Pathfinder Playtest Preorder Update

I guess I can only assume that I'm one of the unlucky souls whose books haven't been packed for shipping yet? I've yet to get any shipping update from Amazon, and there are no packages scheduled for delivery from USPS, FedEx, or UPS.

I guess I can only assume that I'm one of the unlucky souls whose books haven't been packed for shipping yet? I've yet to get any shipping update from Amazon, and there are no packages scheduled for delivery from USPS, FedEx, or UPS.

Same here, nothing from amazon and nothing scheduled with known delivery companies. But the book arrived today, so it is probably already on its way.

For the Dutch people: I got it today, so I assume yours will arrive shortly as well.

For the Dutch people: I got it today, so I assume yours will arrive shortly as well.

I got my book from the book depository today (ordered last Saturday) but no sign of the book & advemture from Amazon yet. Who delivered yours so I can guess what times I need to be home? :-|

There's nothing in the PostNL app in any case

It's hard keeping myself from losing excitement. I ordered maps to run the game. I'm not going to start the game and lose the ability to use those maps I already paid for. Highly frustrating when you send a message to customer service asking for some help and all I get in return is "we sent you an email about this happening." Of course i know what happened. I want to know when i can expect my shipment which is closing in on a week and a half late.

I digress...

Still wondering if i'm going to use Paizo for preorders in the future or not now...i typically don't even like to allow myself to be burned even twice.

So I was definitely one of the few that Amazon did not get to. Paizo took over my order and sending it to me from their warehouse directly.

Codex404 wrote:

For the Dutch people: I got it today, so I assume yours will arrive shortly as well.

I got my book from the book depository today (ordered last Saturday) but no sign of the book & advemture from Amazon yet. Who delivered yours so I can guess what times I need to be home? :-|

There's nothing in the PostNL app in any case

When I got home it was on the coffeetable, but it has a 3S code on it. But from the size of the parcel I think it was a mailbox thing. I only ordered the Playtest Rulebook. if you order more it will probably be bigger.

My PostNL app also didn't (and still doesn't) show my parcel, but you might be able to contact them for a 3S tag. But I wouldn't bother since it's PostNL and they deliver really well (especially compared with DHL or UPS, I'm on the last section of both of their routes and sometimes my Parcel will arrive "today" for 4 weeks long until they have enough time to finish the route)

So I was definitely one of the few that Amazon did not get to. Paizo took over my order and sending it to me from their warehouse directly.

How did you find out?

We're at 99.3% of orders shipped, and of the remainder, all but 7 are "fully prepared but haven't yet left the fulfillment center."

Guess I drew a very short straw then, because I just got these emails from Paizo customer service:

Dear Joe,

Thank you for your Pathfinder Playtest order! Unfortunately, we have learned that Amazon Fulfillment was unable to ship this order.

We are sorry for any inconvenience with that. A replacement order has been set up to ship directly from our warehouse. Contact us ASAP if you would prefer to cancel it.

Shipping Method

Standard Postal Delivery
Estimated 4 to 8 business days in transit
Package Tracking
Originally expected to ship in 1 to 7 business days

If I'm counting right, this replacement order would arrive between August 17th to August 31st? No thanks! You'd think the least you could do at this point would be to overnight the dang thing. What a horrible experience. :-/

I've canceled with customer service and placed an order with another retailer that's promising me delivery Monday or Tuesday. Should've done that when this whole fiasco started.

My order arrived yesterday in Colorado. The book looks great, and I can't wait to get to the table and play.

Vic - I just wanted to say that I am impressed with the frequency and transparency of your updates. I live in the real world and things happen. The effort and thoughtfulness you put into making this right is awesome.

Chris Matney

Dragnmoon wrote:

So I was definitely one of the few that Amazon did not get to. Paizo took over my order and sending it to me from their warehouse directly.

How did you find out?

They emailed me then I called them to clarify.

I just received an email from Paizo stating that amazon was incapable of sending my playtest order and that they will be sending me one from their own warehouse instead....curious how many customers this will affect...and how much longer I’ll have to wait...

We're at 99.3% of orders shipped, and of the remainder, all but 7 are "fully prepared but haven't yet left the fulfillment center."

