Rant on Errata and what Wizards need to do to move forward.

[Ninja-to]

Let me get the rant out of the way.

I have to say that I think I'm not going to be buying any WotC products for a very long time, especially books. It is book after book after book that have endless errata and half the time it seems nobody is even proofreading the material anymore. What are we at now? 123+ pages of changes to the books.

My other two cents: When we were promised before release that we would all be getting digital PDF versions of our books, I was thrilled. How cool would it be to ALWAYS have all of the errata in the books you bought? I remember the plan being something like you input a code from inside your book for your updates to your PDF. How awesome was that idea?

How it is that now that's just some vaporware like the character designer ads that are still there in my original 4th Ed PHB.

Now I start my session last weekend and get excited when a dragon is about to stomp on the party and one of my players (who stays up on new errata like no-one else) tells me ALL of the dragons have been changed.

So that renders my plan to pick up the Draconomicon books kinda uncertain. Then when I think about it, every book that gets released has me hesitating. It's insane. And the only reliable and working piece of software that included all of the updates perfectly... has been scrapped. They're trying to make us pay MMO prices without there being an MMO product.

What the hell is Wizards thinking? Seriously? It's as though they're purposefully trying to break 4th Edition.

Awesome game design. Really, really bad marketing.

Here are a few very simple ideas. You want to create more income and steady flow of revenue? I'm sure we all understand that.

STOP printing books. That is, until they're finished for god's sake. I remember a very old promise WotC made when they bought TSR. "We will not saturate the market. TSR made this error." So what the hell happened to that idea?

Start using your brand to sell other products. Invest in a movie or tv series without it being a razzie contender. Share the profits with known writers and directors. Look at how Marvel has marketed their brand. Merchandising. Sell D&D merchandise. Lucas did it with Star Wars. Hasbro... come on guys. Someone there is out to lunch.

And for god's sake re-introduce the old character builder and update it. It was the best software Wizards ever made. Keep going. Create a suite for DM's to use with a laptop at the table. Digitize EVERYTHING so that a DM needs only his laptop to play. Why is this so incredibly difficult?

You can't stop piracy. Don't even start on it. Every single book ever printed for D&D is online somewhere. Why not get over it and start moving forward?

How about this? Create an 'account' that people can log into. They buy a book, either digitally or hard copy (remember to always give people both choices) and they input their code. Now that account has that book locked into their profile. From there on, errata are updated digitally for that individual. Once that person has purchased that book they can use it as they could in Character Builder. The mistake (thought I'm not complaining) in the old CB was that ALL new books were available. In my opinion there should only be books available that you've actually bought.

Why would going all digital work? As in, why would people not just download everything for free? First of all, they already can. Why not create an official version of books with a slick interface for viewing them all and running a game? Because when there are updates, most of us would rather not put up with the hassle of trying to get patches or cracks for multitudes of books. It would be simpler to buy the book and have everything 'official'. Oh yeah, and there are quite a few of us who actually *want* to support the guys that produce the game we've all been playing since we were kids.

So, with everyone's 'Account', make an application, similar to CB, that allows you to view all the books you've purchased, and also use that opportunity to give 'bits' of material of new content available for the person to purchase. Use it for advertising. All of this is available as a download and is offline. It's all updated. And it's all paid for. It would cost you next to nothing to have books which are already on some hard drive somewhere available to download for the people who already bought said book.

For the love of god, why are we still living in the past.

It's weird. I WANT to buy more books and material, but I'm NOT going to do it because I know any book I buy is going to be altered and 'fixed' with pages of errata. Don't even get me started on the hideous 'new' online CB.

/end rant

 

[Dannager]

The new online Character Builder is pretty slick.

Also, get a DDI subscription and plan your encounters using the Compendium. It's easier, and you'll never have to worry about errata. Stop buying every book and take advantage of the amazing set of online tools you've got at your disposal.

Oh, and restricting the CB/MB/Compendium to only display content from books you own? Terribad idea.

