Valkyria Chronicles Development Artworks

Yesterday really was a fantastic day! In the space of about 12 hours, I managed to meet Aussie F1 ace Mark Webber, watch the Canberra Raiders beat the Brisbane Broncos in Rugby League (with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in attendance) and after whinging earlier in the week about how Play-Asia were screwing me around, my copy of the Valkyria Chronicles Development Artworks finally arrived! (ordered through an always trusty ebay seller).

So first, so what I predict most people will want to see (as it’s the name of the post!), here are some pics of the Development Artworks:

Please note that all Artworks material is copyrighted by SEGA and Enterbrain INC. A couple more images can be found on my Flickr page. If you have played Valkyria Chronicles and liked it (seriously though… how could you not?!), I would definitely recommend this book. At 400 pages, it is very comprehensive, dedicating pages to the development of each and every character of the game, to the places, environments, tanks, weapons and game levels. The development of the major characters is really interesting as well, the different versions of Alicia, Welkin and Isara were great to see! It’s really hard to find anything thats missing.

It is in Japanese, so I can’t read any of the commentary, but there are somethings that you’ll notice that is different compared to the english translation of the game, like that some of the minor characters had name changes. You also get a break down of main characters personal stats like age, height and weight, which doesn’t really effect anything, but is kinda cool to know.

It really is a beautiful book and demonstrates the amount of thought and effort the developers at SEGA put into making Valkyria Chronicles. I can’t wait for Valkyria Chronicles 2 to arrive in the western world hopefully later this year!

One last photo, of local hero Mark Webber being interviewed by the local press. His home town of Queanbeyan were so excited on his return!

Mushies and the Lumix Vario G 14-45 lens

As mentioned in my earlier post, I have finally taken receipt of the Lumix G Vario 14-45mm lens that I have waited a couple of months for.

I had to dig out my old Leica point and shoot to take this one. I do like how the 14-45mm looks on the Lumix GF1 body. It’s similarity to the appearance of a rangefinder is emphasised with this lens. The only real gripe I have with this lens is the size of the focus ring. Having been used to the 20mm prime lens, with a focus ring about the same size as the zoom ring on the one above (the wider one), the focus ring on the zoom lens feels fiddlely. I realise that its comparable to the setup on SLR lenses, but its just feels odd when switching between the prime and zoom lens.

However, that is my only real concern, it is a great lens, and is much quieter than the 20mm lens, especially the auto-focus.

A couple of test shots, of some mushies growing the veggie-patch.

I like the above shot, especially as it was naturally lighted. It came out well.

Of course, just for fun, a pic of the pup. He’s very camera shy for some reason, so he’s not the greatest of photo subjects…

Next Saturday is the Canberra Photo marathon, which I have entered, so hopefully this time next week, I will be able to post another photo update (with some exotic animals, or so I’m lead to believe…)

The Panasonic Australia Experience

Continuing with the theme of problem companies and drawn out issues, I will discuss a company that shares initials with Play-Asia… Panasonic Australia.

Panasonic Australia

Just before New Years, I ordered my Panasonic Lumix GF1 from my local camera store. I ordered the 20mm lens kit, with the 14-45mm lens ordered additionally. Basically, I’d heard good things about the 20mm prime, but didn’t want to lose the convenience of a zoom lens, so I ordered both.

I received the kit in January after a short delay, which, seeing that it was just after Christmas, was understandable. At the same time, I was told the 14-45 lens would be another 2 weeks. Understandable, so I waited.

Throughout the rest of January and February, I continued to enquire about availability. I was continuously told that Panasonic Australia would supply the lens in “another 2 weeks”. As I was expecting to wait 2-3 weeks before receiving the lens, I was getting frustrated when come the start of March, I was still being told that there was a 2 week wait. After already waiting 8 weeks, how could it be possible to still be 2 weeks away? Were Panasonic Australia doing anything at all?

The Lumix GF1 is a micro four-thirds camera, advertised and sold on the premise that it is an interchangeable lens camera. In fact, Panasonic Australia lists the lenses that are available for the camera on their website. I do not believe it’s fair to market a camera in this way, as well as advertise lenses, if they are unable to actually supply them.

After a 10 week wait after the initial order, at the request of the camera store (who acted admirably and were extremely helpful and sympathetic to my wait), a 14-45mm lens was removed and separated from one of their body+lens kits, just so that they could fulfil my order.

The camera itself has performed fanatically, I love it! Panasonic has produced really a high quality camera and lenses, but are just pathetic when it comes to actually supplying them.

When I took finally took receipt of the lens, I got the hint that the lenses were still not expected to arrive until mid-April and that wasn’t even a solid date. I can’t believe that 4-5 months to fulfil an order is acceptable by Panasonic’s standards, especially in light of them receiving an Australian consumer award for their products and service.