The first number is up to 99.8%, but those 7 still haven't moved. I asked my contact at Amazon about them yesterday, and he said he pushed them to "an internal team that helped to drive orders." He added they consist of 6 orders to Australia and 1 to Spain, all of which include an Adventure and a Deluxe Hardcover Rulebook that have already shipped and a Flip-Mat that hasn't.

Some of the questions asked in this thread recently are from people who have placed their orders FROM AMAZON directly. If that describes you, you need to contact Amazon's customer service department for assistance. NONE of the information I am posting is relevant to you. If you have received any kind of shipping notice or other email from Amazon, you ordered from them, not us. (We did not provide Amazon with the email addresses of any of our customers.)

If you ordered from us, the last email you will typically get is the one that was sent in Mid-July when we prepared your order information for Fulfillment By Amazon, which included the message that your order was about to ship. The next thing you should expect is your order to arrive, if it hasn't already.

This week, 88 customers received (or will receive today) an additional email saying that Amazon was unable to ship your order, so we are fulfilling it ourselves. (I am still investigating why these 88 orders didn't get handled as expected.)

This week, 88 customers received (or will receive today) an additional email saying that Amazon was unable to ship your order, so we are fulfilling it ourselves. (I am still investigating why these 88 orders didn't get handled as expected.)

Just found my email. Thanks, Vic, sincerely. Paizo's customer service is always top-notch.

Well, I'm one of the lucky 88 as well.

Thanks for all the updates through this whole thing Vic.

My current issue is that we have no feedback on tracking where our deliveries are. We all know that Amazon has this capability and is able to give you order status.

I can query their system to get "estimated delivery dates" on all orders, but many orders do not have specific tracking information, and approximately 98% of the shipments that are trackable have already been delivered.

If Amazon offered an API that we could query to retrieve estimated delivery dates or tracking data, we would have built something to port that data into paizo.com... but they don't.

Vic, would you mind giving us another 'global update' on Australian deliveries?

I'm kind of resigned to it getting here when it gets here, but I'm a little curious now as to whether the staccato delivery rate you reported last time was merely an artifact of them not really paying attention to the outliers (ie if those later delivery times improve or get more refined as the packages actually get in the hands of international shipping companies).

Cheers.

I’m one of the 88 apparently :3

I'm with Steve. Resigned.

I'm pretty keen to help make the game the best it can be, so on the one hand I'm stoked that feedback has alreasy filtered in and apparently there will be an update PDF as outlined in THIS thread regarding the Paizo Twitch stream, on the other hand I'm sorta weirded out that by the time the physical book arrives (I haven't even downloaded the Playtest PDFs yet) they will be kind of already out of date and only getting moreso.

So resigned, and kind of disappointed for all of us. I know I'm often quite terse and an objectionable contrarian, but I do want to help and love the bomb. When it hits.

I have received one of the purported "88" emails. A very generic email with "unfortunately..." and "will ship as soon as possible...."

Which basically provides zero information as to what occurred, any offering to expedite shipment, and also asks me to respond as soon as possible regarding if I want to cancel the order.

I've tried to be very relaxed about all of this because honestly, it is just a playtest rules book and there are much bigger issues in the world. But I have to confess to being very frustrated. As phrased, it now becomes my responsibility to let Paizo know (as soon as possible) if I still want the order shipped, when Paizo has taken almost two weeks to provide me notice about my order. So suddenly, if I still want the order that I placed months ago (which I do) I am now responsible for providing a timely response.

I understand that this has been incredibly stressful on Paizo, and exactly why they went with Amazon so that an infrastructure designed to handle large volume shipments would make it go as smoothly as possible. However, while I appreciate the communication to let folks know what is going on generally is great customer service. The specific handling for these in particular did not come across as customer friendly and seemed unfathomably detail-free; nor was there any direct customer communication on what steps were being taken to set this right. And yes, the $15 was offered, but that was a global mea culpa for the overall issue...this is specific to orders that were placed, were verified, and simply were not shipped and no communicated reason for them not shipping.

Again, just completely baffling and frustrating.

I don’t believe you need to do anything if you still want the order. You need to let them know as soon as possible if you want to cancel your order, as they are working to fulfill all orders and if something has changed they need to know so they can work on the orders that do not need to be canceled.

