Winx Club Online Mentions in Merch

[Hallowinxer]

I have the same card because I still have the ds game also and this card is so precious I didn't have any other merch with the codes but I remember seeing a few screenshots of winxclubonline on the Finnish Winx magazines. It's surprising to hear that some codes were worth of RCs! I never got access to them.

[korolyova]

I had a look at my magazines and...

[juleic1123]

I also found something really interesting in my blogger yesterday!

It also came with a code to get the exclusive plant and a few RCs.



if anyone wants to know... the magazine was as full of false information as the website when Garden of Charmix released.

It says, and I quote:

"Winx Club: Garden of Charmix
Save Domino with the Winx!
Become the protagonist of the most magical adventure on the web!

PLAYING IS VERY EASY:

Go to http://www.winxclub.com and register.
Enter the GARDEN OF CHARMIX section.
Customize your account as you like.
Create your fairy!

Click "PLAY" and the adventure begins!"

First mislead: it wasn't Play but "Featured". There was no play text. Not even in spanish, which also says Featured (Destacado).

Then...

The Winx are waiting for you at http://www.winxclub.com. They're ready for any challenge in a fantastic adventure to save and bring life to the Kingdom of Domino. Evil forces are attacking this magical place, drying up its waters and flowers. But don't worry! The Winx and the Trix will face off to stop them.

Second mislead: It was only a "simulation" just like Bloom's, we weren't actually in Domino.

EXPLORE MANY NEW PLACES:
A magical walk through Magix and more... surprises await you!

There were no new places

MAKE THE FLOWERS GROW:
Thanks to your powers, Domino will once again be a land of flowers.

TRANSFORM INTO A TRUE FAIRY:
Use your magic to unlock new powers.

FIGHT ENEMIES:
The Trix are more ruthless than ever... stop them!

[natie]

Wow, what issue is this?

I find the words "PLAYING IS VERY EASY" misleading as well... I remember we had to download some file to run the game, and it was really scary for kids. There were lots of messages like "My parents won't let me download this! Are you sure there are no viruses???" And then, even after you managed to launch the game, you would still get some kind of error on the loading screen and couldn't play it. Or it would freeze quickly, and you had no idea what to do about it... It was especially common during the Garden of Charmix
I'm laughing now, but it was actually really frustrating and kind of sad.

Not to mention that Russian users first had to somehow find a link to the English version of the website. Almost all of us didn't understand English, but we had no choice because it was impossible to enter the game from the Russian site (well, at least it was a good English practice )

[Alexarion]

Wow, what issue is this?

I find the words "PLAYING IS VERY EASY" misleading as well... I remember we had to download some file to run the game, and it was really scary for kids. There were lots of messages like "My parents won't let me download this! Are you sure there are no viruses???" And then, even after you managed to launch the game, you would still get some kind of error on the loading screen and couldn't play it. Or it would freeze quickly, and you had no idea what to do about it... It was especially common during the Garden of Charmix
I'm laughing now, but it was actually really frustrating and kind of sad.

Not to mention that Russian users first had to somehow find a link to the English version of the website. Almost all of us didn't understand English, but we had no choice because it was impossible to enter the game from the Russian site (well, at least it was a good English practice )

I relate to that so much. My biggest memory of WA is just a loading screen. I didn´t get around much. Only in my room, inviting friends, going through the town. That´s it

[juleic1123]

Wow, what issue is this?

I find the words "PLAYING IS VERY EASY" misleading as well... I remember we had to download some file to run the game, and it was really scary for kids. There were lots of messages like "My parents won't let me download this! Are you sure there are no viruses???" And then, even after you managed to launch the game, you would still get some kind of error on the loading screen and couldn't play it. Or it would freeze quickly, and you had no idea what to do about it... It was especially common during the Garden of Charmix
I'm laughing now, but it was actually really frustrating and kind of sad.

Not to mention that Russian users first had to somehow find a link to the English version of the website. Almost all of us didn't understand English, but we had no choice because it was impossible to enter the game from the Russian site (well, at least it was a good English practice )

Not sure, I just found that in the middle of my files on my blogger, not even sure if I can find it online anymore

EDIT: Found it here: https://www.winxcluball.com/2012/03/nue ... venta.html with google lens!

Funnily enough, the magazine was released in March 2012. Less than a month before the closure announcement.

And I feel that 100%. Poor russian and dutch websites that had to find the english URL

To play the game, you had to install Unity Web Player, which was notoriously buggy. On top of that, Windows Defender would constantly flag it as untrustworthy, creating even more frustration. Back then, ensuring a safe source for such downloads was costly, and sadly, the official Winx website wasn't exactly a paragon of reliability. Even today, their SSL certificate often struggles to function properly because they don't pay for the SSL automatically, even last year they had their website labeled as not secure for two whole months because they didn't pay for it, let alone in 2010 when it wasn't a big of a deal.

The game taking ages to load wasn't entirely the game's fault—it was more on Unity Web Player being riddled with issues. It's no surprise that Unity Web Player was eventually discontinued, not long after the official Winx Adventure closed. Even if the game didn't close, they'd need to find another way to run it because web player was discontinued in 2014.

That said, our remake will avoid those pitfalls. While you'll still need to download the game, it'll be a standalone PC game this time. All you'll need is to be logged into the website, and that's it! Loading times are much faster, and the game runs smoothly—no more freezing or buggy plugins getting in the way... (hopefully xD).

I really hope I can finish a stable version soon so that I can do a beta version at least again, it's been 11 years since our last attempt and I'd love to invite people to play it for a while again.

[juleic1123]

Wow, what issue is this?

