Gleemax Q&A

[mmaranda]

The biggest things necessary for Gleemax is browser interoperability and stability something Gleemax doesn't have.

After that we get into functionality and load times. I find Gleemax very slow and often click a link do something else then check back to see if it is done loading or thrown up an error.

Functionality needs to be expanded so that a user can see more than 10 items on a list. Friends lists often support many friends but only 10 can be seen at a time so if you have 30 people and you want to unfreind friend #1 you can't without dropping 20 other people first.

Finally to get people really blogging there needs to be more done to shine a light on good blogs and help a user know when somebody has provided feedback (comments) on a post. I know Keitheric did some work with the Gleemax compendium but often it wasn't complete or good blogs failed to receive any notice or commendation which hampered people getting to them.

 

[deathdonut]

No WotC website or application has ever been decent and I've frequented them since news groups were the only alternative. I've played every edition of D&D since my basic box set and loved all except 2nd ed. I've played MtG since beta and in pro tourneys and nationals. I already have a 4th Ed campaign designed and players that will start in June. In short, I am not a WotC hater.

Sadly, it's not easy to do software developement and I doubt they have the resources to evaluate talent and designs even if they were willing to throw the appropriate budget at projects like Gleemax and Insider.

A useful design is one that seems effortless to the user. Simple, streamlined and minimal, unlike every other WotC attempt. Graphic load times should be minimal, scripts should be fast and if at all possible, avoid the PC clients. The fact that they decided to cut Mac users out of the initial design gives me a pretty good idea on the talent level of the design team. Always a dangerous sign.

The photo-realistic attempts of the art staff are really disheartening. They should have taken a cue from Blizzard's staff. A project centered ONLY on providing a character visualizer would have been daunting. Theirs seems like an afterthought and it will fail to provide any value to the project.

The character sheet generator is a great idea and I applaud it. Hopefully they will grant enough versitility to the system to allow extensive customization. Custom classes, races and rules shouldn't be overly cumbersome for a player/DM to implement.

The gaming table is extremely ambitious. I have my doubts on whether it can be implemented well. The lack of the z-axis is understandable, but like the character generator I think the photo-realistic effects were a poor choice. Hopefully custom rules will be easy enough to implement. I'm glad that DM cheating is enabled, hopefully custom adjustments to stats, terrain, etc can be implemented DURING play without having to exit to a design mode. I hope that concentration is given to the interface so that it minimizes mouse movement/clicks and gives the user shortcuts for common tasks/actions.

The idea of the rules database is to be applauded. Unfortunately, the need of a PC client kills the largest legitimate market for the system: access when the books are unavailable. If you can't play with the rules when you're away from home, what's the point? This will be useful for those with a laptop when the stack of necessary books increases beyond the size of a laptop. For those of us who want to look things up while killing time at work or while stuck at a public terminal, I suppose we're out of luck.

I know it sounds like I'm down on this project, and it's true. I've taken what I've seen as Pre-Alpha and have enough experience with software developement to know what is and is not likely to change over the final phases of the developement cycle. This aspect of the 4e push is going to be a bust unfortunately. I still plan on trying all aspects and maybe maintaining a subscription depending upon content updates, but I doubt it will be worth the published price to any significant portion of the customer base.

If people aren't willing to pay mmorpg prices for a sub-mmo-quaility resource, what hope do we have that there will be money left over in the pot to fund quality content?

edit: Sorry for the Insider offtopic aspect. I totally misread the op. I would delete the post except that I think some of the concepts are still important for Gleemax.

 

[KnightBrokenCross]

Thanks for the responses so far, everyone.

Any questions you might have are also welcome, of course!

-KBC
(Forum Lead for Gleemax Blogs, over at Gleemax)

 

[TerraDave]

Alright...

1)Bugs and Error messages: this is just nuts. Must be fixed.

2) Blog browsing: just too hard to find blogs on different topics. Here, I think a pretty radical overhaul could be warranted...some way to see designers, blogs grouped by tags...something to allow for real browsing.

3) Personal page and "select" blogs: In a related vien, the personal page is just not that usefull right now, and is too dominated by the random posts selected by our gleemax overlords. I would just sooner see that go away, replaced with a mix of favorite and recent blogs.

4) Profile: should be able to link someones profile via both their blog and forum posts, and more generally the profile could be far more useful then it is.

 

[MichaelSomething]

A good help section would be helpful.

Also it needs to feel "smoother" as in easier to get around and find stuff.

 

[Lackhand]

Well, they could start by changing the name of the site.

Then they could adopt a cleaner approach to web design. I am personally a big fan of the minimalist approach -- www.d20srd.org to me is a way better website design than gleemax, for example.

But realistically, I think that EnWorld, Necromancer Games, and Paizo will continue to be my websites of choice.

Ken

Ditto. It's too crowded, with too many misfeatures, and it's acid green, so I can't even read it (sneakily) at work.

 

[keterys]

Actually, I plan on putting together a good help section two weeks ago. I mean, last weekend. This weekend? Okay. Soon.

But, more seriously - what needs to be in the help section? I have some ideas - I plan to have a 'Navigating Gleemax' with links to all the FAQ, guidance, tips, lists of bugs, how to get developer blogs, etc... but please, anything we can try and get done to make it more valuable, we'll try.

so I can't even read it (sneakily) at work.

Yeah...
<.<
>.>
I'm not guilty of that... no sirree.

 

[Shemeska]

1) Change the color scheme. It makes things a pain to read, and combined with a difficulty in finding things within the site, it's too much of a hassle to keep many potential visitors, including myself.

2) Make community management both responsive and polite. There's a horrendous amount of community ill-will towards Mike (though interestingly not towards Solace) in how they have handled a great many issues including but not limited to: canning UnCon, the drama with Knowledge Arcana, very selective editing of posts critical of CM, the circumstances that led to a lot of WizOs leaving, the recent firing of a WizO for dodgy reasons, the changes to how the WizOs did their job versus the new forum leads and VCLs (and I really don't think many people honestly know why the changes were made and how they work), etc

I've been on the WotC boards for years, and the the tone has distinctly gone downhill in the past year. It's recoverable, but it's going to take lots of effort, or some changes.

 

[KnightBrokenCross]

A good help section would be helpful.

Also it needs to feel "smoother" as in easier to get around and find stuff.

On the help section: that's why we're here.

We want to build that help section, but we've been doing stuff in Gleemax for a while.

We're here to ask what people want to know about Gleemax so we can tailor the FAQs and such things around the input we receive.

 

[Ingolf]

1. Navigating the site is a chore. Often a chore that doesn't pay off in the end. It needs a major redesign by someone with extensive experience with web design from a usability standpoint.

2. As many have said - the god awful neon green color scheme has got to go.

3. Code bugs, errors, etc. The frequency with which you are greeted by "Server error in '/' application" or something similar is completely unacceptable.

4. Gleemax feels much like a site that is not only in the early stages of construction, but that does not even know what it wants to be when it's finished. Here is an example:

Go to Gleemax.com
Click on the "take Tour" button under "Know Gaming"
What the hell is that supposed to be? A page with three content-free blurbs about gaming and a place underneath to post a comment? What is this supposed to be a tour of? Why am I leaving a comment? What the hell is this "tour" supposed to be?