 

[Incenjucar]

Your player is wrong. There are NEW VERSIONS of SOME dragons, but old versions are perfectly valid, if not as well-designed, and Draconomicon dragons are still mostly pretty snazzy.

They haven't printed books in months, so, score?

They HAVE been selling other products, such as childrens' books and board games, so, score?

WotC, like many other companies right now, is letting pirates control their decisions. It's not good, but it's being done by just about every large company on the planet right now, so it's to be expected. Criminals make life miserable for the honest; that's just how it works.

 

[Ninja-to]

The new online Character Builder is pretty slick.

Also, get a DDI subscription and plan your encounters using the Compendium. It's easier, and you'll never have to worry about errata. Stop buying every book and take advantage of the amazing set of online tools you've got at your disposal.

Oh, and restricting the CB/MB/Compendium to only display content from books you own? Terribad idea.

I guess you didn't get the memo.

DDI subscribers have a thread. It's long. It contains all of the arguments on why they *cancelled* their subscription after the old CB was killed.

The new CB is slick? Are you just trolling or... really??

The suggestion to show only content from something you own makes perfect sense. Remember that if you already bought the books you won't be paying any monthly fees. You also wouldn't need to be online. Why should anyone pay for something they don't use or need?

 

[aurance]

Well, it could be worse. It could be like the old editions where the books had just as many issues but no one issued any errata.

 

[Ninja-to]

Your player is wrong. There are NEW VERSIONS of SOME dragons, but old versions are perfectly valid, if not as well-designed, and Draconomicon dragons are still mostly pretty snazzy.

They haven't printed books in months, so, score?

They HAVE been selling other products, such as childrens' books and board games, so, score?

WotC, like many other companies right now, is letting pirates control their decisions. It's not good, but it's being done by just about every large company on the planet right now, so it's to be expected. Criminals make life miserable for the honest; that's just how it works.

Ok. So I guess then that only leaves me with 123 pages to peruse while I purchase a supposedly finished product. Where's my glue?

Children's books and board games? Interesting. Actually sorry no, no interest in those unfortunately. How about merchandising something the players who know the brand already (ie the only people who would probably care) could appreciate?

Allowing pirates control their decisions is not the way to go and isn't working for anyone. Just because the 'big' companies are doing it why should they follow suit? It doesn't work, makes no sense and is counter productive.

 

[Ninja-to]

Well, it could be worse. It could be like the old editions where the books had just as many issues but no one issued any errata.

I totally agree. Now the errata are available for download. It's awesome.

The strangest part is, the errata are digitally produced for the PC. Yet... we don't have digital versions of the books themselves to apply the errata to. Sad state of affairs.

 

[Dannager]

The new CB is slick? Are you just trolling or... really??

The new CB is slick.

The suggestion to show only content from something you own makes perfect sense. Remember that if you already bought the books you won't be paying any monthly fees. You also wouldn't need to be online. Why should anyone pay for something they don't use or need?

Because paying $6/month for access to all rules material printed for the entire game of D&D 4e is way cheaper than buying every book ever released piecemeal. I did that in 3.5. I have had a taste of total information access, and it would be awful to go back.

In 2010, WotC released no fewer than 20 supplements containing new material that I wanted to have access to. Had I purchased them all individually, I would be out over $300. Instead, I paid $72 and got access to all the rules elements I could handle, and only had to buy the books I felt would be useful to have at the table.

How in the world would the model you're proposing improve things?

 

[MrMyth]

I have to say that I think I'm not going to be buying any WotC products for a very long time, especially books. It is book after book after book that have endless errata and half the time it seems nobody is even proofreading the material anymore. What are we at now? 123+ pages of changes to the books.

I see that number tossed around a lot, but I don't think it is as extreme as some make it out to be. Remember, those 123 pages are for 30 different books and 30 different issues of Dragon/Dungeon - thats a lot of content to begin with.

