WotC forums down for a week or two?

[frankthedm]

I can't help but suspect the delay may be engineered to encourage more users go to the linked social networking sites.

More Enworlders! This is time for our ranks to grow! We must welcome the WOTC refugees with open arms!

I'd prefer pit traps and pike formations, but that's just me.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I find the timing of this upgrade the most unusual thing about it.

Didn't GenCon just finish a couple of days ago? Don't they want people talking about the cool stuff they saw at the con?

It seems to me that they've just done a good job of killing (or at least damaging) the post-show buzz.

maybe it is all part of the plan...I imagin next week the 'new' boards to have a darksun sub board...I also expect to see more designer blog type things for darksun maybe even linked...

If they throw in some predone wikis that are wotc employee game ideas and worlds from homebrew land...it could drive the buzz up, and right now everyone is stewing...thinking and all those posts will errupt the first day or two back...

 

[yukigono]

My only concern is what might happen to stuff in the forum archives. Some of which I rely on but have stupidly not saved for myself.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I notice that the first login into DDI fails pretty often - it just returns to the not logged-in state.
I also notice that I can't login to send an email to customer or at least character builder support.

I hope these are problems that will be fixed soon, too.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I can't help but suspect the delay may be engineered to encourage more users go to the linked social networking sites.

I'd prefer pit traps and pike formations, but that's just me.

pit traps ok, but pike formations are too vunerable to dawizard

 

[Aeolius]

I can't help but wonder if they will reverse their stance on keeping the boards "public", instead making them part of the subscriber-based DDI. Granted, whatever they did to the boards a few weeks back made them inaccessible for me, using Safari.

Here's hoping a future solution will be cross-platform and cross-browser friendly... and not tied to the DDI.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

You forgot:

d) There would be at least one Smug Drive-by.

That´s okay if you keep it to a minimum

I wonder how much of a change it is? From the desciption, it sounds like just an update to the latest version of vbulletin (which has blogs, groups, picture albums, etc. as seen at EN World), but that only takes 10 minutes to upgrade.

So I'm guessing they're going with a completely new platform which does the same thing.

There have always been rumors that the Wotc "system" consisted of several legacy layers of basically incompatible software. Held together by spit and prayers. Maybe they go the slash-and-burn way and finally free us of one of the slowest sites on the web?

I imagine the outage is due to severe budgetary restraints for the project. Gleemax was a giant flush for an IT budget. This new iteration of the Wizards social network will need to perform 100x better for 1/100th the cost. I have tried to do a roll out on an austerity budget before and it is not pretty or enjoyable.
The week or more downtime is unusual. No doubt about it. I hope it is a case of under promising and over delivering.
The Gleemax initiative was a lot of exciting promises that never emerged. I think WotC has learned from their missteps and have moved slowly but surely with some nice software pieces. (Compendium, Character Builder, Monster Builder, etc.) I hope the new platform will offer a flexible framework to build on.

Don´t get me dreaming: blogs that work and which are easy to read. Retailer websites that are easy to build and simple to use. Could it be?

 

[Atras]

Hopefully, the guys at Wizards appreciate how important their forums are, since being down for two days has spawned nearly 100 posts over here. I'm looking forward to what they bring out when it is back up, and if it isn't as good, I'm going to demand my money back!

 

[malraux]

There have been rumors of a complete redesign of the wizard's site, not just the forums. I would imagine this is a part of that.

As for the timeframe, yeah, a week to just upgrade the software and possibly the hardware seems a bit much. To me, this indicates that either WotC lacks IT manpower and/or that they are doing something more than just upgrading the basic system. IE, they could be expanding the server room which requires moving walls, adding cabling and power lines, better power backups, etc. Taking a big chunk of the site down in the interim might just be the cheapest way to get it done.

 

[LFK]

I'm going to disagree with the idea that it's taking longer than standard simply because I can think of a few very reasonable scenarios where a week's work would be required.

Migration = quick
Upgrade = hours
Rebuild/re-organize = slow

Upgrade + Rebuild + Migrate (and thus sort) = ?????!

The structure of the forums themselves (what goes where) has looked like an unwinnable nightmare for years with terrible parent/child page relations, and with a big enough rebuild your old database is basically useless, so you have to either say "sorry, it's all gone" or re-assign content by hand.

It's unusual, yes, but it's not beyond imagination, especially if you consider a scenario where their old data is no longer machine sortable in any meaningful way.