The Play-Asia experience

I wanted so desperately to have a good shopping experience with Play-Asia, but as my experience detailed below explains, I do not trust them enough to attempt to do business with them again…

[NB: Please see the update at the end of this post for the response from Play-Asia]

Play-Asia
Back in January, I ordered the Valkyria Chronicles Development Artworks via Play-Asia. I made the order just a week after the artworks were released, however Play-Asia were out of stock. I understand that these things happen, and was prepared to wait a little while, thinking that because it only just came out, that it would be restocked relatively quickly.

For the next 6 weeks, I enquired about when it would be restock, in response, I received what I now know is a stock-standard response to availability enquiries:

“I am very sorry for the delay in shipping your order.  There is a sudden delay in restocking…
… We will try to get the stock and ship your order as soon as possible …. we kindly request for your patience.”

At the end of the 6 week wait, I felt that I had waited too long. There were other bookshops that had the book in stock, and as I was still receiving the standard response, asking to be patient, I requested a refund. At the same time, as a precaution, I opened a PayPal dispute, just to ensure that the refund would be paid.

For the next 2 weeks, with an open dispute, Play-Asia would/could not be bothered to refund the money. At one point, I received the following:

I am sorry that we cannot refund if there is an active dispute.  You may either get back the money through PayPal or cancel the dispute and let us to refund you.

This is in direct contradiction to the PayPal resolution centre, which states “The seller can use these funds to issue a refund anytime during the dispute by using the Refund link in the Transaction Details page.” Why would I close the dispute, which indicates to PayPal that it has been resolved, before I had received my refund?

I eventually escalated the claim, which resulted in me receiving my refund. PayPal had contacted Play-Asia for more information, but because they failed to respond after 10 business days, the funds defaulted to me.

I so wanted to have a good experience with Play-Asia, there are so few english/international orientated online stores offering products from Japan. Yet, it seems to be a poorly run business, with reviews indicating that others have been through similar experiences.

I know some have had good experiences with Play-Asia, but I would not recommend shopping through them to anyone.

Update – 26/3/2010:

Since posting this story (as well as a scathing review on the Play-Asia review service) I have recieved the following response from Play-Asia (sections are a direct copy-paste from the email):

First of all I sincerely apologize for all the trouble we have caused you and I am very sad and concern about your unsatisfaction…
…we actually have a big misunderstanding between our customer service department and the accounting department…
…The reason we ask you to cancel the dispute is because our accounting  staff had told our customer service department that this is a partial order…
…So which means in order to refund that order ‘so called partial order’ which is not, we needed you to cancel the dispute then we can process the partial refund. But from the very beginning your order was not a partial refund…
…I hope you will accept our explanation and my sincerely apology  for this incident and will consider giving us an other chance and experience the true enjoyable shopping with us…

With this, I was also supplied $15 store credit as a peace offering. Whilst this is a better resolution than I was expecting, I’m not sure if it’s enough to give Play-Asia a second chance as it really shouldn’t have come to this in the first place.

It’s up to you whether your willing to do business with them.

I wonder where that blog did go

I did love it so…

Well the move is complete and my blog now has a new home. This will be my 50th and last post using WordPress.com, which has worked brilliantly, but as I’m already paying for hosting for another site, I’d be silly not to take over hosting of the blog. All past posts, as well as all future posts can now be found at:

www.kincuri.com

Home sweet home

Welcome to the latest iteration of the kincuri.com blog, the transition of my previous WordPress.com blog to my own wordpress hosted blog is complete, after a lot of fiddling to get things looking right and finding the required plug-ins, I think it’s good to go!

Not too much to update at the moment, I’ve been rather sick for the past week, so I have been flat out just trying to keep up with Uni tasks, as well as juggling the demands of work. In the past week, I have spent just 1 full day in the actual Office, and managed a day trip between Canberra and Sydney only yesterday. Uni restarting was supposed to be a return to normal routine! but I’ve been busier than ever…

I will leave you will some intimate photos of my Sony Rolly. Hopefully, soon, I’ll be able to squeeze in some more photo updates. I’ve entered a photography competition coming in a few weeks, so that should be fruitful.

Taking Control

I have been busy in the last few weeks, preparing for the next iteration of this blog. I have been preparing this blog to move away from WordPress.com to my own hosting, which as I have found, has it’s pro’s and con’s.

The main reason for the move is to allow me to have greater control over the site. Whilst WordPress.com is great, there is such a wealth of material and tools that have been developed for the WordPress platform. By hosting it myself, I am able to change things up and customise it much more, compared to the limited wordpress.com options.
However, moving the blog isn’t as seamless as its made out to be. Whilst I have been able to solve problems relatively quickly, there have been a few niggling problems that have been frustrating.

Regardless, this is my 49th blog post, hopefully, my 50th post will be an announcement of the move.

You should be able to find the new blog at www.kincuri.com eventually, but for the time being, you can see a working preview Here