Dice rings started life as a Kickstarter, started by Aaron Laniewicz. At the projects inception it seemed like a neat little inventive product that solved the issue some players have of rolling there dice off of the table. Occasionally having 'wild dice' syndrome myself, I thought it'd be a neat product to fund, and get myself a Blue 2r6 for use playing HeroClix. Somehow during the Kickstarter, I had a miscommunication with my wife and did not originally order her a ring. However, after the Kickstarter closed, CritSuccess did allow backers a means to adjust their order to get additional rings. Since that was in place I took advantage of it, and ordered my wife a Rose 1r6pip.
Fast forward a few months, and 2 delays. Once, if I remember correctly, because the product was late getting to them, and once because they had shipping software issues (all of this is covered in their Kickstarter updates), they began to ship their products. Presumably, when a product ships, it forwards a shipping receipt to the person that should be receiving the order. However, in the companies infinite wisdom (or lack there of), they shipped the orders out without any form of delivery confirmation. A rookie mistake in my opinion.
As my luck would have it, my original order never appeared at my door, and it took me WEEKS to get them to agree to resend the order, with no small amount of interference from Aaron. It seems that they must have been having a lot of shipping issues, since they also addressed this publicly through their Kickstarter as well. After a fairly threatening email on my part, they did send the next order by Priority mail, thanks to Jesse. That order arrived in a timely fashion, but my wife's 1r6pip ring (which was listed correctly on the original order that never showed up) was incorrect on the follow-up order, and she got a 2d6pip instead, which, because of the 1/2 size differential in the multi-r rings, does not even come close to fitting her finger.
Now I've spent another week and a half dealing with Aaron again, and he says that he reshipped the corrected ring, but I never received a shipping verification for this order, so I'm pretty much assuming that not only has it not been sent, but unless I can get in contact with Jesse, I'm going to assume that it will not be corrected.
All that being said, I do like the ring that I did receive. It's a neat piece of jewelry, and it functions as advertised. I have used it in at least one HeroClix match and it was consistently random, although, I learned quickly NOT to try to spin just one ring for a roll that would only require one die. It's much easier to declare right or left, and just spin both.
It's really unfortunate that although the product is interesting, and I would normally recommend it, I cannot in good conscience recommend ordering from this fledgling company that really hasn't figured out the correct way to conduct shipping and customer service. They have a lot to figure out. That said, if you run into them at a con, first ask them if they're ever going to send me the correction to my order, then check out their product. If you can buy it, and walk away with it, you don't have to worry about them being unable to correctly ship the product. However, if you're ordering remotely, do so at your own risk.
As a follow-up to this review, when my family and I had returned from our July 4th vacation, we came home to find that my wife's corrected ring had finally been sent and received (by Aaron no less).
ReplyDeleteAlso in questioning other backers on HCRealms, I found that those that took the time to respond had all had positive experiences with CritSuccess either in initially getting their orders or in receiving better customer service.
It would seem that my experience was quite a fringe occurrence, which I'm actually quite happy to hear.
I expect that as this company learns what does and doesn't work, they're customer service will more than likely improve. If they can get it in line with the quality of the product, then they'll be in business.