New D&D Website

[AllisterH]

Interesting...

There's an actual partnership page with company logos and links to their websites....Is this new?

The search wizards.com seems much better as well. Was able to find the previous edition page by simplying typing ravenloft.

[Mercutio01]

Originally Posted by Jadeite

The 3rd Edition Art Galleries are still free, they are just hard to find.

Ridiculously hard to find. If someone above hadn't described the method they used to find them, I don't think I ever would have.

I might be wrong but I remember the 4th Edition Art Galleries being the same as the 3rd Edition ones, freely accessible for everyone.

They were. The zips were Insider only, like the Map Galleries are currently set up on the new webpage, and that was fine to me. But the images themselves were viewable.

It would be nice, but compared to the limitation of the Art Galleries, I find it somewhat understandable that they don't want to advertise outdated material. I had feared that they would remove the content completely when 4th Edition arrived (that's why I archived 'importent' articles like mind's eye), so I really appreciate them keeping those articles even after the second revision of the home page.

I've also archived all the archive content that I felt I wanted. I might go back through and do it again in a better structure now though, before it all goes away.


EDIT - It now appears that I was wrong about the Map Galleries and now they too have been stuck behind the wall. For almost 10 years I have been able to look at small low quality (72dpi) images from products to help me determine if I want to buy said products, and to use in my home games for visual aids and handouts. All of a sudden all access to any images from the new editions has been corralled behind a wall of subscriber only content, the actual content of which has not changed at all (the images were still 72 dpi small jpegs as of last week), with the (seemingly) sole purpose of artificially padding the "content" for subscribers. This is a bad business decision, and has effectively lost me as a Wizards customer. Let's call it the straw that broke the camel's back (along with the reneging on the Character Visualizer and Digital Game Table, literally, not hyperbole, the only digital game products that were promised that I wanted), but I'm done.

Screw Wizards of the Coast.

[Morrus]

Originally Posted by AllisterH

Interesting...

There's an actual partnership page with company logos and links to their websites....Is this new?

Nah, that's been there ages.

[fanboy2000]

Originally Posted by vagabundo

It will be integrated into the new design. Scott said so some months ago.

Woot!

[Jack99]

Nm.

[Hussar]

Like the new site.

Boo WOTC for locking up your images like that. That sucks. Why? Why would you do that? That's advertising for your products. Even if people just lift the images and stick them up in their games, who cares? It's still advertising your product.

Cheezy. Way cheezy. It was a fantastic resource to be able to use the maps and whatnot for games.

Now? Now I have pretty much zero reason to go to the site.

Boo hiss.

[MrMyth]

Originally Posted by Shemeska

Flashy? Yes. Quite nice looking.

Throwing D&DInsider in my face to the point of honestly being offputting to anyone not paying for it? Very much yes.

In your face? Really? Really?

We've got a sign-in box at the top-right. Slightly larger than before - honestly, a convenience for me - but hardly dominating the page.

The big banner logo currently has five rotating ads - of which 2 seem to be regarding DDI, 2 regarding recent print books, and 1 regarding a recent novel.

The tabs at the top take you to:
Game Content: Print Books
Novels: Novels
Tools: DDI
Player: Half print books, half online content (of which maybe 2/3 is DDI, and 1/3 is free content)
DM: Similar to player content.
Events: RPGA events.
Community: Forums, blogs, etc.

After the banner ad, we have news and articles on the left, and product releases in the middle. The news and articles are clearly labeled whether subscriber content or not. On the right, we have quick links:
New to D&D 4th Edition: Basic intro material.
Content Calendar: Listing of DDI and free content.
Wizards D&D Community: Forums.
Rules Updates: Book updates.
Worlds: Campaign settings.
Partnerships: Other publishers/websites/etc.
General Archive: Archive of DDI and free content.

We also have the Store and Event location (unrelated to DDI), and the D&D Test Drive (which does, admittedly, link to the free demo of the character builder.)

Continuing down the page, we've got some of the more prominent news postings - of which one is DDI related (the Scales of War AP), while another is about the new website, and the last about some D&D shoes and shirts. On the right we have our DDI toolbox with the links to the various aspects of it.

Then we have a large section devoted to the core books, followed by pictures from the MM art gallery, and finally a collection of various linkage throughout the sight.

It is a lot of content, yes. Much better organized that it used to be, by a long shot. I'm finding it easy to navigate to most of the current stuff, with the only navigation issue being hunting down older content. A fair enough concern, that.

But DDI being pushed upon you? How?

What would you suggest they remove to ease this 'burden'?
-The DDI login? That would make the sight a lot less useful for me, and probably many, many others.
-The toolbox? Which is relatively out of the way, but provides quick access to the different tools for subscribers?
-The recent article listings? Which is usually how I check what most recent updates have been posted?
-The big banner ad - would you prefer it only insert advertising for products you are interested in? Unfortunately, WotC does not actually have access to magical divination or mind-reading...

Now, I could see simply wanting the big banner ad to be less prominent. But that wouldn't be a complaint about DDI. Turning it into one is just... dishonest. Or, if you actually do want them to remove all the links/login to DDI material, and cripple the usefulness of the site for actual subscribers... then I will have to simply hope that WotC continues to disappoint you.

[Obryn]

I checked out the new site last night. I absolutely love it - much, much easier to use. And much, much easier to find what I'm looking for.

-O

[bastrak]

I also consider the restriction of access to the art galleries a very bad move. There has been free decent access and downloadability for as long as I can remember and WotC seem to have sought to conceal this major change behind the new website launch.

