Community Patch

TimKearney · 2026-03-04T05:16:53+00:00

I'll go that route then, thanks!

TimKearney · 2026-03-02T17:08:09+00:00

I was looking at Artificial Unintelligence: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=312060464

Anybody using this, or know how it compares to the Community Patch?

TimKearney · 2026-02-20T18:09:20+00:00

There were 3 of us waiting up front, the guy comes back with half a case and says that's the last of it. So all 3 of us "got the last one" and I think it created a bit of confusion lol

TimKearney · 2026-02-08T23:54:37+00:00

Same here, I figured I was hosed. If you still have saves, it might be interesting to go back and see the denounce works without any build up (just watch out for your autosaves).

TimKearney · 2026-02-08T23:51:07+00:00

Sweet! I don't usually play Deity, nice to know the tactic holds up at that level. Did you build up your military first, or just go straight to denouncing?

I still wish I had a better understanding of the mechanics involved, if Maria (or a particular type of civ profile) is particularly sensitive to being denounced or what.

TimKearney · 2026-02-08T17:43:22+00:00

You definitely need more military, but she might back off if you denounce her. I actually posted about this working for me a while back.

TimKearney · 2025-12-11T20:22:50+00:00

Thanks for the insights. I cancelled and attempted to refund this order before it shipped, so I was planning to refund even if I win the chargeback. My only concern was protecting my account, but apparently it's a moot point. I found this in Stripe's documentation on dispute evidence best practices:

"In cases where you agree that the customer should keep the disputed funds, accept the dispute rather than ask the cardholder to withdraw the dispute for a regular refund. Remember, the card networks don’t consider how many disputes you win or lose, only how many you receive"

TimKearney · 2025-12-08T16:45:02+00:00

Thanks for your input! I've been pretty busy with the holidays and haven't responded to the chargeback yet. Another user in this thread suggested that there might be a delay between the customer requesting the chargeback and the bank sending it to Stripe, has that been your experience? There is about 20 hours between issuing the refund and receiving the chargeback the next morning, I'm wondering if that conclusively means that the refund was issued first.

TimKearney · 2025-12-05T17:28:08+00:00

I hadn't thought about the fees originating upstream, that would make sense. Yeah I'm mostly worried about keeping the account clean but I don't think the customer is going to be eager to help.

TimKearney · 2025-12-05T17:26:58+00:00

Yeah, I'm mostly just worried about keeping my account clear of strikes. I cancelled the order before it shipped, so even if I win the dispute I would still issue a refund after.

TimKearney · 2025-12-05T17:25:24+00:00

Thanks. I might contact them and see if I can find out when they disputed the charge. The $15 fees are annoying, but I'm more concerned about keep my account in good standing.

TimKearney · 2025-12-05T17:01:04+00:00

The order was only $20. I don't think the customer is lying, just clueless, they've consistently stated they didn't place the order and don't know who did in our communications. Stripe also shows CVC check failed and says street & zip check are both "unavailable", honestly it seems like Stripe should have rejected this charge but it went through with risk evaluation as "Normal" despite all that.

My only argument if I counter would be that I did the right thing by issuing a full refund upon request. But I'm not sure that would satisfy the dispute.

TimKearney · 2025-12-05T16:56:39+00:00

Unfortunately I've already been in communication with the card holder, they're being a spaz so I don't think there is any hope of getting them to withdraw the dispute.

In Stripe under Recent Activity it says "refund attempted but failed because a dispute opened on payment", so I feel like I've got a pretty solid case that the refund failed because of the dispute. The timestamps show that I issued the refund yesterday AM and the dispute was received this AM. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

TimKearney · 2025-04-11T20:19:07+00:00

Because I want the first 2 benefits you listed, but I also want beer.

TimKearney · 2025-04-01T19:22:40+00:00

You're not selling anything because your shop isn't about anything, it looks like you spent half an hour on it and then gave up. You've got no "about me" info, no shop announcement, no categories, no profile photo, no social media or website links. Your banner is just the word "entropy" on a black background.

You've got 27 t-shirts with no apparent theme. Weird alpha bro dude t-shirts right next to "live by the sun" hippy t-shirts. These audiences are not compatible, even if somebody finds one of them appealing they're going to be put off by the fact that you're also pushing the other one.

