You realise that you just caused many, many subscribers in the UK to spend the next hour or so obsessively checking their mail?
Oh, waitaminnit, we were doing that already ;-)
Nothing to report from Germany, I'm afraid. *twitches*
Nothing from Italy, too. Hoped that was going right after Ireland... you know, alphabetical order... 8(
Golem, what can I say? I have nothing yet, maybe that's because my last name begins with "V" (they're going alphabetically not by country but by name??)
However, enjoy your reading, you lucky guy!
Haven't got mine in Ireland so they're probably not going by country.
So what...? Are they going by age? or by zip code? or are they going by hair color? (wait, and the bald?)
Got it! they are going by subscriber priority - charters first. No..., that would have put me right before everyone else (hey, I got 46 - that's fortysix! - Dragon/Dungeon remaining issues converted into Pathfinder!)
-- Or maybe (I do not dare to say) they're going randomly!!!
BTW, I'm going insane 8=}
Yay! I've got mail!! Downloading now...
I'm in Finland. Yes, that's in Europe.
btw. I guess shipping order is determined by order #.
That should be easy to validate, then. What are the first digits of your order # ? Mine's at 778xxx.
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So what...? Are they going by age? or by zip code? or are they going by hair color? (wait, and the bald?)
Got it! they are going by subscriber priority - charters first. No..., that would have put me right before everyone else (hey, I got 46 - that's fortysix! - Dragon/Dungeon remaining issues converted into Pathfinder!)-- Or maybe (I do not dare to say) they're going randomly!!!
BTW, I'm going insane 8=}
LOL!
Wait, I come with you to insanity!
That should be easy to validate, then. What are the first digits of your order # ? Mine's at 778xxx.
Mine is 781yyy, so maybe you're right.
Yesss, but then again... didn't they placed the order automatically for charter subscribers?So the real question is: How did they place the orders?
MORE insanity!
#787zzz here.
That probably means they are NOT going by ##. And here I was getting my hopes up! Well, maybe tomorrow morning, then. As long as the PDF arrives before the print version does ;) ...
782xxx here (and still nothing), so that theory might have some merit. Hey, its almost getting funny - seeing ever more people posting "I´ve got mine" - it should be accompanied with a "bing" every time :-) (sorry, just had to sneak in a Monty Python quote here)
Stefan
My order is #783xxx and no PDF yet. Strangely enough, the order (for the alternate cover version I placed 5 days after I got the Pathfinder order mail is #751xxx...
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Looking at my order history, I have:
786###
Aug 16, 2007
Pathfinder: Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide (OGL) Converted subscription
Pathfinder #1—Rise of the Runelords Chapter 1: "Burnt Offerings" (OGL) Print Edition Converted subscription
$0.00
754###
Jun 19, 2007
Pathfinder Ongoing Subscription
$0.00
I have not received the PDF link. Is there any relationship between those two order numbers? Perhaps the sequence in which they're being sent out is based on that original subscription order number/date somehow? I know I prevaricated before going for a Pathfinder subscription as my transition option; maybe I'll be one of the last to receive my copy each month because of it!
That's just mean of Paizo ;-): You've got an email! It's from Paizo!...It's just the This week on Paizo mail...bummer! Waiting again :-(
Chief Technical Officer
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It's not alphabetical, or random, or by order number.
For Pathfinder 1, international orders are going through our standard order processing pipeline, which has such a complicated weighting algorithm that I doubt anyone fully understands it. It's the result of a couple years worth of saying "this type of order needs to go out before that type order—can we make that happen?"
And while I know many people would like to think that "oldest order first" is best, to be honest, that would lead to inefficiencies in the warehouse. So within groups of similar priorities, there's a lot of ranking by similarity in processing effort.
And when there's a "tie" in priorities, the order is, well, not random, but not predictable either.
In short, there's no one thing—we weigh in when your order was placed, and where you live, and what you've ordered, and how it's being shipped, and a bunch of other things. (But alphabetical order is never part of it.)
Thanks for clearing that up, Vic :).
