# Will 2011 be the last year of Wizards D&D?



## MerricB (Dec 15, 2010)

Wizards have spent 2010 in a state of one major stuff-up after another when it comes to D&D. They've mishandled a number of key initiatives so incredibly badly that they've managed to completely erode my support for them.

D&D Red Box: not compatible with any other product.

D&D Essentials: so much confusion as to what it is and who it is for.

D&D Insider: a worse disaster of implementation is hard to imagine.

So, will Wizards of the Coast still be making D&D at this time next year? Will anyone care?


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## Lancelot (Dec 15, 2010)

I hope not... because they've handled the product better than most other companies likely would have. 

In my group (8-10 players): 1) Red Box has been purchased by several players, for nostalgia if nothing else; 2) everyone loves Essentials; 3) we've had 4 players buy DDI subscriptions since the start of the year, and getting good use out of them.

WotC indeed has had some problems. But what's the alternative?


Give the license to White Wolf. They'll make you yearn for the good old days when a Realms-Shaking event only invalidated *some* of the material that had been previously released for the setting. Driz'zt will be more angsty than ever, and every class will be renamed to something like _Wizard: the Fireballing_, or _Fighter: the Meatshielding_.
Give the license to Fantasy Flight Games. D&D 5e will be a board game. It'll look incredible, and will have much better miniatures. But you'll need ten times as many "fiddly bits", and the game will be nigh unplayable until PH2, PH3, and the "revised" DMG are released.
Give the license to Mongoose Publishing. Wait for delays and disappointments in the release schedule. Eventually receive a sheepish apology that they _nearly_ had the D&D license, but another company actually got to it before them.
Give the license to Games Workshop. Get a new edition every 3 years. Every class has it's own "classbook" that must be purchased independently of the core rules, and your character mini costs $40 (paint and assembly not included; non-approved minis may not be used).
Give the license to Paizo. Watch them re-release 4e (relabelled as 5e), fixing none of the problems with the rules... but adding new complexity, and making it even harder for new players to get into the game.
Give the license to Palladium. Sound the trumpets for the arrival of the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
No offense intended to any of the fine companies above, who all have their niche in the grand mosaic which is our hobby. However, I'm a little sick of hearing about WotC's supposed destruction of D&D. 

At least they've been trying something new to simplify the game and attract new players. They've been fairly responsive to player feedback, both good and bad. Essentials, and some of the DDI initiatives, have been in direct response to some of what "we" have been saying. Their latest minis set has been one of the best ever. Some of the recent books have been exceptional: MM3 was one of the best MMs ever released, for any edition. The Dark Sun relaunch was good, and most people have been saying the Gamma World relaunch is _terrific_.

I hope they keep the license. I can forgive some of their mistakes, because I think they're good people, who mostly listen to their consumers, and continue providing me with quality gaming supplements for my dollars.


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## Nyronus (Dec 15, 2010)

MerricB said:


> Wizards have spent 2010 in a state of one major stuff-up after another when it comes to D&D. They've mishandled a number of key initiatives so incredibly badly that they've managed to completely erode my support for them.
> 
> D&D Red Box: not compatible with any other product.
> 
> ...




They see me troll'n, trying to catch me flame'n...

Or, to put it a more sarcastic way: No and making a second answer is arbitrary in light for the first.

The Red Box was hailed as a great success as a n00b spring board and only had two "incompatabilities" in it, namely the difference between the magic missiles and the rogue. Woo-hoo?

Essentials is also more or less a success. I don't see how it can be confusing. Its for store owners to always have in stock. That's about it. It includes some more simple classes for simpler players and some classic classes to try and get the more reasonable grognards to take a look. Its not rocket science. Furthermore I am confused as to why you being unable to tell who the company wanted to market a product too makes it a failure worthy of bankruptcy/selling the franchise. How does one reach this conclusion from the premises? I am once again underwhelmed by your accusations.

Finally is DDI. I assume that you meant the character builder, since that's the only place that they really have messed up... for all of a month. Its more or less fine now. I haven't had a problem since day two. Its slow and clunky, but then so was the old one. Furthermore, I can't complain since I, as a Mac user, now get personal access to a product I have been paying for for two years. Also, the oft under-appreciated Compendium has actually gotten upgrade and I can tell you that it's current form is way better than the previous one. You can also talk about the quality of the magazine, but its been decline for a while, and honestly its not horrible, merely a lot more hit or miss from its glory days of Revenants and Rust Monster Nightmares. Furthermore I take great offense to describing releasing a product a month to early in its development as "a worse disaster of implementation is hard to imagine." Really, you can't think of something worse? I can imagine a whole hell of a lot worse implementations in a split second, and, being a student of history, can name a whole hell of a lot worse ones without having to imagine them. Mis-informed and ludicrously over the top, so that's three strikes and _your *out!!!*_

Lets also not forget that Hasbro and even WotC itself are both so ludicrously rich that they can keep DnD alive as a pet project if they so wanted to. Barring the fact that the books and subscriptions are still selling, meaning this whole conversation is moot.

So, another post of hyperbole, WotC hate, and petty vengeful doomsaying? Nothing to see here folks. Move along.


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## Lancelot (Dec 15, 2010)

...and Merric: _please_ change your tagline from ENWorld Optimist.

Alanis Morissette is threatening to write a song about you, and _nobody_ wants that.


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## Almacov (Dec 15, 2010)

Okay, I hate what's happened to DDI, but I seriously doubt WotC will *drop* the D&D license, voluntarily or otherwise. They'll keep pushing product, and they'll find ways to make it sell.

Maybe they'll be selling less of it to _me_, but I'm sure they'll be profitable.

I'm sure they'll lose a few customers. I'm sure I'll be spending more elsewhere.

I don't wish them any ill though. There are moves I've liked and moves I haven't. 
I just hope they learn from each of them.


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## Mithreinmaethor (Dec 15, 2010)

The title and this thread is just full of fail.

Please change the title to "What I hope happens to WOTC because I am unhappy"

What made you think this was a worthwhile thing to post? Dropping in just to insult the thread starter is poor form, and you've been here long enough to know that.


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## jonesy (Dec 15, 2010)

Lancelot said:


> ...Games Workshop...non-approved minis may not be used...



What does that refer to? I don't remember them ever putting that in the rules. Or did they?


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## Kurtomatic (Dec 15, 2010)

Yep, time for a title change!  

I have to agree that all the existential angst about the _meaning_ of Essentials is on the wrong side of the signal-to-noise ratio. Essentials is for selling D&D in Target and Walmart (huge US retail chains) with a handful of idiot-proof SKUs. Period. Everything else related to Essentials is just icing, and while worth discussing, would not exist without this fact. I would expect you of all people to get that idea.

WotC can afford to screw up DDI if it nets enough volume from mass-retailers. (That wouldn't make that not suck, of course!)

I think _all_ the problems we are seeing from D&D right now are the result of inadequate manpower and scrooged-down budgets. So I don't think its a crazy question to ask what the hell is going on, but I do think you're exaggerating some of your individual points.


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## BobTheNob (Dec 15, 2010)

Wow. If your car gets a flat tire, do you assume its going to explode?


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## Destil (Dec 15, 2010)

Kurtomatic said:


> I think _all_ the problems we are seeing from D&D right now are the result of inadequate manpower and scrooged-down budgets. So I don't think its a crazy question to ask what the hell is going on, but I do think you're exaggerating some of your individual points.




I'd wager quite a bit of the need for the online versions of CB and the like is entirely because of some decree from on high (either legal or corporate leadership) in regards to piracy. Remember, WotC pulled down ALL official PDF support because of piracy. It's the stupidest move they've made since they started 4E and really shows that they "just don't get it" when it comes to the realities of a modern digital marketplace.

The new CB is an improvement in many areas, but primarily UI and still lacks some of the under the hood features the offline one has. This is exactly what I'd expect from a team forced to bring the data onto their servers, and they at least made good use of the lessons learned from the original.

But the whole reason for the existence of it just shows how utterly incompetent Wizards leadership is when it comes to digital (aside from Magic Online, which I'm sure makes money hand over fist).

No question that they'll still be printing books. But their online strategy is something else entirely (how much effort are they spending on VTT? Have you even seen the most recent 4E maptools frameworks? Beaten to the market by years and for free).


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## abyssaldeath (Dec 15, 2010)

BobTheNob said:


> Wow. If your car gets a flat tire, do you assume its going to explode?



You mean I'm not suppose to run 500ft away and wait ten minutes to make sure it's safe? Damn it, so much time wasted.


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## Infiniti2000 (Dec 15, 2010)

Kurtomatic said:


> So I don't think its a crazy question to ask what the hell is going on, but I do think you're exaggerating some of your individual points.




But, if people don't exaggerate, how will they be able to claim the sky is falling?


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## CasvalRemDeikun (Dec 15, 2010)

Almacov said:


> Okay, I hate what's happened to DDI, but I seriously doubt WotC will lose the D&D license, voluntarily or otherwise. They'll keep pushing product, and they'll find ways to make it sell.



 There isn't a license to lose, they (and by they I mean Hasbro) own it.  They would have to sell it, and I don't think there is a RPG company out there with the capital to afford it.  Besides, the likelihood of Hasbro selling off D&D is about as likely as them selling off Transformers or My Little Pony.


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## Chzbro (Dec 15, 2010)

I'm no shrink, but I feel comfortable saying that the kind of negativity we've been seeing on these boards lately can't be healthy. Especially since it has lost all sense of perspective.

You'd think WotC had been out bombing our ancestral villages or kicking random puppies. They are not worse than BP and Al Qaida combined. They make a game, and sometimes their decisions concerning that game don't match our expectations...but despite that the game remains playable (and continues to get better as a whole).

All this angst and crying makes me feel like I'm back in high school and my best friend's girlfriend just broke up with him. Now I have to listen to him moan about how evil and soulless she is while I nod sympathetically and roll my eyes when he's not looking.

Yes. WotC treated you with less sensitivity than you think you deserve. It's not that big a deal. Look around. Most WotC customers didn't even notice. We're continuing to play and enjoy the game even if a few others aren't. You can join us. It's just a game and WotC is just a company--and believe it or not, it's a company that treats its customers a lot better than most other companies do.

Take a deep breath, think about starving children in Ethiopia and war orphans in Darfur, and then try again to convince me that the way WotC mishandled DDI this month is really worth getting bent out of shape over.

You *should* tell them what makes you unhappy, and you *should not* pay for a service that you don't care for. But posting about it incessantly is self-indulgent and smacks a bit of wallowing in your own misery.

(This is not directed at Merric, who is one of my favorite posters on these boards. But these pity-party threads have got to stop. And people have to stop popping in to every discussion just to make sure everyone else knows that they're not going to pay for DDI anymore. We get it. Stop talking about doing it and just do it. If you decide to come back later, we'll still be here and we won't think any less of you.)


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## Derulbaskul (Dec 15, 2010)

Actually, Merric, this is something I have suspected for some time.

TTRPGs don't make money. That's a simple fact. However, we do know that Hasbro loves IP. We've basically come to the end of the 4E life-cycle, with Essentials representing a 3.5E-like attempt to rejuvenate the brand. That makes sense if the goal is to sell the licence to the TTRPG.

D&D also doesn't have anyone with real Hasbro clout running it. The ostensible head is Bill Slavicsek and, while he might be an effective administrator internally in some respects, he really has failed to display leadership externally. 

The fact that DDi has become such a disaster product- and publicity-wise without any intervention from a senior level just shows the lack of leadership within the D&D team.

Furthermore, at a time when Paizo is having great success with its PDFs we see WotC still without a digital offering. The withdrawal of WotC's PDFs from the market was a mistake but it also shows that the D&D team has no clout internally. The lawyers told them it had to be done to stop piracy and the bent over and grabbed their ankles. Obviously, it has done nothing to slow or stop the piracy of WotC books but everyone feels better because something was done (and I can imagine the meeting where they all said, "Harrumph!"). But the main point is that there was nobody there with enough clout to thank the lawyers for their advice but then make a commercial decision.

So, inadequate returns plus the absence of an internal champion with any real clout would suggest that the TTRPG licence will be on the auction block sooner or later.


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## renau1g (Dec 15, 2010)

CasvalRemDeikun said:


> There isn't a license to lose, they (and by they I mean Hasbro) own it.  They would have to sell it, and I don't think there is a RPG company out there with the capital to afford it.  Besides, the likelihood of Hasbro selling off D&D is about as likely as them selling off Transformers or My Little Pony.




Sadly for us, D&D is nowhere near the size of any of Hasbro's core toy lines. Yes, that includes Nerf, Transformers, and even My Little Pony. I've read a lot of analysis of the company (which _is_ doing extremely well) and there was not a peep about anything RPG related, neither the upcoming Neverwinter Game, the Essentials Launch, etc. Nothing. Therefore it's so small that analysts don't consider it affecting their bottom line.

just saying... and if the price was right...anyone would sell. It's all about how much.


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## MerricB (Dec 15, 2010)

CasvalRemDeikun said:


> There isn't a license to lose, they (and by they I mean Hasbro) own it.  They would have to sell it, and I don't think there is a RPG company out there with the capital to afford it.  Besides, the likelihood of Hasbro selling off D&D is about as likely as them selling off Transformers or My Little Pony.




Another option is that they just _don't produce it_. They sit on it for a while.

(Although an imperfect parallel, consider the Doctor Who show...)

There are things that Wizards have done well this year, but to quite some extent their marketing and planning seem to be in disarray.


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## CasvalRemDeikun (Dec 15, 2010)

MerricB said:


> Another option is that they just _don't produce it_. They sit on it for a while.



 This is the most likely thing they would do if they weren't satisfied with D&D's performance.


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## Jack99 (Dec 15, 2010)

/facepalm

Seriously MerricB? Seriously??? Hyperboles galore and (silly) assumptions? 

Maybe you should have asked:
Will 2011 be the last year that MerricB plays D&D?

