The Failure of Gleemax

[haakon1]

I'm feeling sorry for WOTC . . .

Perhaps they should have allied with Yahoo, MSN, IAC, or anybody else who knows the web. Or even AOL -- D&D could be buried in their next to Movie Fone and probably would actually work.

Also, Gleemax has always struck me as a silly name. TheDungeon.com or something would make more sense to me, but that's probably taken or would be blocked for sounding fishy.

 

[keterys]

Gleemax is definitely not going as well as would be hoped, and the blogs portion of the site is just not considered as important as other offerings... like D&D Insider.

I suspect that it would have been a good PR move to freeze the blogs some time ago and just say 'Okay, looks like we have all the data we're going to get out of this Alpha, and we can't dedicate resources because they're all (more than) tied up in getting Magic Online v3, D&D Insider, and the Gleemax Games Portal launched. We'll be back late in the year with a Beta launch!'

At least, that's been my theory every time I've suggested it or a variant thereof.

I do still have hope that it will eventually be a good service. I'd point to the Gleemax Games alpha as something that has updated several times, offers good play experience, has been very stable and fun for me. - it may just take a long while.

Personally, I'd expect to see more major improvements on blogs after the D&D Game Table is live, so that people can link their characters, adventures, etc from that to their blog.

 

[reutbing0]

FWIW, Gleemax was not developed in house. And I don't think anyone at WotC is under the illusion that it's anything but a complete disaster.

Source please? I was under the impression that the community/blogging aspect was developed in house. I really wonder why they didn't just use something like Movable Type Community Solution. Why build something entirely new (and crappy)?

 

[keterys]

Radiant Machine is the company that worked on it.

As an aside, in this day and age, asking someone else to provide a source probably takes as long as just googling it

 

[reutbing0]

Radiant Machine is the company that worked on it.

As an aside, in this day and age, asking someone else to provide a source probably takes as long as just googling it

I did google, but it's much easier to find if you know the name of the company that's developing it for WOTC .

 

[WhatGravitas]

Gleemax Games[/url] alpha as something that has updated several times, offers good play experience, has been very stable and fun for me. - it may just take a long while.

You you know what just happened? I clicked the link and got an "unexpected error", with Gleemax ploclaiming it its demise wasn't going to happen yet. Well, on the second try, it worked.

What still boggles me is that they pushed it out so early. This either means they have severely underestimated the amount of work you need to get it running, which implies a lack of expertise.

Which isn't bad, but you shouldn't show off your lack of know-how. Or at least not snag our print magazines for the DDI, until everything is running.

Cheers, LT.

 

[timbannock]

I used to post on the WotC board on occasion, before the days of Gleemax.

I went to check the board one day, got directed to gleemax, tried to log on, error screen. Tried again... error screen. Checked to see if my info had been transfered from the old boards, and you guessed it, error screen. After more of the same with all of my attempts to navigate the site, I pointed my browser elsewhere.


Never went back.



Happy Gaming

I swear that's what I was about to write word-for-word.

Gleemax didn't sound all that bad to me until I tried to use it. Never bothered to go through that mess again.

 

[keterys]

You you know what just happened? I clicked the link and got an "unexpected error", with Gleemax ploclaiming it its demise wasn't going to happen yet. Well, on the second try, it worked.

Huh. I've never had any problems at all getting there. Maybe the redirect kills it and I shoul switch to using this link
instead when talking to others. If anyone gets a totally expected error from that one, can you let me know?

I certainly would have done this entire project differently if I'd been in charge. Then again, I also think that if I were working for 30 minutes a week on the site that I could have made people happier. Something as simple as an update to the unexpected error page listing common reasons it fires and giving you links on that page (and preferably a link to the url you entered) would actually have been _HUGE_. And really, less than 1 man hour to do.

 

[Shemeska]

What I found interesting/disturbing was that the company tasked to design Gleemax and DDI... those were their first ever projects. They didn't exist as a design studio before August 2007, and have no prior projects under their name.

Oh boy. I'm not surprised to see things seemingly stuck in development hell a year later.

 

[Garnfellow]

John Hammond: All major theme parks have had delays! When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked -- nothing!