Dear Wizards, I no longer have a clue what you're doing

[DMZ2112]

This thread inspired me to pop back over to Wizards.com and read some of what's being done or said over there for the first time in a long while.

I have to say, it certainly sounds like the wheels are coming off. Not a good thing. I hope they have a unified position to get behind for DDXP.

 

[Aegeri]

I am pretty sure for the first time since they made the magazines online only they are going to fail to publish multiple articles.

 

[SteveC]

With the con coming up this week, I am really hoping we'll get some kind of an idea where WotC is going with the brand. For now I'd answer the OPs statement with "I very much doubt that anyone inside the company knows where it's going either.

This is one of those situations where I really hope I'm wrong, but things do not look good. It's like they've basically called it a day and are all but closing up shop. I'd really like to buy something, but it's yet another month where I don't even have that option.

We will see, I suppose.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I know!

You can only have so much books a year after a certain period of time, since players don´t buy books and DM´s have all books they need.

So essentials was an attempt to reorganize things into packages that help new DMs and new players and get them buing into DDI, which will in return give actual content that is good and balanced and tools that are very convenient for players and DMs alike.

A good idea if you ask me, but noone asks me to be honest...^^

 

[Prestidigitalis]

You can only have so much books a year after a certain period of time, since players don´t buy books and DM´s have all books they need.

Players... don't... buy... books..........

There's something in that statement that doesn't quite ring true -- if only I could put my finger on it...

*crash* *bang* *ow* *damn I needed that ankle*

(Sounds courtesy of me tripping over one of my piles of 4e books)

 

[fumetti]

*yawn* This tired argument has been made since 1997. After 14 years of it being wrong, you think people would actually give up on it.

Given that it hasn't been wrong for a single second since WOTC took over (they began with reimagining DnD as a miniatures combat game from the start), there is no reason to "give up on" the plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face truth.

 

[M.L. Martin]

Given that it hasn't been wrong for a single second since WOTC took over (they began with reimagining DnD as a miniatures combat game from the start), there is no reason to "give up on" the plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face truth.

Well, it's true that WotC did push D&D in a much more mini-centered direction once they took over (this, along with the instability of the rules, is one of my two major reasons for not really buying into 4E--and I'd generally abandoned 3E long before), but the collectible miniatures aspect didn't show up until 2003 and 3.5.

I do think that WotC tends to be somewhat unstable with regard to their plans for the game (witness the "we'll put out major evergreen supplements and let the OGL support the rest" plan of 2000-2001 or so in comparison to the "lots of hardcovers" model of 3.5 or the DDI push, the "settings killed TSR" vs. the setting search, the rise and fall of the miniatures, and so forth), but I'm not sure if that reflects flexibility and adaptation to a changing marketplace, or a flailing about searching for the 'one thing' that will make D&D as big as it was in the 80s (which was a fluke and a fad, IMO). Probably a mix of both.

 

[The Little Raven]

Given that it hasn't been wrong for a single second since WOTC took over (they began with reimagining DnD as a miniatures combat game from the start), there is no reason to "give up on" the plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face truth.

"Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures"

They reimagined a game that began as a miniatures-based combat game into a miniatures-based combat game. Not to mentions the decades in between where all the measurements in the game were given in inches (which had to be converted to feet). The more things change, eh?

And I like how the "reimagining" actually doesn't touch on the post I was responding to, where the poster claimed they want to make D&D "an Xbox Live product." He also claimed that they want to turn D&D into a collectible game, a claim made since WotC bought TSR in the 1990s, and a claim which has yet to turn out to be true... unless the non-collectible, non-subscription D&D I've been playing is from some alternate universe.

 

[Chainsaw Mage]

He also claimed that they want to turn D&D into a collectible game, a claim made since WotC bought TSR in the 1990s, and a claim which has yet to turn out to be true...

Just wait.

 

[666Sinner666]

My main problem with 4e and WOTC right now is Essentials. They essentially decided they did not like the way 4e characters worked and changed it. But instead of having a solid release schedule where slowly but surely every class got remade into an Essentials version they have released the same classes in three different products, some of those just for the sake of nostalgia. Now the only class based release I see for 2011 is the shadow source book which from the description focuses on Assassins, Necromancers, and Hexblades. The first and last are the only two existing classes with the other being a new class. Why continue to make new classes under Essentials when you have not even remade all the existing classes into their Essentials couter parts? To boot thats the only character based release for this year as well. What a load of BS.