WotC forums down for a week or two?

[Dalzig]

Didn't they take the forums down for a similar amount of time when Gleemax was being rolled out?

I agree that they've allotted what seems like a very large amount of time for this, but they probably have their reasons. Either they don't know what they're doing, they don't have the staff, they don't want to work overtime, they haven't been able to thoroughly test it yet, or they're just allowing themselves "WTF Happened?!" time.

However, why does anyone really care? It's a week of Wizards forums not being up. Whoop-dee-doo. It's a free resource that makes them absolutely no money directly. Not being up for a week isn't going to cost them any customers. If you are shallow enough to say "OMG! Forum not up?! I quit D&D!" then I don't want you in my community.

Now, if you are protesting on a basis of "This shows Wizards' Online Team's incompetency," that might be a different story. I personally think they've been doing a well-enough job, but YMMV.

That said, when can we expect a revamp of the actual D&D website?

 

[Legildur]

I have no IT background, yet this thread now has me interested in what WotC are actually doing that requires significant downtime.

I can't envisage any reason why things couldn't have been done in a way suggested by others with relevant industry experience. So it begs the question, just what the hell are they up to?

Whatever it is, it'll want to be good to diffuse the criticism.

 

[Jack99]

I think it's fairly safe to assume that things have gone as they planned, since they have known for a couple of weeks that the forum would be down for a week's time at least.

 

[doctorhook]

Whatever it is, it'll want to be good to diffuse the criticism.

This is D&D; WotC would have to diffuse criticism even if they delivered to us all free books and cake.

 

[Dire Bare]

There always seems to be a handful of "experts" around to claim WotC is an incompetent company. Sheesh.

I lurk on the WotC forums, but I think I'll be able to survive a week or two without that resource. And I'll continue to enjoy the fine products they sell me in hard paper form and through the electronic goodness that is the DDI.

Guess I'm a glass-half-full type of guy.

 

[Shroomy]

WotC has burned themselves in the past with self-imposed deadlines that they did not meet. Sounds like that in addition to doing major work, there's a bit of hedging going on. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the functionality is active before the 26th.

 

[N0Man]

Why is there so much hostility and negativity here? I am also baffled by the rampant speculation that this is somehow just a cover for their system failing, despite that some of us were expecting it (and had seen previous announcements to the fact).

The degree to which the D&D community constantly second guesses anything WotC does on the technical front is baffling. Yeah, I know that D&D does have a very high representation of computer geeks (I'm one myself), but we have no idea what kind of constraints, limits, and deadlines they are working on. Cut them some slack.

Their entire site isn't down, just the forums. World of Warcraft forums have been down for days at a time during major maintenance periods as well (or inaccessible), and I will go out on a limb and guess that Blizzard is a bigger company than Wizards of the coast.

Some perspective, please.

It's especially rude in a thread where actual members of WotC stopped by and gave a response. A few responses even!

I'm looking forward to seeing what they do. Mentioning Blogs, calendars, friends lists, and Wikis makes me wonder if they are trying to at least attempt to offer something not unlike Obsidian Portal.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Their entire site isn't down, just the forums. World of Warcraft forums have been down for days at a time during major maintenance periods as well (or inaccessible), and I will go out on a limb and guess that Blizzard is a bigger company than Wizards of the coast.

Some perspective, please.

With also a core expertise in software development.

 

[CapnZapp]

Let me add a voice saying "this is taking longer than industry standard".

It really is far too apologetic for me to hear "there's more behind the scenes than we know". The fact is that only a major catastrophe should result in a downtime of weeks, like, say, a continental eartquake or a significant intrusion attempt.

However, this in no way changes the basic fact: this is taking WAY longer than industry standard.

My guess is neither malice, nor incompetence, however. My guess is that this function is simply understaffed and not given an adequate budget. (Note: that was an uninformed and unsubstantiated guess only).

Whatever reason; this remains highly questionable for such a visible presence of the company involved. Which is exactly what this thread has come to be about:

Questioning the business practices of the company that supplies us with roleplaying materials.

I sincerely hope that this discussion is freely allowed each and every time a company as big as WotC plans a downtime measured in something longer than half a day.

Why? Because it is equally unacceptable each time. Thank you.

 

[Baumi]

I have seen Online-Banking officially out for over a week and WoW was offline for over 2 MONTHS in China, so having a FORUM (and nothing else) off-line for a week or two is really nothing compared to other (and bigger) Companies.

Besides, why is everyone accusing the programmers? I have seen far too often that they have to do very unreasonable things because they were told too (no I don't care if it is still untestet, it must be online NOW!)...

Anyway I am really happy that they finally update the Forum (I never liked the old one) even if that means that we have to use alternative Sites for our discussions (like we are doing now).