Aside from the new dorums being terrible in my opinion, I was not allowd to see any forums or anything without giving so much personal information?
And even worse is, as has been revealed in other forums, all this information is being held and managed by a 3rd party private company not related to WotC somewhere?
hence only a few of the many reasons why I will be reduced to trolling and lurking -- AT THE MOST.
I'm just waiting for them to start charging. As it is, I am personally "boycotting" WotC, in that they will not recieve another single, solitary penny from me for any of their products. I have what I need; and if I need anything else, I'll get it used (or free 
).
I'm just waiting for them to start charging. As it is, I am personally "boycotting" WotC, in that they will not recieve another single, solitary penny from me for any of their products. I have what I need; and if I need anything else, I'll get it used (or free ).
I've already been at that. Used at Half.com at most, or if it's a rare 3rd party book from ebay.
Also, I do not use sites like Facebook or Myspace for a reason, so I do not appreciate having to fill out an entire profile just to look at some forums. Plus you are not even allowed to disable most of the options. You WILL get messages and such posted on your "page" whether you like it or not.
p.s. Do you really think they will start charging? Would they merge it with that D&D Online/"Magazines" thing?
p.s.2. What was the the final story with that D&D thing? Has it made them the profit they wanted? I hear they had to cut down from the $12ish dollors they wanted to a mesely $4ish. And that is WITH the Dragon and Dungeon "magazines".
While I can sympathize with not wanting to give a lot of personal information to enjoy a forum, this is currently a 'beta', so the functionality should be expected to not be in top form. If you would have read the developer messages, you would know that they decided to do this rather than have to continue having no forum at all for the rest of the month.
If you find things you dislike about this beta you should most certainly speak up ... to customer service and maintenance, as this is a beta and they would most certainly appreciate feedback to improve what will be the final form of this community.
If you find things you dislike about this beta you should most certainly speak up ... to customer service and maintenance, as this is a beta and they would most certainly appreciate feedback to improve what will be the final form of this community.
But... But...
I dislike almost EVERYTHING!
The forum windows look like crap. The navigation's messier than a plan by Red Mage. And my information is potentially being handed to Thief.
The required personal information is gender, zip code and country, no? Which of those are you worried about being stolen?
Plus, neither of that needs to be accurate.
Someone told me they just put in random numbers for zip and it worked.
I always... ALWAYS fill out these rediculous forms(that is I'm not buying something) with the famous 90210 zip code.
If you find things you dislike about this beta you should most certainly speak up ... to customer service and maintenance, as this is a beta and they would most certainly appreciate feedback to improve what will be the final form of this community.
But... But...I dislike almost EVERYTHING!
The forum windows look like crap. The navigation's messier than a plan by Red Mage. And my information is potentially being handed to Thief.
I'm not gonna berate you, because I'm right there with you. There is about 50% that I like, and the other 50% I don't. What you should do is contact customer service or one of the staff (they have WOTC in front of their names) and tell them what you do like, etc. It is much more effective than posting on these forums because, and I hate to say this, they tend to ignore the forums (except the lock happy ORCS). This has always been evident; they ignore the forums because of all the vitriol.
Plus, neither of that needs to be accurate.
Someone told me they just put in random numbers for zip and it worked.
This.
Just lie. They don't really care if the info is accurate.
The Argument: Potential to ruin my anon status
The Solution: Don't be a **** on the internet
Zip and country are likely required because it's a social networking site. They're probably planning on using location info to help you find gamers in your area, suggest friends, that sort of thing (like Facebook does).
I don't know why they're interested in gender. For marketing purposes? I'm not too interested in disguising my gender IRL, ditto for the internet.
Aside from the new dorums being terrible in my opinion, I was not allowd to see any forums or anything without giving so much personal information?
And even worse is, as has been revealed in other forums, all this information is being held and managed by a 3rd party private company not related to WotC somewhere?
You did have the option of NOT giving out the information.
Aside from the new dorums being terrible in my opinion, I was not allowd to see any forums or anything without giving so much personal information?
And even worse is, as has been revealed in other forums, all this information is being held and managed by a 3rd party private company not related to WotC somewhere?
You did have the option of NOT giving out the information.
Nonsense! Didn't you see the part where he said that he was *FORCED* to submit his personal information? Maybe *you* were lucky enough to escape the wrath of the corporate giant, but I know that I personally had a wizo, orc, cust_serv, wotc staff member beating me with a copy of Everway until I submitted.
