the real issue, beyond the lack of replacement is the lack of communication on the issue. i've personally asked about this issue in threads that were started by/had the attention of Mr. Ziran. he proceeds to answer other questions in the thread, but not questions about figure replacement.

in this very thread i asked about it in post #6, in post #9 he responds directly to post #7. i sincerely doubt he missed my on point question.

the fact that the last tidbit of information about any possible replacement program was from all the way back in april does not help the situation either. at this rate we are back to tuttle-style information disclosure. ie: don't answer questions and maybe the issue will go away.

the issue isn't going to go away, it's only going to get worse. i've personally had 4 issues since hammer of thor's release that i would've contacted them about (which, sadly is more than i ever did pre-neca)

coming soon just isn't cutting it anymore. they're obviously devoting resources to some sort of customer interaction. mr ziran is on this site often communicating (but almost never about this issue) which i was initially very appreciative of. they are implementing other contact points for other issues, but this one major issue is remaining unresolved.

at this rate it looks most likely that they've decided to not offer any sort of replacement program, otherwise we'd at least still be getting responses to the questions, even if they were just "coming soon, in the works" it would be a lot better than ignoring people.

That's nice. Certainly, since they have bought and paid for a kit, they are under no legal obligation to do this, but it is nice that they do it.

That's the difference between clix kits and, say, Magic kits. MtG gives the stores the materials for specific purposes. Recently, they sued a store that had created bogus tournaments with phony players, then sold all the free stuff on ebay. Wizards of the Coast won that fraud lawsuit, largely because they were _giving_ the material to the stores under false pretenses. NECA is selling these tournament kits, and once you have sold a bunch of figures and maps to someone, well, what they do with it when it is their property is really none of your concern.

Does it suck that some folks are selling tourney kits? I guess, though I'm not sure how it hurts people unless their venue was unable to get a limited-supply kit. Is it legal? At this point, yes. Bummer.

As for a product replacement plan, it is long overdue, and I'm getting a little tired of the apologists who think that any critique of NECA is not allowed, because they are the great saviors, and that we should be happy for any bone they toss us in the way of communication. The honeymoon is over for me, and I want to know when I can send in the pile of broken / defective figs that have been mounting up in my venue since HoT...

By the way, here's a funny, if scary bit... I pulled a Researcher card out of a pack the other day that appears to have bloodstains on it. Seriously. Not ink, but dried, congealed blood. WTF? I hope whoever was packing the cards just had a really bad hangnail or something...

better than 3 heads and 2 bodies, eh? .....nevermind.

That's a HorrorClix Researcher. It's cross-compatible with HeroClix, just like the Marvel Zombies. Could be worth quite a bit to the right person...

That store selling the prize support pieces to people who run tournaments is nice. But that is all I think about that.

Yeah the stores need to pay for the prize support kits. If they are paying for the kits then how are they even considered prize support? Specialty figures suggested to be used as prizes for tournaments yes. But not prize support, as noone is actually supporting anyone with them. Isn't it like a store needs to purchase 2 cases for 1 OPkit, 7 cases for 2, ect... So the stores need to buy in plenty to be allowed to purchase the OPkits.

I have always thought that the people complaining about the LEs being sold were elitists whiners. I will continue to think this and say it. And what about the people who don't have a venue to play tournaments at? I play with a group of friends and the closest place that runs events is an hour and a half drive and the events are on days when I work. My friends and I don't even have an option to attend events. There is no other way for me to get these clix other then by purchasing them.

If the OPkits were given to the stores for free then I would report.
Until then, thank you for not snitching!!!

PS
Selling product before launch is definitely the wrongness and I would report that. But my game store doesn't do that.

To be honest, it seems like wizkids is trying to divert our attention away from the major issues that they have with quality control. It seems to me that they are trying convince us that they are doing something for the customers while in reality they have bigger issues to solve.

Example: Hey guys, guess what we are going to crack down hard on stores that break street dates and sell LEs so you cant say we are not doing anything. While in reality, the stores that sell LEs (which they pay for themselves) and break street dates are also the people who are RESPONSIBLE for selling their products.

Do i really care if stores are selling their LEs? Not really since they paid for it. If the LEs were free like before, then fine wizkids have that right to crack down on the stores that are trying to make money off free stuff.

However, i do care if i pull a chase figure/super rare/figure that i really like but it came broken with missing arms and legs and i am not able to get a replacement for it which in turn devalues my figure in trade/sell value

Honestly, take care of the bigger problems first if you are really interested int aking care of your customers

I agree with the QC issue, but I just want Ziran to answer all of our questions/concerns, not just nit-pick as he sees fit. As for the selling prizes thing, I agree 100% that if a store is PAYING for the OP Kits, they can and should do as they please with them. From experience with all of our other games' OP Kits, we get them for FREE, but the restriction is we cannot sell them, only hand them out as prizing.

Well, I just used the email to report a store selling OP kits. I hope I have the support of other realmsers for doing it too. I have mixed feelings about it, but I went ahead and took a picture of the OP kit in the store with my handy dandy piece of crap phone and put it into an email. Does this make me a stool-pigeon? I don't want to be a tattle, but I have a respect for rules.

Honestly i would side with you in the old days of clix where prize support if free but at this moment in time i think many of us would not side with you since stores are actually paying for the prize support

I agree wholeheartedly with that.

Thank you for the update!

I say is about the amount of resources they have at the moment to handle the different situations. It doesn't take much time for someone to read an e-mail on about a store selling support vs an exchange program. An exchange program will require much more manpower and space. Some one have to go through all the boxes they receive. Read what is wrong and look through the figure. Once confirmed, they have to check inventory if they have a replacement, package it up and label the box. This could be a full time job for a person or more. Additionally, does WK have a warehouse anymore to store these replacements?

Please put me in touch with this person, as I'm a little creeped out by getting a bloodstained clix card in my booster. I'll assume that any pathogens that might have been in the blood died out in the month or so since it got packed into the booster, but still...

so what, we just forget about it. Just throw the broken product out? Say, aw shucks, Wizkids can't afford a warehouse or someone to replace the damaged figures guess I will just spend more money buying boosters trying to replace the broken figure myself.

Every company has a budget cycle. If more people were not budgeted for this year or a warehouse was not included in the capital expenditures, the company could put themselves in a bind by hiring more people and building a warehouse.

I didn't say they should just leave it as is. I'm sure WK has some legal obligation to have an exchange program, but it does take time and planning to do it right.