jtgibson's page

I am having the same issue. Chrome/Mac/ OSX Yosemite. Going on two days now. It says I've downloaded the files I've attempted, but I have not gotten anything.

It marks a file as downloaded as soon as it has been clicked, but don't worry too much on that -- there are no download limits or quotas, since once the file is fully generated it is watermarked as yours. (I've already railed enough on the watermarking for a charitable/advertising drive already, so I'll leave it at that, as it seems they'd rather scale up the watermarking rather than abandon it as fruitless with a generic mark for this release only. ;-))

OK, how about emailing me the download link of the personalized pdf?

Interesting! That one would probably work better. (I'm not with them, just helping with some questions since I'm starting to realise that however peeved *I* might be, *they're* pulling their hair out in spite of what I'm sure they originally intended as a good cause. I figure I owe some karma. ;-))

Now that I think about it some more, though, part of me balks at the concept of their updating and testing a new sendmail script in the middle of a server overage. Even if it makes more sense in the long run, it might not actually be feasible when we need it right now, and when we no longer need it downloads will be near instantaneous again.

How about Emailing me the PDF once it has been personalized?

Then I can make a request and get off your system, knowing that eventually (hours?) I will have a shiny new Personalized PDF.

Saves on storage, traffic (as users click and reclick the links.)
and keeps people happy with company knowing they will get their files as soon as they are ready.

I pondered this solution myself, but it's imperfect, since many email servers have bandwidth caps, storage quotas, and monthly transmission limits. The full-sized (non-"lite") core rulebook is 120 209 268 bytes! (Or at least, the one with my personal watermark is. The various pages will probably raster slightly differently on different users, but figure on 120 MB as a rule of thumb.) Other files are slightly smaller, but the smallest I've got out of the core rules is the Strategy Guide, which is "only" 30 MB.

I'm a little surprised, but it seems Paizo never learned the lesson: If you don't prepare for the "hug o' death", you'll pay with PR.

For all you folks waiting to get your likely very, very cheap PDFs: try to be patient. Eventually either Paizo will put up a better solution, or the HB campaign will end, the crush will ease and their current personalization solution will be sufficient again (until the next crush). Of course, that means you may need to wait for 12+ days at this point. But hey, anticipation can be nice, no?

I paid over the average for mine, which as far as average prices go is being steadily driven upward to boot -- an average approaching $17.50 for $350 of product is right along the 5% mark, which is awful when you look at it from a pure profit perspective, but astounding from a raw income flux perspective. As far as averages go, I think everyone thought it was offered for a little *too* cheap, if the price is any indication, so I wouldn't be so hasty to say "very, very cheap". ;-)

All told, I think they're handling the issues well enough. Call it equal combinations of Murphy and hubris, with people now working harder than they ever have on damage control. I'm frustrated, others are frustrated, subscribers and full-price customers are *especially* frustrated, and I'm sure the employees are most frustrated of all. Call it a mutual loss, especially since the only people who are winning are Humble Bundle -- note, in particular, that they mention absolutely nothing about issues on the Paizo end and are merrily still advertising and selling the products without even the slightest hint that delivery might be impacted.

[edit]Goddamn live threads. By the time my post appears as a reply to someone else's it's already five or six posts down. ;-P

My general impression is that if they're going to be charitable about the affair, they understand that it's going to impact revenue both positively in the short term and negatively in the long term... for a good cause. Humble Indie-cum-Commercial Bundle's entire business strategy used to be based on giving exposure to independent products by sending them to the masses DRM free, with the understanding that it would create a massive stream of revenue, HIB would take their 15% cut and walk away grinning, and the developers and charity both would get a massive influx of revenue, at times well exceeding their original sales anticipation, as well as receiving the brand exposure and recognition that they deserve. HB's cut is basically because it's an advertising service: sell in bulk to grow brand awareness and drive sales of their *new* products.

Make no mistake, Paizo is earning a small fortune -- after the middleman cuts, $300K-$400K and change is nothing to sneeze at. Probably vaguely equivalent to what they'd get with a new product launch, and all they lose is a few digital copies of already existing commercial-off-the-shelf products (bearing in mind "digital scarcity" is an oxymoron), all for products that people probably weren't going to buy in the first place (myself among them: I'd heard of Pathfinder but wasn't interested in jumping aboard, since I generally avoid D20 systems like the plague).

