What do I want? An apology.

[Deimodius]

I have stated (as have others) here and elsewhere how angry I am at WotC, and that I will no longer buy their products. I am more than willing to carry through with that (I've done it before with other companies/products) but while stewing about the issue I started thinking about all the posts decrying the loss of Dragon & Dungeon, and wondered, what would we really want to accomplish with our anger?

Even if WotC read all our posts and realized their mistake, we wouldn't _want_ them to revive the mags. The decision was made long ago, and Paizo had already changed gear to do Pathfinder, so it would be difficult, I imagine, for them to turn around now and go back to doing the magazines.

But of course, they won't bring back the mags anyway.

So if I can't have time reversed so that the decision was never made, what _do_ I want? What could make me feel better about something that can't be undone?

I want an apology. I want WotC to say "We made a mistake, we thought we knew what you wanted, but we didn't. We made a mistake and we're sorry. We hope to make it up to you going forward, and we _will_ do a better job of listening to you in the future."

That won't happen, I'm sure, but if it ever did, I _might_ reconsider and go back to WotC. Until then, I'll stick with 3rd party material, and turn my back on the Wizards.

 

[heirodule]

me too

 

[boerngrim]

An apology or even an acknowledgement of the strong reaction would go a long way to mending fences.
The thing that just hit me the hardest on this was the blunt, in your face way they announced it. No attempt to soften the blow or ease us into the idea, just "Paizo Publishing to Cease Publication of Dragon and Dungeon" in big letters. Its like cancelled, killed, done deal. Maybe if the headline read, "Dragon and Dungeon Moving to New Online Format", it wouldn't have seemed so aggresive. The headline as they posted it seemed thoughtless or down right hostile to me.
I don't know. Its not the end of the world, but it was a kick in the teeth.

 

[bento]

Good luck with that apology thing.

Me, I'm waiting for the Texas Rangers to win the World Series.

 

[Kafkonia]

Good luck with that apology thing.

Me, I'm waiting for the Texas Rangers to win the World Series.

Hey, at least they're in the league.

Go Expos!

 

[thedungeondelver]

See, all this bloviation about digital that and times change the other and it'll be just as cool them ignores some very, very essential things about those creaky old print mags:

"Hey, do you remember DRAGON #72 when the introduced the Cavalier?"

versus

"Hey, do you remember DIGITAL INITIATIVE DIRECTIVE AT HTTP://WWW.WIZARDS.COM/?&ASP=3/QUERY="WIZARD"AND"SPELLS"NOT"MAGICMISSLE".HTM"

See, just lacks something. "Dragon #72." versus "Some page I saw on wizard's website."

Showing up at the game with a copy of the magazine in your hand, everyone leaning 'round to have a look.

versus

Showing up at the game with your notebook, hey, I hope there's a WiFi hotspot near the store. Oh crap, there goes my battery, who's got an extension cord? Are we back up? Okay...dang this must be like 1mbit...this is taking forever to lo-oh, crap, there goes IE...hang on...shoot, took explorer down with it...let me reboot. Okay...anyway, uh, who's got the new minis pa-OK we're back up. Let me sign in. Oh dang it that IS SO my password. Stupid...let me ... okay, there...waiting...waiting. THERE! There it is! Yeah, that thing. Yeah. That's cool.

I am in no way convinced that the latter scenario is some how superior to a tried and true print magazine; nothing anyone (ANYONE) has said on the matter can or will convince me otherwise. But oh, it's going to be foisted on the D&D community ANYWAY!

That's what needs apologizing for.

 

[edbonny]

There will likely not be an apology. An apology is an admission of having done something wrong and any admission of wrong-doing would simply fuel an outcry to bring Dragon and Dungeon back as magazine.

 

[caudor]

While I'll miss the mags too, I don't personally feel the need for an apology in order to feel better.

I'm a little excited about what comes next...the potential of the Digital Initiative, which they are obviously taking very seriously.

I still have confidence in WotC, despite past mistakes. Speculation should give way to substance within the next few days. Then we'll see what they have in store.

 

[Desdichado]

If WotC apologizes for this, then maybe I'll get up in arms and decide to boycott them. That said, I don't particularly have any confidence in what WotC is planning. To be completely honest with you, I don't much care--I'm coasting along playing in a D&D campaign, but I'll probably never run anything other than one shots or very short campaigns using D&D per se anymore. But I honestly will be a bit put out if WotC thinks they need to apologize to anyone over this. That would be absurd.

Seriously; they don't owe anyone any apology at all. They don't even owe anyone an explanation, although it'd be a bad business decision not to give one, IMO.

 

[theredrobedwizard]

<tangent>
I'm impatient. Anything that gets the information to me faster works for me. Print mags are all well and good for nostalgia's sake, but if I can get the same information in an online format and then print it out (if needed), I'll do that.

The thing I hate most is when someone says "We have this thing and it's totally awesome, but *you* can't have it until August/Forever From Now". Teasing me like they're some bawdy little monkey, waving a banana at another monkey. I'd much rather hear about it (at most) two weeks in advance, rather than 8 months like most WotC products. "Oh, we have this really awesome sounding book about a subject you really like slated for October sometime, but we'll never give you an exact date, just a month. Also, we killed your kitten." Just tell me when it's frakkin' done! I don't care to hear about things if they aren't available. Same reason why I hate movie trailers. I like things to be advertised only when they're actually available.

Instead of seeing a line like "Complete Scalawag, Due out in December" in April, such a statement should be released in November at the earliest.

Also, every single book should be available as a pdf file for 5/8th the price of the same book in actual paper format. Now back to your regularly scheduled actual post.
</tangent>

I'd still like an apology for their total lack of comment to the public rage. I do mean rage. Lots of rage.

-TRRW