Gaming Portal Announced By Wizards of the Coast 53
1up has coverage of a strange development: a gaming portal focused on tabletop and strategy games. The site is slated to be a editorial/community site focusing on Avalon Hill and Wizards products, as well as potentially offering a venue for independent PC games. "Wizards of the Coast is eager to stress that Gleemax is not about pimping their own products, so much as it is about strengthening the overall culture of gaming as a whole. It's a husbandry approach; by creating a fertile ground where the various tribes of gaming can meet and greet, they hope to build interest (and presumably sales) through the basic principle of cultivating a strong player community." The whole thing is something of an odd move for the company, and for some insight into the launch Greg Kostikiyan at the Games*Design*Art*Culture blog clarifies the reality of Gleemax as an indie game publisher. You'd think he would look at the site as competition for his own Manifesto Games, but he seems fairly philosophical about it.
The slogan: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The slogan: (Score:5, Interesting)
I assume this will be marked as trolling or flaming but wait till I document everything that had happened between Geekalize and Wizards of the Coast, and I will challenge them to review all of it and try to prove they did not spy and steal my future plans for Geekalize. That is the problem, you can't trust anyone in the industry if you are the underdog. Lesson learned.
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Or it was just an obvious idea that someone else thought was good as well.
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That said, IANAL, nor do I play one on TV.
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Your claim is entirely possible. However, having browsed through Geekalize.com briefly I didn't really see anything I haven't seen on dozens of other sites already. It's entirely possible Wizards of the Coast had already been thinking of such a site; again, these kinds of sites are fairly common. They may have considered promoting themselves via existing sites, like Geekalize.com, perhaps even establishing a partnership. Ultimately, they conclude
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Redundant? (Score:5, Informative)
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The Internet is all about redundancy... (Score:2)
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Yep, used them all. At various times, I liked each one of those "best". Right now, I pretty much use Yahoo and MSN as a portal, nothing more, and Google as my search engine (and mail). Homepage is of course the about link.....nothing like near instantaneous retrieval of your homepage.
Layne
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BGG makes a corporate vanity site redundant? (Score:2)
Brain (Score:2)
A lot of people in the RPGA have been puzzling over it... basically, it's a stress ball with gleemax@wizards.com written on it, backwards.
Makes a lot more sense now...
OK (Score:2)
In all seriousness, and not to appear as a troll:
For me the whole pen and paper thing is dying fast. I still play about week or so but more and more I'm starting to dread it. It's just so much easier for me to log into EQ2 and not have to quibble over rules and the like. Not having to own, carry or read 75 Wizard's books alone makes up for what I lose in the roleplaying aspect.
I just wonder how many others have pretty much given up on pen and
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Most of the splatbooks are poorly written, unbalanced pieces of drivel. If you allow them in your game, the new rules/feats/etc. in the books are either way better, or way worse, than that in the core books, and you can get some seriously unbalanced characters.
Our group is going to end its current campaign sometime over the next year, after which w
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Why yes, yes it does (not WotC, but 93 Games Studio is):
Twilight 2003 forums [93gamesstudio.com]
And to touch upon your point of PnP games dying - my GM and I have this discussion all the time. I don't think it's dying at all, but MMORPGs are definitely hurting the PnP industry. Both in terms of less players, and much less QUALITY players. We've tried to recruit several new people to our group over the last few years. Our core group is all mid to late 30-some
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I dunno about that. I've been GMing for 30 years and there are just as many min/maxers, loot chasers, and "roll-players" now as there ever was. That said, I tend to observe these traits more in younger gamers, where older gamers are more interested in story, character development, exploring the wonders of world, etc. In my experience, quality gamers do exist in the younger crowd; they are just less frequent. Also, keep in mind that your ta
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Certainly the WoW'ing of gamerdom isn't going to help, but it's least brought more attention to similar gaming IRL. Searching for diamonds--even ones in the rough--will pretty much be as difficult as always.
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Now they can have a quick game with only a few minutes setup, instead of having to get people together and agree on a game, etc, etc
You're not alone. (Score:1)
I've come to the conclusion that I don't like to
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If playing D&D is mostly about killing monsters, getting loot, and gaining levels, something like EQ is probably a pretty good substitute.
I've played in games that were like that and had a good time doing it, but that's not so much what sitting down for a game is about for me anymore.
It's part strategy game, part story/RP, part a game of plotting and intrigue. You're never going to see the kind of intra-party plotting and conflict in a MMORPG that is p
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Oh, you mean I wasn't doing it your way? Not to get on you or anything but I always thought that there was more than one way to enjoy D&D. If I'm wrong just tell me.
the face-to-face socializing and wide-open gameplay of a good D&D game kick the snot out of killing the same mob for the 1000th time hoping for a good drop, or sitting around for 45 minutes waiting for the other 30
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There are alternatives to D&D out there. (Score:4, Informative)
I would like to point out that there is a vast variety of perfectly fun games out there that have only one book or at the very least aren't part of a supplement factory product line like those that come out of WotC and White Wolf.
