Anyone Still Active On WotC Community?

[Bounty Hunter]

Howdy all,

I was just curious if people around here were still active on the WotC boards at all, and if so where?

I know the boards as a whole mostly died when they swapped to the new set up with the groups and what not. And now the pieces that do remain active arent exactly easy to find.

I see theres still some life in Magic General and in the main D&D forums, but it just seems like all the groups havent seen posts in years.

I've been a member of the PlayByPost forums there for a decade now and it just sucks seeing them in such a state. I've been keeping the old Terisia City freeform roleplaying alive mostly by myself for going on four years now. = /

Its nice to see the huge amount of activity here on GITP that i've seen over the last few days since I finally got around to joining... I just find it sorta sad that this is one of three sites based on D20 gaming that I visit that all get more traffic than the site that owns the game. >.<

Thanks for listening to my mini rant /shrug

[Bounty Hunter]

I used to be active on their boards. But for yeas it was mismanaged (under teh gleemax brand), and in the year after that when they drew it back it, they did some decisions that were so dumb that they effectively destroyed all the campaign-setting boards, right when 4e was poised to cover "a setting a year", effectively driving away their potential customers.

Being military I wasnt able to be very active during the time the Gleemax stuff went down but I did get to witness the effects that it had. And then by the time I was active again its like they had purposely drove wedges into separating the various components of the message boards.

I can see some of the logic behind why they did the 'groups' , for instance me and the other GMs of the play by post areas now can police our forums without needing to contact a WiZo for every minor problem... But as theres no clear way to connect the groups, I've stumbled upon small communities that were created, struggled, and then died without ever being viewed by more than 20 unique users.

I suppose I'm just being nostalgic because of the amount of time and effort I've spent on that community... and salvaging it seems undoable.

[Terisia City] for example, a freeform roleplay area, used to get 15-30 unique users posting a day... and now had three unique users, two of which only post on Saturday.

[Lord Raziere]

I remember Gleemax. five years spent in the most stupid freeform rpg ever. course it put in on the path to where I am now…so….can I really complain?

didn't know the whole WotC community had started to die though. oh well. just as well. WotC seems to have mistaken their own feet for the shooting target these days so…..par for the course, I guess.

[Bounty Hunter]

I remember Gleemax. five years spent in the most stupid freeform rpg ever. course it put in on the path to where I am now…so….can I really complain?

didn't know the whole WotC community had started to die though. oh well. just as well. WotC seems to have mistaken their own feet for the shooting target these days so…..par for the course, I guess.

Yeah, Gleemax is one of the other PbP groups in the same "sub-community" that I've been a part of. I was never to get into their RP myself, it just wasnt my style. I mostly stuck to the RP areas based in either Magic/D&D and the two groups that actually played D20 rulesets.

Just sucks having a player-built community extinguished by company level decisions. And I have a love-hate relationship with WotC, becuase a lot of the staff cares about the game(s) and the players playing them and are actually really cool in person (like Chris Perkins). But as a company they've been driving me away bit by bit for years.

[Lord Raziere]

trust me, I like freeform roleplay and even I disliked gleemax roleplaying pbp.
it was a mess. it was a nonsensical mess. and worse the people playing in it basically designed everyone to near invincibility, even if they were supposedly not that strong. the only reason I played it for so long was because I was young and stupid at the time. and that was before getting into the tons of arguments and nonsensical rules that started to pop up, and the various rules we gone through. and over time, the membership dwindled and the posting came less often… I wouldn't recommend anyone to play it. it was freeform optimization rules lawyer internet argument hell, complete with at least eleven apocalypses happening at the same time completely in character. it was freaking ridiculous. you saved yourself a lot of trouble.

[thubby]

i used to be all over the dnd boards before they mangled everything. that was years ago, and it's part of what brought be to be such a regular here.

