Changes coming to WotC Community Team

[Matt James]

Trevor is a good friend of mine and to make the assumption that he did not communicate up the chain, is just plain wrong. I realize no one here (or at least, very few) had the opportunity to see him at work, but Trevor is one of the best community folks Wizards has ever had. For a guy to do what he does, with the size of the community he is managing, he was stellar. Feel free to blame whoever, lord know this community will, but Trevor was always on top of being informative and engaging with the fans.

He could have easily sat on his tuft, but chose to instead be proactive with communicating. He was the lightning rod for all criticism, good or bad/hateful.

Best of luck, Trevor. I've rarely met someone who was so happy to be working in the gaming industry and so determined to stay plugged in.

 

[the Jester]

Eh, I think this is kind of hair-splitting though really. It WILL allow you to build monsters. They could have said 'eventually', but then really I don't get all the ire about this.

If I buy a device that is advertised as playing DVDs and I bring it home and it won't play DVDs until another six months go by, do I have a right to feel ripped off? To make this a completely analogous instance, let's add: It comes with a DVD that I can watch, or even scene select, but it won't do anything with a different DVD.

Please. Nobody is lying to you. I just built a few monsters with it. Just because it is in beta, and not yet complete, and doesn't do everything you want . . . doesn't make anybody a liar.

You can reskin existing monsters, and adjust their levels. Limited, of course. But those are classic techniques of building new monsters that go back to all previous editions.

If that meets your definition of "building monsters," you are far more generous than I.

For one thing, it doesn't do the few things it does correctly. Sure you can relevel a monster- but it ends up using obsolete math and coming out jacked. It is easier to do it with pen and paper. Why pay for something that adds headache instead of taking it away?

 

[MrMyth]

Of course, another way to look at it is that WotC continues to do this "crappy marketing" because it doesn't actually hurt them. For all we know... the only people who get all pissy about it are us messageboard people who have nothing better to do that go over every single thing WotC does and says with a fine-toothed comb to find any little thing to blow out of proportion and rant about. And if we forum-folk only make up 2% of their gaming audience, and the other 98% go through their day-to-day DDI lives not caring one way or the other, still subscribing, still using the tools, still being active DDI users... they've determined that our incessant complaints cause little to no appreciable difference and our long internet threads are nothing more than white noise.

I don't think the damage/fallout from such things will cripple the company, sure, but I imagine is still hurts more than it helps. You do have users quitting over these sorts of frustrations, others requesting refunds during months where WotC fails to deliver what they promised subscribers, etc. Plus, of course, the continued accumulation of ill will.

I think that what DDI offers at core is strong enough to generally overcome such burdens, but I have to imagine that if they were able to avoid these sorts of communication fiascos, DDI would be doing even better.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think that what DDI offers at core is strong enough to generally overcome such burdens, but I have to imagine that if they were able to avoid these sorts of communication fiascos, DDI would be doing even better.

Well, sure... but then it becomes the question of how much better, and what kind of internal company changes would need to occur to have that occur? Does the marketing for D&D come from the D&D department, or does it come from the general Wizards marketing area? How much communication is there? How much does the Wizards marketing "punch up" the press releases? Is trying to "fix" those aspects of the process economically worthwhile to actually result in an appreciable upswing of DDI?

If the answer is "not really"... then they might very well accept it as business as usual rather than the D&D department try and affect some sort of grand company cleansing... and just deal with the fallout from the online community as it happens. The fact that this kind of marketing snafu still happens even after all these previous marketing releases, leads me to believe that WotC just doesn't think it matters in the long run and just doesn't care.

 

[Kez Darksun]

Trevor is a good friend of mine and to make the assumption that he did not communicate up the chain, is just plain wrong. I realize no one here (or at least, very few) had the opportunity to see him at work, but Trevor is one of the best community folks Wizards has ever had. For a guy to do what he does, with the size of the community he is managing, he was stellar. Feel free to blame whoever, lord know this community will, but Trevor was always on top of being informative and engaging with the fans.

He could have easily sat on his tuft, but chose to instead be proactive with communicating. He was the lightning rod for all criticism, good or bad/hateful.

Best of luck, Trevor. I've rarely met someone who was so happy to be working in the gaming industry and so determined to stay plugged in.

Well said. I have nothing but praise for the job Trevor has done. Whenever I've had an issue, he's always sought to find an answer for me, even if it might not be the answer I want to hear. While I will miss him as the head of WotC's community team, I'm happy for him that he'll be able to be with his wife again, and I'm glad that he will still stay involved interacting with the community as well.

 

[SSquirrel]

Hey, Iowa is not dull...

Ok, I couldn't even type that with a straight face. Still, I work at a great store in Des Moines called Mayhem Comics <shameless plug>. Not sure what the Iowa City scene looks like but I know that they have a couple of stores in the area. We have a pretty good gaming scene in Des Moines though, so I would encourage Trevor, or anyone passing through, to stop by and check it out.

I wanna say I may have gone to Des Moines to Mayhem to play in a Magic tourney back in the Urza's block days heh. Entirely probably that Mayhem has a couple of stores that way now. It's been 4 years since I left.

 

[Shemeska]

In defence of Iowa, without getting into any of the other drama or potential drama in this thread, Iowa gave us Slipknot. They're cool as a state in my book.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

In defence of Iowa, without getting into any of the other drama or potential drama in this thread, Iowa gave us Slipknot. They're cool as a state in my book.

*blink*. Um, yeah, you seem to have a varying definition of cool than I.

 

[Bagpuss]

But without Slipknot there would be no Justin Bieber vs Slipknot...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kspPE9E1yGM]YouTube - Justin Bieber vs. Slipknot - Psychosocial Baby[/ame]

 

[Herschel]

He could have easily sat on his tuft, but chose to instead be proactive with communicating. He was the lightning rod for all criticism, good or bad/hateful.

Must
spread
XP

But does Trevor even like cottage cheese?