Vic, if possible could you give me an update on Order 4783479? Package 1111368.

Thanks in advance!

Again, just completely baffling and frustrating.

7 posts back Vic wrote that he doesn't know why these 88 didn't ship, but he's investigating. Not sure what they should have told you since they don't even know themselves why they didn't ship?

If this is of any help (or hope) to anyone in the UK, I received mine on Saturday (11th) at around midday.

Contents: Paperback rulebook & adventure
Location: Hamphsire, UK
Delay: 10 days

David Margowsky wrote:

My current issue is that we have no feedback on tracking where our deliveries are. We all know that Amazon has this capability and is able to give you order status.

I can query their system to get "estimated delivery dates" on all orders, but many orders do not have specific tracking information, and approximately 98% of the shipments that are trackable have already been delivered.

If Amazon offered an API that we could query to retrieve estimated delivery dates or tracking data, we would have built something to port that data into paizo.com... but they don't.

Yeah they can't handle what they promise probably so why give you a way to see that? Maybe they had trouble raising the money to get the drivers or vehicles to move it? I have a friend in corporate fulfillment services who said it's been tight recently and bidding has been stiff. I hope Paizo's legal team helped put some hard lines in the contract. How embarrassing for Amazon.

Loving we're playtesting and while the delivery delays suck, at least the site never stopped responding during downloads! Amazon should have helped Paizo make this an easy delivery win. A shame.

Thanks for continuing to update us all Vic!

My curiosity now, without the ability to track it, is to wonder if my package hasn't gotten to me yet or if someone has just stolen off of my front porch and I'm never seeing it anyway.

Even with the credit, I am still disgruntled that I basically threw 50 dollars in the toilet.

If this helps my order number is #4866216 and the package number is 1107886.

Thank you in advance and thank you for keeping this thread up. You guys at Paizo are trying to make lemonade out of lemons dropped in toxic waste.

I'm one of the lucky 88 myself. I get orders from Amazon all the time, and live in a city--the address isn't exactly unreachable. That suggests the item is somehow the reason--assuming Paizo provided enough stock to begin with, did Amazon start shipping amazon.com preorders out of paizo.com preorder stock?

The only thing I ordered was a set of the maps, though. Hmmmmm.

Nothing here in Germany yet either unfortunately. Must have lucked out when it came to fulfilment.

Let me open with i love Paizo as a whole, customer service A+++, but i think i am cursed ordered Starfinder core from FLGS inside of PAizo website got it a month after mates who ordered from site, no problems lessoned learned.

Order Playtest from Paizo, gte the delay, no problems, live in Australa slightly longer wait required, no problems, my package arrived today (13/8), Hurrah, i am one of the lucky 6, got my rulebook, got the adventure, no map, sigh

Vic, oh blessed and knowledgeable angel of Customer service/ Tech Officer supreme, any updates or timelines on when i may be getting the map pack?

I was also one of the 88 unfulfilled orders. I got the email while standing in front of a store display with ALL of the print materials available for sale. I was really, really, REALLY tempted to cancel my order but decided to let Paizo make it right and ship my items if only to let them have the "win." I do wonder what the 88 lost orders have in common. I'm curious to find out why they never got shipped.

Side note: "The 88 Lost Orders" sounds like an epic title for a monk campaign!

At least you're not the Crazy 88!

I’m just glad I don’t have order 66.

We're at 99.3% of orders shipped, and of the remainder, all but 7 are "fully prepared but haven't yet left the fulfillment center."

The first number is down to 5 orders, and the second is down to 2.

Vic, would you mind giving us another 'global update' on Australian deliveries?

I'm just looking at the ones that have estimated delivery after today. About a quarter of them are arriving this week (and these are the only ones that have tracking info). Another quarter are arriving next Monday, August 20 (yours is in that group). There are a handful in the middle of next week, and then nearly everything else is next Friday, August 24. There are a handful of stragglers on August 29, with 1 on August 30 and 1 on September 6.

I have received one of the purported "88" emails. A very generic email with "unfortunately..." and "will ship as soon as possible...."

Which basically provides zero information as to what occurred, any offering to expedite shipment, and also asks me to respond as soon as possible regarding if I want to cancel the order....

We don't actually have answers on what happened yet, and we decided it was more important to communicate and act sooner rather than later. I am hopeful that I can figure it out today.

