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I would really love to back your new deck Lotrek. I've tried and failed to use the site. If it's frustrating for me, I can only imagine how frustrating it is for you and Mike.

Sounds like some live beta testing would be a good idea. Maybe there is a way to lock the site down and still grant access to a handful of users?

[quote="chach"]You know those decks we said we'd give away, we know most of you couldn't pledge or still can't, but hey, we're giving them away anyhow!!


And as for our wonderful BETA testers that didn't catch shit, WE'RE GIVING 5 OF THEM BOTH DECKS AND A FEW Anything Is Possible Bottles. Forget that our system is so muffed up that It makes Windows ME look as reliable as a Swiss watch. But please, we know you can't pledge but keep trying.


Chach;
I agree with and share your frustration but shaming and blaming the beta testers is wrong. And yes, I was one of them. I saw nothing like what is happening now. Like the others, I did this on my own time because I wanted to help. I wasn't even aware there were going to be a contest and prizes for the beta testers until I had won one. I just happened to see my name while reading the CL blog while waiting to attempt pledging. If the community thinks I should decline the 2 deck prize I will do that. I don't want kudos or prizes for my time and effort, just respect.

Am I right in thinking that those who were unable to pledge, have missed out on the two deck win possibility?

I don't blame anyone. It had passed the beta testing and looked ready to launch! But I do think it should have been reset to give everyone a fair chance, irrespective of the newly added early birds ( thank you Mike & crew).

I came out of engineering school in 1985 and have been testing software ever since including MicrSoft's climb from DOS to Windows. Fact is CL was doing alpha testing & not beta testing. If project creators only started loading up their projects a day or two before launch, the software being tested for weeks prior was not dealing with the environment in a real use situation.

IF IT WERE ME - KILL CL v0.1 and refund any $$$ collected do far. Get a real person to manager the testing who has done such things before and not affiliated with the software development firm. Get 25 beta testers from the USA, 5 from Canada, 5 from the UK, and another 10 scattered around the globe not from the aforementioned countries... they all need CCs & Paypal and the ability to coordinate so at certain time all testers are hitting the system simultaneously if possible. Get a real testing methodology in place & have all testers follow it - you ARE trying to break as many things as possible... just Willy-Nilly button clicking mimicking a card deck purchase isn't going to do it.

Maybe Obama can recommends some things too since he also has that T-shirt too.

nECr0MaNCeD wrote:

chach wrote:Chach;
I agree with and share your frustration but shaming and blaming the beta testers is wrong. And yes, I was one of them. I saw nothing like what is happening now. Like the others, I did this on my own time because I wanted to help. I wasn't even aware there were going to be a contest and prizes for the beta testers until I had won one. I just happened to see my name while reading the CL blog while waiting to attempt pledging. If the community thinks I should decline the 2 deck prize I will do that. I don't want kudos or prizes for my time and effort, just respect.

I don't think the anger is directed towards the beta testers but more towards the individuals who made the decision.

snsdmonkey wrote:

nECr0MaNCeD wrote:

chach wrote:Chach;
I agree with and share your frustration but shaming and blaming the beta testers is wrong. And yes, I was one of them. I saw nothing like what is happening now. Like the others, I did this on my own time because I wanted to help. I wasn't even aware there were going to be a contest and prizes for the beta testers until I had won one. I just happened to see my name while reading the CL blog while waiting to attempt pledging. If the community thinks I should decline the 2 deck prize I will do that. I don't want kudos or prizes for my time and effort, just respect.

I don't think the anger is directed towards the beta testers but more towards the individuals who made the decision.

And the ones still making the, as the consensus says, wrong decisions.

I really do not care, run the site, work the kinks out but I am already anticipating that this deck, venexiana dark will be one of those I have to pick up through a third party next January which is always a bit of a crap shoot.

StanKindLee: Thank you for the experienced view. What you say sounds the best way forward.

This is the only deck on CL that i'm still unable to get for someone. The whole launch has been a disaster. Who are these beta testers anyway? I only recognize 1, maybe 2 of the winners. Does anyone else know them or is it some kind of a sham?