The rest of us do not mind buying the kickass game they make, no matter a  digital initiative or a few hickups here and there in marketing.


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## fanboy2000 (Dec 15, 2010)

MerricB said:


> Another option is that they just _don't produce it_. They sit on it for a while.



Unlikely. 



> (Although an imperfect parallel, consider the Doctor Who show...)



A better analogy is Transformers. Transformers have been around for over a quarter of century and have been released in multiple forms. It has fans from the 80s, as well as more recent fans. It also has a panicy fanbase. Every itteration from the originals to Prime has had it's fans and it's detractors. They've also had varying degrees of success. 



> There are things that Wizards have done well this year, but to quite some extent their marketing and planning seem to be in disarray.



What's happing is this: electronic media is the future of the hobby and Wizards simply doesn't know what to do about that. In the 90s, it was fine: just put up a website with a bunch of free content like and call it a day. In the 2000s you needed a message board. Wizards was also selling pdfs. Heck, they seemed to almost be keeping pace. 

But now we've ran into a problem. The internet is the best way to distribute errata, periodical contact, and books. It's perfect for rpgs. It's also incredibly easy to copy and distribute unauthorized copies. Everything you put up on a web server is subject to unauthorized copying. As a result of that, their paralyzed with fear. Wizards keeps running around trying to figure out how to handle it, and rather than simply pick a method and live with it, they keep seesawing.

Consider this: if the Character Builder had been online from the beginning and stayed that way we'd probably 1) have a better CB, and 2) people'd be used to it. People who can't or don't want to use an online CB would have moved on by now. But instead, they decided to switch while the old CB still needed work.

Also consider this: if they had stuck with the old CB, we'd have a better CB right now. Yes, there'd be some unauthorized copying. But it was likely still turing a profit. And, if it was steadily improving (instead of being re-invented) people'd have a positive view of it, regardless of it's problems. 

But instead, they decided to switch while things weren't so good and now we're back at square one. 

Also, I think another problem is that their marketing is overanalyzed. When I go to buy Trivial Pursuit, I don't really sweat if it's the SuperBrain Edition, or the GreatThinkers Expert Cut. I just buy the one that looks like it has questions I can answer. But we're like "OMG! What's up with the SuperBrain! This is like Genus IV all over agin! It's going to be to hard for the new players! WTF!"

Like your own PR, no one should ever buy their own analysis of Wizards actions.


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## Zhou Yu (Dec 15, 2010)

renau1g said:


> Sadly for us, D&D is nowhere near the size of any of Hasbro's core toy lines. Yes, that includes Nerf, Transformers, and even My Little Pony. I've read a lot of analysis of the company (which _is_ doing extremely well) and there was not a peep about anything RPG related, neither the upcoming Neverwinter Game, the Essentials Launch, etc. Nothing. Therefore it's so small that analysts don't consider it affecting their bottom line.
> 
> just saying... and if the price was right...anyone would sell. It's all about how much.




Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast are still DIFFERENT companies. WotC is simply OWNED by Hasbro. or a subsidary. 

Either way, the reason why only Hasbro stuff was listed in the Hasbro releases is because Hasbro only has to peddle Hasbro products.

WotC products gets peddled by WotC, not by its parent company.


And OP, of course D&D is ending in 2011. That's why we only know a lot of the releases for the first six months of next year. Obviously that means they're not interested in D&D whatsoever, and will give it up next summer! I mean, if they can't plan everything out forever, that means it's done!


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## WalterKovacs (Dec 15, 2010)

renau1g said:


> Sadly for us, D&D is nowhere near the size of any of Hasbro's core toy lines. Yes, that includes Nerf, Transformers, and even My Little Pony. I've read a lot of analysis of the company (which _is_ doing extremely well) and there was not a peep about anything RPG related, neither the upcoming Neverwinter Game, the Essentials Launch, etc. Nothing. Therefore it's so small that analysts don't consider it affecting their bottom line.
> 
> just saying... and if the price was right...anyone would sell. It's all about how much.




Does it even include any information on Magic in that analysis? It would probably be better to analyze DnD's place within Wizards more so than Hasbro as a whole, since odds are that Wizards as a whole is only a small part of Hasbro's line. And if nothing else, MTG's IP is arguably not as strong as DnD's (there has yet to be a MTG movie or cartoon, and much fewer video games based on the MTG liscense, etc). The whole Wizard's division is targetting a niche market compared to most of the rest of what Hasbro does, so they obviously have different goals.


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## Shemeska (Dec 15, 2010)

Destil said:


> (how much effort are they spending on VTT? Have you even seen the most recent 4E maptools frameworks? Beaten to the market by years and for free).




Less than they spent on the VTT the first time around. That said, it looks like WotC purchased the framework for their VTT mk2 from another company, gametableonline. Anyone I knew internally has long since resigned or been fired, so I can't confirm it, but its been bandied about in a few places online.


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## Grabuto138 (Dec 15, 2010)

WalterKovacs said:


> Does it even include any information on Magic in that analysis? It would probably be better to analyze DnD's place within Wizards more so than Hasbro as a whole, since odds are that Wizards as a whole is only a small part of Hasbro's line. And if nothing else, MTG's IP is arguably not as strong as DnD's (there has yet to be a MTG movie or cartoon, and much fewer video games based on the MTG liscense, etc). The whole Wizard's division is targetting a niche market compared to most of the rest of what Hasbro does, so they obviously have different goals.




I have to concur with renau1g. The analysis I have read DOES include references to Magic. But as far as I can tell Dungeons and Dragons is a complete nonissue for investors. I suspect, it it is only my opinion, that Hasbro bought WOTC for Magic and a vague hope of somehow monetizing the D&D brand through film, cartoons, toys etc. So long as it is not a meaningful money/administrative drain I'd bet they are happy to just mark time.


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## I'm A Banana (Dec 15, 2010)

> But now we've ran into a problem. The internet is the best way to distribute errata, periodical contact, and books. It's perfect for rpgs. It's also incredibly easy to copy and distribute unauthorized copies. Everything you put up on a web server is subject to unauthorized copying. As a result of that, their paralyzed with fear. Wizards keeps running around trying to figure out how to handle it, and rather than simply pick a method and live with it, they keep seesawing.




Their use of the internet went from prescient, ahead-of-its-time, and bold in 2000 (SRD! OGL!) to cutting their nose to spite their face in 2010 (CB, DDI, PDF's). At this rate, they will be back to 1980 by 2020, so 6e is clearly going to be a MUD. 

Hyperbolic doomsdaying aside (ha!), I really think WotC will be cool with D&D for quite a while. If Essentials serves a similar business function as 3.5 ("sales are lagging, we need to boost them, lets re-write the rules!"), though, I wouldn't be surprised to see a 5e sooner than later, though I'd imagine it would be very close in design to 4e the sooner it is. And it might not even be called "5e." And it might just be a board game.  

At any rate, there will be _something_ with the D&D name that involves killing things and taking their stuff and leveling up. That's a really broad requirement, though, and whatever it might be might not be something that's lots of fun for me. But heck, I'm a spoiled American consumer. I've got _millions_ of people begging me to give them my chump change. If D&D ain't gonna do it anymore, I'll play Pathfinder or fire up some Diablo.

If D&D wants to keep doing it, one of the things I might consider is giving a pink slip to whatever suit has been running the electronic side of things into the muck over some bogeyman fear of piracy and hiring someone who groks the idea that your weak-sauce IP is worthless if no one wants to play your game of make-believe.

Anyway, I'm pretty confident in the immediate future of 4e. 2011, they'll be fine. 2012, 2013...well, we'll see what they look like on the other side of this econopocalypse. 5 years might not be too short for an edition's lifetime.


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## Infernal Teddy (Dec 15, 2010)

What most people online don't seem to get is that most D&D Players just DON'T SEEM TO CARE about DDI. Just as most D&D Players never sign up to any forums.


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## wedgeski (Dec 15, 2010)

Jeez get over it Merric. Your posts are mutating from must-reads into bin fodder.


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## DracoSuave (Dec 15, 2010)

Profitable game is profitable.

Everything else is Fear and Loathing.


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## Cyronax (Dec 15, 2010)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Anyway, I'm pretty confident in the immediate future of 4e. 2011, they'll be fine. 2012, 2013...well, we'll see what they look like on the other side of this econopocalypse. 5 years might not be too short for an edition's lifetime.




The nearly decade long lifespans of D&D's various editions are really more of an outlier in the general RPG industry. That can probably be attributed to name recognition, quality of the product, and D&D first-in-the-industry status. 

I wouldn't be surprised by newer editions coming much sooner or a constantly evolving business model (more emphasis on boardgames and less on dense rulebooks).


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## avin (Dec 15, 2010)

Nyronus said:


> Finally is DDI. I assume that you meant the character builder, since that's the only place that they really have messed up... for all of a month.




Wrong, wrong and wrong.

Lack of quality on Dungeon and Dragon has skyrocketed.

More than a year without templates for monsters in MB, not counting all the bugs...

CB "delays".

CB online FIASCO and soon to happen MB online fiasco.

VTT canned.

DDI has a lot of merits but saying that there was just a single problem isn't true at all.


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## MerricB (Dec 15, 2010)

On the optimistic side: we haven't heard about the regular Christmas Wizards layoffs yet, have we? 

I'm in a funny, conflicted place at present. Wizards have done a lot of really solid design and development work in 2010: Essentials is 4e designed by people who now understand the system (like 3.5e was mostly design by people who knew what 3e was about).

New systems are hard. They really, really are.

The Castle Ravenloft boardgame sold out. That is impressive.

Meanwhile, Wizards have been infuriating me with their less-than-stellar handling of DDi. They've made a few statements that are just flat-out wrong. (Yes, we *have* lost a lot of functionality with the new CB, sorry Paulo). And the inaccuracies with the Red Box (mainly thief, but there are others) mean that I really don't feel I can recommend it to new players.

The other part of my apprehension can be understood by looking at the books that Wizards have already put out. At this point, slightly over 2 years since 4e was released, the list of books that cover the core topics is pretty comprehensive. 

When we look at what's coming up - after we subtract Dungeon Tiles and Essential books that redo what we have before, the list for 2011 so far is pretty thin:

Player's Option: Heroes of Shadow - March 15 2011
Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium - April 19 2011
The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond. Box set - May 17 2011
Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale Box set - June 21 2011
Player's Option Handbook: Champions of the Heroic Tier - July 19 2011
Neverwinter Campaign Guide Forgotten Realms - August 2011

(I may be kind leaving in the Monster Vault and Heroes of Shadow).

Meanwhile, in that time we should (hopefully) get two D&D board games. I'm really looking forward to them. It's good for the D&D brand to be more than just the RPG. But what does this mean for the RPG?

If we're lucky, there are unannounced books in the pipeline.

Cheers!


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## GreyLord (Dec 15, 2010)

Merric, you should look up some of my stuff regarding the problems with marketing that WotC has been having (and which I think many yelled me down upon these boards).

Overall...I think many underestimate the spread of the Red Box.  I believe it's less successful than it was originally HOPED to be...but FAR more successful than many here probably think...in fact it may be many times more successful than what some here think...but far from some expectations at Hasbro.

I think it depends on what occurs with the next step after this.  If the Red Box gathers a LOT of the old crowd to advance to the next level...aka...try essential or other D&D 4e items, it could lead to a nice little resurgence...

At the same time, it's hard to say.  Hopefully things will sell well and WotC will produce a nice little profit with the D&D brand.  The boardgame market shows a little promise, and there are products for WotC that are already (at least I understand that there are...no official words from Hasbro or WotC) planned for 2011 AND 2012.


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## Morrus (Dec 15, 2010)

Almacov said:


> Okay, I hate what's happened to DDI, but I seriously doubt WotC will lose the D&D license, voluntarily or otherwise.




WotC doesn't have a license for D&D.  It owns it; it doesn't need a license.


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## Dice4Hire (Dec 15, 2010)

MerricB said:


> I'm in a funny, conflicted place at present. Wizards have done a lot of really solid design and development work in 2010: Essentials is 4e designed by people who now understand the system (like 3.5e was mostly design by people who knew what 3e was about).




Then please put this in the original post. The OP reads like cynical meets pessimist with a dose of suicidal.


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## Dausuul (Dec 15, 2010)

Destil said:


> But the whole reason for the existence of it just shows how utterly incompetent Wizards leadership is when it comes to digital (aside from Magic Online, which I'm sure makes money hand over fist).




Speaking as a software developer, I can think of a whole heap of reasons why they'd want to turn it into a web app, other than piracy concerns. Web apps are far easier to maintain, troubleshoot, and update; you don't have to worry about what bizarre stuff may be running on the client machine, and getting your app to run on a Mac goes from "major project" to "trivial."

Frankly, given how often they need to update it with new content, CB should have been a web app from the beginning.


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## Zaran (Dec 15, 2010)

How can WotC lose the license when they are selling us more, with less staff, for higher profit?  Who cares if it most of the product they sell is either digital or targetted at 3.5e players or that it's inferior quality?  We will still buy it in hopes that things will improve.


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## KarinsDad (Dec 15, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> Frankly, given how often they need to update it with new content, CB should have been a web app from the beginning.




No, it should be both.

There are a lot of users who have many valid reasons for prefering the offline version.

I'm one of them. I do a lot of my DM work offline while waiting for my daughter at various activities. I'm totally offline at that point.

All of DDI, not just Character Builder, should be both offline and online to meet customer demand and expectations. It shouldn't be an either / or proposition. And, all of DDI should be constantly kept up to date with features to handle new (now Essentials) rules. For example, the Compendium should be able to sort by rarity of items, just like the online Character Builder can (sort of) do. The Monster Builder should have all 4100 creatures in it, not just 2500.

A decision got made at WotC to go online and it was a very costly decision that will probably mean that they have less capital in which to meet customer expectations and to launch even more product. A company lives based on how much quality product they push out the door and how well they satisfy their customers. Only time will tell if the monetary expense of the online only solution will ultimately result in more sales. It seems unlikely at this point, but nobody has a working crystal ball yet.


