4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

Cameron -

EDIT - Just read through the forum at ENWorld.  I hope we didn’t start some sort of internet flame war between our two sites.  While I thought Chibbs was a little harsh on WotC, some of the comments at ENWorld were ad hominem attacks on Chibbs or were irrelevant to his review.

Btw - calling someone a geek when you take time out of your day to post on a D&D website is like the textbook definition of irony.

I don’t think so. Most EN World posters are great. Even the ones I disagree with.

But EN World has such a massive audience, you are certainly going to get people with extreme opinions posting.

Yeah. I thought the internet jerks were in the minority. I have a thick skin. I can take it. I think Kyle has it spot on.

Thanks for having my back!

We’ve always got your back, Chibbs.

Ron Burgundy: Where did you get a hand grenade, Brick?
Brick Tamland: I don’t know.

JK, that is the best representation of our community I have seen.

As a daily visitor to WotC’s site, I’ve probably gotten used to some of it’s idiosyncracies, especially as many of them have developed as part of the site’s evolution.  Personally, I don’t have any problem navigating the site, and find it fairly easy to keep up with the latest developments on the site.

That said, I agree with Chibbs’ point that there is room for improvement in the site design.  However, I think the tone of the above review is overly ranty.  Chibbs knows a thing or two about site design and I think the criticisms, which were in some ways justified, would be better presented if he brought that to bear to offer constructive criticism and not just find the faults with WotC’s site design.

That troll has been bothering me for a long time.  So I decided to take 2 minutes, GIMP, and my my rudimentary untrained ability to utilize graphics programs and fix this problem.

Here’s the updated version in both jpg and png.

Becka - 24 April 2008 08:31 AM

Heh, you obviously don’t know how well Chibby knows website design, then.  He never professed to know video editing, but the boy knows his s**t when it comes to design.


~~Becka

It’s personal preference.  I don’t go to either site to see all the visual stimulation.  I go for information.

I never even noticed the white pixels around the troll, heck I never even noticed the troll.

However has someone from WotC patted their back about how much they know about web design?

Or how about the difference between “these weird plus and minus signs” “ with these tiny minuscule submenu stuff” Which happen to be on both websites, doing the exact same thing, in the exact same place, in the exact same size yet only WotCs seems to be wrong?

Or how about the “others that just rest on the page”, You mean just like WoW?

Or about the decoration.  WoW only has a the green vine and rock thingy on one side of the site.  After that it’s just black.

Whats the difference between
“The Best Adventure I Never Wrote”
and
“Fight For Fame and Fortune-Register Now”

Evidently “Fight For Fame and Fortune- Register Now” is so much more informative.

Really I could go on and really dissect the vid, but what’s the point.  Chibby has his opinion and the means to make it known.

Like I said before, I’m generally ok with the main site. I think it could use a face lift and better content organization, though. But fonts and stuff don’t bother me. I also have my own problems with the WoW site.

I think based on the general reaction, its safe to say that a little Chibby goes a long way for some people. (No vulgar pun intended!)

A little more on topic: Jim and Chibbs, if WotC were to come to you today and ask you to completely redesign the WotC site and Gleemax, how would you do it?

Just as a by, the troll’s eye is a random link to pages on their website. WTF is that all about? Or at least it used to. I just went to the WotC site and it doesn’t do it any more. I swear I’m not crazy.

Apparently DragonAvenue is “just a blog” and everyone here is just a blogger with an unfounded opinion.  I mean, that is if I’m to take a large part of the posters at ENWorld at their word.  Once again I am reminded of why I stopped visiting that venomous hive of scum and villainy.  It really is a lot like Wizards.  It’s clunky, large, and filled with people who lack common social graces.

Ahh. Now JK, there is a question I could sink my teeth into.

There are so many complex issues around that question so I think I will try and simplify it down to the bare bones.

First, I would ask a lot of questions. What are the goals of the site? How do they see it growing over time? The basic things one asks when committing to any project like this. One can only formulate a plan of attack if he knows what he’s attacking.

Off the top of my head I think the best solution would be something akin to a mashup of Wired’s amazingly well organized, very creative web version of their zine with all the style of WoW. Inject it with the great content and artwork from WotC and you’d have a killer site.

I think a magazine or news site best reflects the D&D site. Mainly because of the sheer amount of content (present and future) and the labrynth of navigation that both sorts of sites have to overcome.

Michael Sigler - 24 April 2008 01:30 PM

Ahh. Now JK, there is a question I could sink my teeth into.

There are so many complex issues around that question so I think I will try and simplify it down to the bare bones.

First, I would ask a lot of questions. What are the goals of the site? How do they see it growing over time? The basic things one asks when committing to any project like this. One can only formulate a plan of attack if he knows what he’s attacking.

Off the top of my head I think the best solution would be something akin to a mashup of Wired’s amazingly well organized, very creative web version of their zine with all the style of WoW. Inject it with the great content and artwork from WotC and you’d have a killer site.

I think a magazine or news site best reflects the D&D site. Mainly because of the sheer amount of content (present and future) and the labrynth of navigation that both sorts of sites have to overcome.

Very interesting. Briefly browsing Wired, I can see the difference between being able to sort topics and subtopics by date quickly as opposed to having to dig through a strangely ordered scrolling list of articles with only a date and a title to go by.

It is a good question.  Perhaps worthy of another video.

I have problems with sites that have too much clutter and color. Lets call it ADD… The new wizard site actually drove me away. =( I used to enjoy reading all the character and plot boards and posting but I just don’t want to get me some head ache just to talk about gaming.

Gleemax… Well its just ugly.