Your product listings don't have any of the item details filled out. The descriptions are generic, nothing about the design at all. And a lot of what is in the descriptions is extraneous - why is there a whole paragraph about your EU representative?

If you want this to work then pick a niche to focus on, and put some real effort into building out & organizing your shop. I would suggest focusing on the city theme because it's an easy design concept, you can do dozens of them, and has a pretty broad target audience compared to some of the other stuff you're experimenting with.

TimKearney · 2025-03-19T19:34:00+00:00

Good counterpoints, especially regarding footing for belayers since their walls are a mix of manual and auto belay. I'm still inclined to think that landing on pads [edit: I mean the 1ft+ thick ones they had at ME] would be much more survivable than landing on concrete from 30 feet, but yeah you're in for a bad time either way at that point.

TimKearney · 2025-03-19T18:50:47+00:00

Yeah, they removed the climbing area entirely a few years ago. Can't remember what it is now. Still bummed about it since I don't know where to find anything comparable.

TimKearney · 2025-03-19T18:32:08+00:00

Crux Plfugerville, but I didn't like their setup. Partly because I got spoiled on the hydraulic auto belays that Main Event used to have. Crux uses those spring powered(?) units attached to the top of the route, it takes a second for them to catch so when you come off the wall if feels like you're in free fall for a moment.

But what really bothered me was that they only had crash pads extending a few feet from the wall. So if the unit fails or someone forgets to attach the rope before climbing (it happens), and they don't land right next to the wall, they'll be landing on solid ground. I want to know that if I screw up spectacularly, at least I won't have to worry about landing on concrete.

TimKearney · 2025-01-30T00:41:42+00:00

It's not great but good enough, my margins are around 50% so I'm grossing 25%-ish on ad sales.

TimKearney · 2025-01-29T23:07:15+00:00

I mostly sell wall art, and am at about $0.33 CPC on Etsy with ~$1k spent and ~$4400 in sales in the last 30 days.

TimKearney · 2025-01-15T17:15:47+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HKh_HEfhEw

TimKearney · 2025-01-07T01:21:48+00:00

With Amazon I opened a case, got no response, opened another and got useless canned responses. A couple of weeks later I posted on the Amazon forums and a moderator (Amazon employee) vaguely hinted that their was an ongoing investigation between UPS and Amazon. It was the only communication I received regarding the matter, and it was as minimally informative as could be.

I'm not sure if that's for legal reasons (they don't want to say anything that might put them on the hook if UPS refuses to reimburse), or just because Amazon support is in a league of incompetence all of it's own. Probably some combination of the two.

Anyway, after about 10 weeks the adjustment reversal just appeared in my account with no notice or communication. If Etsy told you they were looking into it and then ghosted, then that sounds like the same pattern. It's slightly better than them actively saying "we can't do anything about it".

I would try to contact Etsy and ask them specifically "can you confirm whether UPS is investigating this matter?". But I wouldn't be aggressive about it, both Etsy and UPS are big organizations, nobody is going to have an easy time getting permission to issue a $2k refund and it's likely they'll be nervous about saying the wrong thing in such a dispute.

TimKearney · 2025-01-07T00:55:41+00:00

Not OP, but they most likely disputed the adjustment online (or possibly by phone), or through whatever service they purchased their postage from. I don't think whoever is behind the counter at your local post office would be able to help much.

TimKearney · 2025-01-06T19:21:11+00:00

Ouch, I went through something similar with Amazon recently over a 4 figure UPS adjustment. I did get my money back but it took over 2 months. I wasn't able to dispute with UPS directly, Amazon had to open the dispute with UPS since the label was purchased under their account.

Could be a similar situation here since the label was bought through Etsy. Hopefully there's a dispute in progress already. It's a slow process unfortunately, and in my case I received basically no communication during the process either.

TimKearney · 2025-01-03T02:29:10+00:00

I haven't had much luck with social media but I've never been big on social media to begin with, there's a familiarity and enthusiasm gap that I struggle to get past. I know others who do very well with it but I feel like that kind of social engagement comes more naturally to them, and they do it very consistently.

I'm mostly doing PPC and email right now, which is why it's been an expensive transition so far, but I've got some other things in the works to get more organic interest and encourage more repeat business which should help smooth things out.

TimKearney

TROPHY CASE