Introducing the New Paizo Store!

Man Paizo just can't win with some of you. For the last *decade* people have complained about the store. They're finally fixing it, but not in the way you want.

That is unfair. You only say "they're fixing it" because the changes work for you. The proper response is "they are changing it" and people always complain when there is change. That's human nature. The question is will the damage from the complainers be greater or lesser than the benefit to those who find the changes to be a fix.

Paizo had to change, and this is it. I am not happy with some of the fallout from those changes, and it has already decreased my spending with Paizo. But, I am still excited to see the new website. I feel it was a necessary move. I will not stop playing Pathfinder because of it. I am just changing what I buy and how I buy it.

Honestly, leaving reviews to buying customers feels fine to me. We already got very few reviews per AP volume but we always get the one from the dude who just leaves one star without a comment, because he's on his third (or higher) account doing this, because he hates 2E on the principle that it isn't 1E.

That being said, migrating old reviews from verified customers seems like a good idea to me.

Honestly, leaving reviews to buying customers feels fine to me. We already got very few reviews per AP volume but we always get the one from the dude who just leaves one star without a comment, because he's on his third (or higher) account doing this, because he hates 2E on the principle that it isn't 1E.

The issue is: That way only the GM can leave a review, not the players. And in case of Org Play with the Foundry VTT premium modules, not even the GM can, if he doesn't also buy the PDFs.

I wonder, could there be an option to add the Foundry module to the subscription? My issue with the current changes is to keep the subscription and then add the Foundry module is approximately $35, assuming I have the enough gold to keep my discount with the new store it would $51 for the sub and the module. If there was an option to subscribe and get everything for $35ish. I at least would look at doing that.

It doesn't help with those who decide to run it later, but it would at least be something.

I'd be down for this. A foundry & pdf adventure subscription would ease a lot of the issues I'm having with this transition, and I don't think I'm alone in that.

I am a Demiplane Subscriber and have the Ultimate Bundle for both PF2e and SF2e. I was buying my Foundry Codes to complete my digital purchases as I prefer their VTT over Roll20. I WAS looking forward to the Hellfire Crisis, but I will now have to rethink whether I run that story, or what I will be running in the future, and frankly, I will be passing on the Pathfinder Quest Backer Kit, as I redirect those fund to buying codes I was going to wait on but refuse to pay a $15 price hike. Prices are rising enough on essentials, having a 100% kick up on a digital price just doesn't sit well with me. I do sincerely hope you figure out a solution to the problem, but won't be waiting around as it took years just to get the web site updated. Might just take as long to figure out this dilemma as it did to fix the web site to begin with. It's not like you are going to lose my business to another game or company, you are just going to lose my business and that truly saddens me.

Having just been looking through my digital content page for something. Will the changes to the store do anything to fix the truly baffling organization and sorting of that page?

Having just been looking through my digital content page for something. Will the changes to the store do anything to fix the truly baffling organization and sorting of that page?

And will our ancient-of-days (and vastly preferred, frankly) 1e content still be available from there? :-/

LB
(who hasn't finished downloading her most recent purchases yet... :-/)

Will the page be able to tell us if we already have a pdf in our downloads as it does now? Just making sure because preventing someone from accidentally buying it twice is important, and since the foundry code purchases are apparently issues because the store can't check against our owned digital content. Thanks!

To echo another of redeux' comments, I'm quite disappointed that I had to find this information by accident in the forums. Paizo's email communications have gotten increasingly less useful and I rarely read them. I browse the forums even less because of the signal-to-noise ratio.

There's room for improvements in simple communication, Jim. You aren't reaching a significant number of your subscribers, I believe.

It would be nice if the new store prevented you from gifting a pdf to someone who already had it. That happened to me once a couple of years ago, and it still feels bad.

Will there be an option for subscribers to only get pdfs of products? As a subscription?

Will there be an option for subscribers to only get pdfs of products? As a subscription?

This is not something we're working on, but we'll update if that changes!

The blog post sounds it, but I'm going to post here just to make sure:

I'm hoping there won't be any "old product erasure". I still refer back OFTEN to product pages from the edition I still play (PF1), including the various oddball products Paizo used to do. I'm hoping they'll still have a home "in the store" even if they're permanently in the past.