Woke up for my shift this evening and the email was waiting for me, downlaoded and bben reading at work looks great. Location Scotland though I also have a GM subscription as well, and if I remember from another thread the combined subscriptions go out before the singles.
Sooo... I also have a Gamemastry subscription, have spent my honeymoon in Scotland, ...but still I got no PDF whatsoever!
Maybe I should have *moved* to Scotland (I told that to my wife, but then she said no, there's too many sheep, it's always raining, ... - yes, but the castles, man, the CASTLES!)
*sigh* still nothing. GM subscription, PF charter subscription, live in London.
Still, in three working days time (?) I can just buy the pdf - which I may well have to do at this rate.
Nothing here (Cambridge, UK)
Not very impressed by this to be quite honest - give the screw ups with Dungeon and Dragon subscriptions for the UK and Europe I thought you might have actually made a bit of an effort...
I live in Denmark and have also received my pdf which makes me happy.
But I am still annoyed at the pdf delivery process and I understand the outcry from the people who have yet to receive their copy.
In Europe we are used to getting US product later, but digital products such as ebooks are usually a great equalizer.
I personally do not expect delays to become unnoticeable with future releases unless Paizo makes some radical changes in the process. The number of subscribers and Paizo's work limit are probably fairly constant.
One radical change could be to create an automated process that makes the pdf files available to all subscribers. Such a process would surely be able to process all subscribers in a matter of hours instead of days.
I know this would allow cheating, if billing process remains the same, however compromises are a part of life.
Well done Paizo. Personally I think the whole thing (in the sense of people getting upset about what is, really, quite a short delay in the grand scheme of things) has been blown a bit out of proportion by the high degree of anticipation generated for the product, which I sincerely hope lives up to its billing. Looks good so far...
What grand scheme? As far as I can tell the actual scheme is one issue per month?
Thus a difference of days is surely noticeable.
I know I am cranky but please give credit where credit is due. Congratulate Paizo on a wonderful product which I personally think it is, but do not congratulate them for mistreating non-US customers even if they are only mistreated a little.
I live in Denmark and have also received my pdf which makes me happy.Congratulations. But not all Danes have it yet, at least I am still missing my email. Sounds good that Seven Swords of Sin is available as PDF as well! No hard feelings here, just anxious to get it :-)
Another Dane here. I still haven't heard back from Paizo's Customer Service about changing credit cards for this particular order either (I curse the #@*$%& pickpocket who stole my wallet). And, of course, no pdf either since they can't charge my now cancelled VISA.
I got the email yesterday. No problems with downloading the pdf, so I could have a peek on the first Pathfinder.
Shiny, I'll wait for the physical thing though, I hate to read pdfs, just using them to print out parts of the adventures for ease of reference...
Oh, yeah, and I'm living in Hungary.
I received download permission yesterday too. I'm in Canada.
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CEO
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Hi y'all:
We are working as fast as we can to get these Pathfinders out the door. Vic and I have talked about some ideas on how to make it much faster for issue #2. We'll talk to Gary about it on Monday (Gary was given the rest of the week off starting on Wednesday in order to give him a much deserved rest). In the meantime, we will keep pushing as hard as we can to get everybody shipped so they can download the PDF. We are truly sorry about the delay, but there is really nothing we can do about it right now except work our butts off.
-Lisa
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Hi y'all:
We are working as fast as we can to get these Pathfinders out the door. Vic and I have talked about some ideas on how to make it much faster for issue #2. We'll talk to Gary about it on Monday (Gary was given the rest of the week off starting on Wednesday in order to give him a much deserved rest). In the meantime, we will keep pushing as hard as we can to get everybody shipped so they can download the PDF. We are truly sorry about the delay, but there is really nothing we can do about it right now except work our butts off.
-Lisa
No hard feelings from here Lisa! I am sure you want it to go out to people as much as we want to have it. You efforts are really appreciated :-)
Indeed, thank you for responding Lisa.
