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Volks Japan webstore maintenance and update

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Sord

Yesss! I'm digging it. I like how there's an option to hide the 'Out of Stock' items, which would be really useful if I ever felt like just browsing around later.

 

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cfx
20 minutes ago, Sord said:

I like how there's an option to hide the 'Out of Stock' items, which would be really useful if I ever felt like just browsing around later.

I noticed that too, and I think it'll be quite useful as there doesn't really seem to be much logic to what they remove vs. keeping up with a hope of restock, at least in terms of outfits.

It seems like the site is more responsive, but the real test of that will be a clickwar.

Since they were touting how it would be mobile-friendly, I was concerned it might become that at the expense of the desktop experience as I find far too common, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

According to their FAQ pages, it's still where items aren't reserved upon placing them in your cart. I was hoping that would change back to how it used to be. :( Payment processor is still "EC" so that aspect will probably be just as good/bad as it has been recently.

Edited by cfx

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Sord
4 minutes ago, cfx said:

I noticed that too, and I think it'll be quite useful as there doesn't really seem to be much logic to what they remove vs. keeping up with a hope of restock, at least in terms of outfits.

It seems like the site is more responsive, but the real test of that will be a clickwar.

Since they were touting how it would be mobile-friendly, I was concerned it might become that at the expense of the desktop experience as I find far too common, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Agreed.

Here's to hoping that the site does hold up during the coming clickwars. 🙏

I'm a desktop user myself, so I applaud Volks for a job well done. Hopefully, mobile users will be pleased as well. 

 

 

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Monty

We’ll see if the site can handle a clickwar this weekend when the Dolpa Xpasses go up. I was pretty disappointed to see that, according to what I’ve seen of Volks News on twitter, Xpass isn’t lottery anymore. (They has to make it lottery last year after the Xpass clickwar -crashed the site to the extent that it was broken for days-) I think they’re putting a lot of faith in the site if they think that won’t happen again, but I’m not optimistic. 

I just want them to go back to lottery for dolls because I really don’t see anyone beating anyone else in speed on Australia’s famously crappy internet, so I feel my whole country’s at a disadvantage lol. Maybe it’ll be different if the site doesn’t crash, but...

Edited by Monty

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cfx
26 minutes ago, Monty said:

I just want them to go back to lottery for dolls because I really don’t see anyone beating anyone else in speed on Australia’s famously crappy internet, so I feel my whole country’s at a disadvantage lol. Maybe it’ll be different if the site doesn’t crash, but..

Agreed. I had enough "fun" during the clickwar trying to get those Abyss Black outfits. I don't really want to have to compete against other people wanting Ranko and Arle. Sure, they'll probably space them two hours apart if they're clickwar, but that doesn't really accomplish anything useful.

I will mention it really looks like they worked on this version of the site much more before the went live with it because I'm not seeing random things still in Japanese and other weird bits like the last time.

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Monty
50 minutes ago, cfx said:

I will mention it really looks like they worked on this version of the site much more before the went live with it because I'm not seeing random things still in Japanese and other weird bits like the last time.

The 'sold out out' and 'awaiting stock' messages are still in Japanese so I hope they fix that. The worst examples of the untranslated Japanese were in the error messages people got though, so I hope that's been fixed most of all.

Unfortunately the main Dollfie info site is completely machine-translated, something they had already done with the Rapunzel page which I was reeeeally hoping was only temporary because in my opinion it's just...honestly a really bad and unprofessional look for a company to present to an international audience. Like when it was translated by a person it was understandable at least, even if it was obviously not coming from a native speaker, but this is straight up incomprehensible in places. (Just one example, on Rapunzel's page for whatever reason 'only' has been translated as 'chisel', giving us sentences like 'a method of payment will be a credit card chisel'. I know proper translation takes on more human resources but I always try to look at the site from the perspective of someone who has no clue about Dollfies and how confusing it must be when stuff is not in natural English at all.... 

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cfx

I did see the sold out buttons and forgot that.

The machine translation is a hot mess. Look at this page about the dollfie ambassador program for 15-year-olds, in "English":

https://www.volks.co.jp/event/dolpa42/firstdollfie.html

My ability to read Japanese isn't very good at all, but I still had to look at the Japanese page to have any idea what that was actually talking about.