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## UnknownAtThisTime (Dec 15, 2010)

Derulbaskul said:


> TTRPGs don't make money. That's a simple fact.




At the risk of sounding like _that internet forum guy, _can you cite the source here?  I am honestly curious what D&D brings to the bottom line of a company, as well as what the goodwill is calculated to be.

Thanks in advance.


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## Windjammer (Dec 15, 2010)

Lancelot said:


> WotC indeed has had some problems. But what's the alternative?
> 
> 
> Give the license to Fantasy Flight Games. D&D 5e will be a board game. It'll look incredible, and will have much better miniatures. But you'll need ten times as many "fiddly bits", and the game will be nigh unplayable until PH2, PH3, and the "revised" DMG are released.




Yes, I can see _my_ response to that in 2011:

"Pleeeez! Give us back WotC! I want to shell out 10 dollars for 3 plastic guys with ridiculous molds, painted in 2-3 colours. I want to shell out 40 dollars for a supplement with a promise of fixed skill challenge DCs, only to find out that these received even _less_ playtesting than the ones in DMG 1. I YEARN for the times when D&D was cheap and playtested!"


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## TerraDave (Dec 15, 2010)

Hi Merric

I have had some threads like this over the last 5 months or so. 

You’re have long been one of the Wotcies biggest defenders. And I am the keeper of the “complete” list of 4E products. And here we are. 

You don’t really think that they will throw it in. Well maybe you do. What I think you are is _disappointed_. You old minis website probably helped move $‘000s in pre-painted plastic. Your posts here also certainly helped sales, certainly more then a lot of WotC’s so called marketing.

And now they have muffed it. They were clearly trying to claw back market share, relevance, profitability. It was exciting. But just when sharp execution was needed, they failed.

Still, the potential is there. They can pull it together. Crazier things have happened. 

In any case I know how you feel.


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## The_Gneech (Dec 15, 2010)

Erf ... well, Merric, uh welcome(?) to the state of mind many of us have been in for two years now. I'm sad to see the Obstinate Optimist having such a crisis of faith (as it were), but I think I can pretty honestly say I know how you feel.

That said, I don't think _D&D_ is going anywhere any time soon. It's survived a lot worse things than 4E.  But if it ends up being in a state that you don't care for, just pick some other system and keep on rollin'. WotC needs us -- but we don't need WotC.

-The Gneech


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## Dragonhelm (Dec 15, 2010)

Lancelot said:


> ...and Merric: _please_ change your tagline from ENWorld Optimist.




Sorry, Merric, but I have to agree.  The last few posts I've seen from you have been far more negative.  

My guess is that you've gotten so into this that it's affecting you in a negative way.  Been there and done that.  My advice is to step away for a while.  Read a good book, watch some Stargate: Universe, but get away from the game and, more to the point, from message boards.  They have a way of bringing you down.  I know I get the same way at times.

The truth of the matter is that people have predicted the end of D&D since it began.  People have predicted the end of WotC's run with D&D since WotC gained it.  And yet it persists.

Has WotC made mistakes?  Sure.  But so have other companies.  It's just more pronounced with WotC since they own the D&D brand and are the big boys on the block.

Gaming should be fun.  It shouldn't be about corporate politics.  So maybe it's time to put aside all this anti-WotC animosity, and play the game our way.  If they deliver, great.  And if not, there are options.


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## renau1g (Dec 15, 2010)

Zhou Yu said:


> Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast are still DIFFERENT companies. WotC is simply OWNED by Hasbro. or a subsidary.
> 
> Either way, the reason why only Hasbro stuff was listed in the Hasbro releases is because Hasbro only has to peddle Hasbro products.
> 
> ...




Please read the post I quoted. I was responding to CasvalRemDeikun about their comment that Hasbro (yes Hasbro, not WotC) would never sell off D&D, and then likened it to Transformers or My Little Pony. I corrected that as for investors (read owners of said company) & analysts don't give two hoots about D&D as it has little to no effect relative to their major lines. To liken D&D to Transformers is wrong. Hasbro makes boatloads of money from that line, so therefore it is material to their financials and therefore analysts discuss them. D&D is not. MTG is marginally so, I've seen it mentioned a couple times here and there. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they will sell off the brand, but rather that it's not one of their core pillars like the aforementioned brands are. 



WalterKovacs said:


> Does it even include any information on Magic in that analysis? It would probably be better to analyze DnD's place within Wizards more so than Hasbro as a whole, since odds are that Wizards as a whole is only a small part of Hasbro's line. And if nothing else, MTG's IP is arguably not as strong as DnD's (there has yet to be a MTG movie or cartoon, and much fewer video games based on the MTG liscense, etc). The whole Wizard's division is targetting a niche market compared to most of the rest of what Hasbro does, so they obviously have different goals.




D&D has also been around far longer than MTG and yes they made a disastrous movie, which almost broke even at the box office... 



Grabuto138 said:


> I have to concur with renau1g. The analysis I have read DOES include references to Magic. But as far as I can tell Dungeons and Dragons is a complete nonissue for investors. I suspect, it it is only my opinion, that Hasbro bought WOTC for Magic and a vague hope of somehow monetizing the D&D brand through film, cartoons, toys etc. So long as it is not a meaningful money/administrative drain I'd bet they are happy to just mark time.




This. MTG has been mentioned in info about the company, not so much D&D.


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## Dausuul (Dec 15, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> No, it should be both.




And we should drive cars that get 100 miles to the gallon and cost $1,000 with no loss of speed, acceleration, safety, or passenger capacity.

It would be an absolute nightmare to build two parallel apps and keep them both up-to-date and compatible with each other. There would have to be major demand to justify such a thing, and I seriously doubt that kind of demand exists. How much extra are you willing to pay for this functionality?


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## MrMyth (Dec 15, 2010)

I'm going to chime in with... no, 2011 won't be the end of WotC D&D. 

Nor, honestly, do I see any evidence remotely along those lines. Despite the few speedbumps, Essentials seems to have been a success. 

DDI has certainly had issues. But I think most of those have stemmed from the transition - I would not be surprised if, 6 months from now, we have a smoothly working online Character Builder and Monster Builder, along with a successful release of the VTT. Possibly with other tools (finally) on the way. The complaints now are entirely merited, of course - but having weathered the period of complaints and refunds and cancellations, I think DDI has nowhere to go but up. 

In addition, we've seen the success of Dark Sun, Gamma World, the Ravenloft board game - and we've got more board games coming, as well as a 4E CRPG. No idea how decent those products will be, but they all offer more chances to build the brand and bring in more players. 

And even if none of these elements pan out, I don't WotC has done _anything_ so disastrous as to cripple the brand. Hopefully their mistakes have been just enough of a problem to get them to notice the response and improve those issues in the future, but I can't see any reasonable scenario that possibly results in D&D being sold off or shut down.


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## MrMyth (Dec 15, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> And we should drive cars that get 100 miles to the gallon and cost $1,000 with no loss of speed, acceleration, safety, or passenger capacity.
> 
> It would be an absolute nightmare to build two parallel apps and keep them both up-to-date and compatible with each other. There would have to be major demand to justify such a thing, and I seriously doubt that kind of demand exists. How much extra are you willing to pay for this functionality?




Actually, I think they could have done this - note the next few months with a significant slow-down in D&D products. That would have given a solid period to maintain the old CB while running actual beta-testing of the new one. And, 4 months from now or so, finally launch the new one and cease updates on the old. 

But they chose to do otherwise, and I think at this point reversing course would end up even more of a disaster. I think the new CB will be decent eventually, but yeah... right now, it is not in a great state, and I think they had a better way to go about it. 

I'm not sure what the heart of the problem was - did orders come down from on high that they couldn't argue with? Were they simply overconfident in how smooth their new CB would run? Some combination of the two?

Either way, they've made their decision, and that's that.


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## FabioMilitoPagliara (Dec 15, 2010)

I want to add my 2 eurocents 

essential, boardgames, adventure with cards/tiles and monster vaults are a move to keep the game, and the players, in the shops (maybe you can get the rules from the insider but not the tiles/card/boxes)

on the web side they are trying to get subscriptions with digital content and tools

they are trying to move the game beyond it's actual niche (boardgames, videogames)

what can we expect in the future?

I would expect more boardgames, more rpg like Gamma World (after the ravenloft rpg they should come out with a "classical" box rpg... now it's too early after the essential launch)

so less books, more stand alone games, a few more box/adventure/supplement


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## Shemeska (Dec 15, 2010)

MerricB said:


> On the optimistic side: we haven't heard about the regular Christmas Wizards layoffs yet, have we?




With several other rounds of layoffs during the year, and some resignations, I'm not so sure that they can lay off anyone else and still function. There's lots of speculation that they're seriously understaffed in the D&D area, and if so it really wouldn't surprise me if there aren't any layoffs this year for Xmas because staff seems to be so lean already.


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## Aegeri (Dec 15, 2010)

I am extremely unhappy with Wizarrds right now in terms of their DDI offerings and decisions myself. But I am still going to be playing DnD well into 2013 even if I decided not to buy anything else. That's very unlikely given how much is coming out that I am actually still excited about.


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## Dausuul (Dec 15, 2010)

MrMyth said:


> Actually, I think they could have done this - note the next few months with a significant slow-down in D&D products. That would have given a solid period to maintain the old CB while running actual beta-testing of the new one. And, 4 months from now or so, finally launch the new one and cease updates on the old.




Oh, I agree that they should have continued support for the old one until the new one was ready for prime time. The rollout of the new CB was badly mishandled.

What I'm objecting to is the idea of supporting _both_ apps in perpetuity. WotC has made some missteps, but their end goal of having a web-based Character Builder (and only a web-based one) is quite sensible.


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## Umbran (Dec 15, 2010)

MerricB said:


> D&D Red Box: not compatible with any other product.




So?  It wasn't like the original Red Box worked with AD&D either.



> D&D Essentials: so much confusion as to what it is and who it is for.




I kind of hate to say this but... I think we created that confusion ourselves, talking ourselves into a kind of frenzy of speculation, rather than just looking at the product and letting it speak for itself.  



> D&D Insider: a worse disaster of implementation is hard to imagine.




Um, really?  Hard to imagine?  The software field is heavily loaded with far worse rollouts than WotC has had.  "Vaporware" is a term for a reason.  

On the contrary, it seems to me that WotC is on a steady (if slow) course of turning themselves into a company that does software vaguely intelligently.  Think back to their previous forays into software: the CDs that came with the 3e books, the stuff that was supposed to be available for 4e's release but wasn't. 

Have there been mistakes?  Sure.  But we are talking about a company that is converting itself from plain print publishing to software, without also dropping it's original core business, and (I assume) doing so without blowing budgets completely out of the water.  That is hard, hard stuff to do.  They are in the midst of a massive learning process, with a steep curve. If you expected something near perfection, you were kidding yourself, and that's not WotC's fault.

And, honestly, it seems to be working.  Slowly, the beast slouches into the 21st century!


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## MrMyth (Dec 15, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> Oh, I agree that they should have continued support for the old one until the new one was ready for prime time. The rollout of the new CB was badly mishandled.
> 
> What I'm objecting to is the idea of supporting _both_ apps in perpetuity. WotC has made some missteps, but their end goal of having a web-based Character Builder (and only a web-based one) is quite sensible.




Oh yeah, support both indefinitely? It might be possible, but certainly not without them having a lot more staff members available on their DDI team.


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## Almacov (Dec 15, 2010)

Chzbro said:


> I'm no shrink, but I feel comfortable saying that the kind of negativity we've been seeing on these boards lately can't be healthy. Especially since it has lost all sense of perspective.






Chzbro said:


> You *should* tell them what makes you unhappy, and you *should not* pay for a service that you don't care for. But posting about it incessantly is self-indulgent and smacks a bit of wallowing in your own misery.




Agreed. Being upset is okay, and there have been a wealth of venues to express that already.
When one takes that frustration into other threads though, one has just become an allip.

As for WotC's continued involvement in the franchise, I really wish them well.
I don't see any likelyhood that they will stop producing anytime soon, but if they did it would frankly be pretty tragic. 
Being a Hasbro subsidiary (despite all the downsides that can come with) puts them in pretty much the best possible position one could find to expand the game and audience. I'm somewhat shocked that it has taken them *this* long to start using the boxed set model again and get more product in mainstream stores. (Wal-Marts, Targets, etc.)
I hope they exploit the heck out of the chance.


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## darjr (Dec 15, 2010)

For me it's like this.

Right or wrong I'm very unhappy with how things have went and how the company has done things. I cringe at the possibility that anyone I've encouraged to get on the WotC bandwagon has had the same experience. I know for a fact there has been at least a few.

I don't want to give WotC another chance to make me this unhappy again. I will not encourage anyone else to get into that position. It isn't one single thing, it is a list of things that ended with the Online CB clue by four.

There are other companies with great people that have shown me that they 'get it'. I have alternatives.


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## Dausuul (Dec 15, 2010)

Umbran said:


> Um, really?  Hard to imagine?  The software field is heavily loaded with far worse rollouts than WotC has had.  "Vaporware" is a term for a reason.
> 
> On the contrary, it seems to me that WotC is on a steady (if slow) course of turning themselves into a company that does software vaguely intelligently.  Think back to their previous forays into software: the CDs that came with the 3e books, the stuff that was supposed to be available for 4e's release but wasn't.
> 
> Have there been mistakes?  Sure.  But we are talking about a company that is converting itself from plain print publishing to software, without also dropping it's original core business, and (I assume) doing so without blowing budgets completely out of the water.  That is hard, hard stuff to do.  They are in the midst of a massive learning process, with a steep curve. If you expected something near perfection, you were kidding yourself, and that's not WotC's fault.!




I must spread some XP around before giving it to Umbran again.