One thing I would say, if it looks like you're not going to get all the copies out of the door by COB Friday and the shipping process will have to continue on Monday, you might want to set that expectation now - it'd save a number of us from general anguish over the weekend.
Indeed, thank you for responding Lisa.
One thing I would say, if it looks like you're not going to get all the copies out of the door by COB Friday and the shipping process will have to continue on Monday, you might want to set that expectation now - it'd save a number of us from general anguish over the weekend.
I absolutely agree: if we are not going to get the PDF during the weekend, at least please let us know so that we don't spend hours checking for an email that won't arrive anyway 8-(
Thank you.
Well, Saturday morning, still nothing. I guess it's next week then.
You're not alone. Frankly, those promises of "most of the international orders will be processed by tomorrow" (when was that "tomorrow" initially? Wednesday or something like that?) are beginning to sound a bit empty when there's still no sign of the PDF arriving by saturday.
Oh, and of course still no sign of dungeon 149 & 150 on top of that.
I'm really seriously considering to sign up with Wizards and their online continuation of Dungeon and Dragon instead of continuing my Pathfinder subscription beyond the converted issues... (but their (Wizards') track record doesn't look so good too - f*ing up their DnD4 countdown website like that). :-(
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You're not alone. Frankly, those promises of "most of the international orders will be processed by tomorrow" (when was that "tomorrow" initially? Wednesday or something like that?) are beginning to sound a bit empty when there's still no sign of the PDF arriving by saturday.
Oh, and of course still no sign of dungeon 149 & 150 on top of that.
I'm really seriously considering to sign up with Wizards and their online continuation of Dungeon and Dragon instead of continuing my Pathfinder subscription beyond the converted issues... (but their (Wizards') track record doesn't look so good too - f*ing up their DnD4 countdown website like that). :-(
Thats a little harsh. Comparing the days for a confirmation email to the logistical nightmare of dealing with a 3rd party disrtibution company half way round the world suffering from postal strikes and billing issues is just wrong.
Lets take a step back and look at what Pazio have done regarding Pathfinders debut release.
Provided a free PDF version on day of shipping (not a "heres the code in the hardcopy go find it yourself" type of responce)
Provided a joint shipping package that lets you reduce the cost of shipping with your Gamemastery subscription.
Upgraded the shipping to be direct to customer from warehouse instead of using 3rd party distribution.
Changing printing from US to China for Pathfinder (not sure if other products will be printed over there).
Yes I Live in the UK, yes im still waiting for my Pathfinder pending status to change. Yes My surname begins with "W", Yes my order number is 782XXX, and Yes I have requested joint pathfinder/gamemastery shipping (probably the main reason for the delay). But no I'm not blaming Pazio for the delay of sending me Pathfinder a week later than planned.
Its nice to actually have the facility to subscribe to Pathfinder and have it ship direct instead of waiting a month for Wizards to get their products to UK retailers before I can purchase the book. Having the added feature of a PDF version that I can use even earlier is just wonderful.
Yup, not a fair comparison, totally different scale of operations I would guess.
My gripe is really about mis-management of expectations; I'd have been far happier if Paizo had just said "We're just not going to get these out to you until the w/c 27th, there are too many logistical problems."
But it's mostly been "well, we're doing our best and they should all be out by tomorrow." every time this doesn't happen it creates more bad feeling. It's better to under-promise.
However, it's their first run at this, I'll wait until #2 to decide whether it's worth continuing with the subscription service. If the Gamemastery modules are another delaying factor, I'm definitely dropping that subscription though.
forbinproject, I wholeheartedly agree with you there. It's a pity I don't have my PDF yet, but I'm not going to get all worked up because of it. In the end, it's the quality of the product itself that counts. And I fully expect Paizo to improve their shipping methods as additional PF issues are coming along.
Yup, not a fair comparison, totally different scale of operations I would guess.
Of course I realize there's a huge difference between my Dungeons being late and my Pathfinder being late (I've been following those threads for quite some time). Unfortunately, from a customer's point of view, the end result is the same: I have paid for Dungeon 149, paid for Dungeon 150, paid for Pathfinder 1 (as part of my Dungeon subscription that was converted to a Pathfinder subscription), but I have received none (so far).
