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I've heard that sanctioning of Lost Omen materials was completed a few weeks ago, but for some reason there is a delay in updating the website. A bit understandable given staffing and the holidays, but I'm wondering if there might be a way to make this something community volunteers can easily post.
I wonder if folks in the know could clarify what the process is between sanctioning and getting information out to the community. Is there any way we can collectively make this more efficient?
My sense is that the new website is built on WordPress. It seems to me that you shouldn't need skilled developers to update the material — there are lots of us out here who are familiar with WordPress.
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My understanding is that the plan is to migrate most or all of the information to the main Paizo site. The OPF wasn’t ever intended to be the home for it.I've heard that sanctioning of Lost Omen materials was completed a few weeks ago, but for some reason there is a delay in updating the website. A bit understandable given staffing and the holidays, but I'm wondering if there might be a way to make this something community volunteers can easily post.
I wonder if folks in the know could clarify what the process is between sanctioning and getting information out to the community. Is there any way we can collectively make this more efficient?
My sense is that the new website is built on WordPress. It seems to me that you shouldn't need skilled developers to update the material — there are lots of us out here who are familiar with WordPress.
If so, that's unfortunate, given that the Paizo site seems to be so difficult for staff to update. These kinds of updates shouldn't be dependent on a developer release time table, when it can just be a simple text update.
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There's a legal hiccup in the way a for-profit company can conscript "volunteers" in the state of Washington that gets extra muddled when your volunteers are online.
(first hand experience here)
Thankfully Paizo has been hiring a lot of people recently and the delays are being worked out. Just a little bit more patience.
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Thankfully Paizo has been hiring a lot of people recently and the delays are being worked out. Just a little bit more patience.
Patience would be more warranted if the delays made any sense.
I actually think this is a problem of the company just not being nimble about decision making, rather than a staffing issue. If they have a legal block for using the OPF website to publish already sanctioned material, and they don’t yet have a long term option for a permanent location on the website, then the responsive solution would be to leverage easily used tools (like blog posts) as an interim solution.
Folks are rightly frustrated, and we’re being asked to wait months for staff to ramp up. When really there are existing tools to help get things out there and help our society keep players excited.
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To be fair to the timeline, the earliest post about the Organized Play Foundation I found was from August of 2017, but there's a response that references volunteering for the Organized Play Foundation (as opposed to Paizo) at Paizocon 2017, which would have been May 2017. So it's been at least 2-2 1/2 years that they've been sorting out what Paizo should do vs. what the OPF should do. Which, given the speed at which things move around here, is about normal.
I've said it before other places, but I'll say it again. At some point the priorities of the PFS team shifted away from doing the normal tasks of running the campaign and toward doing new things. Some of those new things have been great additions. Scenario quality has been better in general, for example. But many, many things have been dropped in the process, to the point where waiting a year for options to be added to additional resources (for SFS) is a thing that has now happened (EDIT: Though they were added eventually).
I'm encouraged by the last update that Tonya posted referencing things like making reviewing a new book for the Additional Resources part of their regular schedule of duties. I could dwell on why that hasn't been true in the past (when at one time I'm certain it was), but at this point I'll take them for their word that they've heard the complaints and are attempting to correct things.
Should another extended period of time go by without any updates or the new fix to the process appearing, I'll probably go back to complaining.
Starfinder Society Developer
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But many, many things have been dropped in the process, to the point where waiting a year for options to be added to additional resources (for SFS) is a thing that has now happened (EDIT: Though they were added eventually).
Just to clarify, the issue with the SFS AR wasn't entirely to do with the Organized Play side, but with the web-side process of getting these uploaded. The actual work on these had been done a fairly long time ago (as you can see from posts I made in the past). That being said, we've made updates on that side of things as well that should help ensure AR/Sanctioning occurs on a more routine basis. I suspect/hope that we'll start seeing sanctioning for major books like the Character Operations Manual come out in a more reasonable timeframe (as we've seen with the recent COM release). This has been something I've been pushing for internally for quite some time, and it looks like now we have a much better system to work off of (for SFS at least).
So, just to clarify, SFS AR/Sanctioning timelines had nothing to do with a shift in Organized Play priorities. Sorry to hop into a PFS thread, but I just don't want people getting the wrong impression when reading posts like this.
Thanks!
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Just to clarify, the issue with the SFS AR wasn't entirely to do with the Organized Play side, but with the web-side process of getting these uploaded.
Not the first time we've heard that. It's baffling that updating content on single a web page can take weeks or months. I simply can't wrap my head around why publishing content to the AR is so time consuming.
I hope (assume?) Paizo is working on improving that process, too!
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As an aside to the conversation, the Org Play Foundation website has only been responding about 1 in every 10 times I try to open it. Everything else (including Paizo’s site) is working fine, so I don’t think it’s my connection. If moving to a new web host has actually made the reliability issue worse, then maybe moving it back to Paizo is the right thing.
