Quote from: RPGPundit;1017658But I am saying that in the very best case scenario if we imagine that this really was just some kind of error, they showed gross incompetence in their failure to correct it

You are absolutely correct; gross, pants-shittingly utter incompetence.

And after 20some years in IT, my response is "Yeppers."  Dilbert stopped being a comedy and became simply a window approximately 10 years ago.  A tech told my brother that his computer was "tired and had to be allowed to rest."  This was the Best Buy tech support dept.

There is no degree of incompetence that I cannot easily believe.

Whether it was a mistake or deliberate, if they claim they can't give you that same page as far as layout goes, maybe, if it was corrupted.  If they claim they can't give your new product the same url as the old one though, that's a load of crap.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1017665As an IT geek, my first assumption regarding these things is always incompetence. But even if that's the case, their mistake still cost you revenue, and demonstrated it's possible for any publisher to permanently lose their #URL.

However, given no other publisher has ever reported this problem, and the fact your new product URL (226021) is the number right before your old one (226022), I don't think it unreasonable to suspect deliberate sabotage.

BTW, there's a thread on #BigPurple about your game which may be worth a look where the original #URL was shared on 2018-01-01. Coincidence? Also considering some of the posters in that thread, I'm not altogether sure they're aware that you're the one who wrote it.

Hmm. The thick plottens.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1017625Yesterday I left a pretty mysterious blog entry. This was because I was busy working on yet another promotional blog for Lion & Dragon, when suddenly I realized that the entire RPGNow L&D page was GONE.

This when literally a few short hours earlier everything was fine.


So what happened?

Well, it seems that OBS basically screwed us over.

The whole thing was, they claim, some kind of an 'error'. They sold us some bullshit of how 'the system' mistook some prototype page for the real page we'd been using all month, and that now it couldn't be switched back and the old page was lost.
At first they gave us a new page with no pdf option, without our copper status. After some gentle shouting and threats on my part, they restored the copper button.

Kind of like when Trump gets his Twitter account shutdown by a Democrat intern. SJWs are in everything now.

Hmmm...

Still, another Pundit project to purchase! Yay!

Well, I grabbed it from rpgnow. I had some store credit to use anyway.
Will take a look over the weekend.

Ok, now I realize that I may have no idea what I'm talking about and it's been a looooong time since I've been responsible for keeping a website running.  That said, is it really that hard for them to put in a placeholder at the old address that just points to the new one?

Eh, I shop with OBS a great deal and screw ups are frequent and take many forms. It sucks that it cost revenue but I doubt it was deliberate. If they wanted to shut down the product they could simply refuse to carry it.

I might mention the screwup with Chaosium's material recently. The 'system' applied hefty discounts to their products making them very close to free. The guys were not impressed at all. Could be the underlying software/database is creaking and is no longer fit for purpose.

That is the main problem with OBS. They act dodgy now and then. AND. The site is buggy now and then.
I've seen some of the oddities in my rare visits. But mostly just things showing where they shouldnt, not displaying right, or on rare occasion up and vanishing. And there is no way to tell if it was a bug or malice.

As for Pundits game it does look really suspicious. Were any of your other games affected if you have any up? What were the games you'd ousted from the top? Do any belong to known enemies?

So unfortunately even if it happens to Pundit again there is no way to tell if it is sabotage or bad code.

Quote from: Almost_Useless;1017683Ok, now I realize that I may have no idea what I'm talking about and it's been a looooong time since I've been responsible for keeping a website running.  That said, is it really that hard for them to put in a placeholder at the old address that just points to the new one?

On every web platform currently in use on the planet: literally less time than it took me to type this.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1017693On every web platform currently in use on the planet: literally less time than it took me to type this.

Seriously? Whatever RPGNow is doing it is database driven and the best pages are autogenerated. The solution may not be straightforward and take considerably more time than it took you to type the above.

Likely what happened was a unforeseen glitch that exposed a weakness with their ability to administer the website. And they can't paper this one over because it happened to somebody with a large audience to point out that the emperor has no clothes.

They should have the tools to arbitrary edit the underlying tables in order to fix things like what the Pundit experienced.  And by tools I mean something that knows how the ungodly mass of tables they use relate to each other. Beyond a certain point you can't just go in and hand edit the databases tables to fix stuff.

Is this a common issue that other publishers have experienced? I know others have experienced issues but have they experienced *this* issue?

whatever the cause was, this is why a Monopoly like OBS is a bad idea (especially now that many in the industry have their print set-up through them as well). Games could be lost forever if the publisher no longer has the original files (I am sure most do but I am also sure many see OBS as a secure place to House large files they don't want to store for years on end). I've had my own frustrations with OBS (and talked about it plenty). I think they do need to get their act together because something like this (again regardless of whether someone there did it intentionally or if it was a glitch) could happen to any publisher on the wrong day. Pundit mentioned the bestseller list. That is hugely important and this effectively torpedoed that for him. I had something similar happen to me when they changed the bestseller list algorithmic right as I was releasing a new line (and they told no one---I only noticed because I was paying attention). I get that people like convenience of buying everything in OBS pkace. But they are absolutely a monopoly now, and that means they can act like one.

Quote from: Hermes Serpent;1017687I might mention the screwup with Chaosium's material recently. The 'system' applied hefty discounts to their products making them very close to free. The guys were not impressed at all. Could be the underlying software/database is creaking and is no longer fit for purpose.

Same thing happened to my items - twice.