Gleemax = Enworld

[Moon-Lancer]

Tide -> sea -> water -> washing -> clean -> clean clothes.

Trix -> "tricks" -> tricks or treats -> sweets -> made even more jovial by replacing "cks" with "x"

Thunderbird -> mythological american bird -> swiftness and power = good image for a car.

Kodak -> onomatopoeia of the sound a camera makes.

Ah, i did not think about those other words. I should have thought of that. Anyway, From my art history classes i learned that Kodak doesn't mean anything, and thus its free to be associated with cameras.

I guess the other examples, I was wrong about, such as tide. They seem to flow into a chain of thoughts to manipulate the buyer, and make them think tide means clean cloths.

Still its cool though. I know gleemax is a inside joke but do you think its a nonsensical name, or something thats has a chain of thought that makes you think games? I think its something of a hybrid.

 

[Klaus]

Ah, i did not think about those other words. I should have thought of that. Anyway, From my art history classes i learned that Kodak doesn't mean anything, and thus its free to be associated with cameras.

I guess the other examples, I was wrong about, such as tide. They seem to flow into a chain of thoughts to manipulate the buyer, and make them think tide means clean cloths.

Still its cool though. I know gleemax is a inside joke but do you think its a nonsensical name, or something thats has a chain of thought that makes you think games? I think its something of a hybrid.

I dunno. A name doesn't even have to mean anything, as long as the made-up word conjures the right emotions on the reader/listener. The word "Gleemax" is weird-sounding, and the "max" suffix conjures up images of electrical appliances.

In the end, you have to ask yourself what image your product needs to project. If the site is to be a virtual equivalent to the gaming store on the corner where you can hook up with friends and talk games (and maybe set out a table to run a game yourself), you need a name that reflects that. Stuff like "Wizard's Tower" (bracuse it belongs to WotC) or "Tower by the Coast", where every user can have a room for himself in the tower. Or "Gamers Corner", if you want to emphasize the social aspect and less of the fantasy side of it.

But now I'm just tossing ideas about...

 

[Moon-Lancer]

I would have named gleemax something that evokes the idea of d&d and the game itself, but also evoking imagery of a bunch of geeks hanging out rolling dice. something like "the basement" or i know, bad name, but i really think wtc should have gone with something that would instantly have meaning to gamers.

 

[Klaus]

I would have named gleemax something that evokes the idea of d&d and the game itself, but also evoking imagery of a bunch of geeks hanging out rolling dice. something like "the basement" or i know, bad name, but i really think wtc should have gone with something that would instantly have meaning to gamers.

The Den, The Game Room, Colosseum ("Let the games begin")...

 

[sjmiller]

With those upsides, we also encounter some downsides. Some people hate the design/art/layout of the page. Some hate the color scheme (and some have trouble reading those colors). Some are frustrated because they're only receiving information and no actual social networking site features. So I think there's plenty of legitimate criticism, I am just not sure that avoiding those problems wouldn't have created even bigger problems.

Mike, you can count me among those who find the design/art/layout to be horrible. The site did not look at all right when I was viewing it in Internet Explorer at work, but was readable (barely) when I used Firefox at home. The colors are very hard to read, to say the least. I also think the site looks like it is designed by and for a 12 year old about a science fiction movie/book/something. It does not look like it has anything to do with a game, especially not a fantasy game.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

yeah, the text seems to spill all over the background GUI like a blob of green slime. I wonder if this is showing us whats in store with the digital initiative.

I will give gleemax credit though, the art distilled from the website itself, does look pretty nifty.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

I would have named gleemax something that evokes the idea of d&d and the game itself, but also evoking imagery of a bunch of geeks hanging out rolling dice. something like "the basement" or i know, bad name, but i really think wtc should have gone with something that would instantly have meaning to gamers.

As I said on another thread the URL the D&D DI will use will be D&D based. So will the images and branding.

I was involved in the naming process. We looked at hundreds of names. It was a pain in the butt to find a name. We looked at a lot of names that tried their best to say "the home for gamers". We wanted names like gamespot.com (taken) or gamers.com (taken) that could do the job but they are pretty much all gone. Every year tens of thousands of words are trademarked and URLs are impossible to secure without paying squaters to get control of a name. So we decided to go with a made up name. Made up names like Wii, Google, Ebay, etc are easier to secure a trademark and URL but have no meaning to consumers so the name must be given meaning with marketing. Gleemax is a made up name, that we could secure both a trademark and URL on, and we new we would have an easier time giving it meaning du to the history of the name as a) made up by the community b) having an established association with an audience of the types of gamers we want to reach with the site (in this case MTG players). Is it a great name? I guess time will tell. The name brand name Coca-Cola alone is now valued at about $60 billion dollars.

 

[Dragon Snack]

Mike, thanks for taking the time to try and win me over, but past experience has taught me to remain skeptical.

The current gleemax.com is a promotional site. We decided to start the promotional site for a few reasons. We wanted to give people a heads up that this was in the works and was coming, so our communities weren't caught by surprise. We also wanted to build up some anticipation since a community orientated site without any critical mass of community will have a tough time starting out.

It worries me that there is a concern about 'surprising' the communities. Is something happening to the exsisting communities?

Finally, we wanted to engage the community to take feedback and suggestions on what they'd like to see.

Let's hope the people who weren't driven away by what they found will give you good feedback.

With those upsides, we also encounter some downsides. Some people hate the design/art/layout of the page. Some hate the color scheme (and some have trouble reading those colors). Some are frustrated because they're only receiving information and no actual social networking site features. So I think there's plenty of legitimate criticism, I am just not sure that avoiding those problems wouldn't have created even bigger problems.

The problem is, everything you mentioned does major damage to the promotion of the site. It didn't help build anticipation for me, it pretty much killed it.

Seriously, if it wasn't for this thread I would not have returned to Gleemax and saw that it was different. Problem is, I still don't care for what I see.

I will go back (because I actually am a huge WotC fan), but eventually even I will give up on a site that only disappoints...

As far as intermittent banning of an issue, I've never seen that on the Wizard's forums.

Are you new? Seriously, talk of katanas was banned within the last year (and that isn't the only thing banned in the past year, I just can't remember what else was). I don't frequent the Wizards boards like I used to, so even I might be missing something.

Currently there is search for the forums, only I think it's still limited to a subset of forums users as they make sure it's stable for full search to be turned back on. When the actual gleemax.com site launches, search is something that's being built in from the beginning as we design the architecture, so our goal is to have more robust search capabilities then most other social networking sites out there.

If only a select few can search the site, then there is no search. Let's not confuse the privialges of a few as functionality for the whole site. Actually, talking about the search issue may be the other issue that was banned in the last year.

I am glad to hear that Gleemax will have a functional search though, it would be near useless without it.

Good luck with Gleemax, the concept sounds interesting enough. I just hope it will have value to me.

 

[Minicol]

It's a gag by WotC from some time ago; Gleemax is supposedly the alien brain in a jar (IIRC) that runs WotC.
I QUOTE]

Argh ! That explains the ... graphics ... and the choice ? of ... colours ?

Quite frankly, I think I already missed my SAN check just by seeing the home page. I don't even want to enter the thing.

I was quite angry when they canceled DRAGON and DUNGEON, and I am getting very selective now with what I buy from WOTC. This won't help me come back.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

Scott_Rouse, I'm happy to hear that lots of effort went into the name, and I'm sorry to hear that many names were already taken. I hope the name accomplishes what it intends to.