gbonehead's page

@Dancing Wind: I've been around here since somethings like 2008, and I'm fully aware of all the changes made. I won't call most of them improvements.

It's truly a shame. I love Paizo dearly, and back in the day I would have said their customer service was the best in the world, hands down, but I can't in good faith say that any more.

Zero to do with *people* and everything to do with policies and procedures. Such as this. While I 100% understand the policy of moving customer service entirely to email, it removes so many of the wonderful aspects of having a customer support forum without really adding anything of apparent value to the customer.

It's also why I reported this as a bug in the closest thing to a bug reports forum. If you read my post, I was not trying to get my order fixed as I'm quite aware this is not a customer support forum.

I'm quite sure someone somewhere has metrics saying removing the customer support forums improved service by 12.04% or some other number, but such things are corporate speak and do not make up for the wonderful but now lost ability to see if other people were having similar trouble or for other visitors to the web site to give answers.

Was it perfect? Heck no. Did it feel more like a friendly community centered around a wonderful small town company than some sort of offshore customer support black hole? Heck yeah.

It's like watching a loved grandparent as they start slipping into senility. Of course you still love them dearly, but you also miss the days gone by and fear the future.

Things around here are vastly different than they used to be, so it's hard to say for sure but I'm pretty darn certain the order reporting part of the software is busted.

Back in the day, the monthly threads would always say "this month's subscription orders are complete" or something similar, but now there's only an "estimated completion" during the initial post.

I would guess a person would run a report for the month's subscription orders, and when that report showed zero items outstanding, they'd post it was complete.

So, this results in the following conclusions:

1. For some reason the "end of shipping" post has gone by the wayside, which is a crying shame because it makes the next one a guess.

2. The "orders complete" report is broken. Or no longer exists. Or something :)

Again, with the loss of the "end of shipping" posts (at least I've been unable to find any for the past few months), it's hard to state that as a fact, but I have pretty strong evidence that if it does exist (and if anyone uses it) it's broken, since my subscriptions haven't shipped since last Spring (i.e. Spring 2022).

I'm not reporting this as a customer support issue because I still have a morbid curiosity what the heck is up - I'm reporting this as a software bug becuase I certainly hope there's a "orders complete" report that someone in CS is actually using, and if so it's broken :)

I work in tech, and Cori Marie is right. Sometimes, we just wait for a user to scream.

As do I, and it's not a feature, it's a bug :)

gbonehead wrote:

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

The watch begins, hopefully this year I will not have to wait until after the release date to get my order, like has happened the last 2 years.

Look on the bright side .. you get your orders. I have not received a subscription shipment xince about March of 2022 (and looking back, it was actually February, not March). Yes, that does say 2022 :)

I used to wonder how many months it would take for the system to recognize orders weren't shipping. Now the time is starting to be measured in years.

The Order Beast truly is a fickly ally :)

You should contact customer service through their email.

I could ... but I have a morbid curiosity about how long it will take the system to realize there's an issue :)

The watch begins, hopefully this year I will not have to wait until after the release date to get my order, like has happened the last 2 years.

Look on the bright side .. you get your orders. I have not received a subscription shipment xince about March of 2022 (and looking back, it was actually February, not March). Yes, that does say 2022 :)

I used to wonder how many months it would take for the system to recognize orders weren't shipping. Now the time is starting to be measured in years.

The Order Beast truly is a fickly ally :)

Hello favorite people!

Not sure whether we should ask for help here or over on GameOn...

Ah, it seems things have changed and email is now the only support option. We'll send this in an email.

Thank you!
Amy & Burt Smith
House of Books and Games LLC

Hello favorite people!

Not sure whether we should ask for help here or over on GameOn, but one of our three Kingmaker packages was pretty severely damaged during shipping (as mentioned over there, it seems shipping peanuts don't hold up well to 17 or so pounds of merchandise, and once they all flattened the box compressed and split wide open).

