WotC forums down for a week or two?

[gribble]

I recall reading during the Gleemax discussions that WotC's website and DDI are using a Microsoft platform, while vBulletin is Linux-based. So maybe they're moving their messageboards to a Microsoft-based platform.

This is exactly the sort of change I expect, and this is something that should result in a very short downtime. Certainly one measured in hours (at the most) rather than days. And even that "outage" should be in the form of a read-only period not a complete outage.

For the record, I think the most likely explanation is poor process/management. I'm a coder myself, so I wouldn't want to blame them...


And by that I don't necessarily mean "WotC Management is the suxxor!!!11!one". As Umbran pointed out they might be operating under constraints - usually budgetary or related to the experience or number of staff - which mean they can't do things properly.

As others have pointed out we'll probably never know the details, but it is an unusually long period of outage. I guess I just wanted to back up the opinion of Ulorian and others in that regard. Seems like he's taken a bit of stick for his views which (even if they weren't expressed in the best way), are 100% accurate IME.

 

[Nylanfs]

I blame the guinea pig's

 

[mudbunny]

I poked Trevor, and he will do some poking and checking down with the DDI dev team. He had no troubles getting access, and neither did I, but, like me, he has been getting scattered reports of some people having problems.

 

[doctorhook]

I poked Trevor, and he will do some poking and checking down with the DDI dev team. He had no troubles getting access, and neither did I, but, like me, he has been getting scattered reports of some people having problems.

Isn't somebody always complaining about having problems? I've never had any, so I assume that they must be imaginary.

 

[thalmin]

This is the first paragraph of an email we got as a Premier Store, about a preview of the new forums

Wizards of the Coast is pleased to announce that we’re upgrading to a new community platform. We are in the process of migrating our forums to a new system that includes a host of additional community features like friends lists, groups, an invite system and calendar, blogs, wiki, forums, and special store pages designed for our Wizards Play Network locations and hobby retailers.

They then gave some more info about how we can set up a special page for our store.

 

[Zaukrie]

I won't judge how long it takes or not. That's kind of up to WotC at this point. I will, however, judge how good the final product is....and I'm hopeful.

 

[MichaelSomething]

It could be that the website is undergoing a super duper major ultimate mega change. That website has been needing a major rehaul for a while now. It could be something along the scale of tearing down and rebuilding Rome. That could take a while.

But why are we all gloom and doom about this? Look at the bright side!

I hope Russ enjoys a traffic spike. Russ seize the moment to grab some more community supporters.

More Enworlders! This is time for our ranks to grow! We must welcome the WOTC refugees with open arms!

 

[grimslade]

Outage Outrage

I imagine the outage is due to severe budgetary restraints for the project. Gleemax was a giant flush for an IT budget. This new iteration of the Wizards social network will need to perform 100x better for 1/100th the cost. I have tried to do a roll out on an austerity budget before and it is not pretty or enjoyable.
The week or more downtime is unusual. No doubt about it. I hope it is a case of under promising and over delivering.
The Gleemax initiative was a lot of exciting promises that never emerged. I think WotC has learned from their missteps and have moved slowly but surely with some nice software pieces. (Compendium, Character Builder, Monster Builder, etc.) I hope the new platform will offer a flexible framework to build on.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I honestly don't think it matters if the official forums are down for a week or two. It's not like the reason they're so popular - i.e., they're official - is going to go away.

 

[boolean]

I find the timing of this upgrade the most unusual thing about it.

Didn't GenCon just finish a couple of days ago? Don't they want people talking about the cool stuff they saw at the con?

It seems to me that they've just done a good job of killing (or at least damaging) the post-show buzz.