The details are a little foggy, but I somewhat remember a brain in a jar saying "I don't seem all that bad in retrospect, now do I" just before I blacked out.
Jerks.
Aside from the new dorums being terrible in my opinion, I was not allowd to see any forums or anything without giving so much personal information?
And even worse is, as has been revealed in other forums, all this information is being held and managed by a 3rd party private company not related to WotC somewhere?
You did have the option of NOT giving out the information.Nonsense! Didn't you see the part where he said that he was *FORCED* to submit his personal information? Maybe *you* were lucky enough to escape the wrath of the corporate giant, but I know that I personally had a wizo, orc, cust_serv, wotc staff member beating me with a copy of Everway until I submitted.
The details are a little foggy, but I somewhat remember a brain in a jar saying "I don't seem all that bad in retrospect, now do I" just before I blacked out.
Jerks.
Hmm, I just attributed that 24-hour blackout as the result of a drinking binge. Maybe it was something else more insidious....
Well, I can honestly say I dislike the new look, liked my olde avatar better, and now live in Bhutan... because you can just LIE to the personal information thing.
...If you would have read the developer messages, you would know that they decided to do this rather than have to continue having no forum at all for the rest of the month.
The irony is that this site is so badly laid-out that I was no even aware the developers had made such a post.
I think I'll be using this forum only to get feedback on 3.5 rules, and input.
I really liked the old forums, and expected an upgrade, not a downgrade.
Wow, I hate the new look, I want to know why I am suddenly missing over half my posts, and where the hell my signature went. Way to drop the ball there WotC.
Everyone realizes this is a beta version, right?
I don't consider the WotC boards my 'home' forum for D&D but lighten up a little guys. They've offered more to the community than the vast majority of us have.
Wow, I hate the new look, I want to know why I am suddenly missing over half my posts, and where the hell my signature went. Way to drop the ball there WotC.
You have to re-add your Signature.
Wow, I hate the new look, I want to know why I am suddenly missing over half my posts, and where the hell my signature went. Way to drop the ball there WotC.
You have to re-add your Signature.
My sig was very long and had a lot of quoted text (it was also sblocked because I know noöne cares about my überlong sig, hehe). So I can't really readd my sig.
But even so, why can't people just leave well enough alone? There was nothing wrong with the forum beforehand, or even before gleemax. It was fine. And yeah, this might be a beta test, but it is a beta test for a new system that isn't needed because the previous one(s) were just fine. So even if they continue to tinker and change a few more things, it won't change the fact that I am missing over half of my posts and I lost my sig.
Does anyone in an official capacity know if the old signatures are gone for good? Or is there some way to recover them?
Does anyone in an official capacity know if the old signatures are gone for good? Or is there some way to recover them?
You could give the Wayback Machine a shot.
Now that we can upload our own avatars we'll have an easier time distinguishing ourselves!
My sig was very long and had a lot of quoted text (it was also sblocked because I know noöne cares about my überlong sig, hehe).
If it is so long you need to sblock it, and you admit no one gives a damn about the content, then why have it at all?
When you sign your name in the real world do just use your name or do you write out a poem, a series of quotes, and a half-dozen doodles? Your on-line sig is the virtual equivalent of your real-world signature and serves the same purpose, to personally identify your posts. There are slightly different acceptable conventions for e-sigs - such as a tagline and a small image - but by and large they should be short and concise.
Wow, I hate the new look, I want to know why I am suddenly missing over half my posts, and where the hell my signature went. Way to drop the ball there WotC.
I like the new look. The old forums were way too busy and hard to read. This new site uses whitespace!
Otoh, I'm not a huge poster, so I don't know if I'm missing half my posts. Most of my forum posts are ephemera anyway: rules questions, adventure ideas, char opt questions. I can see how that would bug you if you had threads that you'd slaved over for yonks and lost.
One thing I'm really excited about is the wiki. That's a much better place for what people used long, heavily edited and stickied forum posts for in the past.
Signatures... meh. I don't like it when a sig is longer than most forum posts. Anything else: make a personal page on the wiki and link to it. (Then you'll also have revision history, which is a nice bonus.)
My sig was very long and had a lot of quoted text (it was also sblocked because I know noöne cares about my überlong sig, hehe).If it is so long you need to sblock it, and you admit no one gives a damn about the content, then why have it at all?