[Bounty Hunter]

trust me, I like freeform roleplay and even I disliked gleemax roleplaying pbp.
it was a mess. it was a nonsensical mess. and worse the people playing in it basically designed everyone to near invincibility, even if they were supposedly not that strong. the only reason I played it for so long was because I was young and stupid at the time. and that was before getting into the tons of arguments and nonsensical rules that started to pop up, and the various rules we gone through. and over time, the membership dwindled and the posting came less often… I wouldn't recommend anyone to play it. it was freeform optimization rules lawyer internet argument hell, complete with at least eleven apocalypses happening at the same time completely in character. it was freaking ridiculous. you saved yourself a lot of trouble.

Yeah, sounds like you'd have been better off in either MotP or Terisia back in 'the day'. Gleemax to me established its "in" crowd around 2005 or so and since then if you werent one of those people you more or less had a snowballs chance. On top of that was the maze of rules that more or less allowed for "legal godmodding" and its been like a Micheal Bay film =P.

I never had much desire to compete with their massive terraforming engines and armies of mech suits and such... sometimes you just need to be a dwarf with a drinking problem hanging out in a tavern. *shrug*

[Zherog]

I can see some of the logic behind why they did the 'groups' , for instance me and the other GMs of the play by post areas now can police our forums without needing to contact a WiZo for every minor problem...

That problem was solvable in the version of the forums prior to the gleebook version they use now, but they chose not to use it. (well, actually, not completely true. They did use it for about a four - six month period. They made us moderators, but we weren't supposed to deal with code of conduct issues, just maintenance stuff. It worked just fine, but when the power base changed, they didn't like non-moderators having mod abilities.)

I lost all my energy for that place after spending the better part of a year constantly fighting with Mke Whatshisname to keep the GM program active and the existing play-by-post forums separate - he wanted to merge them all into the Gleemax RP forum, because, hey! They're all play by post games, so lets consolidate.

...sometimes you just need to be a dwarf with a drinking problem hanging out in a tavern. *shrug*

Or an overly amorous elf with a drinking problem. ;)

[Bounty Hunter]

I lost all my energy for that place after spending the better part of a year constantly fighting with Mke Whatshisname to keep the GM program active and the existing play-by-post forums separate - he wanted to merge them all into the Gleemax RP forum, because, hey! They're all play by post games, so lets consolidate.

Hey Zherog, hows it going sir?

Yeah I've had that arguement before with other uses who said they should be combined to spur the activity. But I dont think they realized what a mess that would cause, or how different the various playbypost groups were. Nothing against the the freeform area here, but when I found it my first thought was "this is what they were trying to do on WotC". Multiple game words dumped into one pot...which raises all sorts of logistics issues.

Or an overly amorous elf with a drinking problem. ;)

Or...or...

[Zherog]

It works here because it's developed over time. The problem with merging over at WotC - and I had long, drawn-out arguments over this - would have been taking a dozen or so completely different communities, each with their own cultures, game rules, history, personalities, etc, and forced them to mix together. Some places could have survived, if the goal was to make fewer pbp forums (for example, the Castle of Fun and Terisia probably could've survived being merged together) but there was no way all those things would've worked as one forum.

And you're exactly right about what's wrong with groups - they did a great job of giving the owner the tools to run things. And it even brought in some cool new tools like a blog and a wiki. But groups are isolated, not really a part of anything.

(And the amorous drunk elf was basically my persona on the Castle of Fun. I was either flirting with anything that moved, drinking, or both most of the time.)

[Bounty Hunter]

It works here because it's developed over time. The problem with merging over at WotC - and I had long, drawn-out arguments over this - would have been taking a dozen or so completely different communities, each with their own cultures, game rules, history, personalities, etc, and forced them to mix together. Some places could have survived, if the goal was to make fewer pbp forums (for example, the Castle of Fun and Terisia probably could've survived being merged together) but there was no way all those things would've worked as one forum.