I hardly think we need to consider any conspiracies just because the launch didn't go as planned. I sincerely doubt Mike would risk his whole site and reputation with fake winners for a contest.

Still trying to pledge for Venexiana to CL and still failing. Has anyone else noticed when it fails (and gives you the liquid error message), it doubles the shipping? I hope if it ever goes through, I don't have to pay for shipping twice.

For instance, I pick $6 for EB deck and $16 for two decks. On the next screen it says $22 pledge, $8 shipping, $30 total. When I click continue and it craters with that error, it says my pledge is $30, shipping is $8, and $38 total. But with the same rewards. Looks like it added on the $8 shipping onto my pledge and then added another $8 shipping.

snsdmonkey wrote:

nECr0MaNCeD wrote:

chach wrote:Chach;
I agree with and share your frustration but shaming and blaming the beta testers is wrong. And yes, I was one of them. I saw nothing like what is happening now. Like the others, I did this on my own time because I wanted to help. I wasn't even aware there were going to be a contest and prizes for the beta testers until I had won one. I just happened to see my name while reading the CL blog while waiting to attempt pledging. If the community thinks I should decline the 2 deck prize I will do that. I don't want kudos or prizes for my time and effort, just respect.

I don't think the anger is directed towards the beta testers but more towards the individuals who made the decision.

Necro, snsdmonkey is correct. Well partially correct in that there's no anger anywhere. The tone was more of comical incredulity, a, "Wait...WTF did he just say? They did what? They're doing what? But what of all the people that couldn't enter through no fault of their own. Oh, you're opening more early birds. How sweet." Kinda thing. No anger geared towards the beta testers such as yourself at all.

The FUBAR situation we're in is solely on the shoulders of someone much further up the pay scale. I've been part of my fair share of disaster planning and beta testing crucial systems for Fortune 500 companies and I just don't see how the site couldn't have been run in some sort of virtual world so that this could've been found. Hell, I don't see how it couldn't have been brought live for the beta testers only with a fake project so everything could have been tested. Mike said that it's not logical to test the Anon checkbox. Ummm, what? That's the point of beta testing, to test anything and everything under all conditions. From my past experience you don't go willy nilly at it, you create a flow chart of how an operation is to proceed and then create a list changing the variables and test each and every one of those situations. And if you can't test something then you find a way so that you can test it to ensure your product runs smooth. To say otherwise is ignorance.

TL;DR version, nothing against the beta testers, this cluster f--- is further up the pay scale and seems to be amateur hour.

If you managed to actually make a pledge for the Venexiana decks, check your confirmation email to see if your reward listed was decks, or like mine and others, "No Reward!"

Here's what I just posted on Cardlauncher/Facebook:

"Based upon comments I've read here, I checked my confirmation email for the $40 I pledged on Venexiana decks, and found that my "reward" for trying to be there for every launch attempt, hitting F5 more times than I care to admit, watching the system go up and down, over and over again, was "No Reward!" I didn't donate $40 to a non-profit agency, I pledged $40 towards a purchase from a business that said it was ready to take my money for products. This is not whining. When you are taking money, you don't call it Beta. I'll go over now and cancel my pledge, and have to think about whether I'll put myself through this again when there is a future "launch." Please get this all worked out before trying this again! Will Hart, Fullerton, California."

1. Good luck canceling your pledge. Last I checked, that was another bug.

2. They've stated that even though the email states no reward, the pledge info is properly collected and they know what you pledged for. Giovanni, the creator of the Good & Evil decks just confirmed this a bit ago in the SWTWC CardLauncher snafu thread. http://unitedcardists.com/viewtopic.php ... 600#p61352" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

chach wrote:1. Good luck canceling your pledge. Last I checked, that was another bug.

2. They've stated that even though the email states no reward, the pledge info is properly collected and they know what you pledged for. Giovanni, the creator of the Good & Evil decks just confirmed this a bit ago in the SWTWC CardLauncher snafu thread. http://unitedcardists.com/viewtopic.php ... 600#p61352" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yep, yet another bug that we crushed twice that is still back when we went into production. Believe me, that's one we tested - many times. Right now it leads to a 404 "Not Found".

