Author Topic: D&D Beyond is up!  (Read 5225 times)

Offline Kasz

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D&D Beyond is up!
« on: March 20, 2017, 12:45:39 PM »
Perhaps this is more 5e related as it has all the OGL stuff in a fancy display too... but the D&D Beyond forums are here.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #1 on: March 20, 2017, 06:38:35 PM »
So they got rid of all of their forums, and then made a new forum.....

Offline Samwise

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #2 on: March 21, 2017, 12:46:18 PM »
So they got rid of all of their forums, and then made a new forum.....

I was kind of wondering about that myself.

Has social media evolved again that having an in-house forum is a Good Thing (TM) again?
Or were they just tired of maintaining all the stuff on the old forum so they made up a stupid story so they could trash it then call a mulligan and hope nobody notices? (Or at least isn't gauche enough to comment.)

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #3 on: March 21, 2017, 01:20:39 PM »
Has social media evolved again that having an in-house forum is a Good Thing (TM) again?
You should read the website.

The first phase of beta testing for D&D Beyond—an official digital toolset for Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition—is now live.

We are also excited to share the news that the DDB beta is open to everyone! In light of the overwhelming community response for beta signups, we want to get D&D Beyond into players’ hands as quickly as possible.

The beta will have three major phases to focus testing on specific features prior to launch this summer:
    Phase 1 - Compendium, Listings, and Forums
    Phase 2 - Character Builder and Character Sheet
    Phase 3 - Homebrew Integration and Campaign Management
At this point, players can use all basic rules content in the Compendium and Spells, Magic Items, and Monsters Listings, as well as share feedback and discuss all things D&D in the Forums.

Visit www.dndbeyond.com to learn more and start your beta adventure now!
The forum is just naturally part of wanting to consolidate homebrew discussions on a website they can control, plus they really do seem to want feedback this time around. Likewise with the ten thousand character creation apps posted on the android store there is an obvious desire to have some kind of easy creation tool, and where there is want, there is profit. And instead of paying a buck for someone else's app, you can contribute to their web traffic numbers (and D&D advertisements).

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #4 on: March 22, 2017, 04:29:07 PM »
I guess I'll register on the first of the month.
Your codpiece is a mimic.

Offline Samwise

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #5 on: March 22, 2017, 10:33:01 PM »
The forum is just naturally part of wanting to consolidate homebrew discussions on a website they can control, plus they really do seem to want feedback this time around. Likewise with the ten thousand character creation apps posted on the android store there is an obvious desire to have some kind of easy creation tool, and where there is want, there is profit. And instead of paying a buck for someone else's app, you can contribute to their web traffic numbers (and D&D advertisements).

So . . .
"What idiot killed the forums? Don't they know the marketing potential! Don't they know the control it gives us!"
"That was you sir."
"Never mind finding someone to blame! Throw something together and come up with a press release to make my fanbois worship me even more!"
"Yes sir."
"Oh, and what's the status of those online tools that have been vaporware since 2001?"
"We have another announcement on that ready to go sir."
"Excellent! Oh, and do something about that Samwise fellow. He is so astonishingly gauche."
"We'll try sir."

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #6 on: March 23, 2017, 03:56:59 PM »
I imagine half of that is exactly how the meeting went.

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #7 on: March 26, 2017, 12:50:51 PM »
I just saw an ad for www.d20srd.org on Facebook so they make enough money to consider it feasible to pay Facebook sixteen cents per click in advertising. Think about that for a moment and then consider how WotC feels about that.

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #8 on: April 02, 2017, 03:23:54 PM »
registered

made obligatory 1st post

had said 1st post taken down almost immediately, like astonishingly fast.


Must be a (w)hole lot of Justin Bieber fans over there.
 :P
Your codpiece is a mimic.

Offline Nifft

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #9 on: April 10, 2017, 01:05:23 AM »
Must be a (w)hole lot of Justin Bieber fans over there.
 :P

Rage of Justin the Beiberian

Piety of Ser Bieber the Just(in)

Honor of His Royal Majustin, Beiber III

... yeah I can't imagine either.