Yeah, I agree completely. A few of them could compliment each other, but to combine all 10+ or so would have been disastrous. Right before they moved to the group concept, they forced "The Gathering Storm" into Terisia... becuase "Terisia had no purpose to the company"

(Here)"It is perhaps unfortunate, given this context, that the higher-ups want to make better use of the game forums -- in other words, they should be A) active, and B) should have a point (that is, should be clearly related to and useful for Wizards). Terisia clearly lacks both"

*sigh*

And you're exactly right about what's wrong with groups - they did a great job of giving the owner the tools to run things. And it even brought in some cool new tools like a blog and a wiki. But groups are isolated, not really a part of anything.

Exactly. I've also noticed little things like the "featured groups" never seem to change, so its not like new onces get publicity by making it to the front. Additionally, if people navigate the groups like I do, they have little reason to ever leave their own profile and discover new things.

(And the amorous drunk elf was basically my persona on the Castle of Fun. I was either flirting with anything that moved, drinking, or both most of the time.)

Aye, I remember oddly enough. Oh man the various personas I've played out over the years. *Nostalgia*

[Bounty Hunter]

Oh man ... they've shot themselves in the foot with the last two forum updates...

But they stared right down the barrel on this one.

[Zherog]

It's that bad?

[Bounty Hunter]

It's that bad?

Its apparently down again right now and not working on any of my various browers , so let me see what i can dig up from complaining about it yesterday.

• Huge blocky buttons and fancy designs chosen of functionality.
• Threads only fill 1/3 of the page leaving huge seas of white space on either side.
• Even on mobile or e-reader page doesnt fill whole screen.
• iphone users seem unable to access it at all currently
• All buttons have massive text, but posts have eye killing tiny text
• Most text is black on gray, but there are points where there is white on grey, and purple on black ... coupled with the huge white screen its all a pain.
• Quotes no longer appear in a box, like the one above, there is no color change behind the font of the quote, so it blends in with the rest of the post.
• All posts are showing as "edited" even when brand new.
• They warned us anything after Aug 26 wouldnt be kept, but months of posts are missing.
• Wiki pages are deleted, or just a jumbled mess of error codes, causing years of character information, games info, and FAQ posts in the PbP areas to be lost.
• Old posts through out the PbP area have all lost formating, color, quote tags, pictures, etc
• All internal and external links are broken and lead to error pages and dead ends.
• You cannot currently privately message anyone
• If you're not on the first page in a thread, there are no ways to return to the parent forum without either hitting BACK in browser, or start back from the main forum page.
• Avatars and symbols are take up huge chunks of the screen. Four thread posts fill my whole screen even if they're just one line posts.
• Half the users cannot log in, the other half have constant problems
• Your "my account" no longer shows recent activity, only your photo gallerys and 5 of your groups chosen at random.
• In My Account, if one of the groups you want to go to is not on those 5, you click "more groups" and it just picks 5 more at random. There is no way to see all your groups at once.
• Most every user I've seen lost half or all of their friends list, to include things like no longer being friends with people like Gary Gygax or Wrecan that you cannot get back.
• There is now some weird "follower" system like tumblr or something, I dont know i havent messed with it
• Users lost hundreds, and THOUSANDS of posts. Zammm started over at ONE post last night.

Thats what i can think of off the top of my head without being able to access the "bugs and complaints" thread.


[Here] is a pic showing the preview post nightmare.
[Here] is a pic showing that group descriptions are tucked away in a tiny icon with nothing explaining where they are.

[Bounty Hunter]

Also, its worthy to mention... that there is a movement of literally hundreds of people who are seriously weighing the option of creating their own board.

This list includes WiZos. As well as several other prominent and active people.

Paranoria Paradise (the mafia area) wants to bail, YmtC sections have mentioned moving en mass, the entire magic flavor and storylines board is discussing leaving as a group, dnd charop and magic competitive have mentioned it as well.

[Zherog]

Wow... and I thought the last upgrade was bad...

[Bounty Hunter]

Wow... and I thought the last upgrade was bad...

The last upgrade in 2009 was the worst change to every happen to any website that I frequent.