I find the words "PLAYING IS VERY EASY" misleading as well... I remember we had to download some file to run the game, and it was really scary for kids. There were lots of messages like "My parents won't let me download this! Are you sure there are no viruses???" And then, even after you managed to launch the game, you would still get some kind of error on the loading screen and couldn't play it. Or it would freeze quickly, and you had no idea what to do about it... It was especially common during the Garden of Charmix
I'm laughing now, but it was actually really frustrating and kind of sad.

Not to mention that Russian users first had to somehow find a link to the English version of the website. Almost all of us didn't understand English, but we had no choice because it was impossible to enter the game from the Russian site (well, at least it was a good English practice )

I relate to that so much. My biggest memory of WA is just a loading screen. I didn´t get around much. Only in my room, inviting friends, going through the town. That´s it

A lot, and I mean A LOT of people complained about that. Even I complained about it. Sometimes just going to my room would take up to like 2-5 minutes

When they decreased Gardenia, that helped a bit, but it was still an extreme amount of time.

[Alexarion]

Aaaah Juleic you excite me so much with you talking about the new WA running so smoothly. I can‘t wait to try it out
I noticed you‘re good in talking about your passion and hyping us up

Hmm so my old PC with Windows XP wasn‘t at fault here. But it‘s kind of funny. I mean when a franchise creats an online game you’d expect them to test it out throughly to avoid any complications while playing yet all of us had problems

Same I‘m so excited to interact with everybody in real time then and just have a nice talk

You can do it! We believe in you and you came very far! It‘s just a little bit before you can finally release it. Fingers crossed. Your beta tester is ready

[juleic1123]

Aaaah Juleic you excite me so much with you talking about the new WA running so smoothly. I can‘t wait to try it out
I noticed you‘re good in talking about your passion and hyping us up

Hmm so my old PC with Windows XP wasn‘t at fault here. But it‘s kind of funny. I mean when a franchise creats an online game you’d expect them to test it out throughly to avoid any complications while playing yet all of us had problems

Same I‘m so excited to interact with everybody in real time then and just have a nice talk

You can do it! We believe in you and you came very far! It‘s just a little bit before you can finally release it. Fingers crossed. Your beta tester is ready

It’s my skills in writing scripts for episodes that make me sell the website and WA so well. It’s all about storytelling!

Jokes aside, I get what you mean, but I also think everyone, from the devs to Rainbow really tried to go big, and while they didn’t deliver everything they promised, I do think they gave it their best shot with the resources they had. At the end of the day, even with the bugs, I’ll still take that era of the website and games back over what we have now with the current official website and those mobile games on the Play Store. It’s just not the same and the effort is minimal.

As for Winx Adventure, I actually had a decent experience with it despite the loading times. I barely had trouble logging in, so at least I could play whenever I wanted. But yeah, I know that wasn’t the case for everyone, and bugs were everywhere. It’s wild to think about how hit-or-miss the experience was depending on who you asked.

I actually spoke with both development teams behind Winx Adventure. I found one team in 2017 and the other in 2021—the developers for The Garden of Charmix were separate from the main game developers. It’s honestly a bit heartbreaking. From what they shared with me (through personal emails, so I’ll keep it vague), they really did their best with what they had. They both clearly remember the game and seemed genuinely interested while talking about it, even though they weren’t aware of all the promises made at the time. It’s sad to think about what could have been if they had more support or better resources.

But the closure of the game wasn't really planned, the 2nd team worked on the new Gardenia, the Hallowinx event in 2011 and even Garden of Charmix, including the extra 20 chapters at least two months before its release. They were freelancers and not really hired with a contract. Rainbow said they'd contact them to do more but simply didn't. I can't tell why and they don't know either, but I'll just assume either the revenue didn't go as planned (which is weird, the game was filled with people in the portuguese version and I met so many people in the january 2012 my friendlist got full in like 2 days), or they really decided to close because of season 5.

We also need to remember they didn't have ONE Winx Adventure. Almost every language on the website was a different game altogether, so every update had to be done in every language version instead of simply one and due to that, the game(s) would take 4x the space on the server, adding the forums to it, it probably was pretty costly to maintain it. But I don't think it would be more expensive than what I'm paying now.

[Alexarion]

Yeah you‘re pretty good at advertising things. But no wonder. That‘s what passion does to us

I think you can clearly see that with all popular franchises. I mean just take a look at Maya the Bee. I grew up with the traditonal animation and nowadays everything is CGI. I know it‘s not the same as a big online game and a mobile game but back then, passion was the main focus, nowadays it‘s just milking the franchise and getting every cent out of it. I mean, sure. If you‘re a developer for a franchise, this is your job. You earn money though that and so on. But it was the same case back then and it wasn‘t just money but having a vision and transfer that to the audience. Btw. don‘t get me wrong CGI isn‘t the main reason why I think franchises go downhill. Also because it takes much less time. I get that. But it‘s often cheap CGI with not much shading, the pacing is very fast, the colors are too bright and colorful, the stories are lame. That‘s the connection my brain is often doing: Trad. Animation to CGI Not good.
I still prefer original animation. There sure are good CGI series and stuff but I can‘t think of any.

Btw. unpopular opinion here (maybe) but I feel the exactly same about the Winxclub Reboot I don‘t know how popular the last seasons were (and the Live Action) since I stopped watching Winxclub after season 4. But I kind of have a feeling the reboot might flop. The animation is top and the transformation but I fear the characters will lack personality or development. Just my prediction here.

It‘s nice to hear that you always have exciting stories to tell. What an honor to be able to talk with the original creators from WA It‘s so nice to hear that they were also very passionate about the developing! I really noticed that back then playing WA.

How many languages were it in the end? I think back then everything took much space and people didn‘t know how to save space from developed games 🤔