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Just to clarify, the issue with the SFS AR wasn't entirely to do with the Organized Play side, but with the web-side process of getting these uploaded.Not the first time we've heard that. It's baffling that updating content on single a web page can take weeks or months. I simply can't wrap my head around why publishing content to the AR is so time consuming.
I hope (assume?) Paizo is working on improving that process, too!
I was resisting commenting again, because I’m trying to let the new plan have some time to work, and we’re still in the middle of a holiday. Thurston, I appreciate your spending time during the break to drop into the thread. I’ve always enjoyed your scenarios, and all of the things I’ve heard about you as a person have been positive. I believe that you did your part, and I believe you when you say you’ve been fighting for updates to the process.
Neither of those things make my statement that org play priorities affected things false. Org play has introduced several new and complicated technical changes which required and continue to require development time. If the technical side was the issue in posting the AR changes, then it’s not fair to say that Org Play demands on the technical team had no affect on their ability to do so. Org Play clearly prioritized getting the new systems implemented above getting the AR posted, or the AR would have been posted shortly after you finished putting it together. Who made that decision internally, or if it was even a conscious decision and not just the result of trying to do too much, I don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter. Things that used to be normal (an AR update at the end of the month or at least every couple of months — there was a time this was true, though it’s been several years) are no longer normal. But almost certainly there were things that weren’t the team’s choice that have affected timing, like having to form the OPF in the first place, or the existence of second edition.
The SFS AR update was one example of something that was delayed. Over the last several years, there are many others. PFS AR hasn’t exact been speedy, either. Scenario support for conventions reached a point where several organizers have stopped requesting it at all, because it never arrives on time or never arrives at all. Many, many volunteers are still waiting on their paperwork to become official. The list goes on.
I’m very hopeful that with 2E’s launch out of the way and a full team back on board, things get back to some kind of manageable normal for everyone.
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Just to clarify, the issue with the SFS AR wasn't entirely to do with the Organized Play side, but with the web-side process of getting these uploaded.Not the first time we've heard that. It's baffling that updating content on single a web page can take weeks or months. I simply can't wrap my head around why publishing content to the AR is so time consuming.
I hope (assume?) Paizo is working on improving that process, too!
A bit of a pile-on, but in the errata threads, Paizo frequently points out that the material is finalized months prior to the official publication date. Sure, it's the holidays now, but Paizo has had the final versions of the material since the summer, maybe even spring.
I hope that when the APG comes out, we won't have to wait for 2021 before the classes are officially sanctioned for Society play.
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As an aside to the conversation, the Org Play Foundation website has only been responding about 1 in every 10 times I try to open it. Everything else (including Paizo’s site) is working fine, so I don’t think it’s my connection. If moving to a new web host has actually made the reliability issue worse, then maybe moving it back to Paizo is the right thing.
This is odd to me... what kind of problems are you having? I have never had problems with the OPF page. I find it responds quickly with no issues.
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Many, many volunteers are still waiting on their paperwork to become official. The list goes on.
Oh dear… don't even get me started! I have a VA going on a year for paperwork, and a fellow VL waiting 1.5 years for hers (she never even got VA status and is now running Starfinder at 4 locations in the city). We've all just given up on it — why bother even asking for an update?
It took me over a year to get my VA title and free downloads (And I paid out of pocket for scenarios this time, while single-handedly keeping stores afloat by GMing 5+ times a month). I need help and VA's here but I don't even actively recruit, because volunteers will likely never get any official status from Paizo. What a shame.
The last people you want to see affected are hard-working volunteers. And at some point, this starts affecting Org Play and hurting the individuals who make communities happen.
And I can't even access the VO forums to discuss it, as I am redirected to the Paizo home page 95% of the time. I honestly stopped even trying. I stopped asking for status updates for my VA's who already signed their NDA's. I stopped looking to channels like the VO forums because they don't work. I stopped looking for volunteers because they aren't given the recognition that they deserve by Paizo.
So yeah. The technical side of things is really important. VO's are cut off from their forums and volunteers are impacted. And I know for a fact that players in my area are champing at the bit for new options, as they start making their -2002 and -2003 characters.
At some point, lack of support for hard-working volunteers and failure to provide engaging new content to players is going to decay org play from several fronts all at once. I'm honestly surprised it hasn't happened already — luckily, the community is very forgiving and empathetic — we all love Paizo, and we all hope this all gets fixed sooner rather than later.
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Just to clarify, the issue with the SFS AR wasn't entirely to do with the Organized Play side, but with the web-side process of getting these uploaded.Not the first time we've heard that. It's baffling that updating content on single a web page can take weeks or months. I simply can't wrap my head around why publishing content to the AR is so time consuming.
