Here's what Dragon and Dungeon gave their lives for

Posts: 63 · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 5:14 pm

"TSR, for all its faults, was run by gamers"

Till it was run into the ground... By a non-gamer.

What's Magic about Magic Very Happy

is it's a hit every 4 months or so. Every set sells a huge amount. It's like 100 hit games all rolled into one.

Posts: 2635 · Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 9:35 am

See, I knew somebody would have to defend them. That's just the way these things go, there's always at least one person out there willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'll handle the opposite argument, and get the thread back on track. Laughing

Blackmoor wrote:

D&D mini's for one, Star Wars mini's for another and the new Avalon Hill Board games are very popular as well.

Yep. Cheap plastic minis. Lots and lots of them. If you think that's a good thing, "you're entitled to your opinion". Very Happy

Blackmoor wrote:

Let us remember that they saved the D&D brand from insolvency

...and then used the brand for their own nefarious purposes, none of which were related to Dungeons & Dragons. In short, they saved nothing.

Blackmoor wrote:

carried on with Gencon

Ok, credit where credit is due. GenCON is widely recognized as a good thing. However, I'd imagine it's littered with a lot more sub-par heavily-marketed crap than it used to be. I'm not interested in confirming that hypothesis.

Blackmoor wrote:

kept publishing Dungeon and Dragon for a few years

...except that they only retained the name and had very little of use or to do with D&D in them. And now, they're gone entirely, in an unceremonial and irreverent fashion. I wouldn't wish their fate on anyone.

So in short, with the minor exception of Gencon, everything about that company is completely negative. Ok, Gleemax isn't negative, just stupid.

Posts: 2616 · Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 5:21 pm

Wizards spun off GenCon pretty quickly, so let's not give them any credit for that event. GenCon LLC is an entirely separate entity, with no official ties at all to WotC.

Posts: 415 · Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 12:01 am

When I stopped by my local game store recently I asked one of the people who worked there (who has some industry insider contacts) what was up with D&D 4th edition.

While he could not tell me all that was coming down the pipe, he stated that it was going to be announced at GenCon this year and that WotC was going to bring it back 'in-house' again.

The were going to set the format the same as their Star Wars RPG and effectively 'kill' the OGL.

Posts: 1347 · Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 12:09 am

They can try to kill the OGL, but it has a neat perpetuity clause which will keep it, and all games directly based on it, alive and well forever. Not so much for those using the d20STL which is a different license (its the one that lets you say your product is d20 compatible.)

Posts: 406 · Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 12:54 am

Guys, I've just got back into RPG after about 12 years. Is there a list somewhere on the site that would reveal the mysteries of all the damn acronyms that everyone, bar myself, appears to be fluent with? I'm sure if I trawled the 80 odd thousand postings here I'd get a picture of what's been going on in the community over the last decade - but saving that, could someone sum it up in a couple of paragraphs?

Posts: 1347 · Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 1:12 am

OGL = Open Game License. It is what allows one to use the SRD. Cannot be revoked -- if it is terminated, it may still be used, along with the last available version of the SRD.

SRD = System Reference Document - The document that says what words, phrases, spells, monsters, items, and the like that WotC (Wizards of the Coast) has allowed to be used by anyone, in accordance with the OGL statutes.

d20STL = d20 System Trademark? License - Not sure if I got its "name" right, but its the document/license that allows a company to use the d20 Logo and say "Compatible with v3.5 of D&D; requires the use of the Player's Handbook" type thing, thereby giving it some false premise of being "official." The terms are changeable at will and allow Wizards to control the type of content that can bear their mark. Can be revoked, at any time.

That's my non-lawyering understanding.

Posts: 406 · Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 10:36 am

Thanks Serleran

Posts: 112 · Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 4:25 pm

Gleemax is live as of this afternoon.

So far, there's not much there. The same old WOTC forums. Some blogs. Lots of "coming soon" notices when you click on features that don't work yet.

Seriously, there's so little here that's different from the old WOTC site, I don't know why they bothered rebranding it yet.

Posts: 63 · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 1:00 am

Gleemax sure didn't last long Smile

I thought it sounded like a decent concept. WOTC has had a lot of OK-Good concepts since they came along but lately they have failed miserably. It's almost as bad as TSR during those last years... WOTC still making bank from MTG is all that keeps them from being in the 1994-5-6... TSR "doomed" "writing is on the wall baby" "were f____ed" classification.

4E D&D looks terrible. I have no idea if the game plays well but those books are a disaster as far as the artwork appeal imo. I was sold on the art in the late 70's early 80's as a kid. Elmore, Parkinson, Easley, Caldwell, insert your favorite artist here, sold a crapload of books, good and bad. I can't imagine anybody looking at one of those covers now and having any sense of wonder or interest.

