I am feeling worried that all the faces left DnD beyond with no one replacing them.
Lauren's replacement has already been named: it will be Mellie, who is already part of the team. Adam mentioned that next week he will be introducing someone new. My impression was that he was either going to introduce his replacement or Todd's, and I think the former is more likely.
Ironically, because there's not a disaster occurring, there's no way for anyone here to prove that to the community, other than to continue to communicate openly and for us to carry on doing our jobs to make D&D Beyond better than ever.
And Russell's Teapot can be added to the logical fallacies the forum can be guilty of when worked up.
Looking forward to hearing more about the transition and the future of DDB.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The issue, Hollow, is that anyone who's worked in a corporation of any size, scale or scope before knows that the people leaving are contractually obligated to speak of the company in glowing terms, to tell everyone that it's simply a lifestyle change, and to wish everyopne the best.
Um, what??? I have worked for several corporations of many sizes over decades, and have many friends who have worked in corporations large and small, and this has NEVER been true for me or anyone I’ve worked with. Ever. Sure it does happen some times, but is unequivocally NOT the case that it is true for every corporation of any size, scale, or scope. Not even close.
The issue, Hollow, is that anyone who's worked in a corporation of any size, scale or scope before knows that the people leaving are contractually obligated to speak of the company in glowing terms, to tell everyone that it's simply a lifestyle change, and to wish everyopne the best.
Um, what??? I have worked for several corporations of many sizes over decades, and have many friends who have worked in corporations large and small, and this has NEVER been true for me or anyone I’ve worked with. Ever. Sure it does happen some times, but is unequivocally NOT the case that it is true for every corporation of any size, scale, or scope. Not even close.
I've never had a clause to this effect in my contract, and I've been with 6 different companies. Granted, I'm in Europe and employee protection is significant here, but I find it hard to believe this is a thing for at will employment in the US for instance.
The issue, Hollow, is that anyone who's worked in a corporation of any size, scale or scope before knows that the people leaving are contractually obligated to speak of the company in glowing terms, to tell everyone that it's simply a lifestyle change, and to wish everyopne the best.
Um, what??? I have worked for several corporations of many sizes over decades, and have many friends who have worked in corporations large and small, and this has NEVER been true for me or anyone I’ve worked with. Ever. Sure it does happen some times, but is unequivocally NOT the case that it is true for every corporation of any size, scale, or scope. Not even close.
I've never had a clause to this effect in my contract, and I've been with 6 different companies. Granted, I'm in Europe and employee protection is significant here, but I find it hard to believe this is a thing for at will employment in the US for instance.
Well, it does exist here in the US a bit (I wish we had European level employee protections!). It’s just certainly not common at all.
I actually can get the craziness going on and it's not a far fetched idea that if a pandemic has been going on for 2 ish years, an improbability for our past selves, that people are finding other job opportunities now that D&D is growing at such a fast pace. A lot of people have been stuck at home with nothing to do but tell stories and delve into this fantastic hobby!
It is a shocker that some great faces are leaving, but nonetheless I believe there is no better suited community than the D&D community to say farewell (or see you soon) to some faces and welcome new members to the party.
And regarding Critical Role...I mean they use D&D beyond and it's not a far shot that if you are getting into D&D and Crit Role at this point ya haven't heard of D&D beyond. (Also viceversa considering Matt's classes and book are both on Dndbeyond).
All to say: thanks Stormknight for clearing some things up and good luck to you and the team as these news start spreading and bringing rumors along with them, but as it is evident in the growth of the platform, keep working hard and try to mitigate the speculations by keeping us informed. I can say the whole community loves this tool as it facilitates the game and we can't wait to see it keep improving!