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## Riastlin (Dec 15, 2010)

Given the weather we've had lately here in the Midwest I sincerely hope that 2011 will be the last year Mother Nature has the weather license.

On a serious note though, sure, WotC has made some mistakes.  However, it also seems pretty clear that they learned almost instantly from those mistakes.  Just look at how they've handled the announcements of the VT and online MB.  (In other words, the same way they should have handled the online CB).  

More to the point though, while some people hate Essentials and others love it, the fact seems to be fairly clear that D&D is still the leader in the table top RPG market.  Pathfinder (which coincidentally is still essentially D&D albeit 3.5 with some fine tuning of the rules) finally tied D&D for 1 quarter in approximate sales.  This was also the quarter that Pathfinder released most/all of their major books for the year (as opposed to WotC's model of steady releases throughout the majority of the year).  

Obviously a lot of people do not like 4th Ed.  A lot of people also love 4th Ed.  One of my players got back into D&D after something like 15-20 years because of 4th Ed. (and this was pre-Arcane Power).  4th Ed. has continued to sell relatively well and its hard to imagine another company doing better.  I love Shadowrun, but the companies that have run it over the years have simply been one clusterfudge after another (imho).  Although I think in general that Shadowrun has been a pretty well designed game, I would not have wanted any of their companies to have taken over D&D for instance.

All of this leads me to believe that WotC is still a good steward for the game.  We might not always like their decisions (in fact, its impossible to please all the people all the time) but they still keep coming out with quality products.  Could they use more playtesting?  Of course.  Could they make improvements?  Absolutely.  Am I confident that another company would do a better job of running the game?  Not really.


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## ExploderWizard (Dec 15, 2010)

Umbran said:


> So? It wasn't like the original Red Box worked with AD&D either.




As it was never designed to be an AD&D product I fail to see the parallel. 
That's like complaining that the new Dark Sun supplement isn't compatible with your Forgotten Realms campaign guide.

The new red box was marketed and sold as the introductory product to the essentials line. The product was incompatible with other essentials materials. Simple and utter fail.

The old red box was marketed and sold as the introductory product to the *D&D *line. It remained compatible and useful throughout the life of the *D&D *line of products. Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortal boxed sets all still required the Basic box contents to remain a complete game.


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## Wednesday Boy (Dec 15, 2010)

darjr said:


> There are other companies with great people that have shown me that they 'get it'. I have alternatives.




To me it's easy to compare WotC to other companies for "what to do" and "what not to do".  But it seems to me that a lot of what generates the "what not to do" sentiment in WotC over other companies is because they're doing more than the other companies and attempting more challenges than other companies.

The deficiencies of the CB aside, it's a monumental program that works with a huge library and from what I've seen something that other companies haven't even attempted.  Why not embrace the innovation they're attempting and give them a chance to make it excellent instead of villifying it for not being perfect?

It's a good thing to put out constant errata updates to fix game mechanics that don't work right, instead of doing what many companies do and leave their products as-is after printing.

And while I think there must be a better solution to piracy than not selling any PDF products, they're at least attempting to combat piracy instead of acquiescing like most companies.

Lastly, they try innovations within their product (like Essentials) to let more players enjoy their game.  Maybe I'm unaware but I think most other companies stick to their rules system instead of improving it to cater to appeal to more fans.

I guess I feel like WotC should get more credit for trying something new even if it isn't perfect when most other companies don't go out on limbs.

(Let me reiterate:  I'm not saying that WotC does everything perfectly.  And note that this is from my personal experience, there are certainly innovations that other company are attempting that I'm unaware of.

And [MENTION=52905]darjr[/MENTION], I'm not quoting you as an attack on what you said but your quote prompted my thoughts on comparing WotC to other.)


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## Falstaff (Dec 15, 2010)

I just wish Kenzer and Company owned D&D.


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## KarinsDad (Dec 15, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> It would be an absolute nightmare to build two parallel apps and keep them both up-to-date and compatible with each other. There would have to be major demand to justify such a thing, and I seriously doubt that kind of demand exists. How much extra are you willing to pay for this functionality?




What's wrong with using Java? Last I heard, source could be run as an application or multiple web applets. And it could run on multiple OSs. One basic source base. There would be some differences, but they wouldn't be in the rules engine or the GUI.

People who get a one year non-refundable subscription to DDI could have either, but a one month subscription only gets the online version. This would address some of the piracy issues via marketing.

The source framework could be re-used for Monster Builder and other apps.

It's not thinking outside the box that got WotC in this mess in the first place and they probably spent a ton of money on this corporate direction which is alienating a portion of their customer base.


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## Umbran (Dec 15, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> The new red box was marketed and sold as the introductory product to the essentials line.




"Introduction to" does not imply "compatible or useful with".

If you bill a thing as an introduction, I expect it to be vastly oversimplified to get some basic concepts across, and I don't expect many of the details to transfer over in to actual practice.




> The product was incompatible with other essentials materials. Simple and utter fail.




If people buy the Red Box, and then go on to buy Essentials products, then it is a success, despite your declarations of failure.  Market reality trumps armchair critique, pretty much always.


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## Aegeri (Dec 15, 2010)

Out of curiosity, where did this "Incompatible" nonsense come from? Most of the rules are inherently the same, though there are some differences. Most of the red box is fully applicable to later DnD. The core rules are still the same for example. Some of the powers and I think the rogue build isn't, but this doesn't mean it is totally incompatible: That's just wrong.


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## Riley (Dec 15, 2010)

Shemeska said:


> With several other rounds of layoffs during the year, and some resignations, I'm not so sure that they can lay off anyone else and still function. There's lots of speculation that they're seriously understaffed in the D&D area, and if so it really wouldn't surprise me if there aren't any layoffs this year for Xmas because staff seems to be so lean already.




Does this mean that the title of ENWorld Optimist should pass to Shemeska?


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## Windjammer (Dec 15, 2010)

Wednesday Boy said:


> To me it's easy to compare WotC to other companies for "what to do" and "what not to do".  But it seems to me that a lot of what generates the "what not to do" sentiment in WotC over other companies is because they're doing more than the other companies and attempting more challenges than other companies.
> 
> The deficiencies of the CB aside, it's a monumental program that works with a huge library and from what I've seen something that other companies haven't even attempted.  Why not embrace the innovation they're attempting and give them a chance to make it excellent instead of villifying it for not being perfect?




Ah, but this is where things got off the wrong foot in the WotC apologia on page 1 by Lancealot straight away.

You see, the whole point of MerricB's post is not to say how lousy WotC is compared to other companies. His point is (and here his history as an enthusiastic supporter of them _in the past _must be seen as implied) how lousy WotC behaved in *2010 *as opposed to the great company they were in previous years.

The Character Builder is a case in point. Your appeal to how we should all be greatful to WotC putting out a semi-functional CB, given that *other companies* have not even attempted to offer likewise, nicely avoids the elephant in the room: WotC replaced *their own* functional CB with one that didn't perform nearly as adequately. THAT is the issue. Not WotC vs. others. It's WotC vs. themselves.

And then WotC can easily be seen as looking rather poorly compared to what they pulled off in previous years. They are in that sense competing against their past self. The Pathfinder RPG is nothing if not the perfect illustration of WotC competing against their own past, a past they left behind for better or ill. Paizo is nothing if not a very successful effort to mimic a very successful WotC of the past. 

And even with that said - the question to ask is _still _not whether WotC in 2010 is preferable (or not) to other companies in 2010 like Paizo. The question remains, and always has been, whether 2010 was a good year for *WotC itself* when measured against their past achievements.

May I add how there's nothing new to this perception. Perspective people, _perspective_!


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## Joshua Randall (Dec 15, 2010)

Riley said:


> Does this mean that the title of ENWorld Optimist should pass to Shemeska?



There's only one way to settle this:

THUNDERDOME!


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## MrMyth (Dec 15, 2010)

Windjammer said:


> Ah, but this is where things got off the wrong foot in the WotC apologia on page 1 by Lancealot straight away.
> 
> You see, the whole point of MerricB's post is not to say how lousy WotC is compared to other companies. His point is (and here his history as an enthusiastic supporter of them _in the past _must be seen as implied) how lousy WotC behaved in *2010 *as opposed to the great company they were in previous years.




Except.... Lancelot's post gave a number of reasons on how things WotC did in 2010 worked just fine. I think that's been a lot of the argument here - not just that WotC is 'too big to fall', but that 2010 was not nearly the disaster some are claiming, and featured some big winners - MM3, Dark Sun, Gamma World. 

Do you really need to dismiss his entire post as "the WotC apologia", rather than respond to the numerous decent points he actually makes?

Honestly, even when comparing them to past years, I don't think WotC is in any danger. With DDI... yeah, they bungled the CB launch. But the VTT Beta is a pretty big step forward at the same time, and while I'd certainly rate their digital performance as higher in 2009... what about the year before, when they completely flubbed the launch of DDI itself? 

That didn't sink the company. A smaller mistep, later in the process, seems unlikely to do the same.


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## Aegeri (Dec 15, 2010)

I really think that DDI has been an endless source of disappointment for me this year, but I will not argue that 2010 has had the best books in 4E thus far. Psionic Power completely made me do a 180 on psionics, by just being a plain awesome book. MM3 has set the standard of monster books in 4E. Demonomicon is fantastic and one of the best books adding epic tier antagonists/scenarios into 4E. Dark Sun is the best of their campaign settings and absolutely brilliant. Gamma World is an amazing and truly different feeling game that I really love.

DDI does not ruin an entire year: It merely sours it.


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## Dausuul (Dec 15, 2010)

Windjammer said:


> And then WotC can easily be seen as looking rather poorly compared to what they pulled off in previous years.




Do you remember the release of 3.5E? That was a naked money grab, much worse than anything they've done recently, and it happened in 2003. In somewhat more recent history, there was the utter failure that was DDM 2, the Gleemax fiasco, the Pulling of the PDFs, and so forth.

Their missteps on the character builder are quite minor by comparison with some of the foul-ups they've pulled in past years. Not only that, but we are seeing a lot of new and innovative stuff on both the design front (Essentials) and the digital one (the Virtual Tabletop beta, a product that most of us had long since dismissed as vaporware).


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## ExploderWizard (Dec 15, 2010)

Umbran said:


> "Introduction to" does not imply "compatible or useful with".
> 
> If you bill a thing as an introduction, I expect it to be vastly oversimplified to get some basic concepts across, and I don't expect many of the details to transfer over in to actual practice.




Really? Is that what they are spinning what we used to call a half-assed effort into these days?

I don't believe the red box needed to include all the essentials material or provide support for more levels of play. If advertised as part of a product line though, then I DO expect the content to be compatible with the rest of the line. If that is an unreasonable expectation then the gaming industry truly has gone downhill a great deal.





Umbran said:


> If people buy the Red Box, and then go on to buy Essentials products, then it is a success, despite your declarations of failure. Market reality trumps armchair critique, pretty much always.




Sure, sales are all that matter after all. If WOTC had been up front with the "not really compatible or useful with" aspect of their introductory product, how might that have affected sales?


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## MerricB (Dec 15, 2010)

I miss Scott Rouse.


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## Wednesday Boy (Dec 15, 2010)

Windjammer said:


> The Character Builder is a case in point. Your appeal to how we should all be greatful to WotC putting out a semi-functional CB, given that *other companies* have not even attempted to offer likewise, nicely avoids the elephant in the room: WotC replaced *their own* functional CB with one that didn't perform nearly as adequately. THAT is the issue. Not WotC vs. others. It's WotC vs. themselves.




I'm not saying that you have to be greatful for the online CB, I'm saying I think WotC deserves more credit for trying innovative things than they're given.  It's true the online CB doesn't currently have all of the features that the former CB has but they're making these changes to give us a better product.  I'm willing to give them leeway so they can be innovative and give me a better product in the end.  But I guess that's because I'm an optimist.


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## Aegeri (Dec 15, 2010)

I would only be willing to be charitable on that point if I was getting something out of DDI. They wrecked the monster builder with a buggy patch, Dungeon is filled with dungeon tile crap maps instead of actual cartography and the magazines content is - well - absent. So I am not exactly encouraged by literally anything I've seen from them on DDI.


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## Herschel (Dec 15, 2010)

Lancelot said:


> I hope not... because they've handled the product better than most other companies likely would have.
> .......




How dare you have said something that recently excouraged me to give you XP, thereby eliminating my ability to give now. 

On the bright side, you shot right past/out of carbuncle.


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## Destil (Dec 15, 2010)

Wednesday Boy said:


> And while I think there must be a better solution to piracy than not selling any PDF products, they're at least attempting to combat piracy instead of acquiescing like most companies.




Disagree on this specific point. The stupidity of this move is just mind boggling. "We're loosing money because people are pirating stuff, let's make it *impossible* for them to pay us for it, instead!" That is not the logic of any rational mind. Never mind the very idea that piracy = lost sales is simply untrue. This is the sign of a company that's kicking and screaming in the digital age because the rules have changed.

Aside from that, yeah. Wizard's sets their sights a lot higher. There are some open source character builder like attempts for 3E due to it's open nature, but CB is significantly better than any of them (the fact that 3E rules are so much bigger is a big part of that, of course). I can live with that.


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## Wednesday Boy (Dec 15, 2010)

Destil said:


> Disagree on this specific point. The stupidity of this move is just mind boggling. "We're loosing money because people are pirating stuff, let's make it *impossible* for them to pay us for it, instead!" That is not the logic of any rational mind. Never mind the very idea that piracy = lost sales is simply untrue. This is the sign of a company that's kicking and screaming in the digital age because the rules have changed.




That's fair.  I don't think they should be jumped on for taking a stab at the problem but if that attempt didn't pan out ideally they need to try a different tactic.


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## Umbran (Dec 15, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> Really? Is that what they are spinning what we used to call a half-assed effort into these days?




Who are "they"?  



> If that is an unreasonable expectation then the gaming industry truly has gone downhill a great deal.