Edit: For example, on the most basic level of translation, how in the world did プログラム become "PUROGU Ram"? It's literally the English word "program" written in katakana, no real translation needed and that isn't even right?

Then there is just total gibberish like:

Quote

A chance longs for Dollfie ® and arrives at eggs of "In some time,...." and the owner who dreamed! Maid♪ by which VOLKS grants a dreampresents "first Dollfie ®" to you.

I wonder if American Express will send me a credit card chisel if I ask them? @onion9@

Edited by cfx
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Monty
On 11/18/2019 at 7:14 PM, Monty said:

We’ll see if the site can handle a clickwar this weekend when the Dolpa Xpasses go up. 

Update: The Xpasses don’t go on sale for another 21 minutes and the site is already crashed and redirecting to an error message about how the traffic to the site is too heavy. 

If they were using the Xpass clickwar as a test for the dolls, I hope this makes them rethink things because this is just ridiculous now. Like I’m actually pretty angry about this lol. (Especially because they had switched Xpass to lottery last December for precisely this reason)

Edit: my mistake, looking at twitter reactions they had the Xpasses go up an hour earlier than the regular guide books, probably to prevent congestion (ha...) so the crash started as soon as they went up and not before. Which means the site has been down for over an hour and no one can buy anything at all, not just Xpasses. 

Edit2: Now, some people on twitter are starting to report they were finally able to purchase the xpass after waiting over an hour. But meanwhile, the site won’t load for me at all and I only get an error message. While this is better than last year (as in people actually got to buy it, as opposed to the site dying for over a day) the fact that the site works for some people and not me worries me a lot. It means that my internet is simply not good enough for a clickwar and I have probably no chance of ever getting a clickwar doll, which makes me really sad.

Edited by Monty
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BeyondTime
1 hour ago, Monty said:

the site is already crashed and redirecting to an error message about how the traffic to the site is too heavy. 

That sucks...

It’s quite possible that the backend database hasn’t changed even though the pages changed. 
 

Assuming that all the order history is still there, then they probably just built a new front end system. 

Edited by BeyondTime

The difference between Dollfie Dreams and Heroin? Heroin is illegal, Dollfie Dreams probably should be.

“Empty wallets, full hearts.” That’s probably an apt description for the effects of DD addiction

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foo

It seems that the webstore is dead dead, like they took it down. It doesn't seem to be trying to show any product pages, so I think things went worse than they expected. It reminds of of when ArsTechnica made their own crypto currency for fun, they knew the servers would take a beating but it didn't blow up in the way they expected. Hopefully it's something they can still work out 😕 

Also, I don't know if we've noted this yet but the web store dedicated to Dollfie products is

https://dollfie.ec.volks.co.jp

It has dollfie in the URL ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ The other URL is for their hobby products. Unfortunately it's also dead.

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Guest
8 hours ago, Monty said:

Update: The Xpasses don’t go on sale for another 21 minutes and the site is already crashed and redirecting to an error message about how the traffic to the site is too heavy. 

If they were using the Xpass clickwar as a test for the dolls, I hope this makes them rethink things because this is just ridiculous now. Like I’m actually pretty angry about this lol. (Especially because they had switched Xpass to lottery last December for precisely this reason)

Edit: my mistake, looking at twitter reactions they had the Xpasses go up an hour earlier than the regular guide books, probably to prevent congestion (ha...) so the crash started as soon as they went up and not before. Which means the site has been down for over an hour and no one can buy anything at all, not just Xpasses. 

Edit2: Now, some people on twitter are starting to report they were finally able to purchase the xpass after waiting over an hour. But meanwhile, the site won’t load for me at all and I only get an error message. While this is better than last year (as in people actually got to buy it, as opposed to the site dying for over a day) the fact that the site works for some people and not me worries me a lot. It means that my internet is simply not good enough for a clickwar and I have probably no chance of ever getting a clickwar doll, which makes me really sad.

Ouch. That's not good. 

I really hope they'll do lottery for the dolls. If it's a clickwar, it'll probably start around 2-3 AM for me, and I really don't want to be awake in the middle of the night only to not be able to access the site at all. 