Magic Online is a disaster... It looks crappier than the new D&D books (literally, it's an eyesore). Online card value is down big time.

MTG is the only thing they have (that makes bank) and they're cutting a lot of the "event" type of releases. I personally feel like Magic has lost the Magic. I was into this game in a big way when it came along and have been playing less and less until now I have 0 desire.

Seeing the rise and fall of TSR as an enthusiast/ customer/gamer has me feeling that the same decline is happening to WOTC right now. I think it's possible end is closer than anybody "objective" might think. Hasbro seemingly makes it impossible for them to go bankrupt or anything (unless Hasbro ever does) but I think WOTC or whatever is left of that original dynamic game company will be dissolved in the very near future.
My 2 cents Wink

Posts: 2130 · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 1:56 am

Yes Gleemax is gone, funny I never really realized it had started Laughing

Posts: 177 · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 4:37 am

I still have no freaking idea what Gleemax was, is, or should have been. I've read this thread and I still don't understand or care. It sounds like flavoured, lubricating jelly.

I hope the whole thing dies to be honest--WOTC/Hasbro/Hasbeen, whoever owns it. I stopped dead after buying the 3E core rules and reading them. 4E can eat me: Stop calling it D&D, rename the damn thing, and give it to the boys that created Grand Theft Auto.

D&D and RPG's are best when they are created and produced by people who don't care if it makes mounds of money or not. Games for gamers by fellow gamers. This is why I love the TLG and C&C--they have a 30 day response time for e-mails for god's sake: 30 days in 2008! I like that, I love that, I want to know humans are screwing up and trying to produce something worthwhile. I'd work for C&C for food and shelter.

I miss my hand written notes, and chatty phone calls, from the folks at TSR. They treated me like family. One year my December edition of Dragon didn't arrive, so I phoned and a week or so later it arrived and someone had popped a Christmas card in the envelope! That's what I want.

Put it this way, when I started back in 76, no one gave a frig how many products there were, just that they were good. We bought almost everything, from every little press we could find, knowing that 95% would be useable, good or even great. We were happy if we had four or five players at the table. Damn it, to this day all we need are pencils, paper, some dice, and if we're lucky some graph paper.

Yes there are good companies producing good material, and they deserve praise, but screw the masses. I was painfully happy when I read that DCC screwed up their GenCon release by having only 60 copies. That was fantastic! D&D has the wrong "business paradigm" for god knows how long: This is a game played and created in basements, around dining room tables, scribbled on the backs of school binders and scrap paper. This is the game that has me at this site meeting the best, nicest people I've met in years.

I hope ten years from now there are small groups of players here and there, who get together, play, produce some material, host local, small Cons, and in turn, create their own little games, which they share with a few others and maybe even sell. Sound familiar?

So kill it and save me the heartache I've had for...how long now, 15 years?

Damn, missed my meds again. Smile

Posts: 4544 · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 4:49 am

Blackmoor wrote:

Yes Gleemax is gone, funny I never really realized it had started Laughing

Frakkin hilarious. I feel new energy surging into my body....less crap in the world. Here is the press release for those who don't want to put Gleemax into their browers...

Quote:

Gleemax Farewell
Posted By: randyb, 7/28/2008 10:38:56 AM

Wizards of the Coast has made the decision to pull down its Gleemax social networking site in order to focus on other aspects of our digital initiatives, especially Magic Online and Dungeons & Dragons Insider. We continue to believe that fostering online community is an important part of taking care of our customers, but until we have our games up and running at a quality level we can be proud of, it will be the games themselves that receive the lion’s share of our attention and resources.

Our plan is to shut down Gleemax completely sometime in September. (I can’t give a more exact date because the timing depends on what’s going on with other projects.) To those of you who have posted to Gleemax, I thank you for your contributions over the past year. It is community members like you that made this project worth trying, and it is your efforts and words that gave it heart. You should save your blogs by copying that text somewhere else. Meanwhile, I encourage you to head over to the Wizards forums. The Wizards online community continues to thrive, and there should be lots of fun stuff to talk about over the coming months, including our digital offerings.

That’s the short version. The long version, as you might imagine, is a lot longer. And for me, it’s a lot more personal. I choose to work at Wizards of the Coast because I truly care about the games we make and the gamers we make them for. I come to work each day because I was lucky enough to become a gamer, and I want to make sure the dream is still there for the next guy who comes along.