Thankfully all the paid product was fine, but with the giant hole in the box, both the pins and both the hero tokens ended up on the floor of a USPS depot somewhere :)

Can we get replacements for the pins and tokens?

Thank you so much,
Amy & Burt Smith
House of Books and Games LLC

The first transport is away! The first transport is away!

Just sharing my excitement that for the first time since very early in 2020, one of my subscription shipments actually shipped without someone poking the order beast :)

That is truly a cause for celebration for me - and I owe a HUGE thank you to Tonya for making it happen!

And thanks for the explanation! That's a nice peak behind the curtain.

Agreed ... an explanation is a very welcome difference compared to other web sites :)

(aside: I did have to clear cached data for Paizo before I could log in ... I'm saying that primarily for anyone reading this thread :)

Has anyone else noticed Serpents of the Cradle has the same ISBN as the AP #40 Planetfall?

They're both 978-1-64078-336-2

So if you think Planetfall's selling twice as well as any of the other Starfinder AP volumes, that could be why :)

I'm fully aware this will put me a the bottom of the queue as it is if CS still handles the forum stuff the same way.

I also have a suspicion it won't make a huge difference :)

The orders in question are:

Order 36419368 (March)
Order 36459003 (May)
Order 36531036 (June)
Order 36598273 (August)
Order 36668909 (September)

No sign of October yet but looks like odds are 5 out of 6 it'll end up in the same boat. (container? :)

-b

I think the order beast secretly changed my account to be "Hold for yearly shipment" :)

Opsylum wrote:

I was literally just bargain hunting for these. :p Still can't find Wormwood Mutiny for anything less than $100. Sigh...someday.

Seriously though, if Paizo did start doing this, they'd have another subscription out of me in a heartbeat. Probably not, because 1e's kind of done and conversions to 2e are complicated, if Kingmaker's anything to go by. Still, one can dream.

It sounds like you might be interested in a print-on-demand option. For those asking for reprints of collected material, would you be interested if they were just 1:1 reprints rather than changing form factor or contents of what was between two covers?

Note for us the POD would only likely work if Paizo resurrected their concept for direct to retail, so in practice while we like the idea our shop probably couldn't take part :/

Hey out there!

Any luck? Looks like June and perhaps July are both now piling onto the camel's back :)

Good thing Order Cart is strong like bull.

:)
-b

Opsylum wrote:

I was literally just bargain hunting for these. :p Still can't find Wormwood Mutiny for anything less than $100. Sigh...someday.

Seriously though, if Paizo did start doing this, they'd have another subscription out of me in a heartbeat. Probably not, because 1e's kind of done and conversions to 2e are complicated, if Kingmaker's anything to go by. Still, one can dream.

It sounds like you might be interested in a print-on-demand option. For those asking for reprints of collected material, would you be interested if they were just 1:1 reprints rather than changing form factor or contents of what was between two covers?

We would 100% carry those at our shop. That would be awesome.

Hey there favorite people!

Just checking in because my account seems to be doing the limbo again :)

Something ugly happened to my account a couple years back and it's never been quite right in the head since - orders get pre-authed but never actually finalized and shipped.

Order 36419368 from March and order 36459003 from May are both stuck in Pending and I'm guessing June will end up there too.

When someone gets a chance to give the order beast a poke that would be great :)

thank you as always!
-b

Hey out there!

I think something's busted in my account.

I've had no orders shipped since the September ones that were manually pushed through the system for me by Jeff.

Order 36244072 spawned on 9/24 but went nowhere.
Order 36244072 RE spawned on 10/23 with more stuff and still went nowhere.
Order 36244072 re spawned again on 11/19 with even more stuff and still went nowhere.
Order 36322435 spawned on 2/4 and also went nowhere.

If I were a gambler, I'd bet order 36322435 will re-spawn in March with more stuff :)

All the digital orders have come through just fine, but my physical orders are just hanging around in limbo.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am *not* emailing about this one, just using the forums so that there won't be multiple overlapping messages.

edit: I've been letting this just sit out of a morbid curiosity about how long it would last, but at some point things will end up out of stock and that would be poopy.