When you sign your name in the real world do just use your name or do you write out a poem, a series of quotes, and a half-dozen doodles? Your on-line sig is the virtual equivalent of your real-world signature and serves the same purpose, to personally identify your posts. There are slightly different acceptable conventions for e-sigs - such as a tagline and a small image - but by and large they should be short and concise.
So... you have a giant rubber stamp that says:
that you just slam down on documents when you sign them?And, there was the identity part, followed by the happy little spoiler button just in case someone was really that interested. Some of the stuff was kind or ammusing after all. All I am really saying is well enough was fine and should have been left alone.
Does anyone in an official capacity know if the old signatures are gone for good? Or is there some way to recover them?
You can do a google search as view a "Cached" page with your old sig in it.
So... you have a giant rubber stamp that says: that you just slam down on documents when you sign them?
I'm guessing you skimmed over the part that read "There are slightly different acceptable conventions for e-sigs - such as a tagline and a small image…, and also somehow misread "virtual equivalent" as "exact electronic replication", though I cannot imagine how one could do so.
I always... ALWAYS fill out these rediculous forms(that is I'm not buying something) with the famous 90210 zip code.
Second. I imagine Beverly Hills, CA is the most populated city on Earth if you go by forum and email registrations.
Also, yeah, new forums are crap. We had to wait weeks for THIS?
I have moved this thread at VCL request. 
Yep I agree. These forums are crap compared to the old ones, and the old ones were just not that good.
Not having BBCode is horrible.
Too much whitespace.
subscriptions suck.
Can't find anything.
subsections run together.
There are a hundred more where those came from.
Yep I agree. These forums are crap compared to the old ones, and the old ones were just not that good.
Not having BBCode is horrible.
They have a rich text editor. What can't you do with it that you could do with BBCode?
subscriptions suck.
Can't find anything.
This criticism is too vague to be useful. Subscriptions suck how? Can't find anything because of the page layout, the new architecture of the site, what?
subsections run together.
This one is a bummer, but it's a formatting issue. I figure it'll get ironed out before beta is done, and it doesn't make the site unusable, just annoying.
There are a lot of people on the forums acting like every little minor bug is a HUGE problem, which normally in software dev makes it hard to prioritize which ones need to be addressed first. If you want to be heard (and I think the users ought to be), you have to have a little perspective.
Imagine that you are WotC, with a small team of developers and/or limited budget. Is BBCode really a huge deal, considering that there's a fully functional editor? Or is it just nice to have? From where I'm sitting: nice to have.
Yep I agree. These forums are crap compared to the old ones, and the old ones were just not that good.
Not having BBCode is horrible.
They have a rich text editor. What can't you do with it that you could do with BBCode?
subscriptions suck.
Can't find anything.
This criticism is too vague to be useful. Subscriptions suck how? Can't find anything because of the page layout, the new architecture of the site, what?
subsections run together.
This one is a bummer, but it's a formatting issue. I figure it'll get ironed out before beta is done, and it doesn't make the site unusable, just annoying.
There are a lot of people on the forums acting like every little minor bug is a HUGE problem, which normally in software dev makes it hard to prioritize which ones need to be addressed first. If you want to be heard (and I think the users ought to be), you have to have a little perspective.
Imagine that you are WotC, with a small team of developers and/or limited budget. Is BBCode really a huge deal, considering that there's a fully functional editor? Or is it just nice to have? From where I'm sitting: nice to have.
BBCode had
To be more specific:
- Everyone lost data - Everyone lost all of their private messages, friends, and signatures from the old boards.
This will be fixed, and has been addressed numerous times. You have even replied in threads acknowledging this. It takes time, this is a beta.
- Difficult to find anything - It is difficult to find anything some of the problem is that there is not a forum menu on the left in our home pages. There is no way to access our subscriptions unless you click into the forums and into a sub-forum. All of the settings should be accessible where all other settings are, in the home page.
Search works perfectly for me. This sounds like a browsing, not searching, issue you have, which can't be personalized perfectly for each user.
- Side Bar - The side bar which is still present in many areas is not targeted and there are no options to change what it shows. It would almost be useful if I could restrict it to the forums and sub-forums that I actually use.
You're getting to use the top industry company's forums for free, and advertisements are fine. They are targeted in a sense, just not as optimal as they could be.
