Gleemax is Dead

[Jack Colby]

While i didn´t give a rats ass about Gleemax, the "lolhaha Wizbro" comments in this thread mark an all-time low for the ENworld community, IMHO. "Don´t care about stuff said on the internet" seems to be the best feat choice i made in the last couple of months.
Still, i took it to protect myself when visiting the Wotc boards. I didn´t expect to need it so much on these boards...

Consider it a sad commentary on just how poorly WotC handled Gleemax. They managed to turn-off nearly everyone with their lousy implementation of an idea that many here have stated they loved (in theory).

 

[El Mahdi]

I wouldn't read too much into this... It's a corporation. That's how corporations operate.

Let's have a meeting about Gleemax. . . .

. . . Corporate life is all about meetings, and lack of information, and everything takes FOREVER.

Trust me, after 21 years in the Air Force, I understand having meetings (whether or not the meeting is actually understandable itself). I just can't imagine that with a project running this far behind, that it requires eliminating another department or section in order to get enough resources to finish it, and doesn't happen without major changes in management (translation - firing or demotion - or maybe we just aren't hearing about them).

If this had been a project in the Air Force, the project leader would have already been fired from the project, and the section NCOIC or the unit Chief and Officer threatened with their jobs.

Edit: I read a good portion of this thread but just started skimmin about half-way through and didn't see Mousefuratus' posts. I missed that there is a shakeup and "refocusing" going on at WoTC.

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

I don't get the part in the blog about Dragon and Dungeon getting "rave" reviews. Granted, opinions on ENWorld aren't the only opinions out there (I know, heretical thinking, sorry) but from what I've read here (and reading the new Dragon and Dungeon pdf's myself) I felt Dragon was doing okay to good, and Dungeon was just not making the grade yet. I would say a more accurate statement is that Dragon and Dungeon are getting a lot of critical review, some good and some bad.

Agreed. It sounds like the claim that the online magazines are getting "rave reviews" is akin to some hand-waving along with the line "the American's have not entered the city! Everything is fine!"

 

[Lizard]

Agreed. It sounds like the claim that the online magazines are getting "rave reviews" is akin to some hand-waving along with the line "the American's have not entered the city! Everything is fine!"

Well, my hat of e4 know no limit (OK, not really...) but I've been very impressed with the Dragon articles. I've heard few real criticisms of them; they've been well written, imaginative, full of useful crunch, and say, to me, "This is what 4e could have been like if we weren't forced to fit a very tight page count." The Dragon articles give me hope 4e can grow into the game it deserves to be.

 

[Scribble]

Trust me, after 21 years in the Air Force, I understand having meetings (whether or not the meeting is actually understandable itself). I just can't imagine that with a project running this far behind, that it requires eliminating another department or section in order to get enough resources to finish it, and doesn't happen without major changes in management (translation - firing or demotion - or maybe we just aren't hearing about them).

I've never served in the armed forces, so I can't speak to that, but I;ve been in the coorporate world for a while now... and I can tell you it happens a good amount of times.

I'm in health insurance... The amount of times I've seen departments change duties change, way of doing things change... only to go back to how they first started... It makes your head spin.

But really... The thing that seems to have happened is that the WoTC digital team just stopped work on one project in order to focus more on another. (What they consider the core aspect of the digital project.)

It's not really that huge of a department change I'm guessing.

 

[Insight]

Well, instead of gloating over the end of a poorly implemented idea, I think I'll congratulate Wizard's for being smart enough to cut their losses and refocus their efforts instead of "staying the course" on a dead-end project.

Hey, no stealing my sig!

 

[WizarDru]

While i didn´t give a rats ass about Gleemax, the "lolhaha Wizbro" comments in this thread mark an all-time low for the ENworld community, IMHO. "Don´t care about stuff said on the internet" seems to be the best feat choice i made in the last couple of months.
Still, i took it to protect myself when visiting the Wotc boards. I didn´t expect to need it so much on these boards...

I won't classify nearly as much of it as Schaendfraude so much as "I told you so." Every couple of years or so, WotC makes a BONEHEADED move. People warn them ahead of time, but they plow on ahead with what usually isn't a bad idea, but IS a poor implementation. Worse, WotC risks the company and jeopardizes more feasible projects in pursuit of that goal.

