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New and Improved Store Purchasing Interface

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by Berek, Apr 24, 2017.

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  1. Berek

    Berek Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    This morning we updated the store purchasing interface with a new and friendlier design! For all items purchased though the 'STORE' menu on the main website, you now have an easier view of which transaction options are available with which to purchase items:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    You will notice that we do not have Bitcoins listed as we did before this change. It was necessary to remove the option while we explore an improve compatibility with Bitcoin transaction processes and the new store interface.

    Bitcoins will make a return! We do not have an exact date on this return just yet, but will let you know as soon as we have one to announce.
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2017
  2. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    Still missing the most important capability. We need to have an option to Send Selection As Gift without being logged in!

    I have plenty of friends and family who know how much into the game I am, and would gladly come buy me Store Credit Gift Coupons (especially now that there is a nice way to get the hyperlink directly to an item, thanks for that!). However, they can't because they don't have an account, won't create an account, and won't log in using my account.

    Since you are making changes now, I'm requesting this early. I usually only bump this request on my birthday (in June) and for Christmas. Please, please, please, @Berek @Tassilo allow non-players to buy gifts for players!
     
  3. tphilipp

    tphilipp SotA Dev Moderator SOTA Developer

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    This would require unfortunately a much much bigger change than what it appears to need. Every item has to have an owner currently, and while a gift is unclaimed, the sender is that owner (that's why the buyer can resend it if it stays unclaimed, etc.). Otherwise items would possibly just get lost for good.

    An anonymous user would only need to mistype the recipient's email, or use an inactive/old one, etc. (which already happens all the time - we even have people trying to creatively type postal addresses into that field) and the item will never arrive. This could then make the buyer feel ripped off when not realizing the error, the recipient wondering, etc.. We already receive regularly emails in support about such cases, but at least right now the buyer keeps full control over such items while the gift is pending.

    Thinking of a system that allows anonymous gifting would require some kind of token to retrieve such lost items, anonymously, changes to the backend to have ownerless items, etc., and I'm afraid that there are higher-prio items on our list right now.

    I'll note the suggestion, though, and pitch it to the others. Thanks for the input!
     
  4. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    I definitely understand the priorities. I just know that you have missed some purchases because somebody's aunt couldn't buy from you, so they ended up getting a Best Buy gift card...

    Hmm... maybe a hacky workaround would be if anonymous purchases get "owned" by a customer service account. If something gets mistyped, then you can easily resend it when they contact support.

    Anyway, thanks for the consideration!
     
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  5. tphilipp

    tphilipp SotA Dev Moderator SOTA Developer

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    Could be, but the extra time support needs to assist, hunt down the items, and often deal with ambiguous requests, would easily eat up the extra money made by such a feature. Also, this still needs to be implemented in a "special" way, with a ton of code needed to be made work without a user behind it, which requires different checkout screens, etc..
    That said, it would be easier right now to get this and other features in, than before: the change we made is not just eye-candy, but actually a pretty big change to the underlying system, b/c the original one was hard-to-maintain code from the early days. So, since we just got away a bit from old code with some "hacky workarounds", such a feature shouldn't be reintroducing any. :)

    Anyways, priorities still call for other pressing things, currently. :-/
     
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  6. 2112Starman

    2112Starman Avatar

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    It looks great! Well done as usual! Now tell them to get some new stuff up there! :)
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2017
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  7. Tahru

    Tahru Avatar

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    Been waiting forever to purchase a house that is a suitable storefront, like all glass front. Town sized :)
     
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  8. Jens_T

    Jens_T Avatar

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    Hope this is the right place for this feedback - the main add-on store page loads extremely slow for me. My internet connection is generally fast (250mbit) and while the top of the store (up to the tabs) loads quickly, it takes a good while until all the items are loaded.
    As this problem does not appear on the "Bundles" site I am pretty confident it is related to the number of add-on items that needs to be loaded.
    When I was on a slower connection I stopped looking at the store more than once. Perhaps there is a more efficient way to load / present the add-ons.
     
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  9. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    I've noticed this change recently as well, probably about the same time they added the Patterns tab (and the sales banner). Perhaps there is a script issue, as it was much faster previously.
     
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  10. tphilipp

    tphilipp SotA Dev Moderator SOTA Developer

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    It used to load all the items at once, so we did speed this up and now load them on demand of the respective tabs. But my colleagues just keep adding and adding and adding... :)
    So another pass at more delayed loading will be needed I guess. Thanks for pointing this out. I wish time wouldn't be so scarce, though...
     
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  11. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    @tphilipp I checked the Add-On Store today, and it appears that is an issue. The first tab is now a duplicate "Other" tab, with only a blank box in the first row.
     
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  12. tphilipp

    tphilipp SotA Dev Moderator SOTA Developer

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    @Berek some category is setup wrongly

    Thanks for letting us know
     
  13. Berek

    Berek Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    Did a quick check, everything seems to be in order. Please let us know if it comes up again!
     
  14. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    Refreshed and everything looks ok now.
     
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  15. Lord Andernut

    Lord Andernut Avatar

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    1) It would be nice to know also if anything can be done about the add-ons portion of your account-page. It takes 20-30 seconds for me to load that page, if you decide to convert a few things to store credits or gift items you previously purchased you're spending a good long time loading the page.

    2) Quality of life improvement: Allow us to claim an item we have on the pending gifts page directly without sending it to ourselves again. I use the pending gifts page if I buy something and want to think about it for a bit before cl;aiming the item (this saves me from accidentally claiming via the store interface).

    3) Quality of life improvement: Allow us to sort our pending gifts page by: Date, Receiver, Item type :)
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2017
  16. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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    Paaaaayment plans?
     
  17. tphilipp

    tphilipp SotA Dev Moderator SOTA Developer

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    1) It's indeed an issue for people with a lot of items, and we are fully aware of it. So far, it's an issue that always got pushed back b/c of other pressing things. Sorry to have to deal with it for right now.

    2) Quite a genious use of that feature.. :) I think the other suggestion that was floating around here somewhere, to be able to say what should be claimable in game or not could also work.

    3) It's true that this page is pretty much crap and unchanged from the very early days. I guess we never thought that the marketplace would take on such dimensions. Also sorry for right now, but all I can do given the workload is noting those on my task list and hopefully squeeze in when I find some time.
     
  18. Lord Andernut

    Lord Andernut Avatar

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    Alright, thanks for looking!
     
  19. tphilipp

    tphilipp SotA Dev Moderator SOTA Developer

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    Not being able to say myself anything about if and when, but the store checkout chain refactoring that was done (which also resulted in this new interface) does allow for something like this to be introduced more easily in the future.
     
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