@Ken/Pangurjan: I don't have any clauses in my terms of employment explicitly about speaking glowingly of my company, either. I do have terms in my employment that say I'm not permitted to speak in public about my work, or to speak to a journalist or any other Public Person about the company or my work in any capacity. I am instead required to say "I'm sorry, I'm not at liberty to talk about this, please talk to our public relations team instead", and shunt the Public Person to our PR team. Who are contractually obligated to put the spin on everything they say. I imagine anyone who isn't in PR - or 'Community Management', as they refer to PR people in companies like DDB - has a similar clause if the company is large enough to be at all concerned with its image outside purely local environs.
Anyways.
I don't know if Russel's Teapot is quite a fair shake. I'm not really asserting that everything is on fire, simply that one can never trust a corporation to tell people when it is or is not on fire. Corpos will say "everything's fine, we're going strong, [funny relatable quip here], stay tuned for exciting news!" even whilst taking 4d6 fire damage a turn. I honestly feel a little bad for folks in Stormknight's position, or Mellie's coming up here. And frankly they were stuck for it regardless; they could either take the PR hit of all these people announcing their leavetaking at once, or they could take the PR hit of having several people announce their abrupt departure in relatively quick succession. Which amounts to the same thing, and comes with the same issues.
Either way, it ain't great optics and DDB knew it. I know several folks who're putting any book-buying on hold until the service demonstrates some manner of stability, so we will have to see.
Very true, and kinda what I meant. They had to know they were gonna take a ding on this, losing that many high-visibility people all at once is never taken well. But eh. We'll see.
I'm optimistic for the future. That said I'm also not buying Candlekeep anymore, at least until I'm sure all is well with DDB and the mission remains the same.
In the darkest part of my brain I imagine that there will be an announcement soon after CkM is launched that they are shifting focus to that other game system of theirs.
My theory is that the original content creation was just not holding up against the mass of really great content creators that are already out there. Not that the content here was bad, but being corporate content it means certain creative constraints. The "free" creators just can do whatever they want and its hard to compete. I have only read a few articles now and then and seen very few videos ever. When I visit this site I want to use great tools, not watch content.
There's also the fact that the Pandemic has led to a lot of people in all sorts of businesses re-examining what they want to be doing with their lives, and their futures. Now is a time that a lot of people are thinking about making that jump to the dream project they always wanted to do, or going in a whole new direction. Life is short, and all that.
I know that hearing the news today can be a bit of a shock, but I want to reassure everyone that the reason y'all love this site is because of the hard work the Developers do to make things better every day. There are so many excellent people who work on D&D Beyond who are never on camera, who are the beating heart of this site, and that heart is still there and strong.
Also there is nothing nefarious going on, we all just have had opportunities that we're excited to peruse! It made sense to make the announcements all at once, but it's not happening exactly at the same time. I believe Todd leaves tomorrow, but I'm still around for another week and Adam a bit more than that. And we're all excited to tell you what we're doing next, but not until after we've completed the DDB adventure.
As my cleric likes to say, one job at a time. ;)
As for me, the amazing Mellie will be taking over my role as the new Community Manager! She's been working with the DDB community for years, has already been instrumental in helping with our social media, and is frankly way more knowledgeable about homebrew than I am! You are all in excellent hands!
Thanks everyone!
Are people from dndbeyond being poached by other companies? Is this a result of fandom being the owner now? Are the people leaving being replaced by other people? I know you are, as you wrote.
We all know it's your duty to paint this thing as a positive thing, but we have to wonder what is the cause of this, and if we can rely on the continued support for the site or if we go into maintance mode, with so many wishlist features still not implemented, not to mention all the content people have bought through this site. It's only been 3 years since the site launched? It would be mighty early to throttle down development.
Side tangent for shits: am I the only human being in existence that's glad DDB isn't a VTT?
I mostly agree with you. Whilst a VTT would be awesome in the future, I'd rather DDB focus on getting the Character Sheet/Combat Tracker/Encounter Builder etc perfected first. They'd essentially be playing catch up to all the other VTTs out there, of which there are quite a few, so I'd definitely prefer that they fully spruce up their existing content first.
Same, not really interested in VTT yet, perhaps in the future with support for augmented reality. But for now, shall we try to get container support in our inventories?