The product pages, as currently designed, are more than just store pages -- but a lot more.

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

Will there be an option for subscribers to only get pdfs of products? As a subscription?

This is not something we're working on, but we'll update if that changes!

I think that many people would appreciate this option, especially as the cost of books keeps going up.

Has there been an announcement of when the conversion from the current store to the new store will happen?

Since my wife and I have been involved with Paizo since 2013, both of us being Venture Officers, and having a lot of subscriptions, we have a lot in our Library. I'm trying to make sure I get it all downloaded to make sure we don't lose anything, and I just want to make sure I'm budgeting my time properly to get this done and still do what I need to IRL.

Thanks!

Has there been an announcement of when the conversion from the current store to the new store will happen?

Not yet. Once we have completed successful testing we'll let everyone know. There likely will not be a lot of time between the time we do that, and the time the store goes live. I expect Paizo.com would go dark on "a Monday" and then come back on Wednesday, but we're still verifying that process.

Since my wife and I have been involved with Paizo since 2013, both of us being Venture Officers, and having a lot of subscriptions, we have a lot in our Library. I'm trying to make sure I get it all downloaded to make sure we don't lose anything, and I just want to make sure I'm budgeting my time properly to get this done and still do what I need to IRL.

Thanks!

We expect everything currently in your library will be in the new library when the site comes back up. That's certainly the plan, even for those of you that have a *lot* of products there.

-Jim

Having just been looking through my digital content page for something. Will the changes to the store do anything to fix the truly baffling organization and sorting of that page?

Yes, the library has been reorganized to make products easier to find. Check out the April Tech Update to see more.

-Jim

@Jim Butler, I have three questions for you:

* How much do your tech folks think there will impacts to Community Forums? Will there still be avatars, “favorited posts”, quoting capabilities etc, or are we looking at a whole new system?

When Kobold Press changed from its forums to a Google Community, the entirety of their forums were essentially lost to the old forumites. Just trying to assess how much this incredible community resource will be affected.

* One thing that was feted many years ago was a change to the “alias” fields under each avatar, to improve Play by Post functionality - will any of those improvements be implemented as part of this change?

* Maya Coleman has stated that “Pay to Play” options will be hosted on the new website - is that still the case? Will Paizo essentially be instituting its own version of Start Playing to cash in on/take a cut of “paid GMs”?

@Jim Butler, I have three questions for you:

* How much do your tech folks think there will impacts to Community Forums? Will there still be avatars, “favorited posts”, quoting capabilities etc, or are we looking at a whole new system?

When Kobold Press changed from its forums to a Google Community, the entirety of their forums were essentially lost to the old forumites. Just trying to assess how much this incredible community resource will be affected.

* One thing that was feted many years ago was a change to the “alias” fields under each avatar, to improve Play by Post functionality - will any of those improvements be implemented as part of this change?

* Maya Coleman has stated that “Pay to Play” options will be hosted on the new website - is that still the case? Will Paizo essentially be instituting its own version of Start Playing to cash in on/take a cut of “paid GMs”?

While we do have plans to change the forums at some point in the future, that change will not happen with the launch of the new store. In a future perfect world, we would retain all the current posts and functionality we have and import those over to a new platform. That includes aliases and all of the messages on the current forums.

We haven't settled on that perfect platform yet, as work on the new backend and BigCommerce store have been taking up all of our resources. We'll provide more information once we start that big adventure path.

I think Maya is referring to LFG functionality. I'd like to see specific forums (or tags or some other structure) that clearly highlight whether a game is in-person, online, free/paid, PbP, etc. Paizo doesn't have any plans to recreate what Start Playing has been doing for the past several years.

I know pay-to-play is anathema to some folks; it was to me when I first heard about it. I then joined a Start Playing game of Abomination Vaults and played for about a year before it fell to a nasty TPK. I see the benefit of paid games now, and I have also seen the number of new players it can introduce to the hobby. If you're brand new to tabletop, finding a group can be pretty daunting. Start Playing and similar platforms let you join a group quickly and get to rolling those virtual dice along with an experienced GM who makes sure everyone is having fun.