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cfx
12 hours ago, Monty said:

Update: The Xpasses don’t go on sale for another 21 minutes and the site is already crashed and redirecting to an error message about how the traffic to the site is too heavy. 

If they were using the Xpass clickwar as a test for the dolls, I hope this makes them rethink things because this is just ridiculous now. Like I’m actually pretty angry about this lol. (Especially because they had switched Xpass to lottery last December for precisely this reason)

Edit: my mistake, looking at twitter reactions they had the Xpasses go up an hour earlier than the regular guide books, probably to prevent congestion (ha...) so the crash started as soon as they went up and not before. Which means the site has been down for over an hour and no one can buy anything at all, not just Xpasses. 

Edit2: Now, some people on twitter are starting to report they were finally able to purchase the xpass after waiting over an hour. But meanwhile, the site won’t load for me at all and I only get an error message. While this is better than last year (as in people actually got to buy it, as opposed to the site dying for over a day) the fact that the site works for some people and not me worries me a lot. It means that my internet is simply not good enough for a clickwar and I have probably no chance of ever getting a clickwar doll, which makes me really sad.

It's now 12 hours after you posted this, and I can't access the site now. That's pretty bad.

Edit: I wasn't even getting any kind of error, just a blank page after a timeout, but now after refreshing over and over I'm getting:

Quote

⚠️   Currently undergoing maintenance. Please access again later.

 

Edited by cfx

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DML
14 hours ago, Monty said:

While this is better than last year (as in people actually got to buy it, as opposed to the site dying for over a day) the fact that the site works for some people and not me worries me a lot. It means that my internet is simply not good enough for a clickwar and I have probably no chance of ever getting a clickwar doll, which makes me really sad.

You dont need to worry about anything. If you dont win a clickwar doll, there are alternative ways to get the doll that you want. That is why Volks has a page for their other Shops for customers. Here is the link https://dollfie.volks.co.jp/shop/

Many people forget that these shops, also have dolls, that you desperately clickwar on. That is why they are listed on the Volks website. so you can try with them, if you dont win at clickwar. So dont worry!

Edited by Meow

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Lynn

It's been 16 hours since Monty posted about the site crashing. The site is up now - but it seems to have changed. I don't really use Volks' site for various reasons (I use Mandarake instead) so I'm not exactly familiar with the site. But.... I'd say it still needs a little bit of work. 😅

Edited by Lynn

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cfx
1 hour ago, Lynn said:

It's been 16 hours since Monty posted about the site crashing. The site is up now - but it seems to have changed. I don't really use Volks' site for various reasons (I use Mandarake instead) so I'm not exactly familiar with the site. But.... I'd say it still needs a little bit of work. 😅

Have you visited the site in the past week before now? Because I'm not seeing any changes beyond what happened when the site was changed a week ago.

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Monty
6 hours ago, Meow said:

You dont need to worry about anything. If you dont win a clickwar doll, there are alternative ways to get the doll that you want. That is why Volks has a page for their other Shops for customers. Here is the link https://dollfie.volks.co.jp/shop/

Many people forget that these shops, also have dolls, that you desperately clickwar on. That is why they are listed on the Volks website. so you can try with them, if you dont win at clickwar. So dont worry!

I’m aware of those shops, and while I’m glad they exist none of them are any use to Australian customers. 

I do have friends in Japan who can help me out if clickwars really are impossible, I would just rather not rely on them for everything.

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DML
1 hour ago, Monty said:

I’m aware of those shops, and while I’m glad they exist none of them are any use to Australian customers. 

I do have friends in Japan who can help me out if clickwars really are impossible, I would just rather not rely on them for everything.

They Ship all around the world. I bought dolls from The Partner shop in Korea and from Friend shops. when some dolls have been out of stock in Japan. I'm sure they cater to Australia too. Or dont Australia allow shipping from other countries apart from Japan?

I know Volks USA does not ship to other countries.

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Monty
50 minutes ago, Meow said:

They Ship all around the world. I bought dolls from The Partner shop in Korea and from Friend shops. when some dolls have been out of stock in Japan. I'm sure they cater to Australia too. Or dont Australia allow shipping from other countries apart from Japan?

I know Volks USA does not ship to other countries.