And now (my guess would be it's on purpose) the option to buy gift certificates has disappeared from the site.

If you go to the URL above that wanted to take you there, it still makes you sign in (even if you're already signed in) but then it goes off to oblivion just as before.

And also curious, if you search for Gift Certificate, the main search page shows 2 matches, which would make sense, but when you click on that link it brings you to a product tab saying nothing found.

Not urgent, just looking to throw some money Paizo's way to use for my subs :)

Hey out there,

Most of the site is behaving normally, but the gift certificate page is going off to oblivion and never actually loading.

I have a hunch is has something to do with the weirdo URL it's trying to load, but that's just a guess.

For some odd reason the URL is this (note the odd signIn at the end):

https://paizo.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Store.woa/wa/DirectAction/signIn ?path=store/giftCertificates

... even though I'm already logged in. I cleared all cookies and similar crap (sometimes web site changes cause of odd behavior with saved cookies) but it's still happening. I've let it sit for several minutes now and eeeeeeeeeventually it came up with the rat-thing trouble page.

Anyways, figured someone ought to know :)

now if the order beast would only ship my orders :(

Hey out there,

Something's definitely wrong with the way the order beast generates my subscription orders.

None of them have shipped correctly since early this year - they always get stuck in Limbo until someone pokes them (last time it was Jeff Alvarez in early September so June, July and August would ship).

So ... according to my records my September, October, November and I'm sure soon December orders will just be ... falling forever like Loki?

:)
-b

Bumping my own post since Jeff took care of it today (9/11) and it's no longer a problem :)

As always, I say you all are the best :)

Woohoo!

See! I knew it would get fixed eventually :)

It'll be like Christmas in September!

Thanks Jeff!!

-b

Hey all,

So now we're up to three months that haven't shipped, and September is authorizing now/soon so I'm guessing it'll jump on the pile.

Can someone see what's up with my account?

More concerningly, there's clearly a bug in the system that just leaves unfinished orders out there without reporting them :(

It's not life and death, they're just books, but ... I'm certainly not getting a warm kitty happy kitty feeling either :/

Heheh.

Nobody's answered my August post that June and July hadn't shipped yet :)

However, guess it's time to make one for August & September!!

Looks like they're up to about July 30th in the emails, alas, not a good sign.

Nope. I made worse comments about them before I mellowed out.

:)

Been there, done that.

They're just books. They'll show up eventually. My June order still hasn't shipped, for example. I'm sure it will :)

It is very sad that Paizo was unable to meet the demands of its customers.

I think of it differently - there was such an unexpected demand they have to print more books to meet the demand!

Sounds like a good problem to have :)

The problem persist, card hasn't been charged, haven't received any e-mail, still don't have access to Lost Omens Legends PDF. I've already placed a support request on the forums.

Should I panic? =P

I wouldn't think so. I know for a fact you're not the only one still waiting :)

Usually (though not always) they post here when they think they're done with the shipping - so if that happens then I would say yes, post a new thread about it.

Per the July thread, they delayed August authorization and shipping to finish July shipping.

Since they didn't delay July authorizations, I would have to conclude that Paizo believes that they completed June shipping except for orders with payment or similar problems.

If you are still waiting for a June shipment at this point, you should probably start a Customer Service thread about it.

Absolutely did.

My post here was in an attempt to help other people trying to figure out the same thing as me without having to resort to making guesses. Nice, educated and likely 100% correct guesses, but guesses nonetheless :)

Hey out there,

Not really concerned about the July order yet (Order 30102378) since the July thread doesn't indicate end of shipping.

I'm not 100% concerned about the June order since there never was a "done" post in the June 2020 thread, but the thread was unstickied which probably means it's supposed to be done.

Can someone check on Order 22042326 (June) for me?

Thank you very much!
-b

Usually there's a "shipping is now done" post in here, but there's not for June ... does that mean June shipping isn't actually done?

