Gleemax is Dead

[Charwoman Gene]

I think WotC should set up shop on Second Life, for their "social networking".

So, D&D needs furries, gambling and porn?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

not to completely hijack, but on development.

I have seen the 'triple the estimate' advice given, and I think it's common, popular, and ridiculous. A smart business won't triple the estimate - a smart business will go in eyes open, generate a REAL estimate, and not force it to be compressed just because it doesn't match your ideal target date. A project doesn't take less effort or time just because you need it by XXX.

What also makes it ridiculous is that it can be assumed that some estimates will be CORRECT - or close to it - so now you're not only tripling the bad estimates, but the good ones as well.

On top of that, the inputs will begin to shrink and get goofy, or other games will be played.

"I know they're going to triple it and that will look bad, so I'll tell them it will take two weeks instead of six" - and so you should have done a x9 for that one.

and what about someone who overestimates to be safe?

It just seems like a bad practice, designed to get around a different set of bad practices (using the goal as the estimate, etc.)

Well, my experience is that it seems too work well, at least for IT projects. I have no idea why it works that way. One of my guesses might be:
In an ideal world, where it was only you (and your team) making all the shots and developing the software, it would take the original estimated time.

But every time you have to make an estimate, you have to give it to someone above you. And that one above you will not just want to hear your estimate. He will set the goals of the projects - and he will change them. And he will want to instill a feed-back look. Which adds time again, as you build something, show it to him, and he eventually comes back to you with new suggestions. And if he has to give the estimate to someone above him, the same happens again.

These matters of indirection take time. It can take days until you get feedback to something you developed. And in these days there is a reasonable risk that whatever you do, is invalidated by the response, or must be reworked if you want to work in the response.

 

[Aeolius]

So, D&D needs furries, gambling and porn?

D&D already has anthros... too late in that regard. As for SL, the owner of a Sim can select whether to allow adult content or not.

And yes, I do have a few merman avatars for visiting undersea regions in SL.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Well, my experience is that it seems too work well, at least for IT projects. I have no idea why it works that way. One of my guesses might be:
In an ideal world, where it was only you (and your team) making all the shots and developing the software, it would take the original estimated time.

If you're interested, read Walzing With Bears. It will change the way you look at scheduling and time estimation.

 

[Fifth Element]

So, D&D needs furries, gambling and porn?

What doesn't?

 

[jaerdaph]

You can "meet Christian singles" at EN World now, if you click on the banner ad for it when it comes up.

 

[WizarDru]

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.

Heh. That's the problem, though...everybody I know loaded up on the minis when they were on discount. We bought a lot of them when our local WotC store was closing and giving Buy one, Get one Free deals on virtually everything in the store.

Nitpick from a resident German EN Worlder: Schadenfreude.

Nitpick away! That's what I get for not double-checking my spelling. =)

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 ).

I agree. WotC's biggest mistakes appear to have been made when they ignore their vision get ahead of their practicality. I don't, for example, consider Everway to be a failure, even though it DID fail in the marketplace. It was a bold experiment and WotC recognized it as such. Not every business venture succeeds, especially in a market of creative endeavors where one cannot always guess what the public will adopt or reject.

But if you're going to go against an industry giant or market leader, you need a solid plan. Magic was a surprise hit, but D&D 3 and D&D 4 were carefully planned out products. Chainmail was a decent system, but a lot of their marketing plan came down to faulty assumptions and perhaps some hubris brought on by the 'how can we fail' mentality.

Gleemax's biggest fault, in my eyes, was that it was the answer to a question no one had asked. Or, more accurately, had already been asked and answered a dozen times already. If you're going to compete head-to-head with LiveJournal, Facebook and MySpace (among others), as well as ENworld, boardgamegeek.com, Paizo.com, RPG.net and Wizards.com (among others)...well, you need to both get your message out and bring unique content that no one else can bring. WotC probably had a vision to do that, but a vision doesn't develop code and deliver it in due time. And I still...STILL...do not know what made Gleemax a compelling choice for me or my gamer friends. If it was purely the virtue of being a single clearinghouse for my blog, unified forums and some news items...well, I'm sorry guys but that wasn't enough.

The addition of online table games certainly wasn't enough, either. You've got plenty of THOSE services out there, too. Why would I go to Gleemax instead of gametableonline.com, daysofwonder.com, Yahoo!, AOL! or any of a ton of free or pay sites to deliver such games? A few Garfield exclusives is nice, but not enough.

