I wonder about Gleemax...

[PaulofCthulhu]

I honestly don't know if Gleemax will succeed or not. It's an idle thought that passes through my mind from time to time.

If the intention of Gleemax is to become The gamer hub, I wonder what they would or could actually do to engender that?

The likes of ENWorld and RPG.net already have big communities associated with them, so that would be tough from an inertia standpoint, but Just how much could they leverage 4th edition D&D toward such a goal?

Idle thoughts. Hmmmm.

 

[moritheil]

The likes of ENWorld and RPG.net already have big communities associated with them, so that would be tough from an inertia standpoint, but Just how much could they leverage 4th edition D&D toward such a goal?

They could keep inserting the website in all DnD products.

 

[exile]

Not sure what to say in response to your musings, save that Gleemax has failed to capture my attention. I visit enworld frequently, a local board (www.louisvillerpg.com) a little less so, and the Paizo boards some as well. I can probably count the times that I have been to Gleemax on two hands.

Chad

 

[Glyfair]

Not sure what to say in response to your musings, save that Gleemax has failed to capture my attention.

In my case, I visit the WotC forums less since they switched over to Gleemax. It is less functional than the WotC boards it "replaced" (in fact, even over the version of the WotC forums that the last set of forums replaced).

The site takes much longer to load and that's a major reason. A secondary reason is that the things about Gleemax that were supposed to be better than before are, IMO, far worse (notably, the staff blogs were much better when they were updated here). The last reason is that traffic seems less in the forums I used to traffic (the Eberron forums comes to mind), but while part may be due to the reasons mentioned above, there are certainly other reasons that are contributing (the small amount of support for Eberron right now being high on the list).

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

In my case, I visit the WotC forums less since they switched over to Gleemax. It is less functional than the WotC boards it "replaced" (in fact, even over the version of the WotC forums that the last set of forums replaced).

Me as well, and I've also observed everything Glyfair pointed out.

Glad to see I'm not the only one noticing the load speeds. I thought it was me on a slow 256k DSL line. I've refused to go there for months. I recently checked back to see if there was any improvement in load times . . . there wasn't. I'll check the site again around 4e release, but I'm not holding out hope at this pace.

 

[PaulofCthulhu]

I've used the WotC sites less since Gleemax, but cannot attribute that to anything specific.

I couldn't say for sure, but I imagine WotC has been putting their web page links in books for a time, so perhaps a potential increase would come though the likes of links through D&D Insider being promoted on & offline and that incidentally leading into Gleemax?

I imagine that respective community inertia (if there be such a thing) would keep numbers similar as they are now for other communities? Perhaps Gleemax would bring in players who may not normally frequent online forums (through D&D Insider/virtual tabletop real world promotion)?

What I've always found interesting is the number of times people have said to me that "I'm a big Call of Cthulhu/HPL fan but didn't know about your site until today/you just told me", even having been online 10 years. There does seem to be a certain dis-connect between online presence and awareness.

Regarding Gleemax, as always, the proof of the pudding will always be in the eating, and that will happen after D&D 4th edition comes out, and I'm guessing Gleemax comes out of 'Alpha'.

These really are just random musings on a Sunday evening so there's nothing really to make of the content of my posts! Funny things, web sites.

 

[Roger]

Gleemax today has a lot of problems. A LOT. That's no secret.

The mind-boggling part is how popular it seems to be despite being, well, almost entirely unusable, at times.

If they can figure out the usability problems, I think it'll be a juggernaut.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[greywulf]

Gleemax? Nope, sorry, don't do there, won't go there. Terrible name, awful layout, poor colour scheme, typical WoTC horrendous load times, zero plus points all round.

Greatness has to be earned; gleemax claimed to be great when it, frankly, isn't. ENWorld is great because it's respected, independent and has earned it's status through sheer enthusiasm, hard work and the talents of the folks who've made it so.

That's not to say gleemax could be good - but first they'll need to change pretty much everything about it. Will it succeed, despite it's shortcomings? Probably.

Bah, humbug, etc.

 

[Khairn]

I've been a vocal critic of 4E and the DDI, but Gleemax is the one part of the entire sheebang that I actually want to enjoy. Its potential is very high, but pretty much every aspect of it so far has been a real disappointment.

I remember a post made during last Gen-Con by WotC where they credited one of the new "Player Advisers" with the idea of actually walking around and talking with the other companies who were at Gen-Con and that WotC wanted to be part of Gleemax. Apparently up until that point WotC had thought that the mere idea of Gleemax would be enough to get their competitors excited enough to jump at the chance of joining WotC's newest marketing ploy.

I know this is a little off tangent, but has there been any part of the DDI that WotC has actually shown, that has exceeded or even met your expectations?

 

[Mr. Beef]

I have run into horrendous load times as well as having had trouble just registering for the dang thing. I have all but given up on going to Wizards of the Coast message boards, and I was on there for a good long while a few years ago.

I just want to access the on-line things like Dungeon Magazine and Dragon Magazine and not to the message boards. I could care less about the message boards. When I want to talk about something D20 gaming related I'll come here.

About the only time I go there any more is to look at the release months for the 4.0 stuff. I may not even go there now if ENworld keeps posting the news that has been culled from the Wizards web site.

Just my 1/4 pound.

Mr. Beef