I suppose that one question you can ask the folks at Amazon is whether they took your release date as a "no earlier than" date, which would fully explain the spread of when people got their books.

Somehow this sounds as there’s at most one person working this at Amszon Fulfillment Services.

Vic, if possible could you give me an update on Order 4783479? Package 1111368.

Normally, I would have sent you a PM, but I learned something from your order.

It shipped August 1, with estimated delivery August 18, and did use a trackable service... but the last tracking entry is when it reached your city on August 6: "Delivery arranged no details expected."

So even some of the nominally trackable orders aren't fully trackable.

I hope Paizo's legal team helped put some hard lines in the contract. How embarrassing for Amazon.

You don't negotiate contracts with Fulfillment By Amazon any more than you negotiate contracts when you ship a package with the USPS. They have terms that you accept, or you go elsewhere.

Pedro Sampaio wrote:

Vic, if possible could you give me an update on Order 4783479? Package 1111368.

Normally, I would have sent you a PM, but I learned something from your order.

It shipped August 1, with estimated delivery August 18, and did use a trackable service... but the last tracking entry is when it reached your city on August 6: "Delivery arranged no details expected."

So even some of the nominally trackable orders aren't fully trackable.

Thanks a lot, Vic!

Unfortunately, up to this day, I haven't received my order. Still, that must mean it's already here is Brazil. Some international shipping services stop tracking once it arrives here (for whatever reason)...

Does it say which company/delivery service was used? I'll try and contact them tomorrow.

Thanks again

Pedro, you have a PM.

Pedro, you have a PM.

Thank you! As soon as I learn something, I'll let you know.

Well, my estimated delivery is the dreaded September 7th so yeah, over all very disappointed.
15$ store credits isn't the thing I wanted in compensation so I have to say, unless I get the real CRB in very good deal when ever it launches, I cannot recommend Paizo to my friends nor myself will be anymore ordering directly from Paizo.
I believe they should have been able to do better with the compensations on such huge delays.
It's Amazons fault, but Paizo is the one who needs to compensate the customers.
I doubt it matters at all, I'm just one of the couple unsatisfied customers in huge pool, but I know where my money is appreciated more.

Steve Geddes wrote:

Vic, would you mind giving us another 'global update' on Australian deliveries?

I'm just looking at the ones that have estimated delivery after today. About a quarter of them are arriving this week (and these are the only ones that have tracking info). Another quarter are arriving next Monday, August 20 (yours is in that group). There are a handful in the middle of next week, and then nearly everything else is next Friday, August 24. There are a handful of stragglers on August 29, with 1 on August 30 and 1 on September 6.

Vic, sorry to be uber-specific, mine is (Paizo Order#) 4801868 - do you know if it is in any of those groups?

I was at my local Barnes & Noble.
They are carrying the Playtest.
Not only did they have the Paperback and Hardback, they also had the Deluxe Hardback. I thought that would have been a Paizo exclusive.
They didn't have the Adventure or the Maps.

Book and adventure arrived today in the Netherlands. Ticket inside listed "(my) order of 27 July". I ordered from Paizo at the end of March so I guess that's when they sent it. About two weeks too late unfortunately.

I'm glad they're here but the buzz has kind of gone.

Mine was waiting for me when I got into work yesterday (have my books shipped to work and I was out all last week) so it must have come last week, which means it probably shipped close to on time. (This is not bragging, just an FYI. It sucks so many folks are still waiting.)

As a heads up I was not impressed with the packing job, but miraculously in spite of the very dinged up bag my stuff came in with little padding/packing material, the materials are in good condition. I know there's nothing Paizo can do about that, but just as a note for considerations against using Amazon Fulfillment again. (Years ago I worked in book-shipping so my standards for what good packing is may be unecessarily high, but I will say Paizo usually meets or exceeds them when shipping out of their own warehouse.)

Still waiting for mine. Patience is a virtue, I guess! I'm also bemused/exasperated that there will be on-going changes to the rules throughout the play-test, so that the longer I wait, the less useful and accurate my book will be :)

I *think* mine is waiting for me at the post office, but I'll likely not get there this afternoon. Hopefully you'll get yours soon, Jhaeman and Steve....