The unreasonable expectation is that something labeled as a "starter" or "introductory" set somehow includes significant material you'll find useful for advanced application.  

Take an introductory cake decorating class, and you'll have to buy an introductory set of cake-decorating tools.  You will find those tools are okay for learning the ropes, but they're not really all that useful for high-end work.  



> Sure, sales are all that matter after all. If WOTC had been up front with the "not really compatible or useful with" aspect of their introductory product, how might that have affected sales?




The product is not intended for use by folks who have other products.  That's the nature of "introduction" - if you already have the advanced set, the intro is superfluous.  So, backwards compatibility is not really an issue.

And, if you do start with the Red Box and move up, you're going from a 32 page player's book to a 320 or 350+ page book.  The fact that some fraction of the 32 pages isn't directly applicable is not what I'd call a major loss, compared to the flood of content you'd find in the new book.


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## The Little Raven (Dec 15, 2010)

MerricB said:


> I miss Scott Rouse.




Me too. Scott was the man when it came to assuaging our fears and getting us excited for upcoming products. Plus, the man knew his memes.


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## darjr (Dec 15, 2010)

Wednesday Boy said:


> I'm not saying that you have to be greatful for the online CB, I'm saying I think WotC deserves more credit for trying innovative things than they're given.  It's true the online CB doesn't currently have all of the features that the former CB has but they're making these changes to give us a better product.  I'm willing to give them leeway so they can be innovative and give me a better product in the end.  But I guess that's because I'm an optimist.




It seems to me that they went with an online builder to fight piracy, not to give their customers a better product.

It's failed on both fronts. Maybe, probably, in time it'll be a better product, but I'm not sure it'll ever successfully fend off piracy.

I agree, WotC innovation should garner them credit.


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## Dausuul (Dec 15, 2010)

darjr said:


> It seems to me that they went with an online builder to fight piracy, not to give their customers a better product.




Do you have any evidence for this statement? I have not heard any such thing from WotC, and I see no reason to believe this is the case as opposed to greater ease of development and maintenance.


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## MortonStromgal (Dec 15, 2010)

CasvalRemDeikun said:


> This is the most likely thing they would do if they weren't satisfied with D&D's performance.




/agree but want to add that doesn't mean profitable or not. Mage Knight got shut down by Tops because it was a management nightmare even though it made money it wasnt enough that they wanted to have to deal with it. They also license out Shadowrun for the same reason.


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## Herschel (Dec 15, 2010)

Dragonhelm said:


> ...., but get away from the game and, more to the point, from message boards. They have a way of bringing you down. I know I get the same way at times......




Yep. 

As I like to say: Whenever you start to feel good about humanity just visit an internet message board for a shift in perspective.


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## MerricB (Dec 15, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> Do you have any evidence for this statement? I have not heard any such thing from WotC, and I see no reason to believe this is the case as opposed to greater ease of development and maintenance.




"We also wanted to move to a solution that promotes individual account ownership and hinders piracy." - Bill Slavicsek, November Ampersand


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## MrMyth (Dec 15, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> Do you have any evidence for this statement? I have not heard any such thing from WotC, and I see no reason to believe this is the case as opposed to greater ease of development and maintenance.




They mentioned it in the podcasts. 

I'm in the camp that trying to assign one singular reason to complex business ventures is silly. I suspect their goals included discouraging piracy, encouraging long term subscriptions, allowing their new design team to rebuild key elements of the program from the ground up, allow mac use, and eventually unify the CB with other online tools. 

I think some of those reasons are good ones, and others are not. I think other approaches could have been taken, and may or may not have worked better. I certainly think the entire launch of the product was terribly handled from the start. 

But I think it foolish to dismiss the entire project as simply a bid against piracy, and to judge it as a success or failure on that account alone.


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## darjr (Dec 15, 2010)

Oh, I'm not judging it solely on it's failure to fight piracy. I'm also judging it on it's failure to be a better product.

And I do agree that businesses usually make decisions based on a host of reasons, some more important than others, however listening to the podcast the fight for piracy seemed to be primary. In fact it seemed to be the motivator for moving it to an online version, everything else being of secondary benefit. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but WotC as a company have done other things for the sake of piracy that I've thought were just foolish.

I don't want to turn this into a piracy discussion, however.


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## abyssaldeath (Dec 15, 2010)

Destil said:


> Disagree on this specific point. The stupidity of this move is just mind boggling. "We're loosing money because people are pirating stuff, let's make it *impossible* for them to pay us for it, instead!" That is not the logic of any rational mind. Never mind the very idea that piracy = lost sales is simply untrue. This is the sign of a company that's kicking and screaming in the digital age because the rules have changed.



I wasn't just free download piracy that they were fighting. It was also some PDF distributors selling the same copy of the PDF several times and pocketing the money. It is those distributors that put the nail in the coffin PDF.


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## JoeGKushner (Dec 15, 2010)

I honestly think that if WoTC is going to continue making D&D, they need to get as far away from books as possible. 

More miniatures, tiles, board games, and things that lead you online to the DDI.

But then again, I think they need to make the DDI free as the character creator part and charge people for access to things like Dragon, Dungeon, VTT, etc... Getting people to make character to play your game should be something you want to encourage as much as possible, especially when you're going to be pulling that data to see what they're doing. Making a beta product and charging the customer for it while misleading them for months as to whats going on on the other hand...


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## UngainlyTitan (Dec 16, 2010)

JoeGKushner said:


> I honestly think that if WoTC is going to continue making D&D, they need to get as far away from books as possible.
> 
> More miniatures, tiles, board games, and things that lead you online to the DDI.{/quote]
> This bit I agree with
> ...


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 16, 2010)

ardoughter said:


> This bit, not quite, Here I would make the VTT free but point to and provide via DDI lots of addons that make the VTT simple to use.
> If I was to make the CB free then only for the first 3 levels or so and some free level 1 to 3 adventures, with an open ended story. Want to see the end sing up on DDI.
> 
> ALso if the VTT access is free and the initial level characters then one can run sponsored on line encounter type games for the uninitiated with some goodies redemable when they sign up.




Yeah, I think you've outlined what I would consider a pretty good strategy. It is VERY analogous to the 'free to play' direction that MMOs are starting to take. Let anyone play levels 1-3 for free, run low level VTT sessions, and give them access to plenty of content in that level bracket for free (they already have tons of stuff of this ilk that has easily paid for itself already and can be written down as lost leaders). 

I think  what they really still need though is a more mass market presence for this kind of a 'new D&D for the 21st Century'. Putting Red Boxes in Target is not bad, but as corny as the old cartoon was it sure plastered the D&D name all over the place and if you had certain well-known actors who have made no secret of having played the game to do some voice acting for it? Hmmmm. Done reasonably well it could certainly suck in a bunch of mind share and grow the game.

Really I think if you look at what they have been doing and trying to do in the past couple years they really ARE moving in this direction. Not with blinding speed or no missteps but it seems to be within reach at least. If that platform, VTT, CB, AT, and a good online community and resources really materializes it could be leveraged to do some very nice things. And if WotC eventually can't manage to pull it off then someone will in some form.


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## Echohawk (Dec 16, 2010)

Herschel said:


> As I like to say: Whenever you start to feel good about humanity just visit an internet message board for a shift in perspective.



Dogbert agrees.


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## MrGrenadine (Dec 16, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> Frankly, given how often they need to update it with new content, CB should have been a web app from the beginning.




I agree, except I would say that the CB should have been a fully functional, robust web app that was completely updated in a timely manner from the beginning.

(I still haven't created one successful character with it, due to some feat omissions and problems with power swap feats.)


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## Solvarn (Dec 16, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, I think you've outlined what I would consider a pretty good strategy. It is VERY analogous to the 'free to play' direction that MMOs are starting to take. Let anyone play levels 1-3 for free, run low level VTT sessions, and give them access to plenty of content in that level bracket for free (they already have tons of stuff of this ilk that has easily paid for itself already and can be written down as lost leaders).
> 
> I think what they really still need though is a more mass market presence for this kind of a 'new D&D for the 21st Century'. Putting Red Boxes in Target is not bad, but as corny as the old cartoon was it sure plastered the D&D name all over the place and if you had certain well-known actors who have made no secret of having played the game to do some voice acting for it? Hmmmm. Done reasonably well it could certainly suck in a bunch of mind share and grow the game.
> 
> Really I think if you look at what they have been doing and trying to do in the past couple years they really ARE moving in this direction. Not with blinding speed or no missteps but it seems to be within reach at least. If that platform, VTT, CB, AT, and a good online community and resources really materializes it could be leveraged to do some very nice things. And if WotC eventually can't manage to pull it off then someone will in some form.




WotC has no competition and doesn't understand software really well yet. I think they have made some strategic hiring decisions recently that will help with that issue.

Vote with your dollar. DDI sucks right now, so they don't get my money. Essentials is good, I'll buy it. I'm on the fence about Gamma World, I need to look into the CCG aspect more.

D&D as a brand could be managed better and has more potential, but I don't think its time to start the funeral dirge anytime soon.


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## MrMyth (Dec 16, 2010)

darjr said:


> Oh, I'm not judging it solely on it's failure to fight piracy. I'm also judging it on it's failure to be a better product.




I figured I'd see a response along these lines, and that's fair.  But I honestly think that there certainly was a _goal_, yes, to deliver a better product. They failed at that - probably in large part due to rushing the release - but I'd be very surprised if they actually planned out, "Hey guys, let's release a crappier version of our current product solely to fight piracy."


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## Dausuul (Dec 16, 2010)

MerricB said:


> "We also wanted to move to a solution that promotes individual account ownership and hinders piracy." - Bill Slavicsek, November Ampersand




Hmm, point taken. He does list a bunch of other reasons, but piracy is certainly prominent. Guess I'm overly accustomed to the edition wars.


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## Mercurius (Dec 16, 2010)

TerraDave said:


> In any case I know how you feel.




Yup, me too. Your point is one that many have missed in this thread as they've accused Merric of being a "hater." He isn't a hater - actually, his complaint is borne out of his _love _for D&D and, to a lesser extent, the current company that produces it. 



Windjammer said:


> May I add how there's nothing new to this perception. Perspective people, _perspective_!




Thanks for the link, that's a very interesting read - especially about the free-wheelin' early days of WotC! That said, this isn't quite the same thing. The Tynes piece describes the "buying in" of WotC and Adkison, a kind of fall from an idealistic geektopia to a corporate monstrosity; WotC of 2010 has been that corporate monstrosity for over a decade now; the issues Merric has raised aren't quite as profound as the ones Tynes spoke about - they are more on the level of "WotC has been handling D&D poorly" not "WotC has undergone a Kafkaesque metamorphosis."

The metamorphosis already happened; as Tynes illustrated, it began in late 1994 with ill-fated (and perhaps unwise) Truth or Swill game and was solidified with the sale of WotC to Hasbro in 2001. You could say that there is nothing new with _that, _with the enantiodromia that seems unfortunately inevitable when any kind of idealism is codified; it becomes rigid, calcified, and eventually produces its opposite. So an idealist young geektopia becomes a big corporation; this can be seen most clearly with the contrast of the innovative Everway game in 1995 with the, to quote Tynes, "grotesque" Pokemon trading card game in 1999, which is when, I think you can say, the pact with the Devil was finalized.

Pact with the Devil, you say? Isn't that hating? No, it is just calling a spade a spade: WotC is a corporation, which almost by definition is _primarily _interested in making money for its shareholders, with any other concerns like "creativity" and "innovation" a distant second place - and only ever in service of the primary concern. This is how the metamorphosis of WotC has been enantiodromic: a reversal from a geektopian company focused on creating games for fun and enjoyment to a corporation that makes profit through the vehicle of games. The difference is subtle, but it makes all the difference in the world.


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## Scribble (Dec 16, 2010)

Destil said:


> Disagree on this specific point. The stupidity of this move is just mind boggling. "We're loosing money because people are pirating stuff, let's make it *impossible* for them to pay us for it, instead!" That is not the logic of any rational mind. Never mind the very idea that piracy = lost sales is simply untrue. This is the sign of a company that's kicking and screaming in the digital age because the rules have changed..




Two things I wanted to point out here...

2. Corporations tend to be kind of slow enacting new things. (Whereas gamers, and I guess all customers in general, tend to feel like things should/can happen over night.)

2. PDFs are not the only way to market your product digitally.

So while cutting pdfs leaves a certain sector of the market uptapped, if tapping that sector with a certain type of product makes use of resources (time, money, employees, etc...) that could bring in better revenue, or just be better utilized elsewhere, cut the pdfs, and look for a better way to market to that now untapped market.

They DO market their game digitally in the form of the DDI- and from the looks of the new book formats I get the feeling they're getting ready to start releasing them in ebook format. Like on the nook or Kindle or ipad, or all of the above.

It just takes a while for old man corporate to finalize things.


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## Shazman (Dec 16, 2010)

MerricB said:


> Wizards have spent 2010 in a state of one major stuff-up after another when it comes to D&D. They've mishandled a number of key initiatives so incredibly badly that they've managed to completely erode my support for them.
> 
> D&D Red Box: not compatible with any other product.
> 
> ...




Well MerricB, I agree that WotC has fouled up this year more than ever.  They have failed so miserably that even the ENWorld optimist is owning up to their massive failure.  I would like to hope that they would liscense D&D to a company that gets what RPG's are about, like Paizo, but I doubt it will happen.  I think it's funny that the year they mess up the most is the year you don't hear about the annual pre-Christmas layoffs.  This is the year more than any other that heads need to roll at WotC.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 16, 2010)

Mercurius said:


> Yup, me too. Your point is one that many have missed in this thread as they've accused Merric of being a "hater." He isn't a hater - actually, his complaint is borne out of his _love _for D&D and, to a lesser extent, the current company that produces it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I know it is all fashionable to talk about 'corporate monstrosities' but lets remember one key fact here. The RPG hobby is not exactly a font of money. ANY sane objective business analysis of this business will tell you in 5 minutes that if you want to make a high ROI you should get the heck out of it and say buy tobacco stock or maybe just take your money and go drill for oil.

