WotC Hasbro CEO Chris Cox, "I would say that the underlying thesis of our D&D business is all about digital,”

[mamba]

So we're back to people are just too stupid to know that this is a bad adventure and keep buying it?

is that the only option I gave?

Is it even one I gave? no, not looking at reviews <> stupid

Couldn't possibly be that the issues that some people have with the adventure are simply issues that other people just don't care about. Naw, that's unpossible. NO way it could be that. No, it's all those players that are out of touch. WotC releasing the module, what, three, four times now? That's totally off base. It's just a terrible module.

I said it ranks at the bottom on most sites ranking modules, that is a fact. Even on Amazon it is, relatively speaking. That is not the same as terrible.

I even said they might not care about the issues the reviews bring up and think they can fix them.

So stop your ranting about things I never said

 

[Zardnaar]

apparently not people who are not sure what it means

It means that a higher percentage of the 2e player base bought it than of the 5e one.


where did I say that again? I do not care for the setting, did not in 2e, do not do so now. That has nothing to with quality, but it does mean I can only cite reviews etc., as I have no first hand knowledge (see the no ship combat bit)

When I say reviews were disappointing, does that mean I do not like it? Would they magically be better if I did?


I have no idea what you are going on about


I disagree, the sales do not reflect that, the ratings do mot reflect that. If you did not compare to 2e sales, you’d know that toi


that was drastically discounted a week or so ago, but I am sure that cannot have anything to do with it, why would it


if that is what you arrive at… you are free to draw your own conclusions

If you want to criticize mine, show me where I said that

Careful there champ you'll make the Sealion run out of straw.

 

[Oofta]

But, I don't hear constant calls for how TSR was totally incompetent to produce Spelljammer in a format that was pretty much the same as what WotC produced. TSR gets hailed for it's creativity and whatnot for making all these wonderful settings. WotC then takes those settings, gives them a bit of spit and polish, promotes the crap out of them, then sells them and they're incompetent?

Never minding outselling 2e Spelljammer, there's literally more Spelljammer material available right now than there ever was before.

For some bizarre reason, no one seems to take DM's Guild into account when discussing these settings. WotC has been really, crystal clear in how they are presenting settings. They bang out the bare bones, basic framework of the setting, along with an adventure path for that setting. Then they leave it up to DM's Guild to add in all that stuff that was used to get from TSR.

It's not like this is new. This is how they have been doing 5e since day 1 of 5e. They've stuck to their plan for ten years now.

WHat baffles me is why people still seem surprised about this.

It's an interesting business model and such a change from the TSR days. TSR hired a bunch of people to write modules and adventures, flooding the market and diluting the official brand. When the OGL was created and opened so much up, a bunch of supplements started showing up. But they pretty much had to be sold as dead tree versions which was quite risky for those 3PP. Now we have Dmsguild and anyone can throw something out there as long as the setting has an official release. Meanwhile people who take a chance and buy the modules rate them for us, so after they've been out a bit the ones that are well written rise to the top.

This supports a robust D&D player base with incredibly low risk for WOTC. In addition they get their cut of the profits when the mods do sell and people who enjoy writing modules get some exposure and a small amount of profit that was not available. The people writing these likely aren't going to make a living off of it, but that's not likely career path for most people in any case.

But people on this forum will just dismiss all of that because they're "not official". Many will say that while complaining about the quality of the official products. I've only purchased a few things from Dmsguild because I run a home campaign, but there's some really amazing stuff out there.

 

[Parmandur]

Having been a player in it, I'd say the internet criticism is mostly right. The Greenest encounters are completely out of balance, and I just felt like the plot yanked our chain to go to nonsensical places. Like, I had no idea why we were going to the Mere of the Dead Men at some point, and the plot didn't follow any particular logic you could work around, it was just "follow the trail of the looting cultists".

I would say the criticns are 100% valid...but also that in practice we had fun.

 

[Parmandur]

was not disagreeing with you, I assume you have the set and know for sure. I found it weird that on YT it sounds like there isn’t one

Yeah, no worries, I was going off at silly YTer memes. Misinformation is silly, but it gets clicks I guess.

 

[Parmandur]

Thank you! I’ve been wanting to get it, but money is tight, and didn’t want to have to buy another book just to have ship-to-ship combat. This helps ease my concerns.

No problem! Honestly my main criticism is that the ship combat takes up a rather proportionately large percentage of the word count: 32-64 more pages on world material would have balanced it out.

It is not a super hardcore space simulation, not at the same level the 2E space co.bat was. And that is what the critics really.mean, I jiat wish they would say it that way. "I don't like the quick and dirty space combat system" is valid "the ship combat system that is there doesn't exist" is nonsense.

 

[darjr]

You're the one talking about quality, not me. But, I find it hillariously funny that people keep harping on about how bad this module is, and how WotC must do better if they want to be successful, yet, this apparently bottom ranked module is making money for WotC hand over fist.

Funny how "good for the consumer" is yet another way of saying, "this is something I don't like, so it must be bad".

I also see cherry picking of measures of quality or success.

 

[Alzrius]

You're the one talking about quality, not me. But, I find it hillariously funny that people keep harping on about how bad this module is, and how WotC must do better if they want to be successful, yet, this apparently bottom ranked module is making money for WotC hand over fist.

I seem to recall that you were one of the people who said something similar about how much money Dungeons & Dragons Insider was making for WotC during the 4E years.

 

[deganawida]

No problem! Honestly my main criticism is that the ship combat takes up a rather proportionately large percentage of the word count: 32-64 more pages on world material would have balanced it out.

It is not a super hardcore space simulation, not at the same level the 2E space co.bat was. And that is what the critics really.mean, I jiat wish they would say it that way. "I don't like the quick and dirty space combat system" is valid "the ship combat system that is there doesn't exist" is nonsense.

I can live with no “World of Warships” in space

 

[darjr]

I seem to recall that you were one of the people who said something similar about how much money Dungeons & Dragons Insider was making for WotC during the 4E years.

I dint get you?

It is indeed very likely that ddi made WotC a ton of revenue from 4e. And, for the time, and as far as we can tell, had a large user base.

The problem was it might have cost them more than that revenue just to make it.