I've got to agree that this many people leaving, combined with the sluggish pace of implementing new content, on top of the fact that new articles are getting fewer and further between, is quite concerning.
With the pushing of the dice lately I wonder how that has affected perceptions as well.
It seems that lately they were more interested in pushing digital dice than talking about expanding current tools (Encounter builder is all but abandoned it feels like and the common tray was an interesting add but it doesn't integrate with their combat tracker?)
Just odd choices....felt like the microtransactions were getting pushed.
Big reason the combat tracker got held up was because the underlying infrastructure wasn't ready for the strain that it put on the system. The design of the API and the data it pulled caused massive server issues. So it had to be held up while underlying infrastructure changes were made, which because they are foundational are always a long haul because you don't want to screw things up with existing functionality, and you always want to make it as flexible as possible for additional future features. It's just something that had to come before more progress was spent on the Builder/Tracker.
Big reason the combat tracker got held up was because the underlying infrastructure wasn't ready for the strain that it put on the system. The design of the API and the data it pulled caused massive server issues. So it had to be held up while underlying infrastructure changes were made, which because they are foundational are always a long haul because you don't want to screw things up with existing functionality, and you always want to make it as flexible as possible for additional future features. It's just something that had to come before more progress was spent on the Builder/Tracker.
That's not surprising. IT projects are just like any complicated machine - the bigger it gets, the more work it takes to update as so many moving parts need to be taken into account to try to avoid causing new problems. Even with the best designed systems, the larger and more stable it is, the more effort it takes to make changes, unfortunately.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Lauren's replacement has already been named: it will be Mellie, who is already part of the team. Adam mentioned that next week he will be introducing someone new. My impression was that he was either going to introduce his replacement or Todd's, and I think the former is more likely.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
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The big take away here is that D&D Beyond has a big fan base that is really invested in it and wants to see it succeed for years to come.
And Russell's Teapot can be added to the logical fallacies the forum can be guilty of when worked up.
Looking forward to hearing more about the transition and the future of DDB.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Um, what??? I have worked for several corporations of many sizes over decades, and have many friends who have worked in corporations large and small, and this has NEVER been true for me or anyone I’ve worked with. Ever. Sure it does happen some times, but is unequivocally NOT the case that it is true for every corporation of any size, scale, or scope. Not even close.
I've never had a clause to this effect in my contract, and I've been with 6 different companies. Granted, I'm in Europe and employee protection is significant here, but I find it hard to believe this is a thing for at will employment in the US for instance.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Well, it does exist here in the US a bit (I wish we had European level employee protections!). It’s just certainly not common at all.
I actually can get the craziness going on and it's not a far fetched idea that if a pandemic has been going on for 2 ish years, an improbability for our past selves, that people are finding other job opportunities now that D&D is growing at such a fast pace. A lot of people have been stuck at home with nothing to do but tell stories and delve into this fantastic hobby!
It is a shocker that some great faces are leaving, but nonetheless I believe there is no better suited community than the D&D community to say farewell (or see you soon) to some faces and welcome new members to the party.
And regarding Critical Role...I mean they use D&D beyond and it's not a far shot that if you are getting into D&D and Crit Role at this point ya haven't heard of D&D beyond. (Also viceversa considering Matt's classes and book are both on Dndbeyond).
All to say: thanks Stormknight for clearing some things up and good luck to you and the team as these news start spreading and bringing rumors along with them, but as it is evident in the growth of the platform, keep working hard and try to mitigate the speculations by keeping us informed. I can say the whole community loves this tool as it facilitates the game and we can't wait to see it keep improving!
@Ken/Pangurjan: I don't have any clauses in my terms of employment explicitly about speaking glowingly of my company, either. I do have terms in my employment that say I'm not permitted to speak in public about my work, or to speak to a journalist or any other Public Person about the company or my work in any capacity. I am instead required to say "I'm sorry, I'm not at liberty to talk about this, please talk to our public relations team instead", and shunt the Public Person to our PR team. Who are contractually obligated to put the spin on everything they say. I imagine anyone who isn't in PR - or 'Community Management', as they refer to PR people in companies like DDB - has a similar clause if the company is large enough to be at all concerned with its image outside purely local environs.