Offline PlzBreakMyCampaign

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #10 on: April 23, 2017, 04:05:30 AM »
Those forums over there are all unofficial from WotC's viewpoint; they exist solely for some lame phone app.

registered

made obligatory 1st post

had said 1st post taken down almost immediately, like astonishingly fast.


Must be a (w)hole lot of Justin Bieber fans over there.
 :P
I must know what you posted.

Just imagine if WotC ever tried to reorganize a fourth community forum somewhere. It took a lot of research to get the full timeline:

f0) 2000-2002: Nascent, general forum only at http://boards1.wizards.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=42
f1) 2003-2006: Visit WotC's consolidated D&D forum at http://boards1.wizards.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=339
s1) Nevermind 4th edition made it http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=339
f2) 2007-2009: Visit WotC's official "green" -> http://gleemaxgleemaxgleemax forum.
m1)   2008: the community fled to brilliantgameologists.com
s2) Nevermind 4th edition Essentials (4.5e) made it community.wizards.com/forums/103131
f3) 2010-2016: Visit WotC's official Previous Edition forum (because 4e is nothing like 1e ,2e, or 3e)
s3)      WotC shuts down Candlekeep
m2)   2010: a person/company crashed BG forcing the creation of minmaxboards.com
s4) "D&D next" beta is over and the community feedback is ignored: 5e is released.
m3) a hack of minmaxboards causes a temporary hosting at ruleofcool forums.
s5) Nevermind 5th edition is too weak to handle rivals: http://company.wizards.com/sitemissing/community
s6)      WotC shuts down DnDTools.EU
m4)   2017: after more hax a person/company spooked minmax's owner forcing an ownership change
f4) Visit our new, new, new, new forum over at (wherever)

f=forum, m=migration, s=a naughty word that WotC does on their fans. What do you mean we're out of TP?

Offline Stratovarius

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #11 on: April 23, 2017, 06:32:50 AM »
m3 is completely wrong, if you actually read the forum migration threads. Nice FUD though.

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #12 on: April 23, 2017, 02:01:26 PM »
+1 Nifft



m0) earliest bans such as most ~notorious gamingden , perhaps '02 but definitely happening a lot in '03 onwards.

m2.5) 2013 a person/company crashed MMX forcing temporary residence at ruleofcool.com
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Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #13 on: April 23, 2017, 04:30:09 PM »
Are you guys still talking about this thing?

(click to show/hide)

Curse, or D&D Beyond forum, it not WotC.
They don't want the bad publicity from it :p

Offline Samwise

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #14 on: April 24, 2017, 03:02:24 PM »
Quote
None of us, except Curse and Wizards, know the full extent of any long-term business plans, however I can safely say I've never seen a company put effort into a high quality product with the intention of ending it.  In my experience, businesses want something to work, and to keep it working.

Does he mean like when WotC started 3E with a business plan of replacing the line after 5 years?
Or does he mean like when WotC accelerated that with 3.5 then still ended 3.5 precisely 5 years later?
In particular does he mean like when WotC did Tome of Magic and Tome of Battle only to reveal they were pretty much just playtest versions of 4E when they cancelled 3.5?
Or does he mean like when WotC did 4E, then Essentials, and still just ended them after 5 years?

Now granted, WotC has done so little with 5E that it does appear they have no particular drive to end it next year, but then it doesn't appear they are putting much of any effort into their high quality product at all at this rate, particularly with the rather emphatic assertion that DDB is not a WotC product.

It is not so much when they lie to you so blatantly; this is PR and marketing after all.
It is when they lie to you so blatantly and expect you to be so stupid that you are utterly oblivious to how blatant the lie is that you have to start worrying.

Offline PlzBreakMyCampaign

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #15 on: April 24, 2017, 03:23:31 PM »
Uh, Soro, you're welcome.  ;)

@aDMg thanks for the rule of cool reminder. I liked that forum.

