Dragon #361 and Dungeon #152 news

[Bagpuss]

This was posted over at the Wizards forums by WotC_Thomasson.

We're in the process of working on cleaning up the site to tag the articles this month appropriately. We completely missed that the front page tabs still said Dragon #360 and Dungeon #151. Everything that comes out in November and December will be #361 and #152 respectively.

There are a lot of other comments here. We appreciate them all. To address a couple of points:

As I said in the #151 editorial, not only is this a free preview period, of sorts (I mean, how preview can it be when it's 3.5 content and we're headed toward the 4th Edition release?), but it's a transition period. We're trying to get our launch in May ironed out, while getting everyone ready for the 4th Edition release. In the coming weeks, we'll have the Dragon #360 pdf compilation (it should be in to me from my typesetter very, very soon). The #151 pdf will follow shortly after. We'll also have the first #152 adventure, "Last Breaths of Ashenport," followed by an Anauroch short adventure by Greg Vaughan and an adventure called "Moagim's Clone," for high-level play by a fellow by the name of Ryan Smalley.

For #361, we have an article by Robert Schwalb coming out shortly, which details a pair of nasty villains who serve a new elder evil (which features in a massively nasty adventure in December). We'll also have a follow-up piece to the Grand History of the Realms, which talks in detail about the history of the Moonshaes, a sequel to "Infernal Aristocracy" from October, the Ecology of the Fire Archon, an article with rules for playing an epic binder, and more stuff.

I'm also hoping to get some old-skool comics up soon. I've got Stan! working up some sketches for me, and I've also talked to a couple of other former Dragon and Dungeon cartoonists about doing some work.

I know the content is trickling out a little slow right now. It will pick up in the next week or so. Oh, and more Design & Development articles (the bulette, more on magic items in 4th, quests, dwarves, and lots more).

Oh, and we're hopefully going to be looking at getting a TOC page put up soon for each issue. Eventually I want to see it with a list of each issue's contents up ahead of time, and each article link will go live when the article goes up. Our overworked and dedicated dev is slammed with all the other stuff that goes with the transition right now, but I'll put this back on his radar.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

It appears Dragon & Dungeon are losing the quality and focus that come from being the product of a dedicated team. Now they are someone's extra duty.

 

[GVDammerung]

Now they are someone's extra duty.

This is something that I've wondered about.

 

[DaveMage]

It appears Dragon & Dungeon are losing the quality and focus that come from being the product of a dedicated team. Now they are someone's extra duty.

Yep.

Strange that they didn't just let Paizo keep the mags for a while longer. I haven't seen anything in "Dragon" that WotC couldn't have simply done as a web feature like they've had for the last 7 years (with the possible exception of the Demonomicon article).

...But then, there are a lot of things I don't understand at WotC these days. *shrug*

 

[Mouseferatu]

It appears Dragon & Dungeon are losing the quality and focus that come from being the product of a dedicated team. Now they are someone's extra duty.

To be fair, with 4E on the horizon, I imagine that everything is someone's "extra duty."

Now, maybe that means they should've held off on taking back the magazines--but if they had, then they wouldn't have had the chance to get the bugs ironed out by the 4E launch. I dunno; there are arguments to make either way. I'm glad I wasn't the one who had to make the decision.

 

[Scribble]

Well I'm assuming the end of Paizo's possession of the magazines came at the expiration date of their contract... Wizards just decided not to renew instead of working out a completely new short contract that expires a few months later for "some reason."

I'm assuming the magazines will get much better once they get the kinks ironed out, and start pumping out real stuff for 4e. Then its true strengths will shine through.

So far the articles (admitedly not too many of them) have been no better or worse in my eyes then a lot of what Paizo put out.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Well I'm assuming the end of Paizo's possession of the magazines came at the expiration date of their contract... Wizards just decided not to renew instead of working out a completely new short contract that expires a few months later for "some reason."

In fact, my understanding is that Wizards extended the existing contract, so Paizo could finish off the Savage Tide AP. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm 99.44% certain that was the case.)

 

[the black knight]

Paizo knew what they were doing. These guys have yet to figure it out.

 

[trollwad]

I haven't seen anything in Dungeon or Dragon that is that original. Oh, lets redo Gygax's module from 20 years ago. Oh, lets get Sean Reynolds to do what the Paizo guys came up with (the deity pieces). Fire Archons? Wow, thats compelling. Dungeon and Dragon are now FREE and it isn't even worth my time to visit them except to get the latest Sean Reynolds pieces. By contrast, I waited with baited breath to PAY at my FLGS for the right to read most of the Dungeon issues and a few Dragons.

And that ladies and gentlemen is what can happen when you lose people who are passionate about their product (mona, jacobs, logue, pett)

 

[JoeGKushner]

To be fair, with 4E on the horizon, I imagine that everything is someone's "extra duty."

Now, maybe that means they should've held off on taking back the magazines--but if they had, then they wouldn't have had the chance to get the bugs ironed out by the 4E launch. I dunno; there are arguments to make either way. I'm glad I wasn't the one who had to make the decision.

But they've had months before the mags were cancelled.

Which is why it's amazing how poorly it's all coming along.