The banner states : "Personalized downloads are temporarily unavailable, beginning 8 p.m. Pacific time, Tuesday, February 12. We apologize for the inconvenience."
Is there an estimate on when it will be back up?
Odd, every place I've ever worked has someone on call to handle outages.
If it is going to be down for a long time, they should just turn off the personalizing part and let us access our purchases.
It would have also been nice to see a warning that downloads were down during the check out process. It was a frustrating to just finish the check out process only to find I could not access my purchase.
I agree. This is really frustrating. I wanted to dive into the Rulebook right away.
The rulebooks are all available online here.
But I'd love to peek at my Reign of Winter PDF, since my order has just shipped, and can't. KHAAAAAAAAAN!
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Odd, every place I've ever worked has someone on call to handle outages.
If it is going to be down for a long time, they should just turn off the personalizing part and let us access our purchases.
It would have also been nice to see a warning that downloads were down during the check out process. It was a frustrating to just finish the check out process only to find I could not access my purchase.
Paizo is a small company, with about 30 staff, only two of which are directly on the technical bit of the website. The person on call is probably the person who put up the message saying that it's down.
Turning off the personaliser removes the security on the files that they rely on in order to track down pirates, so that simply isn't going to happen.
Putting a note on check out would involve rebuilding the checkout system to display it, something that would take a lot of time (time best spent on fixing the problem) and risk messing with the ecommerce part of the site, which is never something to be done lightly.
I agree. This is really frustrating. I wanted to dive into the Rulebook right away.The rulebooks are all available online here.
But I'd love to peek at my Reign of Winter PDF, since my order has just shipped, and can't. KHAAAAAAAAAN!
Unfortunately for pfs you need to own the additional resources. some gm's don't like the websites.
Unfortunately for pfs you need to own the additional resources. some gm's don't like the websites.
I know, I was just responding to your stated desire to "dive in right away."
I'm frustrated, too, but also confident Paizo will fix it soon.
Paizo is a small company, with about 30 staff, only two of which are directly on the technical bit of the website. The person on call is probably the person who put up the message saying that it's down.Turning off the personaliser removes the security on the files that they rely on in order to track down pirates, so that simply isn't going to happen.
Seems like the personaliser causes more issues than it solves, though. Other sites post their stuff without drm and seem to do fine...thinking of o'reilly books for one. While the personaliser isn't as bad as some drm systems, it does punish paying customers without harming the people who pirate. i often have to fight with it to get the downloads to start...something people using pirate sites don't have to deal with.
And since you pointed out they are a small company, wouldn't it be better to focus development/technical efforts on improving the site speed or offering more features (like linking downloads directly to dropbox)? why spend many man hours coming up with an anti-piracy system when it doesn't even slow down the pirates? its like game companies spend hundred of thousands of dollars and cripple the software for paying people, when a teenage ends up breaks the drm on the first day.
but that is just my two cents....
Any word from Paizo on this?
Seems like the personaliser causes more issues than it solves, though. Other sites post their stuff without drm and seem to do fine...thinking of o'reilly books for one. While the personaliser isn't as bad as some drm systems, it does punish paying customers without harming the people who pirate. i often have to fight with it to get the downloads to start...something people using pirate sites don't have to deal with.
And since you pointed out they are a small company, wouldn't it be better to focus development/technical efforts on improving the site speed or offering more features (like linking downloads directly to dropbox)? why spend many man hours coming up with an anti-piracy system when it doesn't even slow down the pirates? its like game companies spend hundred of thousands of dollars and cripple the software for paying people, when a teenage ends up breaks the drm on the first day.
To be honest, I don't recognize the "causes more issues than it solves", "punish paying customers", or "cripple the software for paying people." I never have any issues downloading my material from paizo.com, except in instances where some maintenance is necessary. And that happens with every site from time to time.
Is HowlingWolf's experience common among those who purchase PDFs through paizo.com? I'm genuinely curious, as I may just have been extremely lucky.
Generally, though, I'd say have patience. Periods of maintenance happen for every website out there, and paizo.com is no different. Let the Paizonians get work and get settled a bit. I'm sure they'll get on it as soon as humanly possible.
I just paid for a PDF and can't download it, it's freakin WED the 13th why are the downloads still not working! If they keep it down too long, I'm filing a non-delivery protest with Paypal.
PostMonster General
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We don't use DRM, the personalizer just watermarks PDFs and we're not going to change that.
The personalizer server threw a rod last night and sprayed bit fluid all over the colocation facility. We spent several hours last night trying to make it happy but no dice—we're going to try swapping out some pieces today that we couldn't last night.
We have a preliminary transition plan to get a replacement server back up but it'll probably take a few hours to get everything into place if we're unable to get the main server back online.
Adding redundancy to this system has been on the todo list for some time but it's easy to get complacent when a server has hundreds of days of uptime with no problems.
We don't use DRM, the personalizer just watermarks PDFs and we're not going to change that.
The personalizer server threw a rod last night and sprayed bit fluid all over the colocation facility. We spent several hours last night trying to make it happy but no dice—we're going to try swapping out some pieces today that we couldn't last night.