Anyways.
I don't know if Russel's Teapot is quite a fair shake. I'm not really asserting that everything is on fire, simply that one can never trust a corporation to tell people when it is or is not on fire. Corpos will say "everything's fine, we're going strong, [funny relatable quip here], stay tuned for exciting news!" even whilst taking 4d6 fire damage a turn. I honestly feel a little bad for folks in Stormknight's position, or Mellie's coming up here. And frankly they were stuck for it regardless; they could either take the PR hit of all these people announcing their leavetaking at once, or they could take the PR hit of having several people announce their abrupt departure in relatively quick succession. Which amounts to the same thing, and comes with the same issues.
Either way, it ain't great optics and DDB knew it. I know several folks who're putting any book-buying on hold until the service demonstrates some manner of stability, so we will have to see.
Please do not contact or message me.
It's not like they can do a whole lot about that in either case.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Very true, and kinda what I meant. They had to know they were gonna take a ding on this, losing that many high-visibility people all at once is never taken well. But eh. We'll see.
Please do not contact or message me.
I'm optimistic for the future. That said I'm also not buying Candlekeep anymore, at least until I'm sure all is well with DDB and the mission remains the same.
In the darkest part of my brain I imagine that there will be an announcement soon after CkM is launched that they are shifting focus to that other game system of theirs.
My theory is that the original content creation was just not holding up against the mass of really great content creators that are already out there. Not that the content here was bad, but being corporate content it means certain creative constraints. The "free" creators just can do whatever they want and its hard to compete. I have only read a few articles now and then and seen very few videos ever. When I visit this site I want to use great tools, not watch content.
There's also the fact that the Pandemic has led to a lot of people in all sorts of businesses re-examining what they want to be doing with their lives, and their futures. Now is a time that a lot of people are thinking about making that jump to the dream project they always wanted to do, or going in a whole new direction. Life is short, and all that.
Are people from dndbeyond being poached by other companies?
Is this a result of fandom being the owner now?
Are the people leaving being replaced by other people? I know you are, as you wrote.
We all know it's your duty to paint this thing as a positive thing, but we have to wonder what is the cause of this, and if we can rely on the continued support for the site or if we go into maintance mode, with so many wishlist features still not implemented, not to mention all the content people have bought through this site. It's only been 3 years since the site launched? It would be mighty early to throttle down development.
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
Same, not really interested in VTT yet, perhaps in the future with support for augmented reality. But for now, shall we try to get container support in our inventories?
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
I've got to agree that this many people leaving, combined with the sluggish pace of implementing new content, on top of the fact that new articles are getting fewer and further between, is quite concerning.
It gonna be ok
Forbes
With the pushing of the dice lately I wonder how that has affected perceptions as well.
It seems that lately they were more interested in pushing digital dice than talking about expanding current tools (Encounter builder is all but abandoned it feels like and the common tray was an interesting add but it doesn't integrate with their combat tracker?)
Just odd choices....felt like the microtransactions were getting pushed.
Big reason the combat tracker got held up was because the underlying infrastructure wasn't ready for the strain that it put on the system. The design of the API and the data it pulled caused massive server issues. So it had to be held up while underlying infrastructure changes were made, which because they are foundational are always a long haul because you don't want to screw things up with existing functionality, and you always want to make it as flexible as possible for additional future features. It's just something that had to come before more progress was spent on the Builder/Tracker.
That's not surprising. IT projects are just like any complicated machine - the bigger it gets, the more work it takes to update as so many moving parts need to be taken into account to try to avoid causing new problems. Even with the best designed systems, the larger and more stable it is, the more effort it takes to make changes, unfortunately.