I would gladly take it back over the flashy, edgy, social networky, unfunctioning pile of shiznit that they dumped into my lap last night.

Like I mentioned above, Miss_Bun, and several others are actually ready to front the money to launch a site and have someone dev the boards. Theres an entire gmail think tank message train going on right now.

When people are willing to pay money to build a site, to get out of using your free service. You have a major problem on your hands.

[Bounty Hunter]

Another Screenshot

Spoiler

Show

{image spoilered for her everybody's pleasure}

[Bounty Hunter]

Because I'm in a ranting mood, and cant even log in on WotC to complain about it

[Another Awesome Problem]

[MinMax Hardcore]

I used to be active, but now I stop going there because of the
new forum change.

It is godaweful and ugly as hell. So I'll be migrating here.

[Lord Raziere]

*sarcastic, slow clapping*

just…..

*sarcastic, sloooooooooow clapping*

I think they just gone from "shoot self in the foot" to "shoot self in the FACE"

just……

wow.

just wow.

[Bounty Hunter]

I think they just gone from "shoot self in the foot" to "shoot self in the FACE"

Oh man ... they've shot themselves in the foot with the last two forum updates...

But they stared right down the barrel on this one.

We should hang out more.

[Lord Raziere]

Indeed.

Two questions:
1. how shalt we hang out, sir?

2. Any hope that Paizo will someday own DnD?

[MinMax Hardcore]

Well since I am new here, anybody care to show me around?

I'm a hardcore min-maxer. Time to dump those stats and
put them were it counts.

[Lord Raziere]

Hardcore, I think you'll fit right in with the 3.5 optimizer guys over at the 3.5/PF/d20 subforum under the Roleplaying one, and the Homebrew forum. as for actual games, they are at the bottom, the Looking For Group is in the middle, the actual games are on top of it, the very bottom is nothing but freeform, and….well the rest is general discussion and media at the top, and sandwhiched between games and games discussion is basically the webcomic section.

have fun, welcome to giant in the playground, leave your seriousness, jerkishness and possibly your sanity at the door.

[Bounty Hunter]

Indeed.

Two questions:
1. how shalt we hang out, sir?

2. Any hope that Paizo will someday own DnD?

However =P ...looks like a laege chunk of my scheduled normally reserved for GMing on wotc just cleared up.

WotC is already feeling the pain of losing a battle against PF and 3.5 SRDs and the obvious huge amount of pirating of content. I really wonder where they money they make comes from

[Lord Raziere]

Their money comes from Hasbro. they're apparently
getting paid because of the larger company profits
since WotC is just a subset, I think, so they can
absorb whatever money they lose….
but even then I doubt that they will keep paying
WotC for not making a profit if this keeps up
but then again they will always have Magic: the Gathering...

[SaintRidley]

Bounty Hunter, would you spoiler box that picture, please? It's stretching out my screen severely.

[ShadowFireLance]

Mine as well, and I'm on a TV.

Anyways, looks like no chance in hell I'm going back there.

[Zherog]

Yeah, I was just gonna post what Saint Ridley asked...

Trevor is in a terrible spot. I got to know him a bit due to my various roles on the forum. He's a nice guy. Generally speaking, he does care about having a vibrant, active, fun community. He never actually said so, but I got the impression he wasn't completely happy with the Gleebook fiasco. (Though he did truly believe Groups would help the pbp area. And maybe if they were better implemented, they would've.) He's gotta be furious that he was forced to roll out incomplete software and then made into the public whipping boy.

As for another forum... Costs really shouldn't be that high. phpBB is free and is fairly robust, and has an active community of users who develop mods for the software. And those mods are vetted to be compatible. It does have some scaling issues, so if they expect to get even 10% of the WotC community they may have problems. I never investigated what vBulletin costs, but that scales better. And folks have the advantage of being familiar with it, since it's what WotC had before Gleebook.

If you can guide me to wherever this new forum is being discussed, I'd be interested. PM is OK if you don't want to make it public...