I hope (assume?) Paizo is working on improving that process, too!
A bit of a pile-on, but in the errata threads, Paizo frequently points out that the material is finalized months prior to the official publication date. Sure, it's the holidays now, but Paizo has had the final versions of the material since the summer, maybe even spring.
I hope that when the APG comes out, we won't have to wait for 2021 before the classes are officially sanctioned for Society play.
On this point, I think that we, the community, brought this on ourselves a little bit. Back in the day, AR sanctioning was handled solely by the org play team (which was generally 2 people for most of that). Some things were made legal that were disruptive or unbalanced, and they were subsequently removed. This resulted in complaints all around. People were mad when the options were legal. Other people were mad when they were removed. The solution was to involve the volunteers in the process and to have a team of VOs review a product first to make recommendations on items for the Org Play team to look at more closely.
Unfortunately, I think that generally removes the early access to the content. Paizo staff may be able to look at the books early, but the VOs can’t. So part of the process is delayed until the books are released, which slows the whole thing down.
All of that was pointed out at the time, but the community seemed to feel that having a stricter review over what is made legal was more important than having stuff sanctioned more quickly. I don’t know if I agree with that given how long the delays ended up being. Waiting an extra month is one thing. Waiting 6 months to a year is something different.
I don’t have any insight into what that process is or if it’s even still happening, beyond what was posted publicly at the time or since. But it is pretty easy to point to that decision as being around when the delays started becoming more common. It’s not certain that was the cause, or the sole contributing factor, but there’s at least correlation in the timing of it.
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Starfinder Society Developer
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Appreciate the commentary, as always.
My pop-in here was just to confirm that the OPF side of things has had a negligible impact on the SFS-AR/Sanctioning side of things, which was brought up in this thread, and I felt obligated to answer since this wasn't on the usual SFS boards. The delay to Starfinder Additional Resources was almost entirely caused due to issues mostly related to staffing (primarily off the Organized Play team, but also due to some of our own team transitions) and had nothing to do with the new OPF site hosting or the launch of Pathfinder 2nd Edition (keep in mind that I've not worked at all on P2 during my time as an employee). Tonya, Linda and myself have worked on the SFS AR process and have brought new hires in other departments up to speed with what we need in these updates, so I do hope to have them in much more timely order.
Either way, I take full responsibility for the SFS-delays and any ill-will people have about them, but I don't want people dumping them together with conceived notions on OPF burden—the two remain very separate. I'll let the PFS folks speak for any PF-related issues. However, I believe it's important that it be known that we identified problems in the SFS AR/Sanctioning process and have worked to resolve them in a way that should be improved going forward. I suspect that we'll be better on getting sanctioning and AR done in the future thanks to these process changes. (Again, big thanks to Tonya, Linda and our web folks for working together to get these done.)
Not wanting to engage too much in this discussion, as I've said my piece on the Starfinder pieces.
Thanks all!
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As an aside to the conversation, the Org Play Foundation website has only been responding about 1 in every 10 times I try to open it. Everything else (including Paizo’s site) is working fine, so I don’t think it’s my connection. If moving to a new web host has actually made the reliability issue worse, then maybe moving it back to Paizo is the right thing.This is odd to me... what kind of problems are you having? I have never had problems with the OPF page. I find it responds quickly with no issues.
Just timeouts trying to access the site. It’s been frequent the last couple of days. Mainly trying to bring up the guide to check things.
EDIT: And now it’s working fine. Such is the way of the interwebs.
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Why are all the websites so hard to work with? What kind of spaghetti code are you guys using?
Last I heard, "spaghetti code" was a major part of the problem. Somewhere on these boards, there's at least one post from Vic talking about how Paizo built their own online ordering system back in the dawn of e-commerce. Messageboards were an add-on, using the accounts customers created to order stuff. Then blog posts (with linked threads). Personalized e-downloads. Wishlists, sidecarts, and future orders. Permissions for doing something like uploading a free document (Additional Resources) weren't separate from permissions to make big changes to the whole system. Basically everything was done by hand, added on to something else, and it became very difficult to disentangle one bit without breaking something else.
At the core, Paizo is definitely NOT a technology company. For their size, there's probably no more than one or two IT people of any specialty. And I don't think any of them were around when Paizo started. Something that was hacked together in early days served a purpose then but has since hamstrung a growing company's need for more automated and user-friendly processes.
Last I heard, substantial progress had been made in moving to a more modern infrastructure. That in itself can sometimes create delays. ("We could update this by hand right now but instead of doing it the old seat-of-the-pants way, let's use those resources to get the new method live faster.") When will the code actually get to a user-friendly state? No idea.
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The solution was to involve the volunteers in the process and to have a team of VOs review a product first to make recommendations on items for the Org Play team to look at more closely.