-Jim

Thanks for your quick and considered response Jim.

I take your first response to mean that the forums *aren’t* changing when the new commerce store opens? Or do you mean that the new store will open without forums?

As for paid games, consider this poster as someone for whom paid games is definitely anathematic.

While Start Playing and similar hosting sites might bring new people into the hobby, there is absolutely zero *requirement* for that process to involve a commercial aspect. And an “experienced GM” is also not the same as a “paid GM”.

I get your general point however, and if people wish to pay a GM then they might get what they pay for. Then again, they might not.

Thanks for your quick and considered response Jim.

I take your first response to mean that the forums *aren’t* changing when the new commerce store opens? Or do you mean that the new store will open without forums?

The forums are a completely separate project from the ecommerce store, though there is some connective tissues that will no longer be available when the new store launches. For example, forums will not be embedded to product detail pages, but there will be threads on forums that everyone can discuss the product on.

As for paid games, consider this poster as someone for whom paid games is definitely anathematic.

While Start Playing and similar hosting sites might bring new people into the hobby, there is absolutely zero *requirement* for that process to involve a commercial aspect. And an “experienced GM” is also not the same as a “paid GM”.

I get your general point however, and if people wish to pay a GM then they might get what they pay for. Then again, they might not.

Agreed. And to get back to our original topic around the LFG forums, moving paid gaming posts to their own forums will allow people that aren't interested in that option to ignore them.

-Jim

Thanks again Jim. I’ll wait and see how it all pans out.

I know the forums will be updated at a later time, but MAN I hope part of that upgrade will include a way to kill all the spam that seems to be hotting the site lately :/

So WHEN?

I have 2 bundles of books for over 400 bucks on hold now because your current credit card processor denies ALL 3 cards that I tried and I verified with my bank (where I also work at) that the problem is not on MY end but your provider is the problem (the card I used for years with Paizo and other companies successfully is suddenly not good enough anymore for your CC provider). I have been fighting for getting the payments through for weeks now, but your support team cannot tell me why payments do not work, but apparently your CC provider cannot tell what the problem is. Get rid of that one, it's not helpful, get a provider that can tell you WHY, when declining CCs.

I really want my bundles (and more will queue up, I am subscribed to 6 paths), so urgently need you to switch to the new stuff so I can go with whichever payment options/providers you have in there.

So WHEN?

I have 2 bundles of books for over 400 bucks on hold now because your current credit card processor denies ALL 3 cards that I tried and I verified with my bank (where I also work at) that the problem is not on MY end but your provider is the problem (the card I used for years with Paizo and other companies successfully is suddenly not good enough anymore for your CC provider). I have been fighting for getting the payments through for weeks now, but your support team cannot tell me why payments do not work, but apparently your CC provider cannot tell what the problem is. Get rid of that one, it's not helpful, get a provider that can tell you WHY, when declining CCs.

I really want my bundles (and more will queue up, I am subscribed to 6 paths), so urgently need you to switch to the new stuff so I can go with whichever payment options/providers you have in there.

RobertTHEPerylous wrote:

Has there been an announcement of when the conversion from the current store to the new store will happen?

Not yet. Once we have completed successful testing we'll let everyone know. There likely will not be a lot of time between the time we do that, and the time the store goes live. I expect Paizo.com would go dark on "a Monday" and then come back on Wednesday, but we're still verifying that process.

Ok, so the first order will get cancelled by Paizo november 14th if the payment issue doesn't get resolved, the second on november 21st, so I hope the store goes live before.

I mean, come on guys, you want to sell stuff, I want to buy it, we can make it happen! \o/

Also what will happen with unprocessed orders? Will they get migrated? Or will those somehow "drop out" and I have to find a way how to get the stuff that was part of those orders (46411485, 45947068)?

I know the forums will be updated at a later time, but MAN I hope part of that upgrade will include a way to kill all the spam that seems to be hotting the site lately :/

I'm hoping for this too! We're hoping the system we use will be better at filtering those bots before they even make posts. Here's hoping! If not, I'll still be here to swat them away ~

That's great! After that pls do something similar with My Organized Play section xDDDDD