Did we break Paizo?
 

I know LWD has been waiting on Paizo to fix/modify their DRM API. I'm hoping that that particular issue isn't what broke Paizo's site.

Paizo did some major updates last Wednesday and their site was really flaky Thursday and Friday and devolved to the point where their forums were down over the entire weekend *twitch*. Along with that, of the 250+ rulebooks/adventure paths/novels that I've purchased from them, I can currently only download about a dozen - the others are unavailable.

Yeesh.

Yeah, yeah, what the frack does that have to do with Realm Works? Not really a whole lot, but as I kept repeatedly refreshing their page and hoping for a fix, I was thinking about what effect it would have on RW once the content market gets implemented.

*checks again to see if the Online Game forums are fixed yet - No? Frack!*

Oh well. Just a rant against the interconnected innertubes.

*checks again to see if the Online Game forums are fixed yet - No? Grrr!*

Not ranting at RW really or LWD. I love RW. I use it for all my FTF games. Just used it this weekend, in fact.

*checks again. Dang!*

Withdrawal? Why would you bring that up. Phhttfff. I can stop any time I want.

Update:

I finally heard back from Paizo's customer service.

"These features will return as normal when our database upgrade has taken effect. We are expecting this process to take a few days."

A few days? Just ... wow.

I'll be honest. It's the definition of a first world problem. I can't get to files I've paid for for a few days. In the scheme of things, it's nothing. It's not the end of the world. Life goes on.

However, the professional in me is sitting here with his mouth hanging open. I do work for pretty large sites and if I told any of them that it would take a 'few days' to do a database upgrade, they'd replace me with someone that knew what they were doing. In this day and age, leaving major portions of your website - even for smallish companies - non-functioning that long is just ... wow.

Yes, I'm ranting here. I have the urge to rant and I can't do it there - their forums don't work.

*grumble-mumble*

I've worked places where two minutes was an eternity.

FWIW, I am currently working a major project at my place of employment. We are combining data from about 9 separate systems into one. This is large HR ERP. The base data conversion due to the complexity is now down to about two weeks, with three additional smaller conversions to catchup from the time from the initial data cut to the final go live date. Also due to 4 separate payroll schedules from the entities involved. Our first pass 15 months ago took us about 8-10 weeks.

With the conversions we are doing and the complexity of the interactions between the entities, 2/3rds of our highly experienced consulting staff are still shaking their heads at the complexity of what we are trying to do. We have a few people that are actually employed at all three entities and trying to figure out who's on first has been a challenge of the first order, with many employees holding positions at two entities and significant amount of movement between the entities on an ongoing basis. Between the three entities we have about 75 different retirement options depending upon who you are, where you are, how long you've been here and how much you make.

I've been doing this kind of work for 25 years and I've never seen anything like it either.

I worked for a company that hosted at Internap data center in Seattle. The data center had 3 separate power lines coming in and diesel backup generator. Doesn't help much when a truck slams into the power junction box.

We were out for about 36 hours, geo-redundancy wasn't common back in 2005 so we just had to wait for power to come back. LiveJournal was hosted there also and they were out for less time, must have used a second data center.

Paizo's site has never been great, but they really need to look at updating their web site.

This reminds me the fiasco of the roll20 when their experienced a failure and were down for ~day or something.

FWIW, Paizo is posting very infrequent updates on their twitter feed. The last one I saw was 18 hrs ago that pretty much said they are aware of the numerous issues (can't log into accounts to download playtest material, etc..) and they will keep us posted.

This happened the last time they upgraded their backend as well, 5 or 6 years IIRC. They seem to have a very small IT staff who may not be terribly well versed in all the details of the technologies they deal with.

Well, at least now they updated the home page to include a download link to the playtest materials and make it clear that the site is down. Wow... going on a week now. Having worked at (and continuing to work at) companies that have public facing websites, I feel for them, but man that is a heck of a long time to be down when you are trying to generate interest in a new product. I'm sure they are doing everything possible to get it back up.

Yea, this is crazy long. I wonder at what point they said, "maybe we should have hired some contractors to help" OR "maybe we should not have hired some contractors to help"

"We need to update our website, anyone an expert or master at Computers?"
...no hands, one guy, "I'm trained in it? I got a +2"

rolls...Natty 1, crit fail!