I recommend checking out indie-rpgs.com for good discussion on what makes gaming fun. The forums there are heavily biased towards the semi-academic theory of how to design games, but the articles section there will make you think about what games are.
Start with System Does Matter [indie-rpgs.com] in which Ron Edwards muses a bit over the three major different play goals of gamers and some very broad differences between systems. If some of this makes sense, move on to the much larger and more academic GNS and Other Matters of Role-playing Theory. [indie-rpgs.com]
A brief excerpt from the second:
If this sounds like you, then maybe the problem isn't that you're tired of gaming and that gaming sucks -- it's that you're not playing kind of games that reward what you want out of gaming. It sounds to me like you're getting burned out because you're not getting what you want out of a game, and you're just still doing it to hang out with friends who might not have much to talk about otherwise. I've been there. Read these essays, think about what it is that you like, and then poke around the Forge for info on good games that fit your style of play. You'll probably be surprised by the sheer variety that's out there beyond the stuff churned out by WotC. Far too many people check-out of gaming because they aren't aware that there's other stuff out there or because they're unwilling to try it.
Try some new games. Maybe your friends will enjoy a one-shot or two as variety.
Worst case scenario, find a new play group. Gaming is a lot like a relationship in that many people will claim that it's better to have bad gaming than none at all, but that's not true in the slightest. Like any social activity, if you're not getting what you really want out of it, it becomes an energy-draining obligation. Even so, there's no reason to give up on it entirely if better gaming is out there. Plus, just because you aren't spending every weekend with your friends doesn't mean that you won't see them ever again.
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It doesn't sound like you're sick of tabletop gaming, it just sounds like you need a change. You've gotten into a rut of a single game (D&D from the sound of it) and simply accepting each additional book as an addition without further consideration. Break free and experiment!
If you're tired of all the books, don't use them. I just finished playing in a D&D campaign that was almost exclusively run from the core three books (PHB, DMG, MM) and had a blast. Or try out games that are inherently les
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Not to me. It's all about the roleplaying aspect to me, and since we play at the house of the guy who owns the books, nobody has to carry anything other than their own dice bag. (Although I'm actually one of the few people in the group who doesn't own the basic rule book of Earthdawn (the game we're currently playing), but even carrying a single book isn't so bad if you ask me.)
They killed Dragon and Dungeon for THIS?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They killed Dragon and Dungeon for THIS?! (Score:5, Funny)
MMO killed the PnP star.
In my mind and in my parent's basement,
We can't hit res we've gone too far.
Net tubes came and broke your heart,
So put all the blame on Al Goooooore.
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You were complaining about the death of a PEN AND PAPER franchise, Dungeons and Dragons. I'm telling you WotC didn't kill D&D, computers and the explosive growth of MMORPGs did. WotC just happened to be the ones left holding the reins when that horse fell over dead.
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You were complaining about the death of a PEN AND PAPER franchise, Dungeons and Dragons.
Nope. I was complaining about the fact that Wizards killed Dragon and Dungeon magazines in favor of this horrible abomination of a portal, both being oriented toward pen and paper, tabletop roleplaying.
I'm telling you WotC didn't kill D&D, computers and the explosive growth of MMORPGs did.
Not at all. D&D is still a popular game. I play both MMORPGs and tabletop games, D&D among them. Many others do as well. MMORPGs come and go, but D&D is what you come home to.
WotC just happened to be the ones left holding the reins when that horse fell over dead.
Wizards continues to see substantial revenue from D&D as a pen-and-paper game AND as an MMORPG. I don't see any dead
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I dunno, I think I will take the wait and see attitude on this one.
For me MMORPGs and CRPGs in general have brought me near the end of my P&P days. While TSR certainly isn't blameless, the fact that WotC is putting out so much material at such a fast rate and makes it all so intertwined outside of the core rules really bothers me. Wizards is treating our blessed love child like a cheap whore ala Magic CCG.
This coupled with a waning interest in
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It makes it an expensive hobby to keep up, but not a STAGNANT one, which is by and large worse. Th
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As much as I hate social websites this could be handy to people like me who have just relocated and are looking for a new group to join.
BTW: Anyone need a level 20 mage?
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plus I bet there will be content that you can subscribe to for $. All it takes is one player in the group constantly bugging the DM to include the content and groups will convert.
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It remains to be seen wether they'll make enough money doing it this way; i doubt it.
Strange? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seen this before . . .. (Score:1)
Wizards of the Coast is DECLARING that Gleemax is going to be ONLINE exactly what the RPGA TRIED to be in FtF gaming. The RPGA, for thos etoo young to remmeber, was started by a little company known as Tactical Studies Rules (or TSR) right about the switch into the 1980's. It was part of what WotC got when they purchased TSR.
It is worth note t
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