Why then does WotC continue to put significant resources into D&D? I would suspect there are a few different reasons. Some of them are business reasons, but some of them aren't, or at least they are pretty intangible. One basic business reason that is pretty relevant is just that sunk costs are sunk. WotC presumably bought TSR's assets for a price so low that it DID make business sense for them. Sure the RPG industry isn't a great place to make money, but D&D itself at some price was still a decent investment for them at that time and place. Once you own it the price is irrelevant. All that matters is "If I put in $1 can I get out enough more than that in a short enough time frame with a low enough risk to make a decent ROI on that $1?" Why is this an interesting fact to keep in mind? Because it tells us that the D&D product line of WotC, if it is self-sufficient, that is makes enough money to return a profit and make the necessary investments in its own future, will continue to exist. 

Now maybe Hasbro would sell it. Surely they would if they could get a good enough price and put the money into something else, but who out there has the money to buy D&D at a price that is worth bothering? It costs money to make such a sale, and if you have a product that makes money and potential buyers that can only pay peanuts (and there's no other game company out there with ANY significant money to invest) then just keep it and run it. Heck, maybe it will make a big hit. If it tanks so what? You already spent the money for it, there's no getting it back. It only makes sense to shut it down if it actually LOSES money.

Beyond that though look at the other motivations. They may not mean much to Hasbro, but the people running this business obviously WANT, for reasons not related to money, to keep making games. They have an actual love of games. This is what they do, and what they want to do. That isn't soulless. 

Note also that all of this indicates to me that the D&D product line is profitable and self-sufficient. For all we know it is highly profitable. With absolutely no other facts to go on except the product continues to exist and invest in its future the weight of evidence is entirely in favor of the hypothesis that it makes enough money to worth more than the peanuts it could sell for. Frankly as long as people with a decent business sense are running it I think it is pretty safe. TSR didn't tank because they had a product that couldn't make a profit. They tanked because they didn't know how to run a business. Hasbro DEFINITELY knows how to do that.


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## Derren (Dec 16, 2010)

I can't proof it, but I have the feeling that Hasbro doesn't keep D&D because of the D&D game, but because of the novels and maybe the license (video games).

So as long as those stay profitable they will at least produce token PnP products.
If the novels stop selling and the license becomes less valuable (already happened, no 4E video game so far, many competitive licenses like Dragon Age and the upcoming, and expected to be crappy, game from Cryptic, the lawsuit against Atari) they will drop D&D in an instant.


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## keterys (Dec 16, 2010)

Shazman said:


> This is the year more than any other that heads need to roll at WotC.




I hope that we can safely discuss our hobby here at enworld without wishing direct ill will on fellow gamers and friends. Please advocate change in policy and output, rather than hoping for Christmas loss of jobs.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 16, 2010)

Derren said:


> I can't proof it, but I have the feeling that Hasbro doesn't keep D&D because of the D&D game, but because of the novels and maybe the license (video games).
> 
> So as long as those stay profitable they will at least produce token PnP products.
> If the novels stop selling and the license becomes less valuable (already happened, no 4E video game so far, many competitive licenses like Dragon Age and the upcoming, and expected to be crappy, game from Cryptic, the lawsuit against Atari) they will drop D&D in an instant.




No 4e video game because of licensing issues. 

Like I said before though, there's little to no reason to drop a product line that is self-sufficient. Once you DROP it you have nothing. The game ceases to exist and you liquidate the assets associated with supporting it. If you can instantly turn those assets to some other product then you MIGHT do so, but as long as it doesn't lose you money it represents a capability that could be useful and is being maintained for free. Supposing for instance the people working on 4e can say work on a board game. Maybe you don't always need 10 guys to do board games but sometimes you do. If 8 of them can pay their salaries the other 9 months of the year they aren't working on board games writing 4e supplements that just break even, then you have no good reason to want to get rid of that business. 

Obviously there are all kinds of ways to look at any business situation and many possible factors you could take into account. Again, if D&D were losing any significant amount of money and wasn't likely to turn around and make a bunch soon (and RPGs rarely make a bunch of money) you'd sell it off pretty quick. Not hearing anyone trying to hock 4e. It certainly has some not insignificant value as IP too, so nobody is going to be ultra quick to shut it down if there is even any chance of say selling off the rights. 

In other words if 4e was going to be killed off/sold you'd first hear about rights being SOLD, then probably the people working on it dropped, and the product line would either be licensed or just wrapped up. It isn't happening. Look around. Sure, in theory anything could happen, but we don't even have the slightest evidence to indicate that 4e's core product line, rulebooks, is NOT making them decent money. 

Seems more likely to me that the downhill scenario would actually be that other more lucrative projects simply siphon off developer time enough that the game enters a phase of low levels of support and very few new products. That COULD happen, but again there's little or no evidence of it yet. At most we have a few more D&D related board game type products being released this year. I wouldn't read a whole lot into that for a couple reasons. 1) there just aren't that many more books 4e needs, and 2) I'm not actually convinced we're getting less products. I see a book coming out almost every month in 2011 so far. Sure seems like they're pushing them out as fast as they can think up some new thing to produce to me. Even if they do put out few books for a while that doesn't really indicate the game is going away or in trouble, it just indicates they have a mature product line. Eventually someone will get itchy and 5e will show up at that point.


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## FabioMilitoPagliara (Dec 16, 2010)

JoeGKushner said:


> I honestly think that if WoTC is going to continue making D&D, they need to get as far away from books as possible.
> 
> More miniatures, tiles, board games, and things that lead you online to the DDI.
> 
> But then again, I think they need to make the DDI free as the character creator part and charge people for access to things like Dragon, Dungeon, VTT, etc... Getting people to make character to play your game should be something you want to encourage as much as possible, especially when you're going to be pulling that data to see what they're doing. Making a beta product and charging the customer for it while misleading them for months as to whats going on on the other hand...




they should have a free version of the character builder yes, but just with the first levels and a limited selection of classes... I would go for levels 1-3rd of the essential character in the first two heroes books or little more, a limited number of feats and items....

and yes more boardgames, tiles, miniatures, boxed adventures, boxed expansion that work as stand alone D&D games (ala Gamma World and future ravenloft setting) and on and on (plushes, action figures, videogames and so on.....)


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## Shazman (Dec 16, 2010)

keterys said:


> I hope that we can safely discuss our hobby here at enworld without wishing direct ill will on fellow gamers and friends. Please advocate change in policy and output, rather than hoping for Christmas loss of jobs.




~ if you have a comment about moderation, please email the moderator directly. Don't reply in the thread. Thanks. Plane Sailing ~


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## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 16, 2010)

Shazman said:


> I'm not so much wishing ill as stating that something needs to change.  I probably should have stated that differently.  When D&D "is very successful" according to WotC, they lay off people like crazy (I would say the wrong people have been layed off since it appears that management, not the designers, are responsible for bad decisions and massive failures).  When you have huge debacles like what has happened to DDI lately, it seems like there is no fallout.  When something is fouled up as bad as current DDI, especially the new online CB, it seems like there should be some consequences or things won't get better.  It seems that the D&D brand is in dire need of a change in management.




Yeah, well, I think calling what WotC has done in a 'huge debacle' is overstatement. They have delivered a LARGE amount of really good stuff in 2010. In one small instance the rollout of one part of one product hit a bump. I'd call any organization that immediately axes all its management of a product line at the slightest mistake a giant pack of fools. 

When you go around firing the people in charge because SOMEONE somewhere made a mistake what do you get? At best you get to go down your list of people you'd like in those positions and hire the SECOND best choice for that position. Gone is anything that was learned by the last people there in that position. Instead you have created a giant fear of any kind of risk taking and destroyed whatever institutional knowledge was gained in the process of making the mistake, like how and why not to do that again. The people you replace them with may well NOT make the same mistake the first batch did. You can be sure they won't do anything innovative or at all risky since they well know there is ZERO tolerance for mistakes. It is just stupid business practice.

As my first boss told me when I was hired "If you aren't making mistakes then you're not learning and you're not taking risks." He was right too. Permission to fail is a very important thing to have. Now, if someone constantly fails in boneheaded ways and doesn't seem to learn anything, then OF COURSE you fire them. Can you really honestly say that is the situation at WotC? I'm a bit skeptical.


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## MrMyth (Dec 16, 2010)

Shazman said:


> I'm not so much wishing ill as stating that something needs to change. I probably should have stated that differently. When D&D "is very successful" according to WotC, they lay off people like crazy (I would say the wrong people have been layed off since it appears that management, not the designers, are responsible for bad decisions and massive failures). When you have huge debacles like what has happened to DDI lately, it seems like there is no fallout. When something is fouled up as bad as current DDI, especially the new online CB, it seems like there should be some consequences or things won't get better. It seems that the D&D brand is in dire need of a change in management.




Except the thing is, most of the issues with the recent CB launch came as the _result_ of management change. They got a new online director and started planning out a new direction for DDI from the ground floor. Which has since manifested as an online CB, plus the VTT beta and upcoming online MB and other tools. 

Now, there have been significant and fundamental issues with the approach they took in launching the online CB. 

But saying that we should, because of that, switch management again? That's a terrible plan, because it would mean the current direction just gets scrapped entirely and we again go back to square one, with even more frustration and anger over the chance in direction. 

As it is, let the current scenario play out, and we may actually end up somewhere decent. But knee-jerk reaction changes in direction is only going to make the situation worse.


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## Herschel (Dec 16, 2010)

Shazman said:


> . When D&D "is very successful" according to WotC, they lay off people like crazy ...




You obviously have very little experience in a corporate environment. Layoffs happen all the time in businesses, successful or not. If they think someone will do something cheaper, or they can save money by running leaner, they will, regardless of the quality of the people involved. 

In other words, if a business feels they have two good people but one of them is enough to do a certain job, or someone cheaper can do that job, they make the move.


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## JoeGKushner (Dec 16, 2010)

ardoughter said:


> This bit, not quite, Here I would make the VTT free but point to and provide via DDI lots of addons that make the VTT simple to use.
> If I was to make the CB free then only for the first 3 levels or so and some free level 1 to 3 adventures, with an open ended story. Want to see the end sing up on DDI.
> 
> ALso if the VTT access is free and the initial level characters then one can run sponsored on line encounter type games for the uninitiated with some goodies redemable when they sign up.




The probloem with this low level of access requiring payment for higher features is that it's competing against things like Guild Wars and other free online play games. While the two are different overall experiences, from many sources, it seems that the base for table top RPG is shrinking. Asking people to pay to play... while possible doesn't make me think long term growth is going to be around, especially as the regular online games get mroe and more competitive and unfortunately for D&D, WoW has such a huge head start on them, especially in the fantasy field, that honestly, they will never catch up in my opinion in an online contest (as actually proven once so far with the Eberron online game.)


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## UngainlyTitan (Dec 17, 2010)

JoeGKushner said:


> The probloem with this low level of access requiring payment for higher features is that it's competing against things like Guild Wars and other free online play games. While the two are different overall experiences, from many sources, it seems that the base for table top RPG is shrinking. Asking people to pay to play... while possible doesn't make me think long term growth is going to be around, especially as the regular online games get mroe and more competitive and unfortunately for D&D, WoW has such a huge head start on them, especially in the fantasy field, that honestly, they will never catch up in my opinion in an online contest (as actually proven once so far with the Eberron online game.)




Ok, first off, I don't know that thre base for pnp rpg play is skrinking, and I am not convinced that you know it either. 

Secondly, Wow, Guildwars et al, are not DM'able games. You take what missions are there and that is pretty much it. The story is pretty shallow even compared to crpgs. Now one could argue that Neverwinter could be run as a DM'ed game. In that modules could be to DM and tools were (for NWN1 at least) to facilitate Dm'ing.However, preperation for such games was pretty involved. 

Now tools such as maptool, the DDI VTT or other similar tools can be run as a simple whiteboard + die roller. The DM has his/her module printed out and the players have their sheets. The DM draws the map on the fly as at the table and dice are rolled in the chat window. I imagine that it would work resonably well. 

It can also be run by creating maps beforehand using the tools to do so and to create tokens for the monsters and characters and so forth. With more work much of the mechancial detail can be incorporated using macros or what ever. This does increase the burden on the DM in preparation. 
Now, in the real world many DM's buy adventures (as single modules or paths) to reduce preparation time. I see not reason why they would not buy prefabricated modules for a supported VTT.

Now as to the separate question, can WOTC market D&D to WoW players. and expect much success. Well that depends on what you mean by success.

I am not sure it is relevant though. I live in rural ireland where as far as I know there are very few D&D players. I know that I have had very little success over the last 20 years at getting games. There was a period when I came back from college I had a group then it borke up then many years of nothing then I got my nephews playing. Now I see that ending within the next couple of years due to college and stuff like that. 

An easy to use online set of tools that would allow gaming with little prepration on my part would be very arttractive. I could game more regularly than I have since college. I strongly suspect I am not alone.


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## Shawn_Kehoe (Dec 17, 2010)

On the topic of the Red Box:

I think most of us will agree that the best way to learn D&D has *always* been to join a game with experienced players who don't mind showing you the ropes. If the new player enjoys it after a few sessions, they can buy their own PHB or Essentials book and possibly explore DMing at a later point. *The best way to learn D&D doesn't involve any introductory product.*

That having been said ... sometimes a prospective player doesn't know anybody who plays. Or perhaps they don't get along with them. Maybe they really want to try the game out with friends who know nothing about it. Somebody has to be patient zero. 

In those situations, the Red Box shows its value. It only covers levels 1 to 3, but it does so for multiple players and a DM. It's a low-cost way to try out the game. I would also imagine it's a fair bit easier on the new DM than full blown D&D 4e or Pathfinder.