Unfortunately, I think that generally removes the early access to the content. Paizo staff may be able to look at the books early, but the VOs can’t. So part of the process is delayed until the books are released, which slows the whole thing down.
All of that was pointed out at the time, but the community seemed to feel that having a stricter review over what is made legal was more important than having stuff sanctioned more quickly.
Thanks for explaining the history. It sheds some insight into what's happening.
I still think it's a suboptimal process, e.g., Doug Hahn mentioned NDAs (which I've heard of before) and always assumed they existed to allow VOs to have sneak peek access to materials for exactly this reason. I guess not.
I also understand that, to some degree, it's not worth the effort to try to please everyone. People who play a 36-hour session starting the hour the material is released are going to complain no matter what; people who play infrequently may not have even realized that the Lost Omens World Guide came out until they were at a bookstore this past weekend (raises hand). But the publication date for LOWG was September, it seems silly that there's still ambiguity about what's legal for PFS play.
This past November, my first PFS character reached level 2, and I asked my GM whether I needed to Craft a rune onto my weapon myself, or whether I could pay someone to do it, or whether I could just slap it on like a temporary tattoo. It surprised me to hear that the issue hadn't been sorted out at the time, and made me wonder what was happening to the people whose characters reached Level 2 on August 2nd.
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As an aside to the conversation, the Org Play Foundation website has only been responding about 1 in every 10 times I try to open it. Everything else (including Paizo’s site) is working fine, so I don’t think it’s my connection. If moving to a new web host has actually made the reliability issue worse, then maybe moving it back to Paizo is the right thing.This is odd to me... what kind of problems are you having? I have never had problems with the OPF page. I find it responds quickly with no issues.Just timeouts trying to access the site. It’s been frequent the last couple of days. Mainly trying to bring up the guide to check things.
EDIT: And now it’s working fine. Such is the way of the interwebs.
And now having issues again. It's just hanging trying to access any page on the site, then eventually times out. I'm posting here, so I know it's not my connection.
I'm posting here, so I know it's not my connection.
If it's on a different server, then it still might be your connection. The route between your computer and various servers around the world may be blocked or being detoured. There are lots of tubes on the internet and many links that can get disrupted.
You can run a traceroute if you really, really want to know where things re getting clogged up.
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This past November, my first PFS character reached level 2, and I asked my GM whether I needed to Craft a rune onto my weapon myself, or whether I could pay someone to do it, or whether I could just slap it on like a temporary tattoo. It surprised me to hear that the issue hadn't been sorted out at the time, and made me wonder what was happening to the people whose characters reached Level 2 on August 2nd.
The vast majority (anecdotally from my real life encounters and online campaigns) simply upgraded their gear as outlined in the CRB, with no extra costs or hurdles, which is what the rule ended up being clarified as.
What surprised me was Michael Sayre saying that it was an acknowledged grey area, and that the Design Team had been operating under a different assumption.
I was involved in pretty much every discussion on the topic, and I still see no supporting evidence for any crafting or transferring requirement.
At least I'm happy that Society gets to enjoy the "less restrictive" interpretation.
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I'm posting here, so I know it's not my connection.If it's on a different server, then it still might be your connection. The route between your computer and various servers around the world may be blocked or being detoured. There are lots of tubes on the internet and many links that can get disrupted.
You can run a traceroute if you really, really want to know where things re getting clogged up.
It is the damn cats clogging up the tubes!!!..
Ferious, I still have never seen the issues you are seeing, maybe there are less cats between me and the server... ;)
Venture-Captain, Germany—Rhein Main South
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Unfortunately, I think that generally removes the early access to the content. Paizo staff may be able to look at the books early, but the VOs can’t. So part of the process is delayed until the books are released, which slows the whole thing down.
There are ways for the AR-team to get earlier access to the books than the "normal" VOs and subscribers, how much earlier varies from book to book.
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The vast majority (anecdotally from my real life encounters and online campaigns) simply upgraded their gear as outlined in the CRB, with no extra costs or hurdles
I don't contest that was popular.
What surprised me was Michael Sayre saying that it was an acknowledged grey area, and that the Design Team had been operating under a different assumption.
You have one reading; other people (including the designers, apparently) had another. The primary reason for clarification is not to judge who is "right" and who is "wrong" - it's to make sure everyone is playing by the same rules.
The reason the delay in clarification was bad was precisely because there were many people doing it differently than many other people.
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Venture-Agent, Missouri—St. Louis
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I still think it's a suboptimal process, e.g., Doug Hahn mentioned NDAs (which I've heard of before) and always assumed they existed to allow VOs to have sneak peek access to materials for exactly this reason. I guess not.
Last I knew (which is admittedly several years out of date), Venture Captains DID get advanced copies of books, for exactly this reason. Paizo may have stopped doing this at some point, of course.