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Oct 23, 2012 -- 8:11AM, professordaddy wrote:

Can I also just point out one of the worst, WORST offenders?:

This website.

The Official D&D website is so badly set up, so badly layered, as to be extremely off-putting.  I'm a player with over 30 years experience with this game, and when I was returning to the brand to try 4th edition, I couldn't even find a simple list, ANYWHERE on this site which would declare which products were necessary for play.

1. Go to www.wizards.com/dnd
2. Click "Games" (right at the top of the website)
3. On the right, there is a button called "New to D&D?"
4. This screen has a little intro and a big button that says "What to Buy?", which shows you the Red Box intro set.

Half the links on even the front page of the site are either dead or go behind a pay-wall which means I can't get basic information.

The only link that goes behind a paywall are "Tools".  I can't find any dead links on the front page of the website.  Maybe you're thinking of the old website before it was revamped more than a year ago.

This website needs to be burned down to the ground and started from scratch.  The front page should have three buttons, total: Here's the checklist of what you need to play, here's a google map populated with nearby games registered with us, and here's the forums.  Period.

The "New to D&D" page has exactly that.  Well, they have four buttons.  First "What is D&D".  Second "What to Buy".  Third, "Learn to Play" and Fourth, "Where to Play", which leads you to a Meetup map just like you asked.

Promitheas listed most of the most important factors IMO.  I'll also mention them and suggest ways to mitigate them.

1)  D&D is a game that takes a long time to play.  In my limited D&D experience (3X and 4e) most games need to be at least 2 hrs., I preffer 5.  This is not an insignificant amount of time, D&DN seems to be trying to address this issue with shorter combats, which in my experience could take a long time in both 4e and 3X.

2)  Gathering everyone together:  since D&D seems to work best with a DM and about 4 players it becomes hard to agree on a meeting time.  It's even harder to get so many people to set down about 5 hours of their time for any given session.  Play by Post can make this less of an issue and I'm sure many people enjoy it.

3)  Extesive jargon:  it took me a long time to learn teams such as Base Attack Bonus, learn the Ability score/ability modifier table, and so on.  The system is not simple and took me quite a long time to learn.  D&DN does seem to be trying to simplify the game.

4)  Availability:  many of the things needed to play D&D can be hard to find outside of a specialized game store.  As far as I know, you just can't walk into major retailers and get D&D dice, battle mats, minis, books and so on.  Many of these things are optional, but availability can be an issue.  D&D could do better if it was more widely available for sale IMO, get the impulse buying.
    


   

              

YOU

You post here

Lord gods

Why 

Oct 23, 2012 -- 9:44AM, professordaddy wrote:

Oct 23, 2012 -- 8:55AM, wrecan wrote:

Go to www.wizards.com/dnd

1. Click "Games" (right at the top of the website)
2. On the right, there is a button called "New to D&D?"
3. This screen has a little intro and a big button that says "What to Buy?", which shows you the Red Box intro set.

That is not what shows up in Internet Explorer, the most common browsing software in the world.

I'm on eExplorer right now.  That's exactly what shows up.

See the word Games on top?  That's the button to which I refer.  But also see what's below the blob?  "What to Buy" "Learn to Play" and "Find a Game"  Those are the three buttons you claimed don't exist but should on the first page.  And yet there they are!

Right now "New to D&D" is a massive blob overlaying the central graphic.  Clicking it takes you to a page which, contrary to your claim here, has no fewer than 45 (FORTY FIVE!) separate clickable links, objects, tabs, and radio buttons.

Here's the screen that you go to if you happen to miss the huge buttons that give you exactly what you asked for...

See those bright red buttons.  Again, those are "What to Buy", "Learn to Play" and "Find a Game".

Those alleged 45 buttons?!  Those are found on the periphery of the website.  .

a large number of those, including what would seem to the new player to be obviously useful beginner links like "character creation" are behind the DDI paywall.

There is no link called "character creation".  You may be thinking of the link to the Character Builder, which is described as a "tool" that is for subscribers only.  But the three red buttons?  Not subscriber only.  In fact only the tools are subscriber only.  Every other button goes to precisely what is described.

So, no.  I reject your claim that the website is hard to navigate.  That hasn't been true for a long while.

As for the "find a game" link you mention, I clicked it.   
You know what it doesn't link to?  A map of games in the area.

I don't know why you are incapable of using the internet, but here's what I get (using Explorer, as well as Chrome and Foirefox)...

See the bit I circled in purple?  That says "Dungeons & Dragons Meetup Groups".  You know what you get when you click on that?


That's right.  A map of games.  And all it required was for you actually read what is written there, not angrily click around the web to prove you preconceived conclusions.

That's right.  Everything you asked for is there, and you have left is an argument in which you cound buttons located at the far periphery of the screen, or rely on the hope that peopel won't actually go to the website to see that you're just being petty and wrong.

The website is fine.  What's not fine?  The folks who like to trash things they have no conception of and then can't even show the common decency to admit when they are wrong.



By the way, if you click on the picture, you'll be taken to a larger view. (For some reason the first two pics can only be attached as links.)