Important: Please Read! Changes Are Coming!

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Quoted because it's true.

As for the tiers, name them after dragon age categories or something, that way you might avoid offending anyone. However, in order to achieve that, make sure you use categories that existed prior to 2008.

Well, we should first check with BADD if that was okay. It's possible that they would find if offensive if non-dragons get the dragon age categories or something.

I would have never thought, by the way, that people care so much about signatures? I almost never read or see them.

What's even more sad is, though, is that people don't seem to talk much about what Morrus actually wants to add to this site, and how he wants to improve it.

Gamers Seeking Gamers actually being useful would be cool. (Though I reserve some doubts it will be useful for me, but I hope to be pleasantly surprised.) Working on another Adventure Path in the future (even if that's still far off)? Awesome. People seem to think very highly of WotBS, so a new adventure path is highly appreciated.

I would love to hear more constructive stuff - what else does this site "need" to provide to be more useful for its users (and be possibly worth 6 $ per month to some)?

I would think that Chat rooms with dice rollers could be great for online gaming. Are there any web-based gametables/map tools available with which one could cooperate to integrate it or access it via the forums?

 

[Sammael]

Displaying 4E news and information (along with information about other games and products) and labeling someone with a tag that links that person to a product he really, really, REALLY doesn't like (to the point where he is "vehemently opposed") is quite different.

Imagine if you are a vegetarian. There is a forum you go to in order to discuss food and nutrition. Then, one day, you decide to support that forum because its owner is struggling financially. You purchase a subscription, and the next thing you see - there's a label "carnivore" next to your name, to indicate that you are helping the site. Cute or offensive? I know I'd be offended.

I do not want to be associated with D&D 4th edition on a permanent basis in any way, shape, or form. It would be cute as an April Fools joke, but seeing a 4E label next to my name every day would tick me off to no end. Judging from a couple of responses above, I'm not the only one.

I'm not going to ascribe motives to anyone at this time, so please, Ari, do the same.

 

[Sammael]

What's even more sad is, though, is that people don't seem to talk much about what Morrus actually wants to add to this site, and how he wants to improve it.

This is because we have no idea how Morrus wants to improve it, other than the Gamers Seeking Gamers thing which I personally have no use for (my gaming circle includes about 20 people and there is never a shortage of people to game with; additionally, I dislike gaming with strangers very much due to several bad experiences from the past).

New adventure paths? Neat, but it was sort of a given once the first adventure path is made available in its entirety. Still, very nice - I never run published adventures as written, but I do use them for idea mining.

 

[Jack99]

Well, we should first check with BADD if that was okay. It's possible that they would find if offensive if non-dragons get the dragon age categories or something.

Funny with a not so slight hint of sarcasm. My favorite kind of comments

 

[DaveMage]

Yeah, as a 4E hater, I gag a bit every time I hear references to the game too.

So, as a means not to annoy the 4E haters that come here, (or, more importantly, to not put up any kind of emotional barrier to them getting a subscription), I suggest not associating the 4E character level groups (or any other 4E terminology) to payment levels.

 

[Piratecat]

That's good to know, and something we might have missed. Thank you.

 

[BryonD]

You don't like 4E? Fine. You don't like D&D at all? Fine; there's still a place for you on this site.

But you're going to be offended by it? Honestly and truly offended?

Clearly the 4E fans are the level heads and everyone else is unreasonable and reactionary.

Thus, it is easy to solve this problem.
This site was founded in the OGL and 3E. As an homage to that history, the tiers should be named in a manner that references 3E. Everyone will be happy.

 

[Fifth Element]

See below before responding to this post, please. ~ PCat

Displaying 4E news and information (along with information about other games and products) and labeling someone with a tag that links that person to a product he really, really, REALLY doesn't like (to the point where he is "vehemently opposed") is quite different.

You're already labeled as a Lvl 2 goblin sharpshooter. That's a 4E reference, and you've implicitly supported it with your subscription.

Imagine if you are a vegetarian. There is a forum you go to in order to discuss food and nutrition. Then, one day, you decide to support that forum because its owner is struggling financially. You purchase a subscription, and the next thing you see - there's a label "carnivore" next to your name, to indicate that you are helping the site. Cute or offensive? I know I'd be offended.