Quote
None of us, except Curse and Wizards, know the full extent of any long-term business plans, however I can safely say I've never seen a company put effort into a high quality product with the intention of ending it.  In my experience, businesses want something to work, and to keep it working.

Does he mean like when WotC started 3E with a business plan of replacing the line after 5 years?
Or does he mean like when WotC accelerated that with 3.5 then still ended 3.5 precisely 5 years later?
In particular does he mean like when WotC did Tome of Magic and Tome of Battle only to reveal they were pretty much just playtest versions of 4E when they cancelled 3.5?
Or does he mean like when WotC did 4E, then Essentials, and still just ended them after 5 years?

Now granted, WotC has done so little with 5E that it does appear they have no particular drive to end it next year, but then it doesn't appear they are putting much of any effort into their high quality product at all at this rate, particularly with the rather emphatic assertion that DDB is not a WotC product.

It is not so much when they lie to you so blatantly; this is PR and marketing after all.
[...] they lie to you so blatantly and expect you to be so stupid that you are utterly oblivious to how blatant the lie is[. That is when] you have to start worrying.
Bravo. This needs posted over there.

m3 is completely wrong
Completely?
Completely?
(click to show/hide)

Offline Stratovarius

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #16 on: April 24, 2017, 05:38:14 PM »
Naw, you just swore to link your "fixes" in every 3.5 thread you post in. :P

And check the user list - we've been unable to sign up new members since April 2016, almost a exactly year ago. That's just the tip of the iceberg of unresolved technical problems that are affecting the back end of the forum. It's those difficulties that lead to the current situation.

Offline Samwise

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #17 on: April 24, 2017, 11:44:18 PM »
Bravo. This needs posted over there.

What, you want me to get banned too?
:P

That message reminds me of two situations in the past:
First, when someone kvetched in a letter to Dragon back in the day about the lack of Greyhawk products. I believe it was during the Roger Moore era, and he babbled back that they had plenty of Greyhawk products - 3 just the last year! During which of course there was a generic product every month, an FR product 2 every 3 months, and a SJ or DS product every other month. But it wasn't the lack of Greyhawk products that caused them to have low sales, it was the low sales that caused them not to do Greyhawk products.
And then Greyhawk was off the setting list after another six months.

Second, a few years after that, someone wrote in asking about issues shipping late. Everything is fine! We have no problems! The printer is working with us! The next issue will be on time! So will the Annual!
And two months later no magazines shipped and they were negotiating being sold to WotC instead of WotC negotiating selling out to TSR.

As a bonus, there was Winter Fantasy 2007.
Where they promised a "big announcement", "exclusive", during the RPGA Members meeting. And then . . . nothing. But they did assure us they had 3.5 products on the calendar "through the end of the year." Those exact words. So I nodded sagely, read between the lines, read the product list (MIC, SC, and RC), and was called an idiot who was imagining things because there was no way they would end 3.5 even though it was 5 years since they had started it, so shut up you!
And then of course there was the banner at Gen Con that year.
Now mind you, they never lied; they just used very precise language and left it to the fanboys to believe 3.5 would last forever and shout down anyone who said otherwise and might cause sales to drop prematurely.

And then people wonder why I'm so cynical. :D
And corporate hacks wonder why I see through them so easily. ;)

Also, for your timeline, though it wasn't fully WotC, you overlooked the TSR AOL Folders, followed by the various message boards and mailing lists, and the TSR chat rooms that WotC managed to consign to oblivion in the process of getting their first corporate boards set up. They did bring most of the TSROs over, but they lost a lot of archived material, and really messed up the community losing the chat rooms.

Offline Keldar

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Re: D&D Beyond is up!
« Reply #18 on: April 25, 2017, 07:37:31 AM »
Oh good, the AOHell forums weren't a fever dream I had.  Someone else remembers them.