And if the players decide they like it? Yes, the DM will need a DM kit, and someone in the group will need to buy a Rules Compendium and a Heroes of the... volume. But they still have the maps, tokens and the dice from the Red box! Those are 100% compatible with 4e ... and 3.5. If we arbitrarily set the value of those reusable bits at $10, that basically makes the Red box a $10 gamble for 4-5 players to try out D&D. That seems pretty safe to me.

If a friend wants to learn D&D, I'll invite him into my game. But if my best friend's daughter wants to learn D&D 1000 miles away from me, I'm sending the Red Box as her Christmas present.

(For the record, she's 2 years old and getting a Godzilla plush this year. Her dad is totally getting Gamma World though )


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## MrMyth (Dec 17, 2010)

JoeGKushner said:


> The probloem with this low level of access requiring payment for higher features is that it's competing against things like Guild Wars and other free online play games. While the two are different overall experiences, from many sources, it seems that the base for table top RPG is shrinking. Asking people to pay to play... while possible doesn't make me think long term growth is going to be around, especially as the regular online games get mroe and more competitive and unfortunately for D&D, WoW has such a huge head start on them, especially in the fantasy field, that honestly, they will never catch up in my opinion in an online contest (as actually proven once so far with the Eberron online game.)




1) I don't think you can actually compare the VTT and DDI vs MMOs as an actual battle for the same audience. Many MMO players will _also_ want DDI for their D&D experience, without it coming at the cost of their MMO time. Many D&D players have no interest in MMOs. Many MMO players have no interest in D&D. There may be some level of competition, but I doubt it is anywhere as direct as you seem to be claiming. WotC isn't looking for something that will draw people away from MMOs to play online D&D. They are looking to provide an additional resource to already existing D&D players. Those are _completely different things_. 

2) I think the idea that 'giving everything away for free is a sure winner!' rarely holds true. I think that offering a free demo of the online CB for low levels is a good idea, as it was a very successful approach with the offline CB. I imagine something similar would work well with the VTT. I think giving either away for free would be depriving themselves of a good chunk of income for little actual gain.


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## Kafen (Dec 18, 2010)

Shawn_Kehoe said:


> On the topic of the Red Box:
> 
> I think most of us will agree that the best way to learn D&D has *always* been to join a game with experienced players who don't mind showing you the ropes. If the new player enjoys it after a few sessions, they can buy their own PHB or Essentials book and possibly explore DMing at a later point. *The best way to learn D&D doesn't involve any introductory product.*
> 
> ...




I agree with the points on all levels with the addition of one thing. People live in an information age. Most people with a laptop, desktop, phone, and/or cyborg implant does a google search on 4e the moment they hit a snag. So, it is hard for a good GM to actually draw people into the game using the Red Box if they  defer to the internet if you are trying to lure the young people into the game. It is a common issue with modern kids. They love phone apps.

Let us say you send your nephew/niece a copy... I will use my own nephew's story after my gift of the Red Box.
_
When you get to the internet trying to figure it out, you find the Red Box does not have any easy answers. The main site leads you to a pay site when you click tools. The free section is not present. The large portion of materials do not apply to the actual game. It is an easy choice to toss the thing to the side and use your phone to check out stupid pet tricks on your youtube app which is free. Plus, you get to spend your allowance on the awesome bacon burger. Bonus! You have extra time to surf for lawl cats to impress that one Person._

That being said, it is a fun idea if you are close to the kids and can corrupt their video game minds before they tire of the odd paper things with ink on them. I wish others luck in that regard.


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## Shawn_Kehoe (Dec 21, 2010)

Kafen said:


> Let us say you send your nephew/niece a copy... I will use my own nephew's story after my gift of the Red Box.
> _
> When you get to the internet trying to figure it out, you find the Red Box does not have any easy answers. The main site leads you to a pay site when you click tools. The free section is not present. The large portion of materials do not apply to the actual game. It is an easy choice to toss the thing to the side and use your phone to check out stupid pet tricks on your youtube app which is free. Plus, you get to spend your allowance on the awesome bacon burger. Bonus! You have extra time to surf for lawl cats to impress that one Person._




Well OK ... but I think the same problem would exist with any pen and paper product in that scenario. And RPGs are friendly to the fast food crowd!


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## NhojGnol (Dec 23, 2010)

oops!


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## catsclaw227 (Dec 26, 2010)

I haven't gotten past page 6, but it seems there are a few non-software developers with a lot of ideas about how software development works.

Most people in the software development or software integration business, as well as companies that use suites of software services, believe that the first iteration of any new product (or even version of product, like online CB) will have some bugs.  Some companies don't even install software unless it is past SP1 (service pack 1), usually issued 6 months after initial release.

I imagine that in 3-6 months, online CB will be running just fine, will be a major boon to new users and, while there might STILL be some corner case bugs, it will be nice and solid, just like offline CB was.

But by then, we'll have a new online MB and VTT that people will rail against and cry out in frustration that WOTС can't do software.  

Microsoft hears this; Adobe hears this; Sun hears this; SAS, SAP, you name them...  In the business software world, the gaming software world, any software vertical, they all get complaints about new software. They then work to fix the bugs, release patches, and by the first major service pack, most major things are fixed and working.

The fact is that WOTC had spoiled us with the first CB, the compendium and now people expect perfection and that is just plain not possible.

Going to an online service is smart on so many levels, and though not everyone is connected all the time, soon most of us in developed nations will be, either with mobile hotspots, long range wireless, or other technology (that already exists).  OK, so maybe you won't be able to edit your character in the Amazon rainforest, but we will be able to do it on the bus or the train, or in the bathroom. 

I bet that internally, they have Android and iPhone application layers in the planning stages, so you can use it on your smartphone.

Let's be realistic here...  The online CB is new, it has bugs, but it is far more innovative and reaching than PC Gen or whatever other open source software is trying to do.  Just think of all the varied data types, exceptions, and content that needs to be managed.  Just the DB management is tricky, forget the development of software to perfectly handle it all.

[/software rant]

But, I agree, WOTC hasn't communicated well with their user base.  That is their major failing.   But wasn't MM3 awesome?


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## ScottSa (Jan 2, 2011)

Almacov said:


> I'm somewhat shocked that it has taken them *this* long to start using the boxed set model again and get more product in mainstream stores. (Wal-Marts, Targets, etc.)
> I hope they exploit the heck out of the chance.




(checking in to this board after time away, and wondering about this particular point which was mentioned a few times in the thread)

Isn't it true that Red Box was gone from both Walmart and Target by early Dec, and wasn't on sale except at the "regular outlets" (Amazon/B&N etc.) for Christmas? (this is partially anecdotal but backed up by the company webpages; when I checked my local Walmart some time in Nov, there were 2 Red Boxes sitting on the shelf under the Magic cards; when I checked again the first week of Dec, the spot had been refilled with MtG and no D&D was to be seen; I later checked the local Target as well as "site-to-store" on both of their sites, and at that point you couldn't even get the boxes from them online...)


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## Jeffrey (Jan 2, 2011)

Chzbro said:


> Yes. WotC treated you with less sensitivity than you think you deserve.




And before that, they treated their previous generation of customers with "less sensitivity", if not downright disrespect.

And one day soon, Grasshopper, they will treat you the same.

Hasbro/WOTC has earned and deserves all of the ill-will directed at them.

But I agree, let's all keep a measure of proportion about this.

It's just a game.


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## Riley (Jan 2, 2011)

ScottSa said:


> Isn't it true that Red Box was gone from both Walmart and Target by early Dec, and wasn't on sale except at the "regular outlets" (Amazon/B&N etc.) for Christmas?




That's quite disappointing if true, and wouldn't bode well for strong sales to new/lapsed players.

I'm reminded of an bit of old movie dialogue:



> Ian: The Boston gig has been cancelled.
> David: What?
> Ian: Yeah. I wouldn't worry about it though, it's not a big college town.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jan 2, 2011)

Riley said:


> That's quite disappointing if true, and wouldn't bode well for strong sales to new/lapsed players.
> 
> I'm reminded of an bit of old movie dialogue:




Well, it is like with any product. You have a lot of tough choices to make. What is demand going to be like? Overestimate and print too many and you're stuck with overstock and lose money. Print too few and you lose sales. Even if you print the right number then there is the vastly complicated question of where in the retail chain do you need them showing up? Is it better to have Target well stocked and the shelves at the local FLGS bare? Who's likely to be buying and where will they go? 

Nobody ever gets it exactly right. Even if you do guess correctly stuff happens. Product arrives late, reorders get delayed, stock goes astray, warehouses burn down. Some distributor goes belly up and stuff is locked in some warehouse someplace. You'd be amazed at the number of bizarre and annoying ways that the best inventory control can get botched up. 

Making a mass market product is actually the easy part...


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## Dungeoneer (Jan 2, 2011)

JoeGKushner said:


> The probloem with this low level of access requiring payment for higher features is that it's competing against things like Guild Wars and other free online play games. While the two are different overall experiences, from many sources, it seems that the base for table top RPG is shrinking. Asking people to pay to play... while possible doesn't make me think long term growth is going to be around, especially as the regular online games get mroe and more competitive and unfortunately for D&D, WoW has such a huge head start on them, especially in the fantasy field, that honestly, they will never catch up in my opinion in an online contest (as actually proven once so far with the Eberron online game.)



I don't think it's nearly as cut-and-dried that WoW is D&D's big competition as you think it is.  There's an argument to be made that people who are into 'fantasy gaming' use cRPGs and MMOs as a stop-gap for when they can't get their D&D fix, not the other way around.  

There _are_ some good video games out there, but they aren't exactly growing on trees.  We seem to get one cRPG which is really worth the effort every couple of years, and a Baldur's Gate about once a decade.  In between these you get the usual array of shoddy games with dull stories, frustrating gameplay, technical issues or some combination of the three.  The only real exception is WoW, which seems to be perennial, but you do have to wait a couple years between expansions.

In most cases I'd rather play D&D.  In fact I'd take playing D&D with a world-class DM over playing a really good cRPG in many cases.  At the end of the day, WoW is still a pre-scripted game with limited player choice.  

The reason WoW or a Neverwinter game win out over D&D is because you're about thirty seconds away from playing WoW at any given moment, but getting a D&D game together takes days of emailing, phone calling, coordinating schedules and rolling characters, not to mention the poor DM who is going to spend untold hours prepping for the game.  Anything WotC can do to lower the threshold for jumping into a game of real D&D helps D&D be more competitive with Guild Wars, or whatever.

A robust VTT would overcome a major roadblock for people playing D&D, which is getting a group together.  How many people play WoW because they live in a small town without a lot of gamers, or because they don't know anyone who plays D&D?  Probably a lot, I would guess.  If you give Joe Gamer in Nowheresville, KS the chance to get online and play some Dark Sun with some folks, you might actually get him to log out of WoW for a couple of hours.

I think tabletop RPGs still offer people something they can't get even in the latest and greatest video games.  I don't agree that the player base is shrinking or that the interest is not there.  I think lowering the threshold for getting people into a game is key to getting a D&D renaissance going.

Now if they could just fix the limited supply of really good DMs... I think WotC needs to invest in biotech and cloning.  They day I can select 'Chris Perkins' from a dropdown in the VTT is the day that WoW finally dies.


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## ScottSa (Jan 3, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, it is like with any product. You have a lot of tough choices to make(...)Is it better to have Target well stocked and the shelves at the local FLGS bare? Who's likely to be buying and where will they go?(...)Making a mass market product is actually the easy part...




Yes, but if part of the product strategy was "reaching out to new players", then presumably getting it into Walmart/Target was important, and they would want it to stay there longer than 1-2 months and/or through Xmas.

The immediate conclusions (assuming my observations are actually correct and the product was off the shelves/website by Dec), are either a) they never intended for it to be any less of a "flash-in-the-pan" than their other products (i.e. it was a pure nostalgia/"model-train-hobbyist" buy and the stocking-stuffer aspect somehow wasn't a consideration), or b) they meant for it to be available longer but someone pulled it (either Walmart at the not-worth-the-shelf-space level or Hasbro at the we-know-we'll-make-more-money-if-we-just-sell-100%-MtG-in-that-space level).


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jan 3, 2011)

I seriously doubt it. You don't go to the trouble to produce a product so you can then decide not to bother to sell it. Besides, Hasbro can command the shelf space in the box stores. If they have 10 hot products, they'll get the space for them all and someone else's uncool product of the year will get the boot. If you're Hasbro you don't expand your market share except by pushing other people off the shelf.

It is much more likely the product simply proved to be a better seller than they originally anticipated. Remember, the whole Christmas season was rather better than expected. They may well have set fairly conservative numbers and simply had very tight inventory. Probably not what they wanted, but if it means they sold the whole print run then you can bet that is good for the game.


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## ScottSa (Jan 3, 2011)

Like I said, it was gone at least 3 weeks before Xmas (while still being advertised as "available at Wal-Mart and Target" on WotC's splash page the entire time). "Good for the game" is hard to justify unless "not being on shelves or in the online store through most of the Black-Friday-to-post-Xmas period" is unimportant. If all they care about is getting through their limited print-runs, then it's OK, but it's status-quo rather than "raising D&D population levels", and the whole making-it-into-Walmart thing was meaningless.

Also, "making room for D&D", "pushing competitors off the shelves" etc. wasn't even a consideration in this case; the Red Box was stocked with the CCG stuff and was clearly "borrowing" shelf space from MtG for the time I saw it there (i.e. it was sitting directly under the booster pack racks and was totally surrounded by premade decks, booster/deck boxes and whatever). The first thing that I checked after I noticed it was gone, was whether it had been moved to the toys/games section... I agree that "Hasbro would have kept it on the shelves if it had been selling." But turn that around (contrapositive): "It wasn't on the shelves, therefore it wasn't selling."