Now, of course, the counter-claim is that the PHB itself has a significant amount of errata, 23 pages or so. But keep in mind here - the errata includes not just the change itself, but also an explanation of the change, and a reprinting of the affected feat/power/etc with the new wording. And much of the errata is simply fixing typos or clarifying unclear rules.

In terms of actual changes, if you trim it down to the basics? We're looking at maybe 10 pages of errata for the PHB. Maybe 50 pages of errata in total. For thousands upon thousands of pages of source material.

Now, I can still sympathize with those who find errata in general intrusive. I agree that the ideal would be for everything to be perfect right from the start. But I've never seen a company pull that off, and I'd rather a group that works to fix what is broken rather than leave it untouched. And, as a whole, it doesn't seem too overwhelming an amount of errata to me.

My other two cents: When we were promised before release that we would all be getting digital PDF versions of our books, I was thrilled. How cool would it be to ALWAYS have all of the errata in the books you bought? I remember the plan being something like you input a code from inside your book for your updates to your PDF. How awesome was that idea?

I'm not sure if 'promised' is the right word. But... yeah, that would be awesome. WotC didn't find a viable way to pull it off - if you just put a code in the books, then people can just copy those down and snag those copies for free. If you make sure every book is plastic-wrapped and has the code hidden inside, then gamers can no longer browse the books in game stores... and enterprising individuals will wrip open the plastic and take the codes anyway.

I'm sure there are ways to pull it off - none that were cost or resource acceptable to WotC. That's a shame, but not worth getting angry about.

Now I start my session last weekend and get excited when a dragon is about to stomp on the party and one of my players (who stays up on new errata like no-one else) tells me ALL of the dragons have been changed.

Yeah, he's just plain wrong. They have new versions that are a bit more badass - but the originals still rock and are perfectly useful. The Draconomicon entries are just fine to use.

STOP printing books. That is, until they're finished for god's sake. I remember a very old promise WotC made when they bought TSR. "We will not saturate the market. TSR made this error." So what the hell happened to that idea?

It... never was delivered? From the start of 3.0 through now, WotC has put out a pretty steady volume of books. They've avoided overdosing on setting books, but other content has always been plentiful. And they had plenty of errors or unbalanced material in 3.0 and 3.5 books, they just rarely bothered putting out errata for them.

In fact, the first time WotC has slowed down the release schedule... is right now. They've cancelled upcoming products and specifically said they want to make sure they only produce material that is what the game as a whole needs. They've seen massive delays in their Dragon and Dungeon magazine content because of a rigorous new review process. And they have been largely met with anger and frustration by gamers who want more content and want it now.

I'm not even going to say they made the right call or not - but they actually seem to be doing precisely what you are asking for. So now may not be the time to reward them by boycotting all their products.

Start using your brand to sell other products. Invest in a movie or tv series without it being a razzie contender. Share the profits with known writers and directors. Look at how Marvel has marketed their brand. Merchandising. Sell D&D merchandise. Lucas did it with Star Wars. Hasbro... come on guys. Someone there is out to lunch.

You... are aware of the recent line of D&D board games and the upcoming D&D movie, right?

Anyway, as for your suggestion about how they should structure their digital programs... it is good in theory, but I'm not sure how viable it is to pull it off. I think an approach like you suggest would actually be a good thing in the long run, but I think it would both be difficult to make work, and potentially of less value to WotC if it encourages single purchases over ongoing subscriptions. Hard to say, but either way, I don't think it is a system they can simply deliver at the drop of a hat.

 

[MrMyth]

I guess you didn't get the memo.

DDI subscribers have a thread. It's long. It contains all of the arguments on why they *cancelled* their subscription after the old CB was killed.

The new CB is slick? Are you just trolling or... really??

They've fixed the major issues with the new CB. They haven't added extra functionality, but it is indeed an improvement in some areas.

Sure, it sucked at launch a few months ago. But that was, you know, a few months ago.