1,176 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

HikingStick wrote:

Remember, however, that you chose to do most of this on your own. Many have volunteered their time and talents to help you over the years, but you've opted (to the best of my knowledge) to keep all the development work to yourself. I can't fault you for wanting maintain control, but--imo--delegating tasks to others could have allowed you to maintain control without having to do it all yourself.

Delegation has a cost, I have been a team leader at my job, I know things take time, you can't drop a developer that just volunteered into a 6 year old codebase and have him produce solid code that you trust and can vouch for.

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1,177 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

wonderdog79 wrote:

However i must say that you baffle me sometimes. This will be my 4th post on this issue with no reply from you at all.
https://deckbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=24043

Going to sound like a broken record, I know, but I did read your posts, just did not have time to post on the forum too much.

I am right now working on a more streamlined support system. The Site Feedback forum / email support and current Trade Disputes done on the forum are not working... too chaotic. Will make a post today or tomorrow with my suggested implementation to solve this.

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1,178 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

d72B wrote:

As a frequent user and supporter, I have spent time providing feedback on the site and I have enjoyed quick responses and even quick bug fixes. But recently I feel that my feedback has not received any attention - so I stopped giving feedback. That being said, here's some now: wink

As a seller, I feel that selling desperately needs improvements... and none have been made in months!

  • What is the state of the Deckbox pricing algorithm?

  • I would likely pay for Premium if it allowed me to set dynamic prices.

  • I can't set static prices based on a filter. [https://deckbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=22334]

  • I can't enforce a minimum order size (# cards or $). [https://deckbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=22333]

  • I can't automatically apply a discount. [https://deckbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=22333]

  • I can't set it to require my approval before an order goes through.

  • I can't enforce a rule for buyers to choose certain shipping options, i.e. forcing them to pay for tracking under certain conditions.

  • I can't give feedback on buyers so we can weed out the bad ones as a community.

  • It's hard to fill large orders since I can't sort the card list (my cards are not sorted as one giant alphabetical list (same goes for filling trades).

  • It's really difficult to determine if the buyer has left feedback or not.

  • I can't see the tracking # I gave the buyer.

  • Shipping options gets difficult to maintain the more you have.

  • Since you haven't improved the Marketplace or asked your community what you can do to fix it, it seems like it's dead/dying.

On building the Deckbox brand...

  • Another idea for making money: sell Deckbox-branded merchandise, e.g. t-shirts, sleeves, playmats, DECKBOXES, scorepads, pens. Maybe only the strongest supporters will buy it, but it will also help get the Deckbox name out there to players at LGSs and kitchen tables.

  • Give some sort of bonuses for building up user scores. People love "leveling-up"! This could mean free Premium, exclusive subforums, etc.

  • Communicate better. You don't have the time, so get volunteers to do this for you. Send out the missing newsletter and have a presence on Facebook and the like - especially Reddit!

Even a single bullet point of those takes days to iterate design on, then implement, then test, then bugfix, then iterate again after user feedback. Doable with a development team, not doable with 1 part time person. I try to do it, but I see your list, and I have to pick one bullet point and scratch down the other 19. It is hard to do, believe me I'd like to have this website have most of those bullet points in one way or another.

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1,179 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

Kammikaze wrote:

And in reference to the posts above mine, I would absolutely buy Deckbox deckboxes, sleeves (if good quality, see: DragonShield, KMC), and for sure a t-shirt. smile

Yep, also nice idea, I need to find time to look into what I'd need to do to support that, I have no clue yet.

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1,180 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

elroy72 wrote:

Happy to support the site. I am looking forward to the Android app. Keep up the great work!

Thank you for the support!

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1,181 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

Boogada wrote:

If I build a deck on here, it's clear what cards are not in my current inventory. Let me click a "Finish this deck" button and buy the cards.

This is why I buy from TCG. I can put a list of cards in, click a few buttons, and get presents in the mail for days. The catch is on there, I have to build the deck here first, figure out what I need, THEN go buy it over there. I'm already here building decks, and there's already a marketplace. You just need to integrate the two.