If we're going with an optimistic interpretation here, we'd be saying that Red Box was underprinted, completely sold out in Oct or Nov, but no one bothered to reprint it for Walmart/Target even though it was popular (and that those stores chose to take down the item entry on their sites, rather than leave it up with a will-ship-when-available option). I lack confidence in that version of events.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jan 3, 2011)

Well, it is all idle speculation in every direction. In any case I've never been all that convinced that the theory of selling D&D in box stores has ever made that much sense. It is a word-of-mouth kind of product, and always was. I'd suspect the goal was keeping the game in the public eye while making sure what they stocked sold. Lets face it, even in the days of the original Red Box D&D wasn't exactly mainstream.


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## Dungeoneer (Jan 3, 2011)

I just wanted to inject this into the conversation: Target or whomever doesn't stock shelves with product out of the goodness of their heart.  Hasbro pays for that shelf space.  They pay a LOT.  The 'real estate value' of a foot of shelf space at a major retailer is hard to pin down exactly (neither the stores nor the companies willingly share the numbers) but it's high.  Getting shelf space in the Target toy section is like renting a downtown storefront - you pay high rent in exchange for visibility. 

It's highly unlikely that Target looked at the Red Box and said "it doesn't sell, we won't stock it."  They don't care that much, they've already got Hasbro's 'rent'.  It's Hasbro that has to decide whether the Red Box deserves a spot in the very expensive shelf space they are paying for.

Unless the Red Box and other D&D products prove to be perennial best-sellers, it's unlikely that Hasbro will continue to devote shelf space to them long term.  Something could sell pretty decently and still not justify the high cost of shelf space.  

FWIW, a search for 'red box' on the Target website doesn't currently turn up any trace of the D&D product.


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## Firebeetle (Jan 4, 2011)

I have a lot of trouble with your premise here:

The red box is EXACTLY the product that D&D needed. No, I haven't bought one because it isn't relevant to my needs. However, my kid's D&D group is excited about it and I'll be surprised if one doesn't come back from Xmas break with one. It's an entry level product and it does a brilliant job at it.

D&D Essentials is also intended for the new gamer, not necessarily at us. I've focused on the tiles and the compendium, and I'll pick up the monster book too. 

D&D Insider: My personal biggest disappointment, mainly because I'm still wanting the promised character imager. However, I consider it absolutely vital and have yet to see what the big complaint is. 

I don't see D&D going anywhere anytime soon. Things will have to be much worse to get to that mid-90s moment when the brand threatened to go teats up. I think you're feeling this all wrong.

Of course, what happens with the game isn't all that important. The real money in D&D is the novel line. In order to keep that going, they'll need to keep the game in house. Licensing the spring of that particular river of cash would be ill-advised.

In your support, however, there was an old Monte Cook post (which I can't find) in which he suggests that D&D should have a single company dedicated to it. He thought this would be much more manageable for the game and would save D&D problems when the company lays off people everywhere. It would save D&D from having to fill the profit model the corporation wants with the one D&D can expect.


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## Dungeoneer (Jan 4, 2011)

Firebeetle said:


> In your support, however, there was an old Monte Cook post (which I can't find) in which he suggests that D&D should have a single company dedicated to it. He thought this would be much more manageable for the game and would save D&D problems when the company lays off people everywhere. It would save D&D from having to fill the profit model the corporation wants with the one D&D can expect.



I heartily agree with this.  The problem with D&D as a product line is that it's fairly unique.  It doesn't fit in any of the neat product boxes that Hasbro, or even a game company like WotC, has.  It's a slow-burn product with a life cycle measured in years, not quarters.  Can it turn a profit?  Yes.  Is that going to show up on quarterly reports?  No.

D&D would be better off in the hands of an independent company entirely dedicated to it, albeit one better managed than TSR.


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## drskeletor1 (Jan 4, 2011)

Personaly I don't mind 4e, sure there isn't a freaking 80 some pages section of spells for magic casters to select from, but they desided to take a different approach to it, is that bad or good..? Well...that anwser depends on the person. But if it brought in some things people liked, they will know to use that in the 5th edition, if they did something wrong that got complained about a lot, they'll fix it in 5th edition. 

Do I see 5th edition coming out by WoTC? Yes. I mean, sure there are other roleplays out there, but if you have a problem with 4th edition, I have a solution, don't buy it anymore...simple. Stop complaining about it, because, unfortunatly we have to wait, what? Another year or two or maybe even three or so on for 5th edition? And go try other roleplays. :-/

The one thing I don't like about WoTC however, is how...I don't want to say greedy..because that's not true...but...they really wanted to rake a lot of money out of D&D fans. I liked 3e (or 3.5e) where all I needed was PHB, MM, and DMG. But now you have 3 PHBs, 3 MM, 2 DMG, and they TONS of other books, like the Ebberon campaign guide, and Dark sun campaign guide, and they have some other books that I think they just made to make some more $$$, and that I believe that they changed and made a few minor "mistakes" on purpose so they could go: "Oh hey! We have a problem, let's make a new $35 - $40 book that covers and solves that problem." 

Don't believe the whole they just want to rake money thing? What about the game now requiring you to have minis or tokens to keep track of your location? And now pre-made maps? >_< Where is the imagination in that?

But even though that may be a problem, I don't see WoTC dropping a huge money maker like that soon.


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## renau1g (Jan 4, 2011)

Dungeoneer said:


> D&D would be better off in the hands of an independent company entirely dedicated to it, albeit one better managed than TSR.




Like Paizo?  naw, just kidding, they do make great adventures though...


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## renau1g (Jan 4, 2011)

drskeletor1 said:


> Don't believe the whole they just want to rake money thing? What about the game now requiring you to have minis or tokens to keep track of your location? And now pre-made maps? >_< Where is the imagination in that?




Use poker chips, or pennies, or any other super-cheap alternative if you don't want to buy minis. Nobody requires you to buy the tiles, I've never bought them myself and use a dry-erase and laminated battlemap. Works fine for me. Not quite as evocative sometimes, but gives me more freedom for really cool maps.


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## NewJeffCT (Jan 4, 2011)

Lancelot said:


> [*]Give the license to Games Workshop. Get a new edition every 3 years. Every class has it's own "classbook" that must be purchased independently of the core rules, and your character mini costs $40 (paint and assembly not included; non-approved minis may not be used).




I always comment about that when people complain about the frequency of new editions in D&D - if it was Warhammer, we'd be on 8E or 9E about now and miniatures from the older editions will look puny next to the more recent versions.  Plus, you forgot that with each new classbook, the power often creeps up a little more so the newest class is usually the most powerful in the current edition, while the oldest classbooks feature what are now the weakest classes.


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## Dausuul (Jan 4, 2011)

NewJeffCT said:


> Plus, you forgot that with each new classbook, the power often creeps up a little more so the newest class is usually the most powerful in the current edition, while the oldest classbooks feature what are now the weakest classes.




Not exactly. Often what you see is that the early release of any given game contains a mix of the brokenly powerful and the utterly pathetic. Over time, the designers get a better feel for balance, and the game stabilizes at a low-ish power level. From there, power creep does take hold, but it never creeps up to the level of the crazy-broken stuff from the first release.

In 3E, for example, the most brokenly powerful classes, spells, and feats were in the Player's Handbook. As far as I can recall, no new base class ever matched the might of the Power Trio (cleric, druid, wizard)*, and no new feat ever outshone Leadership. PRCs did get stronger, it's true, but the most powerful non-caster PRCs were still weaker than a straight-up wizard.

4E never had such glaring balance issues, but even so, there was some pretty overpowered stuff in the original Player's Handbook. WotC's willingness to errata-nerf has fixed most of it.

[size=-2]*Except possibly the archivist from Heroes of Horror.[/size]


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## filthgrinder (Jan 4, 2011)

Dungeoneer said:


> Getting shelf space in the Target toy section is like renting a downtown storefront - you pay high rent in exchange for visibility.




Just for accuracy, the Red Box was never in Target's toy section. The Red Box was in the "collectibles" section. This is a separate location from the toy section. The standard Target layout has this section up front near the check out lines. Normally dividing the check out lanes from the start of Health and Beauty, but your local Target layout may be different. This section houses "collectible" products, such as Sports trading cards, Twilight trading cards, Magic, Yu-gi-oh, "silly bands", and other such products. (Yu-gi-oh also normally has an end-cap in the toy section, For awhile Star Wars minis also had a toy section end-cap at the board game section).

But, it's apart from the toy section. If you wandered down the board game aisle of a Target, you wouldn't see the red box, but if you wandered by the collectibles section, you should have seen the product.


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## filthgrinder (Jan 4, 2011)

drskeletor1 said:


> The one thing I don't like about WoTC however, is how...I don't want to say greedy..because that's not true...but...they really wanted to rake a lot of money out of D&D fans. I liked 3e (or 3.5e) where all I needed was PHB, MM, and DMG. But now you have 3 PHBs, 3 MM, 2 DMG, and they TONS of other books, like the Ebberon campaign guide, and Dark sun campaign guide, and they have some other books that I think they just made to make some more $$$, and that I believe that they changed and made a few minor "mistakes" on purpose so they could go: "Oh hey! We have a problem, let's make a new $35 - $40 book that covers and solves that problem."




Just to introduce some facts into the discussion... according to wiki, Monster Manual V (yes, V for 5) was published in July '07 for 3.5.
Player's Handbook 2 for 3.5 was published in '06
Dungeon Master's Guide 2 for 3.5 was in '05
So that's 9 books to 8...
If you talk about additional books and campaign settings... That's all optional stuff and I like options, so I'd wish they put out most books, but that's me. I think two books a campaign setting is far more ideal than the glut of Forgotten Realms books that appeared in the 3.x era.

Anyways, what does this all mean. WotC is a company. They exist to make money. They make money by selling books and accessories. In order to due this they need to make new products for people to buy. The consumer than makes an assessment of these products and if they should buy them or not.


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## ProfessorCirno (Jan 5, 2011)

This is the best thread because people have suggested that TSR wasn't in it for the money.

Guys the newest edition of D&D, I dislike it!

Clearly _everyone at WotC should personally feel shame!_

I mean, come the hell on.  TSR was run by someone that literally hated you - yes, *you* - personally, but somehow WotC deserves all the ill will because oh god you don't like the product?  Yeah, we should go back to the days of the D&D owners just _suing their own fans_, that was way better.

Edit: Also, the 4e book load is like 1/10th of the garbage TSR pumped out.  We've gone past rose colored glasses and are now firmly in the land of blinders.


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## catastrophic (Jan 5, 2011)

Infiniti2000 said:


> But, if people don't exaggerate, how will they be able to claim the sky is falling?



It should be quite easy for them in a few months when 5e launches in the new 'Blue Box' that doubles as a planetary-scale atmospheric imploder!!!!! That's right, WOTC is plotting to _steal all of our air_, so that only people with a Fifth Edition box set are able to breathe!!!


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## ScottSa (Jan 5, 2011)

I'm not the OP, but my "premise" when I refreshed the thread wasn't that D&D is "failing" so much as "not succeeding". I don't think D&D will completely implode until the '80s and '90s cohorts start physically dying out. But on the other hand, I don't think anything we've seen from 4e sales has been representative of anything but the "entrenched community that will buy anything that says 'D&D core rules' on the cover and looks like a Gygax-era hardback in some way" fetishists. New people come in when there's a rules reboot, people might somehow be intrigued by "D&D-in-a-box" rather than "D&D-in-weird-thin-textbook-form", etc. etc., but the past 2.5 years haven't reignited the fad in any serious "game-changing" way. I was asking about the Walmart/Red Box thing as a way of testing that premise.


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## Windjammer (Jan 16, 2011)

I must say, in light of recent events (the Ampersand column on Jan 13) this thread reads a lot different then when Merric posted it a month ago.

The sentiments expressed in this OP, and its earlier companion, were a lot more indicative of what's going on than Merric got credit for. 

I'm not usually one for thread necromancy (not even short term ones), but remembering this thread earlier today I realized how short lived memory is in forum discussions.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jan 16, 2011)

I think it is a couple weeks too soon to make any real judgments on that. Wait and see what happens at DDXP. WotC IS very quiet right now about their plans, but there's nothing really odd about that, they have a huge high profile PR smash right around the corner. So far they've done kinda pretty much what you'd expect in that situation, which is say little except "come to DDXP and see what we have in store". If what they have in store at DDXP is a big fat nothing, then one might begin to ask questions about how much interest they really have in pushing D&D. So far they haven't laid anyone off and are continuing to work on a number of known products, and will almost certainly announce new ones that presumably are taking the place of ones that were canceled or delayed indefinitely.


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## Dice4Hire (Jan 17, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think it is a couple weeks too soon to make any real judgments on that. Wait and see what happens at DDXP. WotC IS very quiet right now about their plans, but there's nothing really odd about that, they have a huge high profile PR smash right around the corner. So far they've done kinda pretty much what you'd expect in that situation, which is say little except "come to DDXP and see what we have in store". If what they have in store at DDXP is a big fat nothing, then one might begin to ask questions about how much interest they really have in pushing D&D. So far they haven't laid anyone off and are continuing to work on a number of known products, and will almost certainly announce new ones that presumably are taking the place of ones that were canceled or delayed indefinitely.




I spent the winter vacation asking people to wait till the week of the 9th to hear announcements, but forgot about DDXP. I'll wait for then to see what WOTC is doing.


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## Aegeri (Jan 17, 2011)

Let's just hope they are doing _something_.


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## JoeGKushner (Jan 17, 2011)

JoeGKushner said:


> I honestly think that if WoTC is going to continue making D&D, they need to get as far away from books as possible.
> 
> More miniatures, tiles, board games, and things that lead you online to the DDI.
> 
> But then again, I think they need to make the DDI free as the character creator part and charge people for access to things like Dragon, Dungeon, VTT, etc... Getting people to make character to play your game should be something you want to encourage as much as possible, especially when you're going to be pulling that data to see what they're doing. Making a beta product and charging the customer for it while misleading them for months as to whats going on on the other hand...




yeah, I'm going to pretty much stay right there.


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