Will let me know his team is still chugging away on subscription orders and they hope to be wrapping those up tomorrow.

Just wanted to let you know, you all are still the best anywhere. Your patience is mythic, and your support is epic.

And as some people out there may know, I love my mythic and epic :)

Hello B,

Did you sent the email specifically to Sara? I don't see one from you in our inbox. I can pass along to her that you sent her an email.

It was indeed, though it's entirely possible my email address for her is out of date :)

Just sent it again, not that that will help if I'm using the wrong address!

-burt

(and I need to stop traveling so much for work. Sheesh!)

Hey there Sara Marie!

I sent you an email on 8/10 but I have a hunch it got buried in spam filters or something, can you take a look?

thanks!
-b

Is this the same issue that is delaying the scenarios for Venture Officers?

Who was that masked man!?

And as of right now my packages are in Fife, WA - pretty far from Windsor, CT.

Perhaps I should ragequit the board or something :)

0:)

Fascinating.

I wonder if this means we will have a Starfinder minis subscription at some poing.

I was going to post a message too, but with their backlog I'll let the email I sent filter through the system instead :)

This time of year (before GenCon) is always amazingly rough for the CS folks.

Ah, this old chestnut :)

As with Pathfinder, I probably won't switch to Pathfinder 2 from Pathfinder 1 until they have high-level matertial that makes it actually worth the effort to switch.

Didn't switch my home campaign from 3.5e to Pathfinder until the mythic rules came out, and I see something similar happening here.

Note - having played both 3.5e-style epic play and Pathfinder style mythic play, our group has concluded that 3.5e epic play is actually simpler and as a result we liked it slightly more. Before the end of the year I'll be porting the 3.5e epic rules to Pathfinder (right now at both my tables is kicking at around L17.

I'll be curious to see how that conversion turns out.

Zaister wrote:

Interesting, My tags seem to have moved around a bit too. Previously, my Pathfinder Comics, Pathfinder Legends and Pathfinder Tales, I believe, subscription were called out individually. None of these are listed now on my Account, so I guess they are all finally canceled. Only the Pathfinder Companion Subscription is now listed individually and no longer part of the Paizo Superscriber tag, and it's probably going away soon, too.

We're still shuffling a few things around with respect to superscriber tags.

Yep, mine moved around the same way (though they were oddly different from other people ... sometimes). Of course, these days the only way to see them is from my profile page :)

Okay ... so if I understand correctly, as a superscriber the only action I actually need to take is to add the Pathfinder Accessories subscription?

(Though there appears to be a bug on the Maps Subscription page that doesn't show current status correctly and threw me for a second - but the My Subscriptions part of the account page is correct).

[edit] Awwww ... any way to default to the superscriber tags instead of the business owner tag?

All I can say is I sincerely hope they never use this GameOn thing for crowdfunding again.

It is very, very buggy, and painful, and so very very lackluster compared to how Kickstarter campaigns are run.

Our shop does retailer Kickstarters all the time, especially the wonderful Steve Jackson Games ones, and fighting with the GameOn interface and the way it's run was like going being back in the days of dial-up Internet and BBSes.

Except BBSes were fun :)

(you kids get off my lawn!)

Hey there Jason!

Now that this is actually available in the Paizo store, any word on when the extra copies I ordered as part of the Kickstarter will be on their way?

I figure now that PaizoCon is over you can catch a breather and let me know what's up ... I haven't heard a peep from anyone over at Legendary Games even though the Kickstarter reported several weeks ago that all copies have been shipped.

thanks!
-b

Adam Daigle wrote:

If anyone was curious what Chris' next gig is, here's the official announcement. It's an amazing opportunity and one that is perfect for Chris.

That is awesome. And, indeed, a perfect match for Chris.

Wow! Now that is something I can 100% support!

Ah!

I see my mistake. Even though the title of this thread is Pathfinder Second Edition Subscription Questions for some inexplicable reason I came here thinking I'd see Pathfinder Second Edition Subscription Answers.

0:)