I don’t understand why Paizo cant keep a stable, bug free website. Outages, bad links, now artwork problems. I’ve never seen a website with so many ongoing issues.
Software Test Engineer
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Hey Pogie,
The website has 15 years worth of custom code tying everything together into a giant ball of intertwined cause and effect relations. We're very careful about the changes we make and test them thoroughly, but the slightest change can easily result in something completely unrelated to the area of revision breaking in an unexpected way. I test for these sorts of thing specifically with every revision, but even then it's absolutely possible something can still get past, as new revisions affect things in new and undesirably exciting ways.
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I'd like to comment...
First, I'd like to say that I like the uniquely organic, integrated experience that Paizo presents. Separating the webstore and forums for instance would obviously make life simpler for you developers, but there is a very valuable charm in the unique presentation as it is. So, there's a vote to support the decisions that have been made in the past.
Second, I'd like to build on Erik's explanation and point out that the vast variety of end-user systems makes the kind of testing he needs almost impossible to achieve perfectly. There are too many different browers, versions of browsers, add-ons, for instance. Then add in different screen resolutions from people on weird low-resolution monitors to 4k displays. Then add in operating system font scaling, and minor visual appearance changes that can be set in browers and the OS. It's a nightmare to support normal web sites.
I get the frustration and it's easy to think "Paizo must employ incompetents", but I'd like to underline that the reality just isn't so. I've never seen the code, but I've been here a long time and the historic discussion about the cluster itself and the databases and code running on it have been illuminating. I - as an IT guy by career - will never think poorly of the Paizo web team.
Hey Pogie,
The website has 15 years worth of custom code tying everything together into a giant ball of intertwined cause and effect relations. We're very careful about the changes we make and test them thoroughly, but the slightest change can easily result in something completely unrelated to the area of revision breaking in an unexpected way. I test for these sorts of thing specifically with every revision, but even then it's absolutely possible something can still get past, as new revisions affect things in new and undesirably exciting ways.
Ok, but that begs the question of why is Paizo hanging on to 15 year old code that presents real challenges to providing a stable platform? Wasn’t the website rebooted recently? We’re these just cosmetic changes? I’ve just never seen the outages and issues on a website from a company that relies on their site for revenue.
Customer Service & Community Manager
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Ok, but that begs the question of why is Paizo hanging on to 15 year old code that presents real challenges to providing a stable platform? Wasn’t the website rebooted recently? We’re these just cosmetic changes? I’ve just never seen the outages and issues on a website from a company that relies on their site for revenue.Hey Pogie,
The website has 15 years worth of custom code tying everything together into a giant ball of intertwined cause and effect relations. We're very careful about the changes we make and test them thoroughly, but the slightest change can easily result in something completely unrelated to the area of revision breaking in an unexpected way. I test for these sorts of thing specifically with every revision, but even then it's absolutely possible something can still get past, as new revisions affect things in new and undesirably exciting ways.
I can't speak to some of the other questions, but I do quite a bit of niche small business online retail browsing and long term bugs and unexpected outages are common. I wonder if because the forums and store are integrated that there's a perception of a higher rate of problems because folks are here more often than just for shopping?
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Ok, but that begs the question of why is Paizo hanging on to 15 year old code that presents real challenges to providing a stable platform? Wasn’t the website rebooted recently? We’re these just cosmetic changes? I’ve just never seen the outages and issues on a website from a company that relies on their site for revenue.Hey Pogie,
The website has 15 years worth of custom code tying everything together into a giant ball of intertwined cause and effect relations. We're very careful about the changes we make and test them thoroughly, but the slightest change can easily result in something completely unrelated to the area of revision breaking in an unexpected way. I test for these sorts of thing specifically with every revision, but even then it's absolutely possible something can still get past, as new revisions affect things in new and undesirably exciting ways.I can't speak to some of the other questions, but I do quite a bit of niche small business online retail browsing and long term bugs and unexpected outages are common. I wonder if because the forums and store are integrated that there's a perception of a higher rate of problems because folks are here more often than just for shopping?
I agree, that's actually a very likely possibly.
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The question is, compared to what?
Large companies like Amazon and large financial institutions that deal in large volume and/or high value transactions can measure their loses in millions of dollars during even a short website outage or the introduction of a particularly obnoxious bug. As such, they tend to have resources dedicated to trying to prevent such things or minimize them when they do occur. Smaller companies like Paizo, not so much. They aren't going to see a return on their investment in personnel and infrastructure to reach five nines uptime.
I agree fewer bugs in production would be ideal, but I understand the challenges of working on an older platform.
I have to say, I held my breath when the site changes went in 8-9 months ago, waiting for issues with navigation, links, etc., to be fixed. I think I've found out my Con score as I'm starting to turn blue at this point.
I used to enjoy visiting the site, checking the blogs, maybe get lost in the forums, maybe snatch up some sale items. Now I do my best to shove my way through to do reporting or downloads and come back up for air as soon as I can. As the tiniest bit of anecdotal data, here are my # of posts for the last four year-long periods (back to Dec 13 of the previous year):
2018: 95
2017: 166
2016: 361
2015: 193
I think very highly of the Paizo Web Team, and was particularly impressed this year with the PaizoCon lottery not causing any outages for the first time in many years. I just don't find the new layer added on top of all the familiar old to be attractive or effective.
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I may disagree with a few of the recent changes (I despise the 'hamburger' in all contexts, and also miss the sidebars of recent posts across the forums), but I do appreciate that the tech team is doing good work, fixing bugs as soon as they can with the resources they have, and listening to the community. The play-by-post, normal forums, OP record keeping stuff, and webstore all tied together probably mean that no pre-written software would work, and so the team is updating the existing program as they are able to. And it almost always works, with a few strange little bugs.