WotC Discontinues Minis: How Much Does It Affect You?

[shadzar]

This is a good point. Thank God there will never be any new players.

Even in the presence of pogs/tokens, that very thing is why the prices of the secondary market will never come down as long as a non-collectible alternative doesn't exist.

As far as tokens are concerned though, if people want to use them, they can make their own snits.

There will have to be something for new players somewhere in 3D form.

 

[fumetti]

I'm only sad that they didn't yet get around to a line of "Basic Monster" packs.

I avoided the mini line because you always had to buy sight-unseen. I was not looking for "collectibles," I was looking for tools.

 

[El Mahdi]

Doesn't affect me at all currently. I stopped buying all WotC products the day they pulled pdf's. I won't buy any WotC products until out of print books return in some type of electronic format...period.

However, I do feel sad that the D&D minis won't be there anymore, if and when WotC starts selling pdf's again. I really did like them. For the most part, they were pretty good minis. But in the end I still have a few hundred minis, many of which I still need to paint (and I like painting them). Besides, there's still Reaper minis (and I'm not talking about their pre-painted plastics). Most of my minis are Reaper anyways, with only maybe a couple of dozen or so WotC...

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I answered "Not at All," and that's accurate as far as it goes.

But I was pretty impressed with the quality of Lords of Madness, and bought more of that set that I had in quite a while.

On the other hand, I was disgusted by the introduction of the Very Rare in that set, which makes some pieces unobtainable for any reasonable gamer (and effectively unobtainable for even a moderately unreasonable gamer, like me).

As far as I can tell, the discontinuation of DDM makes it official: I am no longer a customer of WotC. If somebody had told me, even as recently as three years ago, that WotC would get literally none of my gaming budget by 2011, I would have dismissed the speaker out of hand.

 

[Maggan]

Among the players in my groups, we have around 5 000 minis to choose from. WotC not selling any more minis will not change anything for us.

/M

 

[Argyle King]

I doubt I'll notice too much. I do have some of the WoTC minis, but -for a while now- I've been turning to other companies for minis.

I'll also add that it's very doubtful I will start using the cardboard pogs which are replacing the minis.

 

[avin]

Got more than 1000 minis, so that won't affect my current games... but to me is a signal that 4E is dying fast, so I've cancelled my Monster Vault order and don't plan to buy any new 4E books.

 

[jefgorbach]

hopefully (but doubtful) WOTC's decision foreshadows their eventual/long past due recognition they are part of Hasbro ... whose in-house subsidiaries have decades of experience producing high quality, fully positionable plastic "mini's" with replaceable equipment/accessories (ie action figures) for the GI:Joe, Star Wars, Transformers, and other lines at a cross-genre consistent scale ... at fairly reasonable prices to the end-user to boot!

 

[Canor Morum]

I will miss the minis. It's always exciting when a new set comes out. I don't like the random nature of the boosters. I only buy singles. There are a lot of monsters, pcs, npcs, set pieces that are still missing. So it's sad that I won't ever get to see those made.

I've been avoiding buying pewter because I have boxes of those that never got painted and they are always losing weapons and arms. Now I guess I'll have to pay someone to paint the ones I need that DDM never made.

I refuse to use cardboard tokens. Minis are just too awesome.

The tokens have kept me from buying the Monster Vault and Dungeon Masters Kit. I only want the books. In a hardcover, thank you. I am pleased that Heroes of Shadow will be hardcover now. I hope the Shadowfell box doesn't get the same treatment as the Essentials boxes. Filled with crap I don't need.

 

[Nilbog]

I'll certainly miss the mini's both from a gaming and collecting point of view.

I get my gaming inspiration from a lot of sources, but one of them was opening a random pack of mini's and finding a cool new monster (I guess i was one of the few who liked random packs!), I've made a lot of great encounters after being inspired in such a way.

I also think for 4e where combat with some sort of physical representation is pretty much required I find having a reasonably accurate likeness of the monster helps immersion. I also find, to a lesser degree, dungeon tiles have the same effect. When we first started using them in the group we were pretty non-plussed but now our group really enjoy them.

I suppose metal miniatures are better in many instances, but sadly for me I do not have the time to paint them, especially when I need a lot, so again DDM's were a god send.

Still I hope I have a large enough collection to last a while yet