I too have now even less reason to visit the site and have even less intention of paying for DDI.

I quite agree that the new site overly promotes DDI and to the point that IMO I don't like it.

[ProfessorCirno]

All this does is show to me even more that WotC wants 4e to = DDI with no arguments put. Are you in DDI? Hello and welcome! Are you not?

GTFO!

Wizards of the Coast: inventing new and exciting ways to tell their customers to go ****** themselves every day!



Oh and the forums still suck.

[ki11erDM]

Originally Posted by ProfessorCirno

Wizards of the Coast: inventing new and exciting ways to tell their customers to go ****** themselves every day!

LOL your hilarious! The funniest thing is that have no idea how you have yet to make my ignore list, but I guess we can always start now.

[Dannager]

The maturity level of some of the people participating in this thread is really disturbing.

It's like there's a contingent of posters who have nothing positive to say about WotC, no matter what WotC does, and feels obligated to say negative things whenever the opportunity presents itself. It's shameful behavior.

For a long time I've told myself that I never want to be involved in the game industry because a significant chunk of the people I'd be catering to simply cannot be bothered to behave appropriately. I don't want such people as my fans, even if they're on my good side and hating on the competition. They are overly entitled and ceaselessly vitriolic, and deserve far less than this rather generous industry provides to them.

Threads like this reinforce that conviction.

The worst part is that some of these people are part of the game industry.

[ProfessorCirno]

Originally Posted by Dannager

The maturity level of some of the people participating in this thread is really disturbing.

It's like there's a contingent of posters who have nothing positive to say about WotC, no matter what WotC does, and feels obligated to say negative things whenever the opportunity presents itself. It's shameful behavior.

For a long time I've told myself that I never want to be involved in the game industry because a significant chunk of the people I'd be catering to simply cannot be bothered to behave appropriately. I don't want such people as my fans, even if they're on my good side and hating on the competition. They are overly entitled and ceaselessly vitriolic, and deserve far less than this rather generous industry provides to them.

Threads like this reinforce that conviction.

The worst part is that some of these people are part of the game industry.

How dare people get upset that WotC took away what was up until now a free service and mandated that you must be a member of their payed DDI to access it?

If some people are overly entitled and ceaselessly vitrolic, then others are neverending brown nosers and will gladly take any beating given only to smile up and say "Thank you, can I have more?"

Edit: Also it's hilairous that you state "We deserve far less then we're being given" when we're discussing WotC taking something away.

[Dannager]

Originally Posted by ProfessorCirno

How dare people get upset that WotC took away what was up until now a free service and mandated that you must be a member of their payed DDI to access it?

Upset is one thing. Ditching them completely as a result is just poor behavior. If the only thing holding you to WotC as a customer was a free service (and a minor one at that), you weren't much of a customer to begin with, were you?

Originally Posted by ProfessorCirno

If some people are overly entitled and ceaselessly vitrolic, then others are neverending brown nosers and will gladly take any beating given only to smile up and say "Thank you, can I have more?"

One doesn't make the other right.

Originally Posted by ProfessorCirno

Edit: Also it's hilairous that you state "We deserve far less then we're being given" when we're discussing WotC taking something away.

Yes. WotC took something that was free away from you, someone who doesn't even enjoy their product. Yes, this sucks for non-subscribers who play D&D, but again it was free. It's not like WotC stole something they were paying for.

This is an illustration of exactly how ridiculously entitled the portion of the community I mentioned is.

[Mercutio01]

Originally Posted by Dannager

Upset is one thing. Ditching them completely as a result is just poor behavior. If the only thing holding you to WotC as a customer was a free service (and a minor one at that), you weren't much of a customer to begin with, were you?

Then you OBVIOUSLY did not read my post. Or else you fail at reading comprehension. This is just one more item that used to be free that has been put behind the wall. It is also one more in a long line of things Wizards has done wrong since the announcement of 4E--to include the atrocious mishandling of Gleemax, the Digital Initiative (to include the Character Visualizer, Game Table and Dungeon Planner), and the moving of articles like Design and Development, class previews (the assassin, for example) etc all behind a subscription wall. Take a look back through the 3.5 archive to see exactly how much of that information was available free to the public for 9 years. And then look at the calendar to see what is available for preview for free now. Then, take a look at my 3.5 bookshelf which includes no less than 20 books and adventures and compare it to my 4E collection which is limited to the 3 Core. You then tell me that the marketing of products with free samples was a bad thing.

Yes. WotC took something that was free away from you, someone who doesn't even enjoy their product. Yes, this sucks for non-subscribers who play D&D, but again it was free. It's not like WotC stole something they were paying for.

Let's just note that I DO enjoy their product. Indeed, I've been a fairly big booster over at DragonAvenue.com with respect to 4E. I really like the new system. I'm playing in two play-by-post games that use the system. I've read and reread my three core books over and over. So try again with this argument. Please.

This is an illustration of exactly how ridiculously entitled the portion of the community I mentioned is.

Entitled my ass. I think I laid out my case why I won't be supporting Wizards pretty well. Broken promises, bad management, continued erosion of preview material...I think that says a lot.

Kudos to the game designers because they did an excellent job. *Boo hiss* to the marketing agents because they turned a booster into a detractor. The money I was going to put towards D&D will now no longer be going towards D&D. I think you'd find, if you tracked my history of posting on 4E, that I started out as much a 4E shill as just about any 4E fan.