Yep, it's on my gigantic todo list smile.  Not trivial to find a matching set of sellers though. This is a very hard problem to solve correctly (It's similar to this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knapsack_problem which is NP-Complete).

It needs compromises to find a solvable solution, but I definitely want to do it.

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1,182 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

One of the reasons for the premium account is just that... to be able to at least answer some of the users feedback and wishes.

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1,183 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

Also sorry but I cannot answer all posts. I hear the feedback on more communication, and that some people are upset their feedback has not been responded to.

Sadly, I have to say the same thing, it's the same answer: there is just no time to do that... or I would do just talking and no development or maintenance or anything else...

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1,184 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

Thanks everyone for the feedback.  There are many ideas that are very cool and that I would like to do. Sadly the answer to most of the suggestions is that there is just no time, I do not have time to do all that sad

I might have time to do some very small part of all these suggested things, the trick as always is deciding what...

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1,185 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

AsymptomaticPyrexia wrote:

PucaTrade recently made some big changes involving international trades. They are reserving international trading for Uncommon and Rare tier members only. The difference is that they raised the conversation in a podcast, received lots of feedback from their users, and then they sent out a mass email letting everyone know ahead of time when the changes will take place. This allowed their users to make whatever preparations they needed to make for a smoother transition.

Under email notifications, I've always had the box next to "I want to receive Deckbox newsletters" checked. I've been using Deckbox for years and have never received a single email regarding Deckbox updates or changes. I think this may be one of the things that users would appreciate. A little warning could go a long way.

I appreciate that and you are completely right. I applaud PucaTrade for their efforts too. But please take a look at their about page: https://pucatrade.com/about

I am a single guy operating a website that covers perhaps half of the number of trades that they do, with many more features, free for all users, and I don't even have an income for myself. They have 9 employees.

I just cannot do what they do, humanly I cannot do the work of 9 people.

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1,186 Reply by sebi

(2 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Morzas wrote:

So, I paid for an order on the Marketplace last week and it still hasn't shipped. It seems the seller in inactive right now. I sent support a message a day or so ago asking for a refund, still no reply. How long does it usually take?

Sorry, I received your email in spam for some reason, found it now. I canceled the order and suspended the seller's account.

Please mark the order as not received from your paypal account directly to receive the funds back.


P.S. Will be working on moving the support system to a more streamlined version than my email inbox in the near future, so this should not happen, and I will always respond to premium users and market customers. Sorry again for the late reply.

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1,187 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

True, that is pretty important. They can do that I think because they collect the money from buyers first hand and then issue payments to the seller later when all has cleared.

They charge you another set of paypal fees for this I assume, on top of the fees for the first paypal transaction, and their 10% commission. Which means sellers get way less money, but buyers are more confortable placing orders.

The problem is, when we launched, people even complained of the 6.9% we charged - which was already less than everything else, if we had another set of paypal fees, feedback would have been even worse.

Hard to enter that market, and also listen to your users. Tcgplayer can afford to bully everyone since they are the big dude in the room. (like they repeatedly threatened to sue me after we opened the marketplace because we were still using pricing data from them - which incidentally is public on their website smile ).

Also they have employees and much, much much MUCH more money than deckbox has (because deckbox has none) smile and an existing gigantic customer base of buyers. If they please them, they can ask for whatever they want from the sellers.

That's my take on it at least, not sure how much I'm right about that.

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1,188 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

Some users are using it, and I intend to make things better there too, don't get me wrong.

It is just that those sites you mentioned have already a number of users many orders of magnitude more than deckbox.

Even deckbox users that seem to like it here still do shop on tcgplayer and other places, and not here. I am not sure why... I suppose it also takes time for it to gain some footing...

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1,189 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

Merged and reopened this thread.

gumgodMTG, I did not abandon the marketplace, and will continue to support it. I thought it will be much bigger too, and there would be no need for premium accounts. Sadly, that was completely false.

