Pathfinder 1E Paizo improved? probably a myth

[Committed Hero]

I haven't bought a Dungeon since Poly was removed. Or a Dragon. I vastly preferred the former with Poly.

 

[Old_Man_Fish]

Haven't had a subscription for long, only the past month. But I got the mag within a few days of the supposed mail date. Hope that that keeps up.

 

[paz]

UK Subscriptions

Ouch. There goes my idea. I live in the UK, and have never subscribed to either Dragon or Dungeon. I thought about subscribing to Dragon after 3E came out, but other people's criticisms put me off that idea. I've grabbed about ten-odd copies of both Dungeon and Dragon that I've seen in gaming stores around me, but can't find a store that gets them in regularly. The issues I've bought have always been about a month late.

People in the UK might have more luck subscribing through The Place for Games. I'm not sure how their pricing compares to Paizo's direct service, but I've never had any problems receiving either Dungeon or Dragon over the last ten months, and will be resubscribing when the time arises.

paz

 

[Greylock]

Specifically Dungeon/Dragon are very hard to come by, I talked with my FLGS store manager and he told me that with the shipping costs and his costs he would have to sell it for about 15$ which is insane, and so he doesn't bother.

I have two things you might want to think about. These points are strictly anecdotal, and do not represent any degree of high specialisation or knowledge, just things I have experienced:

1. Foreign magazines, especially British ones, cost an arm-an-a-leg in the U.S. As a consumer, it cheeses me to pay $10 + for one. However, when I retailed Euro-mags in my life as a record dude, the fact that I had to give away Brit mags for $10 cheesed me. There is no good way to satisfy either end without spending or losing $.

2. I am now a Grocer (see title). I work at a store with a significant Orthodox Jewish customer base. That means, lot's of special order shipments coming from Israel. Large and small, bulk items and one-shots, perishables and durable. The turnaround time is simply nuts. I've had canned goods pass their expiration dates making the trip. No lie. Seriously, I've waited three or four monthes for goods to make it from the kitchen to the packer to the ship to the NY distributer to the truck to my shelf in Memphis, TN, and oops, right to the dumpster.

Hope some of that helps...

 

[Kanegrundar]

I don't subscribe to either magazine, but I do occasionally order old issues from them. I've done this several times and each time my order is delivered within a week of placing it. Therefore, I'd have to say that I'm in the positive camp.

Kane

 

[diaglo]

WTF is a "ghost quote"?

the movie ghost starring patrick swayze, demi moore, and whoopi goldberg.

BTW, I did received a batch of Poly back in the 80's. The ones I like happens to have a useful article for making up organization's name based on anagrams and initials for Top Secret. Oh, they have articles for D&D but I tend to ignore them and favor Dragon, which in the 80's supported more than just D&D, but other TSR's RPG lines.

me, too. i liked Dragon more then too.

diaglo "who played Boot Hill, Metamorphasis Alpha, Star Frontiers, Gamma World, etc.." Temporado

 

[Psychic Warrior]

If that is true, then it should have shut people up for wanting WotC to publish more D&D adventures. But that didn't happen.

Sometimes you can't shut up people no matter what you do... :\

I notice that the people responding to this thread who have no problems with delivery are either in Canada or the US. Any overseas people who get regular and timely delivery?

For the original poster - you sent one email and then cancelled? Did you try their customer service number? Or even a second email? A single email and then cancellation seems a little knee-jerk to me but I wasn't in your situaton. Oh and overseas magazines cost an arm and a leg here too. I used to work in a book store and even the smallest flimiest magazines from the UK would go for $3-5. Some of the big glossy fashion mags were over $15. And there is zero profit margin on magazines for a vendor. I think our store discount off the cover price was about 15% (then add frieght charges, store shelf space etc - I wonder why magazines are even sold sometimes)

 

[Bagpuss]

Ouch. There goes my idea. I live in the UK, and have never subscribed to either Dragon or Dungeon.

I live in the UK, I've been picking up Dragon and Dungeon from my local newsagents since 3rd Edition. They get it from magazinecafe.co.uk, I've never missed an issue, generally its about month behind the US. On the plus side many of the price rises in the US price didn't appear in the UK price, being sucked up by the exchange rate.

I've thought about getting a proper subscription rather than getting through my newsagents, but I've kept hearing bad things from other UK subscribers, and since I've never had any problems myself I thought it wasn't worth the risk.

 

[Jupp]

I'm a subscriber to Dungeon from Old Europe and things have improved greatly in the last three months for me. Dungeon #121, as stated on the Paizo boards some days ago, was sent to European subscribers, arrived in the UK and was routed to us on 3rd of March, which means I should get it around this week. If that is indeed the case I am more than pleased with the delivery speed of Dungeon. At least its a 200% improvement compared to half a year ago. It's also a good approach from Paizo to announce shipment of Dungeon to the UK distributor, and the date it should be sent out to the rest of the continent, on their message boards

Definitely a happy customer from Europe here.

 

[soulcat]

Okay,

I work for a print and mailing house in the UK. So, I know a bit about mailing out subscription mags (we do daily,weekly, monthly, quartely and yearly publications).

Heres the skinny:
-We always do the dailys first. They are high priority.
-The Weeklies get there own special slots on the macines, that can meen taking other jobs off (can't afford to lose that custom).
-The monthlies get done once a month, not always before the expected delivery date. We don't always inform the vendor that we are sending it out late (it depends on how late we are sending it, or how payment is set up). If we can get away with a few days (max a week) delay in sending it, then we keep quiet, especially when we are busy.
-Quarterly and yearlys get done when they get done!

When they leave us, they get taken away by the postal service, pre sorted, and if we do our paperwork right they get sent. If we do our paper work wrong, at best they hold it till we correct it, at worst they return it to us and we have to resend it.

Then you are at the mercy of the postal service.

We quite often (in our deliveries of empty mailing sacks) find undelivered mail. With the volume of mail being handled by the Mailing services around the world, I hate to imagine the amount that just gets LOST.

Obviously with the number of complaints about Dungeon and Dragon there are other problems, but before now, due to machine breakdowns, paper work errors and just plain mistakes, we have sent weekly publications out up to 4 days late. If we'll do that to weekly publications, imagine what can happen to Monthly ones.

OF course I am not going to name the mailing house I work for, and I am not trying to tell you that all are like ours, but Royal Mail (the british postal service) have told us repeatedly that we are one of the better ones!!!!!!

Not all of the Problems can be put at the feet of Paizo.


And on the subject of sending to Israel? Since 9-11 it has not been economically viable for our company to send Big mailings to America and the UK is one of America's strongest allies. We deal with an american company that does the majority of that for us. Imagine what it's like sending from America to the middle east? I pity anyone sending anything from the middle east to america.