- Names - Instead of keeping everyone's name formatting, it capitalized the first letter and then lowercase the rest. After that it replaced spaces with underscores. This mangled many peoples names. CS keeps telling people this is not happening, so last time I checked they weren't even acknowledging the problem.
They don't do this to your name, or every other name I'm seeing. Lowercases have remained at the beginning, and the best example is mine and yours right here - yours being lowercased from the start and mine having the proper CamelCase style that i used upon sign up.
- I could go on, but I have to work tommorrow and need to sleep.
Then don't say you can go on, if you don't have valid points to bring up please. Going back to the OP's post, no, you were not in any way forced to do anything. You accepted. You don't have to be on the community site, you chose to. Therefore, this entire concept is invalidated.
They have a rich text editor. What can't you do with it that you could do with BBCode?
Well there's [SBLOCK] and [SPOILER]... preprogrammed functionality that goes beyond fancifying the text in other words.
Imagine that you are WotC, with a small team of developers and/or limited budget. Is BBCode really a huge deal, considering that there's a fully functional editor? Or is it just nice to have? From where I'm sitting: nice to have.
Maybe it isn't some sort of important thing on the level of world hunger, but when BBCode has been a default option on pretty much every message board for the better part of a decade, finding that the new boards don't support it out of the box is the kind of thing which leaves people wondering just how much thought went into the decision making. And so they complain to make sure their opinions are known and hopefully get the issue fixed as soon as possible.
BBCode had
There are a hundred more where those came from.
You can't deny that the list gets smaller every day. For an example, check out my username. Or perhaps the background color of this post.
There are a hundred more where those came from.You can't deny that the list gets smaller every day. For an example, check out my username. Or perhaps the background color of this post.
Background color is still white on mine. Are you using IE or Firefox?
IE. But I have Firefox. I can test...
Tested in Firefox and it works there too. I also tested all three skins and they all have the gray. The M:TG skin is actually the darkest while the generic WotC one is the whitest. Regardless, they all have a gray background against which all posts are laid out. The gray is the color of the richtext toolbar when you're composing a post. It's easy to see because the panel where the avatar shows is still white and it contrasts a little bit.
IE. But I have Firefox. I can test...
Tested in Firefox and it works there too. I also tested all three skins and they all have the gray. The M:TG skin is actually the darkest while the generic WotC one is the whitest. Regardless, they all have a gray background against which all posts are laid out. The gray is the color of the richtext toolbar when you're composing a post. It's easy to see because the panel where the avatar shows is still white and it contrasts a little bit.
That's weird mines still white. I've logged out logged in, cleared my cache. Its still white.
So like I said earlier - User issue.
So like I said earlier - User issue.
Nope, sorry. I'm a programmer and a web designer. I can tell you for sure it is not a user issue.
Except I'm in IT so I'm specifically trained to diagnose issues like this and solid troubleshooting indicates it's an issue with your machine. (First troubleshooting question: Is the issue present on another machine).
I've removed content from this thread because bating and harassment are Code of Conduct violations. You can review the Code of Conduct here: wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg....
Please keep your posts polite, respectful, and on-topic, and refrain from making personal attacks.
So like I said earlier - User issue.
Nope, sorry. I'm a programmer and a web designer. I can tell you for sure it is not a user issue.
Ok assuming you are right (becuse god knows even professanals are not perfect) maybe (and this is a shot at wotc not you) some guy in there tech dept know your screen name as a major unhappy customer and that person switched you options somehow... I would find it funny (I mean if it happened to me I would be mad first, but in hind sight)
I love the new look. Its perfect.
I've removed content from this thread because bating and harassment are Code of Conduct violations. You can review the Code of Conduct here: wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg....
Please keep your posts polite, respectful, and on-topic, and refrain from making personal attacks.
Nice removal of my post. Let me try to repeat what I said that could possibly have been inflamatory, without being inflamatory.
Several people have indicated that it does not work. Therefore your deductive process does not work out in this instance. Being a web designer and programmer. I know how the process works. Blame the consumer until you are absolutely sure its not on their end. Then after that point start checking internal problems.
I have done everything that has been asked of me to try to solve this problem and it has not changed anything. Therefore unless you have some ideas on how to fix it on my end (I have a completely standard setup of firefox) it is probably not user error, but WotC error. As they have been known to have many problems on these forums I'd be more likely to call it their error.
So like I said earlier - User issue.
Nope, sorry. I'm a programmer and a web designer. I can tell you for sure it is not a user issue.