It’s starting to feel that way as we have massive import fees for countries other than Japan if the value is over 1000AUD, something that never worried me in the past but now the AUD is in freefall and most DDs are about that price now. Technically it’s not like Japan is actually excluded, its just that from what I have learned from other Australian hobbyists experiences, for some reason (that could just be coincidence) EMS post from Japan (ie direct from Volks) regularly makes it through customs unscathed. Although it’s extremely inconsistent and there are people who have ordered $2000AUD things from other certain countries and gotten no tax, while someone else orders $1020 AUD things fromnthe same country and gets taxed. Those taxes can be as high as 300AUD for dolls of this price. (The inconsistency is making me worry about what will happen when 9S ships to me as well, to be honest...) 

If they do ship worldwide that would be very helpful, but with the extra fees friendshops need to use to stay in business plus the risk of having to pay an extra few hundred to have a doll I can already only barely afford with our exchange rate, I can’t help but be wary. But I’ll ask around and see if any Australian collectors have tried this and if it was worth it. 

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Lynn
8 hours ago, cfx said:

Have you visited the site in the past week before now? Because I'm not seeing any changes beyond what happened when the site was changed a week ago.

No, I haven't. All the changes must have happened already back then. 

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Guest

Is there a way to only show items that fit a particular bust size or have they removed this function? 

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DML
44 minutes ago, childepaladin said:

Is there a way to only show items that fit a particular bust size or have they removed this function? 

The website is still a work in progress (not the final). They are still updating stuff to make easy for customers. 

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Noxxbunny

Seems like as good a place as any to ask because I've never had this problem at checkout...

Anyone know what it wants from me here?

volkscheckout.png.130e336d096404b699b567cdf844520f.png

I can't edit any of my address info on this page(it's all correct anyway), and it won't let me continue with credit card or paypal this way...but I can't figure out what it's taking issue with specifically.

It marks all my info, basically?

volkscheckout2.png.9d0a14019f223e1aaa4cdbb28ac30671.png

 

Part of me wishes I had just started a new account with the new site launch...They just fixed an issue I had with my name yesterday.

 


Current Crew: Kaito(DDH07), Miles(DDH06), Lyca(DDH-10), Hotaru(DDH09), Kagamine Rin, Maron(DDH01), Mikuo(Snow Miku), Nagisa(DDH01)

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BeyondTime
6 hours ago, Noxxbunny said:

Seems like as good a place as any to ask because I've never had this problem at checkout...

Anyone know what it wants from me here?

volkscheckout.png.130e336d096404b699b567cdf844520f.png

I can't edit any of my address info on this page(it's all correct anyway), and it won't let me continue with credit card or paypal this way...but I can't figure out what it's taking issue with specifically.

It marks all my info, basically?

volkscheckout2.png.9d0a14019f223e1aaa4cdbb28ac30671.png

 

Part of me wishes I had just started a new account with the new site launch...They just fixed an issue I had with my name yesterday.

 

Usually it’s the postal code. Try putting that into the address 2 line. 


The difference between Dollfie Dreams and Heroin? Heroin is illegal, Dollfie Dreams probably should be.

“Empty wallets, full hearts.” That’s probably an apt description for the effects of DD addiction

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Noxxbunny

So it turned out my whole account was just screwy lol. I had to email them and they apparently basically re-input all my info for me, and that got it working. This new site is sort of not my favorite so far...but Volks has been very helpful with my struggles at least.

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Current Crew: Kaito(DDH07), Miles(DDH06), Lyca(DDH-10), Hotaru(DDH09), Kagamine Rin, Maron(DDH01), Mikuo(Snow Miku), Nagisa(DDH01)

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Sord
2 hours ago, Noxxbunny said:

So it turned out my whole account was just screwy lol. I had to email them and they apparently basically re-input all my info for me, and that got it working. This new site is sort of not my favorite so far...but Volks has been very helpful with my struggles at least.

I was having problems with the new site as well. But, thanks to Cfx's help, I discovered that my problem was a card issue. It turns out that my card wasn't compatible with some 3D verification security thing and so a different card is needed for it.

That problem soured my opinion of the site and I really hope there's no further issues down the road. @onion10@

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