Are you actually comparing the reasons people choose to be vegetarian to the reasons people choose one version of D&D over another? That the difference between 3E player and 4E is players is anywhere remotely as significant as the difference between vegetarian and carnivore?

Yeah, as a 4E hater, I gag a bit every time I hear references to the game too.

I'll never understand this. There are hundreds of games I don't like and won't play. But the fact that they exist (and that other people enjoy them) gives me not the slightest discomfort.

Clearly the 4E fans are the level heads and everyone else is unreasonable and reactionary.

Are you honestly suggesting that if Morrus wanted to name the tiers, I don't know, after 3E prestige classes and some 4E fan came on and said "I find that offensive! Stop it!" that he wouldn't be (quite rightly) called out by 3E fans?

D&D is not serious business, guys.

 

[fireinthedust]

Limiting sigs to subscribers - a feature that I tend to find distracting - seemed to be the right choice.
- Russ

I use the Sig specifically to hold my PC sheets, and those of characters in games I run. It's an important feature for my PBP work, because I know I can have access to characters whenever I want to see them *without* having them on a specific harddrive.
The reason is that I don't always use the same computer, and I have three jobs to keep me mobile. I might have five minutes to post something, then hours where I can't get at a computer. I don't want lag-time for players, or for GMs in games I'm in.

[sblock=example of what I mean] Strength 5, Dex 4, Con 6, Int 2, Wis 2, Charisma 18!!!
This goes in my or players' sigs, then I check it when I check my games, and if I need to I can roll dice immediately. Otherwise I have to wait to get home from work, take care of the mrs, etc., then *maybe* post something.
[/sblock]

I get what you're saying, and I've been wanting to subscribe, but one of the things that got me hooked on these boards was the games. I think new members, who will one day be subscribers, would like that.

So I don't want to limit PBP players to subscribers only. If I want to run games, I need the Sigs as a tool.

Does that make sense?

 

[grodog]

What's even more sad is, though, is that people don't seem to talk much about what Morrus actually wants to add to this site, and how he wants to improve it.

This is because we have no idea how Morrus wants to improve it, other than the Gamers Seeking Gamers thing

Not entirely true: and this is exactly why I was mentioning communication earlier. Russ mentioned both the Gamers Seeking Gamers idea as well as online gaming tools at the site, but the latter seems to keep getting lost in the rest of the noise in the thread.

I would love to hear more constructive stuff - what else does this site "need" to provide to be more useful for its users (and be possibly worth 6 $ per month to some)?

I would think that Chat rooms with dice rollers could be great for online gaming. Are there any web-based gametables/map tools available with which one could cooperate to integrate it or access it via the forums?

Along with chat rooms and dice rolling, I suggest some robust logging features to allow folks to save sessions for later reference (although I'm pretty sure someone else already mentioned that above, too).

Other possible value-adding ideas:

- campaign web sites, wikis, and blogs, with RSS feeds/email notifications for subscription updates
- robust tagging and tag clouds to help folks find things even if they don't have search ;D
- campaign management tools: storage space for maps, PCs, etc.
- robust OGL and d20 content databases, to help folks decide which version of the ranger they want to run, etc.
- adventures, classes, races, monsters, spells, magic items, and other in-game content
- start publishing ENWorld magazine again, and get it back into stores (along with WotBS if it's not already)
- slice and dice the forums to offer different views/dashboards: I'd love a widget to let me track all of Sep's or PC's rules-oriented-posts, for example (and while the tags do this a little bit, they rely on folks actually doing the tagging, and then knowing that the URL is still available; having a widget to show me a user's posts containing a specific keyword or whatever would be pretty cool)

Several of these ideas are really in different areas (publishing vs. forum/community resources vs. campaign resources, for example), and I wouldn't necessarily do them all, all at once: focus on the community and the features that will enable your near-term features/vision (Gamers Seeking Gamers and online game tools), and branch out from there after you have some credible capabilities. Ideally they'd be credible capabilities that were unique to ENWorld.

That's what I'm thinking, this morning anyway