Please see extended comment about the mess in the "CardLauncher" (Something Wicked This Way Comes part 3) thread.

OK, this is too funny (or sad, take your pick). I was a very early tester too, and like nEcr0MaNCeD just this minute discovered that I'm on the prize list (twice, Mike! - once for me (Carolyn Spivak) and once for a user name I made up (Zicky Bender) ) - that's Really Not Right. The last time I touched the system was I think late June - anyway, that's when my last email to Mike was.

I'm a software testing professional as well. After some discussions with Mike I just quietly withdrew (I mean that I stopped testing and had no further contact with Mike). At the time (there was no payment option) it did seem to have pretty decent functionality.

Honestly though, while wishing Mike the best of luck, it just did not seem that things were going to go well for all the infrastructure reasons that StanKindLee has so professionally spelled out. So I just vamoosed. Perhaps that was chicken, but I couldn't even convince Mike to get a professional editor.

I think everybody needs to take a deep breath. Remember healthcare.gov? Working pretty well now. Hopefully same will be true for CardLauncher. And sooner than it took the govt. I hope. I really want a Venexiana Dark too.....

I'm going to temporarily lock this thread until the Venexiana project is live and running smoothly. If I see the other project threads veer off track I'll lock those as well until everything is running as it should be. That way we can talk about the actual deck when the time comes. All Cardlauncher related discussions will be funneled to the appropriate thread. Ideally in deckrefinery.com since you guys gave Mike so much crap to keep CL out of UC but...whatever. It's getting crazy bouncing from one thread to another trying to keep track of everything. And now some users posting the same content here AND there. It's overwhelming.

See y'all when Venexiana is up and running.

Post away folks, but please stay on topic. This is not the "beat Mike & CL thread" - that's called SWTWC 3. I'll take my lickings over there, please. It has nothing to do with Venexiana Dark, although as I stated "over there", I am quite aware that I have things gummed up - at the moment. I"m doing my best to knock the snot out of it, and will post an open beta request - WHEN I feel it is ready for more whacks.

Thank you for reopening this topic. I've never been a fan of locking threads (unless the thread itself has no use), a bit tighter moderating for a little while usually does the trick better without killing the topic.

Purely out of curiosity (since my wallet has filed for a restraining order against me due to the latest investments) - what other Venexiana decks are there prior to this one? I took a sabbatical from all things deck related during the first one so I can't say I'm very up to date about Lotrek's decks.

The original Venexiana project with a cream colored deck and tuck and a dark tuck swap. Initially the dark tuck was meant to be a dark with a different, dark back but didn't quite reach the funding goal. The backers talked it through with him and that sparked the idea for Dark Venexiana.

Ah, there you go. Thank you!

If I see anyone posting here about CL I'll turn them into Jokers. Beware!

Lotrek wrote:If I see anyone posting here about CL I'll turn them into Jokers. Beware!

If you meant to discourage people from continuing CL talk in here, this may not work. Some of us might like the thought of becoming a Joker

Lotrek wrote:If I see anyone posting here about CL I'll turn them into Jokers. Beware!

"here about CL"

Now turn me into a Joker

If we keep this up there'll be nothing but Jokers in the deck.

Marcus wrote:Thank you for reopening this topic. I've never been a fan of locking threads (unless the thread itself has no use), a bit tighter moderating for a little while usually does the trick better without killing the topic.

Purely out of curiosity (since my wallet has filed for a restraining order against me due to the latest investments) - what other Venexiana decks are there prior to this one? I took a sabbatical from all things deck related during the first one so I can't say I'm very up to date about Lotrek's decks.

The original Venexiana and Venexiana Gold (world's first fully foiled backs) were both done within the past year, Marcus. As far as I know the original might be available from some resellers but V Gold was a very limited set of 212 decks and is definitely sold out - in 17 hours after a weekend of presales here on UC back around July 4th.

Some more Early birds were just released.

When designing the back, I had a problem: I made 5 alternatives and I liked them all. This is a problem because if you like them all, then none is good. I mean that they may be wonderful designs but one has to make you say: That's it!

So. I decided that maybe I should completely change the back design.

So, does it say "that's it?"