And while I can understand if WotC hired somebody who wasn't up to the task, I can only be SO understanding. BECAUSE IT HAPPENED TO THEM BEFORE. 'Fool me once, shame on you' and so forth. WotC has a good website and online presence, so the idea of them moving into the web space SEEMS like a good idea and Gleemax SEEMED feasible. But WotC appears to really lack in outsourcing management skills, and that's how we get here.

I really WANT the DDI to succeed. I think the tools in question would be a valuable resource, if implemented well. But I fear at WotC's ability to actually deliver those tools...and now to deliver them before they become irrelevant to the game at hand.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Just so you know the x-powered-by header that says ASP.NET only means the server (or site) has been enabled. It's not an indication that there is an ASP.NET application running, since IIS will enable that header for all pages on a site if the server and site have been setup to run it.

I can tell WoTC is still using Classic ASP since I got this error this morning going to the home page.

Microsoft VBScript compilation error '800a03e9'

Out of memory

/default.asp, line 0

ASP.NET serious errors (if the user didn't write error-handling code) will show what's called a Yellow Screen of Death with debugging info (if not locked down like it is by default). ASP.NET is scalable--MySpace was originally written in ColdFusion but they moved to ASP.NET. While MySpace has problems I've never seen a "screen of death" error.

I'm really surprised they're still using a classic ASP package.

 

[AvatarArt]

some {hopefully} new info, thanks to Jessica Alba

Last night I was poking through this thread while flipping around channels & thanks to TNT came across a movie called, 'Into the Blue.' Needless to say, any time Jessica Alba was on screen I lost my place. By credit's time I think I ended up reading this entire discussion at least 3 times over.

While not an expert here by any means ("edition baiting" is a phrase huh?) still have a few things to contribute:

• pics of Gleemax MtG cards, courtesy of a GenCon forumite Ticktack
• looking for gamers? Try AccessDenied.net; free & large. And yes, Baumi, they have profiles for Vienna. Good luck to you man.
• another general gaming community site that hasn't spent a ton of coin yet still manages to work very well is Obsidian Portal. {DISCLAIMER: OP is an affiliate, but I had an account before then}

After being distracted by Ms. Alba, I found myself going back & forth: Mike_Lescault earns big points for coming into a tough crowd to share.
At the same time, this is America, where winners are publicly praised & losers are publicly scorned. (i.e. "You don't win Silver, you lose Gold.")
So although the design side of me is somewhat sympathetic to him, the gamer-nerd part of me is admittedly gleeful at Gleemax's sudden passing.

While you might chalk this up to fan boi nature, the remade BatMan films prove that you CAN please the fans plus make piles of coin. If its good.
Clearly, Gleemax was a case of 'nice concept, very flawed follow-through.' That is, you can have the best idea in the world, but if you pooch the execution of it, then how cool your idea was just doesn't matter. A way for D&D players to meetup & share their stuff is needed, but here we have an instance of the self-destruct button being pushed from the start. Meaning:

1. If you can't get the damn name right (i.e. Chevy Nova) the rest is a hard sell. Sure, its kinda geeky to use an inside joke, but aren't most inside jokes only funny on the inside? To everyone else: lame. Add to that, the joke itself was, apparently, somewhat self-mocking making me wonder if the joke was understood by the main brains. Lastly, if you gave me a list of 10 possible names for this project (Mike_Lescault were there other suggestions, choices, possibilities?) for what to call a gaming community, I'd stick 'Gleemax' at #10 losing to 'Nerd Central.' Seriously, did anyone outside of the people who decided to use this as the name like it? 'cuz I haven't met anyone or read anything that is positive in any way about the name. Quite the contrary.
2. If you try to have your cake & eat it too, no one wants to stop by when you offer invitations for dessert. I get that it was an easy way to scout for new talent, but the whole "whats posted becomes ours" rule no doubt kept many folks at bay. I create something & then you own it because I posted at your site? Guess I'll go elsewhere chum.

In the end, life rolls on. There are already things out there filling the void left behind in the wake of that brain being stuck in a closet somewhere.

Good gaming to ya,

-Steve G.
Project Manager
AvatarArt

p.s. Mouseferatu, have you considered/are you able to self-publish? Although it sounds vanity pressish, POD sites work well: ask Monte Cook.