Ok assuming you are right (becuse god knows even professanals are not perfect) maybe (and this is a shot at wotc not you) some guy in there tech dept know your screen name as a major unhappy customer and that person switched you options somehow... I would find it funny (I mean if it happened to me I would be mad first, but in hind sight)
You know I wouldn't put it past them, but I don't think they care enough about my ranting to single me out like this.
I really think its just more WotC neglect and management problems. You know like having 2 people program the ATs (Adventure Tools) or whatever.
Several people have indicated that it does not work. Therefore your deductive process does not work out in this instance. Being a web designer and programmer. I know how the process works. Blame the consumer until you are absolutely sure its not on their end. Then after that point start checking internal problems.
I have done everything that has been asked of me to try to solve this problem and it has not changed anything. Therefore unless you have some ideas on how to fix it on my end (I have a completely standard setup of firefox) it is probably not user error, but WotC error. As they have been known to have many problems on these forums I'd be more likely to call it their error.
As some people have the grey bar as some don't, it is very likely an issue with something on the users end. thats not to say WotC shouldn't bother with it, they need to find what's causing the conflict and prevent it from occurring with code on their end, but that takes time to identify and resolve (which is the real problem, not blame the consumer...), not to mention the co-operation of those who are experiencing the problem. If you really were the programmer and web designer you incessantly claim to be, you would know that and you would be able to identifying the problem yourself and not needed others to tell you what you needed to "solve the problem", but instead, you use it to hijack threads and cause decent.
As to the OP of this thread, I find it very funny that you would complain about zip code being mandatory when enworld and others require date of birth (far more specific then zip code), I don't see any complaints about them though
Several people have indicated that it does not work. Therefore your deductive process does not work out in this instance. Being a web designer and programmer. I know how the process works. Blame the consumer until you are absolutely sure its not on their end. Then after that point start checking internal problems.
I have done everything that has been asked of me to try to solve this problem and it has not changed anything. Therefore unless you have some ideas on how to fix it on my end (I have a completely standard setup of firefox) it is probably not user error, but WotC error. As they have been known to have many problems on these forums I'd be more likely to call it their error.
As some people have the grey bar as some don't, it is very likely an issue with something on the users end. thats not to say WotC shouldn't bother with it, they need to find what's causing the conflict and prevent it from occurring with code on their end, but that takes time to identify and resolve (which is the real problem, not blame the consumer...), not to mention the co-operation of those who are experiencing the problem. If you really were the programmer and web designer you incessantly claim to be, you would know that and you would be able to identifying the problem yourself and not needed others to tell you what you needed to "solve the problem", but instead, you use it to hijack threads and cause decent.
As to the OP of this thread, I find it very funny that you would complain about zip code being mandatory when enworld and others require date of birth (far more specific then zip code), I don't see any complaints about them though
Actually since the white 'color' is actually a picture I'm guessing some people get it because the community site serves pages to different users differently to some than others. The real thing to check for would be to see if something you are doing or running is different than what I am doing or running, thus the reason I asked about whether you were using IE or Firefox. I have cleared my cache, that didn't work which means the page sent me the exact same image, so basically from that data it is clearly serverside.
Actually since the white 'color' is actually a picture I'm guessing some people get it because the community site serves pages to different users differently to some than others. The real thing to check for would be to see if something you are doing or running is different than what I am doing or running, thus the reason I asked about whether you were using IE or Firefox. I have cleared my cache, that didn't work which means the page sent me the exact same image, so basically from that data it is clearly serverside.
Im curious, can you show me that the color is actually a picture? (not sarcastic, im looking in the source and also trying to find the "picture" with the right click menu.)
Actually since the white 'color' is actually a picture I'm guessing some people get it because the community site serves pages to different users differently to some than others. The real thing to check for would be to see if something you are doing or running is different than what I am doing or running, thus the reason I asked about whether you were using IE or Firefox. I have cleared my cache, that didn't work which means the page sent me the exact same image, so basically from that data it is clearly serverside.
Im curious, can you show me that the color is actually a picture? (not sarcastic, im looking in the source and also trying to find the "picture" with the right click menu.)
I've been looking for the same thing myself, since even before the above post. As he's a programmer and web developer, it should be an easy task to prove his claims that it's an image...
Although I don't think this is the right thread for this, as it's off topic (much like the half dozen other threads he's hijacked about this exact same issue.