Whether they'd earn more over the long term *on those specific products* by deterring piracy? Rather outside of my expertise. Probably yes, dead reckoning, but why bother with the semantics when it makes people so happy and offers them so many other benefits?

That, I believe, is the crux of why the DRM scheme and failure to deliver is sticking so deep into most of our craws.

If you could log out and still have your files when you come back I would have had them this morning. Hell files I managed to download yesterday would still be downloadable right? But nope if I click any of those it starts personalization over again.

As noted, I've been able to get most of mine -- I skipped the scenarios and focused on the core rules, with the scenarios now taking f.o.r.e.v.e.r. for me again.

Most likely there's a point where it wipes the generated files, likely to conserve hard drive space for additional files coming in, so there's probably some sort of arcane time window where you can get them after they've been generated but before they get thrown out with the bathwater.

...Wow, that analogy is more apt than I thought.

THIS IS RIDICULOUS!

I am not seeing updates from the system operators.

I ordered through the humble bundle when there were less than 2000 people on the cue and now there are 32000+ and still the blooming 'wait 10 seconds' and try again notice.

Then when it is especially overloaded it wipes them and I have to restart the personalization. I would be fine if it would complete and email me when done.

I feel like your process is not prepared for the cueing you are experiencing and the 12 more days of this promotion will be a disaster for myself and thousands more unsuspecting customers.

Pay the price and work with Humble Bundle to manage your workflow. Then clean up the audit on the back end.

You are getting a black eye minute by minute with literally thousands of new users to embark on your website's shores. This is bad business and I actually am a long time supporter. What do you think that new customers will think of this experiences?

Updates are definitely coming in from the operators. A post from one of the staff is a few above yours. ;-)

The queue time last night fell to around 40-45 minutes, but is back up to a few hours for "personalisation" (watermarking). Even if your login times out, you can still log back in and download the files -- the page, for whatever reason, wipes the "personalising..." text, but they are still processing on the back end.

That said, I'm with you 100%. Even if persistence does work, it's immensely frustrating.

Because if they did that, it'd take approximately five minutes for a torrent of all the Humble Bundle stuff to hit the torrent site of the hypothetical file-sharer's choice, and with Paizo unable to take any real recourse. Regardless of your stance on DRM and file-sharing, it's easy to see that Paizo has a vested interest in doing what they can to dissuade people from uploading.

That rather hangs on the assumption that everyone who was willing to pay money for a roleplaying game would somehow be unwilling to pay money for the product if it were available free from somewhere else.

Well, as even the staff have mentioned, they've repeatedly pruned illegal download links from the thread. Those free sources exist elsewhere. I've personally still purchased them, and actually I've been lucky enough to successfully download the vast majority of my files already. It's not so much that I'm butthurt, because I've got the things I've paid for; as it is the principle of the matter, because many people haven't -- including long term, loyal customers.

[edit]To put it in perspective, the only files I haven't actually been able to get, after numerous hours of patience while playing Crusader Kings II as a distraction ;-), are the scenarios. Also I accidentally downloaded the "Lite" version of the APG so I have to reacquire that one. =)

I can completely truck with the people who are inflamed, since I'm one of them. The only thing hanging us up from getting these products in a timely manner is the DRM scheme. Regardless of what end the DRM serves -- the veneer of legitimacy for "Guild" tournament play -- why not simply claim that Humble Bundle copies without a legitimate personal watermark are invalid for tournament play, since they could have been altered, and then allow people to download them direct from Humble Bundle like every other bundle in existence?

By all means give people their keys to paizo.com so they can get their personalised tournament-legal copies direct from the source, but let people have their basic unwatermarked-or-generically-watermarked copies straight away, and both problems would be solved, or at least significantly subdued.

Existing customers of Paizo wouldn't have to deal with an overloaded server and HB customers get their digitally-delivered product in the amount of time it should take a digitally-delivered product to be delivered. (I highly doubt the first thing on most HB customers' minds is "ooh, now I can hit GenCon tomorrow!" -- they just want the product to read and do experimental play with.)