For me, it’s actually been two different dream lifestyles: For a couple of years in the 90’s, I got to be a professional Magic player. I traveled the world, made some great friends, played what is still (in my opinion) the best strategy game ever made, and I made enough money to pay the bills while doing all of that. I’ve also had the privilege for almost a decade now to make games for a living. Working at Wizards sounds like a dream job to many of our diehard players, and the crazy part is that working at Wizards turns out to really be that dream job. The culture inside the building is an awesome blend of smarts and passion, and most days I can’t imagine a better place to work. I feel that it’s my duty to make sure both the games and the company are in an even better place when the next generation of smart kids comes along. Whether we’re playing D&D around the kitchen table, Friday Night Magic at your local store, or assorted German board games on Tuesday nights at Wizards headquarters, we’re all part of the same shared culture.

Anyway, all of that is what led me to be such a passionate evangelist, pushing to move Wizards in a more digital direction. It remains clear that gamers are moving online and if we’re going to preserve everything that is special about Wizards of the Coast—and the hobby gamer culture in general—then we have to move online too.

The mistake that I made, however, was in trying to push us too far too fast. I still think the vision for Gleemax is awesome: creating a place on the web where hobby gamers (or lifestyle gamers or thinking gamers, or whatever you want to call us) can gather to talk about games, play games, and find people to play games with. But I’ve come to realize that the vision was too ambitious. We’ve made progress down about ten different paths over the past eighteen months, but we haven’t been able to reach the end of any of them yet.

The correct strategy at this point is clear: we need to focus. We’re not going to abandon the vision, but we are going to put large chunks of it on the backburner until we prove that we can succeed at the most important pieces. Those pieces are Magic Online and D&D Insider.

Magic Online “V3” is up and running, but it took us a long time to get here and it’s by no means perfect. We have a lot of ideas about what we can do now to make the game better and we’ll be devoting significant resources in future months and years to doing precisely that.

D&D Insider functionality has started to roll out, but we’re still behind where we wanted to be. In the plus column, Dragon and Dungeon magazines have launched in their new online format, and they seem to be getting rave reviews. The Rules Compendium has also launched – it’s a searchable database that contains all the rules elements from all the 4th Edition books we publish. The magazines and the rules compendium are available now to anyone who signs up for a free trial of D&D Insider. Next up are improvements to those pieces plus beta-testing of the Character Builder, Character Visualizer, Dungeon Builder, and Game Table.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t leave us with any bandwidth to devote to Gleemax right now. Wizards of the Coast remains committed to online community, but instead of trying to grow a new website for a brand-agnostic community, we need to focus on keeping our own house in order. We have the two best games in the world, and we need to take care of them before expanding into new digital arenas.

Randy Buehler

Vice President of Digital Gaming

Wizards of the Coast

Posts: 1200 · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 8:40 am

I think the main quote out of all that "marketing crap" is:

Quote:

But I’ve come to realize that the vision was too ambitious. We’ve made progress down about ten different paths over the past eighteen months, but we haven’t been able to reach the end of any of them yet.

To me that reads as "The boss(es) say that our efforts are too scattered, costing too much money and we have not met any goals. We now have to do something drastic to avoid losing our jobs". Twisted Evil

Posts: 2556 · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 8:43 am

Blackmoor wrote:

Yes Gleemax is gone, funny I never really realized it had started Laughing

Kinda sad...no free Gleemax brains this year at the WotC booth. Crying or Very sad

Posts: 2635 · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 9:13 am

jasonw1239 wrote:

I think the main quote out of all that "marketing crap" is:

To me that reads as "The boss(es) say that our efforts are too scattered, costing too much money and we have not met any goals. We now have to do something drastic to avoid losing our jobs". Twisted Evil

It might not scale quite as big, or be quite as flashy, granted. And yet LemurChat prevails. You can talk about games, play games, and find people to play games with. See you tonight!

Posts: 5905 · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 10:17 am

Gleemax is dead already? Not even a full 365 days since its release and they decide to shitcan it. Unreal.

*shakes head*

Posts: 342 · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 10:38 am

What was gleemax exactly? I heard it mentioned but never had the concept explained. It just sounded like a website and forum. Or was it for interactive games?

Posts: 1117 · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 10:43 am

JZavoda wrote:

What was gleemax exactly? I heard it mentioned but never had the concept explained. It just sounded like a website and forum. Or was it for interactive games?

And therein lies the problem.

I believe it was some sort of social network covering all of WotC's games, but I'm not certain.

Posts: 76 · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 9:27 pm

Think of it as a myspace or facebook networking page for gamers and their blogs.

They should have just used facebook.