If any other company treated my like that, I would not buy from them again, ever. Paizo however is a different case: I have had very good experiences with their customer service before, they have tried to explain where the problems are, and I truly believe that they are at least trying to fix those problems.
There are, however, limits to my patience.
My gripe is really about mis-management of expectations; I'd have been far happier if Paizo had just said "We're just not going to get these out to you until the w/c 27th, there are too many logistical problems."
But it's mostly been "well, we're doing our best and they should all be out by tomorrow." every time this doesn't happen it creates more bad feeling.
Agree 100%, that's one of the more frustrating aspects of it. It's been quite frustrating in The Case of the Missing Dungeons (beginning to sound like a Perry Mason mystery :-), and now something disturbingly similar is happening with Pathfinder #1 (although hopefully on a much much much smaller scale and for entirely different reasons).
However, it's their first run at this, I'll wait until #2 to decide whether it's worth continuing with the subscription service. If the Gamemastery modules are another delaying factor, I'm definitely dropping that subscription though.
I already know I will continue until the end of the first Pathfinder adventure path (mostly because I converted 13 remaining issues of my Dungeon subscription into it). Right now I'm not at all sure I'll continue beyond that, unless I see some pretty big improvements by then.
That's the main cause of my frustration with the Pathfinder delay: unlike some of those who have already received it (possibly even received the hardcopy by now), I already paid for it months ago in the form of my (now converted) Dungeon subscription! In fact Paizo officials themselves have repeatedly stated that one of the reasons why they have to go through this bizarre process of printing labels, sticking them on packages and then charging the customers' credit cards and then giving access to the PDF is the fact that they are not allowed to do it differently. But my credit card was charged months ago! So why do I still have to wait? Why can't Paizo have a look at their customer database and give access to the PDF to everyone WHO HAS ALREADY PAID FOR PATHFINDER 1? That'd also be a nice surprise for Pathfinder 2... hint, hint
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Chief Technical Officer
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Seriously, guys, I know you have good intentions, and letting you know what you want is one thing, but suggesting changes to the process that you think will help you get what you want first is not really terribly helpful. "Give everybody with a free issue their PDF immediately," for example, is simply not going to happen, for dozens of reasons.
The notion of fulfilling a subscription is no longer the (relatively) simple process that it was when we delivered a list of people who should all receive the same item to our printer. It's really, really complex, and many of the features that we're offering—free PDFs, multiple shipping methods, combining shipping with other things—have added to that complexity. I keep saying it over and over again, but our primary design goal for this process is one that serves the most people the fastest, and creating processes that make us look at every subscription multiple times DOES NOT ACHIEVE THAT GOAL. It might get some people their PDFs faster, but it makes the whole process slower, and we're not going to do that.
Please, just trust us to look at what we're doing and figure out how to improve it. It will get better, but it's unlikely that you're ever all going to get your PDF on the same day. (And for that matter, if we *did* have thousands and thousands of people trying to download their 25 MB PDF simultaneously, well... even with our new super-fast PDF hosting, none of you would enjoy that experience.)
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Chief Technical Officer
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But it's mostly been "well, we're doing our best and they should all be out by tomorrow." every time this doesn't happen it creates more bad feeling. It's better to under-promise.
We feel it's best to try to communicate accurately. C'mon, now, if we'd said nothing, we'd have *thousands* more posts here wondering why some people have been served and some haven't. And if we'd told everybody it would take two weeks to get all the issues out (with a goal of doing it in one) we'd have even more people complaining that they're not at the front of the queue, and, at best, suggesting ways that we can either serve them better or, at worst, suggesting ways that we can go stuff our subscriptions where the sun don't shine.
We really hoped that we'd be able to finish out all of the international subs on Friday, but after getting through about half of them, we ran into a major problem that only Gary can fix, and he's incommunicado until Monday. Once he fixes it, though, Lisa and I will go down and help the warehouse crew finish processing them (even if that means we don't go home Monday night).
