research went into the design and the details are correct. Meanwhile my 1/35th BB-56 conversion sits, packed up on the storage shelf, because I don't feel like fixing the lower superstructure level, which is something like five scale feet too tall.
That, however, is not a value to Dave.
While Scharnhorst's instructions are a train wreck, the slide-molded superstructure pieces mean less time for me puttying and sanding joints and ensuring a true edge. Instead of just cutting or sanding off the bulkhead detail because it's easier to add it back via scratch building *finer* than Trumpeter put it on, than to try and save it, I am planning my process around doing as little damage to the surface when I do have to sand, because the detail on the Dragon kit is finer than I can put it back on!
This is also not a value to Dave.
My Scharnhorst's upper and lower hulls went together extremely well; the only real putty it needed was in areas that *I* accidentally distorted. I had the hull together and sanded down in essentially two weeks of extremely part-time availability. My Trumpeter Hood sits with it's hull mostly but not quite sanded because I got tired of essentially a FIVE FOOT SEAM that fit like crap. Woes of the fit between Trumpeter upper and lower hull pieces are legion. The Z-25 does not even give you the option of a waterline hull; you either have to full-hull it, or spend the time cutting away the lower hull to waterline it yourself.
Good fit is apparently not a value to Dave. Options are apparently not a good value to Dave.
Let's also not forget that Dave is projecting a lot of his anger towards distributors on to Dragon:
warshipbuilder
What you would pay in $US we pay in £GBP regardless of the prevailing exchange rate,
For Dragon's Scharnhorst for example,
In the U.S, you pay $129.99US (£81.95UK)
In the UK it is £129.99 rrp ($206.20UK!)
If that isn't taking the piss I don't know what is.
But note that the price there is not from Dragon, but from a distributor. Distributor mark-ups are a fact of life unless you go to the source and pay the higher shipping yourself. Why, just last week I spent $50 on shipping for a kit from Hong Kong because it saved me $120 off of the retail price!
Some loose ends:
Mannstein: As far as I know there was no race to get these to market. Dragon is not afraid of Trumpeter, but also does not want to release subjects that have less selling potential. We were starting to think about doing a CVE when Hasegawa's was announced; the project got killed. Once the CAD was completed I think they would have gone ahead anyway, but at any point before that it would have been easier to say "stop work; NEXT!"
Dragon is indeed focusing on the high-end detailer with their kits. They're not for neophytes. We're still trying to work with them to improve things like the instructions, but you are not likely to see a retrenchment in fidelity of detail. If it's more than you can handle, I'm sorry. No one promised that you'd be able to drive a Ferrari, either. The good news is that you don't have to buy it. and you do have a choice.
In final, I would say that Dave's real problem isn't with Dragon, but with free markets. People should not be able to get a good wage, but should be happy with fast-food worker wages because it keeps the product cheaper for him. People should not be allowed to charge for services above the bar; they should do top-notch work and sell at cut-rate prices that make their company untenable.
And as a final-final, I would remind everyone that as I am not an employee of Dragon, this post and opinions are mine, not theirs. If you take exception to it, you are taking exception to me and my opinions.