We do have one big store selling there already http://deckbox.org/users/adventureson

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1,190 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

I closed one thread and then I managed to wax nostalgic in another... I think I have to get some sleep. smile

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1,191 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

I also always felt this website has a lot of potential, and it can become so much nicer than it already is (which I think it is, no false modesty). I always hoped others will see it the same way and I will have a way to hire people and build the coolest Magic the Gathering platform on the internet.

I never would have wanted to sell it because I made it and always had very high hopes for it, through all the years...

Only it would seem I am very naive... and I can't even hire myself haha!


And I am still determined to do my best to work towards that. Only it is not humanly possible to support 10.000 active users for free, so I am trying to figure out the best way to apply the little time I have.

For now, I hope people will understand that the premium account is just that - users that think this site is valuable to them, and are willing to support its health and growth. In turn I will dedicate the time I have to make sure they get the best Magic the Gathering platform on the internet, or as close I can get to it smile

I am sorry if I cannot offer a happy solution for everybody for free... but it is just not humanly possible...

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1,192 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

elpablo wrote:

On another note, have you thought of selling the site (or a portion of it)? to get the capitol you need to build a team and "do this for a living"?

Nobody will pay for the website, and then also pay me money to do what I do now for free, when the website has negative profits, and its features are seen as not worthy to be paid for by its user base.

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1,193 Reply by sebi

(5 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Yep, been just thinking about that today. How about to just always have 2 levels, a lighter one for cards you have more than 1 of, and a slightly darker for cards you have a playset of?

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1,194 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

Frank wrote:

sebi,

thanks for a great site. I initially registered as a seller not ever really planning on selling anything, but mostly as a way to give something back. Now I get to try Premium for quite some time.

In my book, that is a very fair deal.

-Frank

Thank you for the support! Much appreciated! smile

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1,195 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

elpablo wrote:

puca trade, a lot of the paywall features they have are already included in deckbox free

They are, but it seems that is my mistake. Puca trade have a healthy business I presume, and employees, developers and support staff. I do not even have an income for myself, and feedback seems to be that people are pissed off even when they are daily using those free features...

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1,196 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

I did post on the thread there.

To clarify, there is no "deckbox team", it is just me smile

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1,197 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

elpablo wrote:

priority support - What does this even mean? if there's a bug it's probably affecting everyone and you need to fix it anyway right?  Can you clarify what this means?  Do you mean better support for trading issues?  Are you offering a TCG player like guarantee for people that don't receive their orders?

It means if you have a problem and write me an email or post on the forums, I guarantee to read it and answer it as fast as I can. It basically means I reserve some time for you to solve the issues.

emergency collection backup recovery - umm... i guess this is okay... the site really isn't structured in a way that these types of accidents should happen often. Unless you get more requests than we know about.

People accidentally delete their inventories, or mess things up importing or exporting. We have more tools now that allow mass import by edition, which can cause issues.

It also might happen that there are bugs which cause you to lose card information unless you personally made a backup. If you are premium, I will take time to help you recover your data.


Sorry the features provided by the premium plan do not seem to satisfy you, I hope other users (which have been asking for many of these for years) will find them useful.

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1,198 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

Haha, turns out I posted that exactly after ElPablo wrote a very big post on the topic at hand, isn't that some weird coincidence smile

Will post reply to your questions now, reopened this.

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1,199 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

Thank you for the feedback guys.

I will close this thread as it seems most discussions are about politics and not actually about the features themselves. It seems some of the people participating in the thread did not even try our free trial to take a look at the features but seem to have very strong opinions nonetheless.

Feel free to open threads discussing specific features of the premium plan, how you like them and what you think can be better, in the Site Feedback forum.

Thank you very much to the people that decided to support us. I will post updates with features under development, as always.

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1,200 Reply by sebi

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

PhyrexianLibrarian, thank you for understanding, and for the positive feedback smile

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