So, what do you think of Gleemax?

[WhatGravitas]

Yeah, or 24.

Not that I get all of that, mind you. *grumble, grumble* Whole 1km from exchange. *grumble, grumble*

Even having 2 Mbps won't help, if you're 1) in the UK, and 2) have overcrowded/slow Gleemax servers.

And for the "Alpha"-thing. Well, it's an Alpha. Most companies to public beta-tests, not alpha-tests. And if they do so, they don't turn off their old version, until the new version is fully working. But in this case, they've put all designers' blogs onto an alpha. And they use the blogs as marketing channel.

You simply don't use friggin' Alphas for 'official' stuff. You use them for testing stuff.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Even having 2 Mbps won't help, if you're 1) in the UK, and 2) have overcrowded/slow Gleemax servers.

I get more than 2 Mbps, most certainly, and I'm over the other side of the world too (from the US). Just the other other side, is all. Can't say I've honestly had speed issues with that site. Or any other, for a while, actually. Is the UK particularly bad that way?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Not impressed yet.

Maybe I'll start hitting it up when all of my friends are, but I don't think I'll need to...

 

[cougent]

Personally, I don't like it at all.

Granted it is tagged as an "alpha", and if they follow the precedent for using that tag it will undergo massive changed before it goes "live", but I doubt they are seriously considering it an alpha, or even a beta.

I also don't think I am the target audience for the site either though, I suspect that mid teens and not mid 40's is their desired demographic for the site. I cannot judge whether this incarnation will be effective at that or not, perhaps it will not hurt their eyes and make them nauseas.

 

[Malchior]

So, you can't use D&DI unless you create/migrate to a Gleemax account?

what if I don't want to be any part of Gleemax but I want to access the D&DI content on the D&D web site? I want NOTHING to do with Gleemax!

 

[D.Shaffer]

So, you can't use D&DI unless you create/migrate to a Gleemax account?

what if I don't want to be any part of Gleemax but I want to access the D&DI content on the D&D web site? I want NOTHING to do with Gleemax!

Then sign up the one time and ignore it? *shrug*

Just because it's there doesnt mean you have to use it. Gleemax isnt going to cost anything so I'm not sure why this seems to be a sticking point with some people.

 

[XCorvis]

Slightly OT, but does anyone know of any greasemonkey or Stylish (css) scrips to overload the gleemax site?

 

[WhatGravitas]

I get more than 2 Mbps, most certainly, and I'm over the other side of the world too (from the US). Just the other other side, is all. Can't say I've honestly had speed issues with that site. Or any other, for a while, actually. Is the UK particularly bad that way?

UK usually isn't bad, but... sometimes I don't get certain servers. But this may be random. And for Gleemax: It works better now, but sometimes it slows a bit, perhaps it's unfortunate timing with the time zones. Though it currently works pretty well.

Hopefully, it was just a fluke or something like that. I really hope, because I WANT WotC to succeed with Gleemax - after all, they're producing my favourite RPG!

Cheers, LT.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I think the big advantage of Gleemax over other community sites like ENWorld and RPGNet is the blog system - if they can work out the bugs, that is.

I mean, there are plenty of gamers on LiveJournal and similar sites, but to my knowledge there isn't a blog system dedicated exclusively to gamers.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The user interface definitely leaves a lot to be desired.

The one thing that hands down leaves me speechless is how awful the list of designer and employee blogs is. Seriously, give me one hour with the base html file for that one page and I could make it SO MUCH BETTER.

It's not just a basic HTML site. That's just what your Browser gets to see.
I haven't looked at the site codes in detail (read: at all), but I assume most of the pages are server-generated. This means, everytime you click on a Gleemax link, your computer connects to the server, the server checks reads the link and gathers what you wants, and creates a HTML page - on the fly - to give you the content you asked for.

In this Alpha state, I assume they concentrated more on the Server giving you the correct content and having sensible strategies for handling multiple requests, getting information out of their data base efficiently and so on. They apparently did care less about the templates that are used to generate the "look and feel" of a site and formats the content in a nice format.

That's not saying that they couldn't be a lot better, but at this point, they haven't just gone around doing it. Maybe the clever web designers are still developing good templates - or they are still busy with other stuff, because there are no designated designers just for the look & feel (it would certainly better if there were some, but this depends a lot on the budget and time constraints they are under. And maybe they are just not enough to have finished their designs at this state, and are still trying to work out to combine their cool design stuff with the content in a clever way.)