And then we'll be working on how to make it better for next month.
That's great, thank you for your candor, it is really appreciated.
Best of luck for Monday.
I've stayed out of this thread, we all know Australia is not part of Europe :) and been doing most of my ranting over here But I have been following as it has really been about international issues than European.
Anyway, saw two things I wanted to comment on (and don't worry Vic, they aren't to bash you up some more).
Please, just trust us to look at what we're doing and figure out how to improve it. It will get better, but it's unlikely that you're ever all going to get your PDF on the same day. (And for that matter, if we *did* have thousands and thousands of people trying to download their 25 MB PDF simultaneously, well... even with our new super-fast PDF hosting, none of you would enjoy that experience.)
I really hope that thousands and thousands quoted above is not hyperbole, as it seems to bode very well for the future of both Pathfinder and Pazio, whcih is awesome.
We really hoped that we'd be able to finish out all of the international subs on Friday, but after getting through about half of them, we ran into a major problem that only Gary can fix, and he's incommunicado until Monday.
I'm glad that you didn't call Gary. He has been working like a dog, and he deserves his break. If it means I get my pdf a bit alter, then fine, I can live with that, as long as Gary gets a break, and a chance to catch his breath.
Thanks for the hard work, and I am sure you will make improvements to the system for the next issue.
I've stayed out of this thread, we all know Australia is not part of Europe :)
Hey, Mevers, but as part of Commonwealth, isn't Australia in the UK (sort of...)? ;-)
Anyway, welcome on board!As for what has been going on at Paizo in the past two weeks, well, I really have mixed feelings.
On one hand, I can't but agree with jow and many other posters on these boards: as a conversion of my 46 remaining Dragon and Dungeon issues, I've paid for Pathfinder on May 16, 2006, that's more than 15 months ago! And I'm bound with a Pathfinder subscription for the next 16 issues.
I could care only so much about logistical problems, code fixes, custom forms, servers overcharges, label printing, queues and whatever: the crude result is that I've still not received neither my Dragon #358 and #359, nor my Dungeon #149 and #150, nor my Pathfinder #1 (hard copy and PDF). Very unsatisfactory, considered the release date for PF 1 at some point seemed to be pretty close to August 13.
Heck, the street release date for Pathfinder #1 is scheduled to be August 29, I really hope they'll finish sending out the last subscription orders on Monday otherwise we should have better waited for the 29th and then dowloaded our PDF as the mass of non-subscribers are going to do. Oh, but we are charter subscribers, and so would have to pay for it twice!
But that's only one side of the medal. On the other hand, in fact, I still feel Paizo deserves high credit for the wonderful job they've done and are still doing at keeping us informed on what's going on, and all the efforts they are doing to get the thing over and start to plan for the release of PF #2.
And of course, Paizo really deserves our praise for the high quality products they've come up with. I have not yet seen Pathfinder (I've already told you that? ;-) but Gamemastery modules are really top notch. Hey, even the latest modules from WotC are still printed in B/W! And, by the way, I have not yet grasped the whole delve/encounter format thing!
We all know Paizo is a small business if compared to WotC and their parent, but IMO among all other OGL / d20 publishers they're really the best.
So I think I will stay with them for some time, even after my 16 converted issues of PF. My big hope is that they can figure a mean to really speed their shipping process, and who knows? maybe next time I'll find myself at the top of their list and not at the end :->
As a European, I can understand the frustration that has been building with the terribly long wait for Dungeon and Dragon magazine. Of course we don't understand the complexity of how things work over at Paizo, so all we see is 'why can't we even get the PDF in time?' Obviously some people feel like venting that frustration, which doesn't help.
So let me try this, Vic. I'm really supporting you mentally. I hope you can get things solved as soon as possible and I'm sending positive vibes your way. Let's hope that gets you a +2 'aid another' bonus.
BTW: I do appreciate the fact that you keep us informed. A couple of days of silence would be much easier for you under these circumstances. So thank you.