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Wave Katana Vendors Missing?

Jun
09
2008 in products.
2 Comments

I briefly mentioned a few days ago that I was going to pull all of my in-world Wave Katana vendors in preparation for an update combined with switching to networked vendors.  What I didn’t count on, though, was that I was going to run into an RL emergency situation yesterday evening that was going to take me days to recover from.

So at the moment there are no Wave Katana vendors in-world - unless I missed some, which is certainly possible - and likely there won’t be for another day or two.

Not that I expect this to be much of an inconvenience to anyone, I’m just putting the information out that I didn’t anticipate this delay and will put the vendors out again as soon as I’m able.

Popularity: 21% [?]

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Second Life network problems - Taketori Sales Offline

Jun
06
2008 in Kick a Linden in the junk, Server Issues, Product Updates, Asset Server, WTF and Second Life.
0 Comments

In the last 15 minutes, I’ve gotten 30+ emails from my in-world vendors and various user’s swords that indicate that Second Life objects are failing to contact my web server, so I have temporarily disables sales once again.

This weekend, I will be removing all in-world Wave Katana vendors in preparation for switching over to networked vendors.  I hope this doesn’t cause anyone any inconvenience, and I ask for your patience and understanding.

One last note : Because in-world objects seem to be unable at the moment to contact outside web servers, it is possible that the C:SI grid-wide scoring system is currently not storing all win/loss data that it should be.  I am not able to get in-world long enough to verify this, and it could be that it is just inconsistent rather than failing every time.  There’s nothing we can do about this : If Second Life is having network problems, it’s beyond our control :(

Popularity: 25% [?]

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OMGBOTS! - Using bots for unit testing

Jun
05
2008 in Testing, Software Development, C:SI and omgbots!.
26 Comments

It’s been one of those days…  On top of still dealing with the stress of Albertsons.com losing my order and having all of my grocery money locked up and unavailable for a week, I’m still working on my RL project even though I’ve been at it since about 5:00 this morning.

And yet, a conversation I had with Ayame recently keeps coming back to me, even while I’m working.  She’s got some ideas and some projects she’s working on which utilize bots built on libsecondlife code which will, I believe, be a very nice benefit for the C:SI community.  I’m going to be assisting in any way that I can, and I’m quite excited about the idea.

Thinking about her ideas keeps bringing me around to the idea of how I could do so many things with bots to make my own life easier, unit tests being a prime example.

I’m still very much trying to come up with more objective methods to determine whether a weapon is balanced, and I can think of several ways that automated testing via a bot running a predefined script of actions can assist in that process.

Unfortunately, my schedule being what it is, I haven’t really had time to think on this too deeply.  The technical details of how to implement the tests are not the big challenge, really.  The big challenge, as I see it, is coming up with a valid and reasonably complete list of tests that should be performed for all C:SI weapons.

I will continue to think on this topic as time allows, and should have some time this weekend to really dig into the topic, but I wanted to post this now in order to elicit feedback from the community as well.

I know that many C:SI members are software devs, and even many who are not have repeatedly shown that they have a pretty solid understanding of ways to test the weapons for balance and "correctness", so I’m asking anyone and everyone who has ideas to go ahead and submit them.

So whatcha think, got some good ideas for ways to objectively test C:SI weapons for balance and correct function?  I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Popularity: 40% [?]

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Albertsons.com - Took my money, ‘lost’ my order

Jun
04
2008 in Albertsons, Rants and WTF.
3 Comments
NOTE: This is a personal rant, not relevant to my Second Life or Combat: Samurai Island in any way, it just gives me a way to voice my dissatisfaction with a company knowing that Google will index it and make it available to others with the same complaint, as there are apparently quite a few of us, and may perhaps help someone in the future who is trying to decide whether to use Albertsons online by looking for customer reviews on the web.  All my Second Life friends are encouraged to ignore this and move along :)

A few years ago, I discovered that Albertsons had entered into the home grocery delivery business, and took orders online.  Perfect for a super-busy and super-geeky guy like me who truly hates shopping, right? 

Not just Albertsons, either; Safeway also does home-delivery, and at the time a few others did too, like HomeGrocer.com and a few others that are long since out of business.

So, I’ve been relatively spoiled until now.  Sure, there were a few problems here and there, a few items not delivered or of lower quality than I would choose were I to do my shopping in person, or a substitution made that I would never have approved of, but overall it was just so convenient to order online that I’d always emphatically recommend it to friends and family.

But quite frankly it’s been going downhill a LOT lately.  Safeway kept delivering moldy bread, so I switched to Albertsons exclusively, despite the fact that the Albertsons is excruciating to use - I’m a web dev in RL, so I hate that website all the more knowing that almost any team I’ve worked with in the last decade could do better.

But today just takes the cake (haha, see what I did there?  I’m so funny.  Okay, maybe not).

After waiting 5 hours longer than the delivery window I selected, I phoned the Albertsons customer support number, where I was gruffly told that they’d lost thousands of customer orders today and was just "one of many" with this complaint.

I guess I believe them, since I went to the site to gather information to file a formal complaint, and this is what I was presented with:

albertsons-can-kiss-my-ass

What happened is, apparently, that I made my order, received the confirmation email, had my MasterCard charged, and…  Didn’t get my order because it was "Lost".  Customer service tells me that my card "will not be charged", even though I’m looking at the statement right this minute on my other window and I can see that it has been charged. 

Whether my debit card provider is waiting for the charge to be "finalized", or it already has been, is at this point in time not simply not relevant to me.  The money (nearly $700 dollars) is not available to me, meaning that I cannot feed my family until the issue is resolved.  I’m told it can take 7-10 business days to get my money back, so as you might imagine I’m pretty FUCKING PISSED OFF!!!

Yes, I do understand that bad things happen on the technical side that can’t reasonably be anticipated, but that doesn’t justify the extremely poor customer service I received while trying to resolve this issue, nor does it explain the resolution process Albertsons employs (wait until the money is refunded, then resubmit your order via the "Shop my Past Purchases" page).

This is unacceptable, and is the final straw.  Not only will I never shop with Albertsons online, but fortunately for me there are 6 major grocers in the nearby area that are as close or closer than the local Albertsons physical location, so I can safely say that they have lost me as a customer for all time, and it’s not in any way inconvenient to me to express my displeasure with them by going to the competition.

/rant off

 

Popularity: 23% [?]

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