Important: Please Read! Changes Are Coming!
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
Now that might be doable. If the software supports it.
It's in the navbar these days. Second item along, after "My Account".
Well, the idea is that we provide a much better functionality for finding games and gamers. In fact what we have planned (which will be free) is going to be pretty darn spiffy! Maps, events, etc. Youll be able to find everyone within X miles of you in a matter of seconds.
One thing folks seem to be doing is concentrating soley on the "losing sigs" part of the plan.
Ignoring subscriptions for the moment - assuming you're not a subscriber, and don't intend to be - you'd be losing sigs, but getting a crapload of really awesome stuff for free in return. The Gamers Seeking Gamers functionality on its own is going to be absolutely fantastic; and that's going to be available to everyone.
Now, I can understand people saying "I value the sigs more than the new stuff", or "Not having seen the new stuff yet, I can't place a value on it". That's a determination that everyone has to make for themselves; I'm sure there are people who value sigs over the new stuff that's coming. I also believe that many will find the new stuff incredibly cool.
Depending on how much you value each thing, this is a net loss, a break-even, or a net gain. I personally believe that it will be a net gain - and not a small one, at that. Just wait till you see some of the stuff coming (there are coders writing the code as we speak!)
One piece of feedback I've received thousands of times over the years is that folks want (a) a great system for finding new gamers based on location and other criteria, populated by a large number of said gamers; and (b) online gaming tools. We intend to give you both of those things for free - essentially at the price of s signature. These things may or may not be worth a sig to you; everyone will vary on that. I honestly believe that these things will add massive value to the site, and are intrinsically linked to the sitre's core functionality. They're things we really *should* have been doing years ago - but better late than never!
Ignoring subscriptions for the moment - assuming you're not a subscriber, and don't intend to be - you'd be losing sigs, but getting a crapload of really awesome stuff for free in return. The Gamers Seeking Gamers functionality on its own is going to be absolutely fantastic; and that's going to be available to everyone.
Now, I can understand people saying "I value the sigs more than the new stuff", or "Not having seen the new stuff yet, I can't place a value on it". That's a determination that everyone has to make for themselves; I'm sure there are people who value sigs over the new stuff that's coming. I also believe that many will find the new stuff incredibly cool.
Depending on how much you value each thing, this is a net loss, a break-even, or a net gain. I personally believe that it will be a net gain - and not a small one, at that. Just wait till you see some of the stuff coming (there are coders writing the code as we speak!)
One piece of feedback I've received thousands of times over the years is that folks want (a) a great system for finding new gamers based on location and other criteria, populated by a large number of said gamers; and (b) online gaming tools. We intend to give you both of those things for free - essentially at the price of s signature. These things may or may not be worth a sig to you; everyone will vary on that. I honestly believe that these things will add massive value to the site, and are intrinsically linked to the sitre's core functionality. They're things we really *should* have been doing years ago - but better late than never!
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grodog
Hero
I think it's worth you spending some time to describe all of this in more detail, Morrus: I understand that you have some additional functionality planned, but it sounds like you're revealing bits and pieces of it and that we're not really seeing the big picture. Without that big picture, I think it's easy for us to get mired in some of the details you have mentioned, and (perhaps) to blow them out of proportion WRT possible plans that you're considering.
So, lay out the reality for what's coming (short- and long-term vision or even a multi-year growth plan, along with implementation timelines for features/capabilities, and costs of all of the above, your current costs models for the servers, bandwidth, coding, etc., etc.). Whatever you're able to share (and I don't imagine that you'll want to reveal all of the details, if only for the sheer amount of time it might take to put it all together right), that will help us to connect the dots between what features are coming, what features are here now, and what features may or may not be there in the future.
Out of curiosity, are they things that the readership still wants/needs today vs. several years ago? I can find gamers through any number of free available services today like meetup.com or Facebook or whatever, and if I wanted to play online games, I could do so through DDI (or whatever WotC has) as well as a number of other engines. Are these features ENWorld's core functionality (or, if not today, tomorrow's)?
I come to ENWorld to be a member of the community, which is where I see the core functionality of the site. On the negative side of my site usage, I haven't read the front page in several years since I stopped playing 3.5 ~5-ish years ago; I don't buy/play/read the ENWorld modules/publications; I almost never click an ad unless its accidental; I miss the tag cloud functionality; and I don't read the columns unless someone links to one in GD. On the positive side, I love the old-school and other non-systems based discussions here; I continue to read Sep's Story Hour and poke around in the SH forums from time to time (and I may get around to reading Kevin's at some point...); I think the ENNies are great; I value the community specifically because many folks here aren't part of my standard old-school boards-and-blogs communities; and I've happily met several ENWorlders in RL while travelling around the country for work or at conventions (including Mark and diaglo most recently at GaryCon, and perhaps some others I'm too addled to recall offhand).
To boil this down a bit, I think that you're risking some folks' valuation of the ENWorld community as a whole with how some of your proposed changes are being perceived. That's a pretty big deal to me, and taking that risk may still be worth doing in the end from your POV, but I'd hope that you'd take the feedback and input offered to date and give some serious thought to how you're funding the site's growth toward your vision: it would suck to see ENWorld die just as you're finally in a position to make it take off in the way that you've wanted to since day 1. (And, to be clear, I think that your request for input and such have been really-well-handled herein, and that you're clearly not simply rushing into Plan X without thinking ahead, getting feedback, etc. So, thank you for that, too!
). (And, for the record: I've been a CM and ENWorld supporter in the past, although I'm not now and probably haven't been in the past year or three, and I don't think it was for more than a year or two).
Jack99
Adventurer
I do not expect it either. But the comparison will invariably be in the minds of some.
wedgeski
Adventurer
Hmm.
In all honesty, if you'd never started giving away WotBS or the other freebies that subscribers now get, and then said, "I'm going to up the sub to $6 but now you WotBS and all these other freebies!", I don't think anyone would bat an eyelid. The value-add for being a premium subscriber would be obvious.
For me, GSG, custom avatars, and so-on aren't tangible enough to justify an increased subscription. But, if there are more adventures on the way for example, I'd like my premium subscription to get me access to early play-tests, artwork previews, and favoured pricing for the final product.
In all honesty, if you'd never started giving away WotBS or the other freebies that subscribers now get, and then said, "I'm going to up the sub to $6 but now you WotBS and all these other freebies!", I don't think anyone would bat an eyelid. The value-add for being a premium subscriber would be obvious.
For me, GSG, custom avatars, and so-on aren't tangible enough to justify an increased subscription. But, if there are more adventures on the way for example, I'd like my premium subscription to get me access to early play-tests, artwork previews, and favoured pricing for the final product.
The next adventure path is a way off yet, but it's highly likely that the Paragon subscribers will appreciate benefts there. Probably not art previews (since they're essentially advertising - we want everyone to see them!) As for favoured pricing - it'll come *with* the subscription.
I'm playing with ideas, including having the other AP in the Paragon subscription only, or with a 6-month lead. But I haven't settled on that yet.
I'm also talking to some folks about developing various tools - obviously the DDI Character Bulder is the killer app, but we can do other things, especially non-system specific things.
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