We have a preliminary transition plan to get a replacement server back up but it'll probably take a few hours to get everything into place if we're unable to get the main server back online.
Adding redundancy to this system has been on the todo list for some time but it's easy to get complacent when a server has hundreds of days of uptime with no problems.
Ok, I will wait for awhile.
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I have been downloading PDFs from Paizo for the last 5 years, consistently, and have never had any problems.
Seems like the personaliser causes more issues than it solves, though. Other sites post their stuff without drm and seem to do fine...thinking of o'reilly books for one. While the personaliser isn't as bad as some drm systems, it does punish paying customers without harming the people who pirate. i often have to fight with it to get the downloads to start...something people using pirate sites don't have to deal with.
And since you pointed out they are a small company, wouldn't it be better to focus development/technical efforts on improving the site speed or offering more features (like linking downloads directly to dropbox)? why spend many man hours coming up with an anti-piracy system when it doesn't even slow down the pirates? its like game companies spend hundred of thousands of dollars and cripple the software for paying people, when a teenage ends up breaks the drm on the first day.
To be honest, I don't recognize the "causes more issues than it solves", "punish paying customers", or "cripple the software for paying people." I never have any issues downloading my material from paizo.com, except in instances where some maintenance is necessary. And that happens with every site from time to time.
Is HowlingWolf's experience common among those who purchase PDFs through paizo.com? I'm genuinely curious, as I may just have been extremely lucky.
Generally, though, I'd say have patience. Periods of maintenance happen for every website out there, and paizo.com is no different. Let the Paizonians get work and get settled a bit. I'm sure they'll get on it as soon as humanly possible.
Most of my problems come from it not starting the personalise process or it still not allowing a download after waiting 10 seconds. It has taken me over five minutes to get something to start downloading before. Maybe it isn't the personaliser. It could be request timing out due to the site being slow. Either way, it is extremely frustrating.
Adding redundancy to this system has been on the todo list for some time but it's easy to get complacent when a server has hundreds of days of uptime with no problems.
That is a common story. Management often does see the need for redundancy, until something bad happens and everything comes down. Same with scheduled backups.
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I don't mind the wait, I just hope everything gets fixed without too much hassle over on Paizo's end. Must be even more aggravating for them than for us in my opinion.
What is the personalizer?>
Shalafi, it puts your name or id on the pdfs as a watermark to discourage uploading it to a torrent.
Oh ok! Thanks!
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What is the personalizer?>
It's the code that adds the personal watermark on each PDF that you download from Paizo.
Personally, I mildly dislike it. Very often it causes me to waste more time than necessary for downloading my stuff.
As other have said, you can find all the material from Paizo pirated, so I'm not seeing the difference that it makes. SJ Games offers all their PDF products without extra hassle and it seems to work very fine for them.
Been downloading stuff for over a year now...before this week I have never had a problem.
If you have been having problems before this week, I suspect that it's either specific to your computer or something to do with how your browser is set up.
Shalafi, it puts your name or id on the pdfs as a watermark to discourage uploading it to a torrent.
Doesn't work.....Jerks still do it.
How much longer, would like to get the PDF, I paid for today sometime?
Shalafi, it puts your name or id on the pdfs as a watermark to discourage uploading it to a torrent.Doesn't work.....Jerks still do it.
If it's dissuaded some from sharing their material illegally, then yes, it works. It won't keep everyone from illegal activity, sadly, but putting the watermark on the PDFs definitely will prevent some less tech-savvy people from sharing.
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Shalafi, it puts your name or id on the pdfs as a watermark to discourage uploading it to a torrent.Doesn't work.....Jerks still do it.If it's dissuaded some from sharing their material illegally, then yes, it works. It won't keep everyone from illegal activity, sadly, but putting the watermark on the PDFs definitely will prevent some less tech-savvy people from sharing.
This is certainly true. The average person is unable to remove the watermark. However, it just takes one skilled pirate and then the illegal version is out there in the wild.
Paizo any update?
However, it just takes one skilled pirate and then the illegal version is out there in the wilds.
That is also true. For me personally, I expect Paizo, indeed every publisher, to do everything they can to dissuade as many people as possible from sharing their material illegally. It's impossible to shut down piracy 100% but that doesn't mean the fight against it shouldn't happen.
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While it doesn't stop piracy 100%, it has shut down sources of pirated PDFs when the watermarks pop up in online copies and that source has their acct shut down. And it makes others afraid to share their purchases. I think that's the point.
As for the hardware issue, our company recently went to test our redundant systems. Sadly, they failed during the test causing issues when bring our main systems back up. Just pray to the 'puter gods for mercy and swift repair. I, too, made purchases today and am PATIENTLY waiting for Paizo's system to come back up.
However, it just takes one skilled pirate and then the illegal version is out there in the wilds.That is also true. For me personally, I expect Paizo, indeed every publisher, to do everything they can to dissuade as many people as possible from sharing their material illegally. It's impossible to shut down piracy 100% but that doesn't mean the fight against it shouldn't happen.