Do you remember Chainmail? Everyone thought WotC was crazy to try and go head to head with Warhammer using more expensive metal figures. And they were right. Do you remember the WotC stores? WotC got it into their head that they'd make a national game-store chain. But to prevent their customers and distributors from rebelling, they charged top dollar and shorted their own stores for stock. Do you remember eTools? And on and on. Gleemax is the latest in series of unsuccessful ventures that, to outsiders, appeared to poorly thought out and poorly executed. Many fear that DDI is the next link in the chain.

I'm not saying that Chainmail, the WotC stores, eTools or Gleemax were destined for failure or even that they were bad ideas. They weren't. But their execution and planning was so faulty that they became spectacular failures...and much of it was preventable. In most cases, people both in and outside the company openly questioned these initiatives but were voted down or ignored (based on comments from ex-WotC employees made here and elsewhere). So part of what you're seeing/reading is probably just pent up frustration from folks who are tired of seeing good ideas offered to them and then watch as they go crashing to the ground in flames mixed with fear that its about to happen again with the DDI.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There's much truth in WizarDru's post.

For the record, though, I loved Chainmail, and I bought about 2 tubs worth of the minis after it got supplanted by DDM and the prices started to fall. Given that there are still all-metal minis wargames out there- like the quite excellent but pricey Confrontation- I'm not so sure Chainmail died because of its prices, but because of a combination of:

1) Too few of the minis linking up with extant D&D critters & classes.

2) The quick rise in popularity of plastic minis games that showed you could do things with plastic that you simply can't do with metal...and someone at WotC noticed this & quickly reworked the game to take advantage of this.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I won't classify nearly as much of it as Schaendfraude so much as "I told you so." Every couple of years or so, WotC makes a BONEHEADED move. People warn them ahead of time, but they plow on ahead with what usually isn't a bad idea, but IS a poor implementation. Worse, WotC risks the company and jeopardizes more feasible projects in pursuit of that goal.

Nitpick from a resident German EN Worlder: Schadenfreude.

Do you remember Chainmail? Everyone thought WotC was crazy to try and go head to head with Warhammer using more expensive metal figures. And they were right. Do you remember the WotC stores? WotC got it into their head that they'd make a national game-store chain. But to prevent their customers and distributors from rebelling, they charged top dollar and shorted their own stores for stock. Do you remember eTools? And on and on. Gleemax is the latest in series of unsuccessful ventures that, to outsiders, appeared to poorly thought out and poorly executed. Many fear that DDI is the next link in the chain.

I'm not saying that Chainmail, the WotC stores, eTools or Gleemax were destined for failure or even that they were bad ideas. They weren't. But their execution and planning was so faulty that they became spectacular failures...and much of it was preventable. In most cases, people both in and outside the company openly questioned these initiatives but were voted down or ignored (based on comments from ex-WotC employees made here and elsewhere). So part of what you're seeing/reading is probably just pent up frustration from folks who are tired of seeing good ideas offered to them and then watch as they go crashing to the ground in flames mixed with fear that its about to happen again with the DDI.

I think that's the real issue - why won't they learn, damn it?! Did they have so many success against the "wisdom" of outsiders and critics that they believe that they can safely ignore them, or do they feel so. (Who knows houw Magic or 3E came into being, and how many people saw this as doomed to fail - I certainly have no idea ).

But even then, shouldn't it be obvious that a project like Gleemax must be made with care, and that countless technical problems can destroy all the good ideas behind it? I know that "outsiders" of IT like to underestimate the kind of work involved in creating a project, but then they should get professionals that give them sensible timelines and design goals!

Well, in the end, no company is perfect, and I know from personal experience that mistakes and bad decisions are made. But that doesn't change that I hate to see this stuff happen...

 

[Xyxox]

So part of what you're seeing/reading is probably just pent up frustration from folks who are tired of seeing good ideas offered to them and then watch as they go crashing to the ground in flames mixed with fear that its about to happen again with the DDI.

Here's how I'd change that...

So part of what you're seeing/reading is probably just pent up frustration from folks who are tired of seeing good ideas offered to them and then watch as they go crashing to the ground in flames mixed with EXPECTATIONS that its about to happen again with the DDI.