Unless that fight drives away paying customers. Just look at what other industries do to "fight piracy". sony got caught installing root kits on peoples machines when they played a cd. while i think paizo is honestly trying to stop sharing, many companies are just trying to stop reselling.
the best way to stop people from pirating stuff is to offer a better product/service than the pirates. if you price your stuff reasonably and make the process easy, most people won't pirate. the harder you make it on the paying customer, the more likely they will take their money else where.
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However, it just takes one skilled pirate and then the illegal version is out there in the wilds.That is also true. For me personally, I expect Paizo, indeed every publisher, to do everything they can to dissuade as many people as possible from sharing their material illegally. It's impossible to shut down piracy 100% but that doesn't mean the fight against it shouldn't happen.Unless that fight drives away paying customers. Just look at what other industries do to "fight piracy". sony got caught installing root kits on peoples machines when they played a cd. while i think paizo is honestly trying to stop sharing, many companies are just trying to stop reselling.
the best way to stop people from pirating stuff is to offer a better product/service than the pirates. if you price your stuff reasonably and make the process easy, most people won't pirate. the harder you make it on the paying customer, the more likely they will take their money else where.
Ok, that last paragraph doesn't make a lot of sense in this case since I think Paizo is fairly reasonable for most of their products. The ones I think are too costly, I don't buy. And the products the pirates are putting out there ARE the same things we're buying here. And as far as ANYONE pricing their products lower so that people don't pirate them ... well, there are always going to be people that think it's unfair that they have to pay for services and products.
Honestly, while I (and others) aren't happy that we can't download our purchases today, I have NEVER had any issue in the two years I've been buying PDFs from Paizo. And when I accidentally deleted copies of my core rulebooks from my hard drive, I was able to jump onto here and download them again. Again watermarked as my purchase. I'll put up with a bit of hardware repairs as long as I know that tomorrow (hopefully) I'll be able to download my purchases.
And seriously, if it bothers you so much, then don't buy from Paizo.
Status update: We've found replacement hardware for the parts that broke on the server. Looks like it will take at least several hours to completely rebuild, test and deploy it. Unfortunately that is the shortest road to getting downloads working again.
Thanks for the update. Goodluck!
the best way to stop people from pirating stuff is to offer a better product/service than the pirates. if you price your stuff reasonably and make the process easy, most people won't pirate. the harder you make it on the paying customer, the more likely they will take their money else where.
Right, and Paizo's been keeping the price as low as they possibly can. In fact, the recent price increase was the first since they started their adventure path line. As for making the process easy, I can only say that in the 5-6 years I've been buying from Paizo (284 orders in total), I've never had any issues of any kind downloading my PDFs. This current situation isn't common for paizo.com at all. The success Paizo has had in the decade the company's existed indicates to me that their security measures can't be that big an issue.
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I am really cheesed off about this. Today is the second order I ever made with Paizo, the first was screwed up and I never got a satisfactory answer after several emails. Today, I go on and make a purchase for an instant download and only AFTER I have paid do I find out the download is unavailable. I made a phone call and an email, the phone call got the run around, the email got no response. I am VERY unhappy
I'd say that's a tad extreme. Paizo is a great company made up of great people. This is an unfortunate hardware glitch certainly but it happens and I'm sure the folks at Paizo are doing everything in their power to fix the issue asap.
You didn't lose your purchase. The download is just temporarily unavailable. Would you act this way if you ordered something and the package was delayed a day or two due to weather or something?
Oh, and by the way - very classy first post here ...
If you are having trouble with downloads, could be a browser or browser setting issue. Never hurts to check.
If you experience issues with downloading from paizo.com that appears to only occur using a specific browser or device, please let us know. :)
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I just paid for a PDF and can't download it, it's freakin WED the 13th why are the downloads still not working! If they keep it down too long, I'm filing a non-delivery protest with Paypal.
Please see my post above :)
Also, not sure what the PayPal comment was about - Paizo does not accept PayPal ...
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the best way to stop people from pirating stuff is to offer a better product/service than the pirates. if you price your stuff reasonably and make the process easy, most people won't pirate. the harder you make it on the paying customer, the more likely they will take their money else where.
<soapbox>
Umm ... just a few inaccuracies with these sentences. First, those "offering" pirated material are "offering" the same material that you are buying here. Second, as to the price, with torrents, you are paying nothing, so there is no competition possible on the price front either. Third, MOST PEOPLE DON'T PIRATE ANYWAYS! Why? Because doing so is (1) illegal and (2) a really freaking a$$%@!* move, especially if you actually like the product you are downloading or uploading.</soapbox>
As to the server issues, good luck Gary and crew. As much as I would love to download book 1 of the new AP, I have no issues kicking back and waiting for the server to come back up. Better to have it done and done properly than rushed and go through it again in a short time.
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I made a phone call and an email, the phone call got the run around, the email got no response.
What's your definition of "the run around"?
Also, I think CS has said on numerous occasions that they answer emails in the order they're received. Phones they answer in real-time (in my experience).
-Skeld