Rate WotC as a company

[billd91]

I think about something that Mike Mearls did at Origins this year--on the opening day, Wednesday, the 4e game I was in was overbooked--we had at least 5 people trying to buy in on generics. He arrived to chat briefly with the Amorphous Blob Games people, and saw the predicament....and just sat down and threw together a game like it was nothing. On a day that he was undeniably busy--he was a Guest of Honor this year--and could have been doing any number of other things, he chose to run game for people that he owed nothing to. That speaks of good character to me, and if WotC has people like him on board, I know they can't be the "heartless corporation" so many people insinuate.

Sure they can. But are we all saying they're a "heartless corporation" or one that needs to pick up the quality on some of the decisions they make to get back on track? The plurality voting 2 seems to be saying more of the latter than the former.
Rolling the dice and going the extra mile may speak well for Mearls, but it doesn't really say that much for WotC as a company.

 

[Dice4Hire]

The annoyance of fanboys notwithstanding, I think WOTC does a fine job. Since 4E came out they have been very good with errata and FAQs, and I do beleive hey are tryig harder to make the game suceed, whil keeping communication lines open.

Of course, far too many people expect perfection on the low end, and berate WOTC to no end, and frankly I am tired of reading about it.

Anotehr note on the high end is Dungeon and DRagon, sure the rest of DI is non-existant, but the D&D part of it is looking pretty good.

 

[Xyxox]

The annoyance of fanboys notwithstanding, I think WOTC does a fine job. Since 4E came out they have been very good with errata and FAQs, and I do beleive hey are tryig harder to make the game suceed, whil keeping communication lines open.

Of course, far too many people expect perfection on the low end, and berate WOTC to no end, and frankly I am tired of reading about it.

Anotehr note on the high end is Dungeon and DRagon, sure the rest of DI is non-existant, but the D&D part of it is looking pretty good.

I've gotta admit, WotC could teach GW a thing or two about errata, seeing as how GW never publishes any and always refers questions to the RAW answer. It serves the interests of GW to stick with RAW being canon, though, as each newly developed army codex that goes with the mess of new models for that army is always far superior to any other army, causing the "win at any cost" mindset to kick in and people pick up said new models in vast quantities.

Or at least that's the amrketing scheme.

I'd prefer errata. And balance. Balance is great in points based war games, so WotC could teach GW a lot aboout balance.

 

[racoffin]

The annoyance of fanboys notwithstanding, I think WOTC does a fine job. Since 4E came out they have been very good with errata and FAQs, and I do beleive hey are tryig harder to make the game suceed, whil keeping communication lines open.

Of course, far too many people expect perfection on the low end, and berate WOTC to no end, and frankly I am tired of reading about it.

Anotehr note on the high end is Dungeon and DRagon, sure the rest of DI is non-existant, but the D&D part of it is looking pretty good.

I cannot speak for others, but it isn't/wasn't perfection that I am interested in. Rather, the ability to meet minimum expectations. Providing eratta when one says they will. Putting products out when one says they will. Addressing problems timely, and when one says they will. This isn't a request for perfection, but rather for the company to do what they said they were going to do.

 

[ki11erDM]

ki11erDM - Your comments seem to be founded on a basis that we should automatically think well of, or respect corporations and businesses, even when their actions don't benefit us. This seems, to me, utterly without validity and bordering on the brain-washed. If this isn't your position, please explain, in detail, why you think we shouldn't complain about actual problems that a company has caused, or things it's failed to do, or inferior products it's produced?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with expression your views. But to say you have totally changed your opinion of a company that puts out dozens and dozens of product lines on the sole bases of one random worthless fluff product is absolute nutty. (And that is not directed at you just the people that were making the comments about the character sheets.)

People that could possibly rate WoTC a 0 or a 1 really need to take a deep breath and chill. They don’t punt puppies. They are not teh evils. There were always people who hated, hated, TSR. There will always be people that hate WoTC. But if you have such strong feelings about a company that just makes games you need to take a long walk in the woods and think about your life.

I am personally really happy with 4e, the PHB could have used another month of editing but my errata pin does a fine job (and if they push errata in the PDFs I will be really happy).

My 4e books print quality was perfect, but I have now seen some smudges in a few of my friends books. So that has to improve.

The people I know that still play MtG are happy.

I like Dungeon being online now… not so happy about Dragon being online, but now i get much larger articles so thats ok.

DDI is coming along and they have the parts they said they would have out on release out, but they need to keep us better informed about the progress.

And I personally think the GLS is not that bad and in some ways a much better deal. Almost every person I know would only buy a RPG book if it says D&D on it. Sure if you are a huge fan of a particular game company you are ‘in the know’ but most people aren’t.

*shrug*

 

[The Little Raven]

The problem is Hasbro.

Y'mean, the Hasbro that had already owned WotC 3-4 years before you did any WotC books?

Yeah, they suddenly pulled a 180 and started directly interfering with a subsidiary despite years of precedent for not doing such, and claims by employees of various subsidiaries that this never happens.

This "Hasbro is the interfering Anti-Christ" drumbeat is pretty tired by now, especially since it's never had any evidence brought to support it.

 

[RFisher]

Some employees are good, some are not as good.

I think the crux of the problem with almost any company I’ve seen that has serious problems are when the executives and high-level management don’t appreciate, listen to, or allow to shine the talented people they’re paying decent salaries to.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I put a two up then read this thread. Here were my reasons for the two. Here are five of the things that went into this. Not the ONLY five, but the ones I felt should be mentioned.

1) Magic the Gathering. There has been a very obvious power creep in Magic for some time, forcing players to constantly buy new cards, but what's really asinine is the practice of banning a card then making an almost complete carbon copy in the very next set that isn't banned. "Asinine" is the polite way of putting it.

2) Minis. Not the game, the minis themselves. The quality has simply just gotten lower, and lower, and lower as time has gone by, while the number of *useful* commons has made a similar plunge. Personally, I've never been *that* into minis, but the ones WotC has been offering more and more lately have been abysmal.

3) 4e's product quality. No, not he mechanics or the game. The editing is poor, the actual product is poor (we're still trying to get rid of the horrifying spine-crease ours came with to no luck, and we're not the only ones), and many of the side bits have been stupidly overpriced at best and insulting at worse (the player sheets? Charging us for your developer's notes? Come on.)

4) Online content. I'm not sure if I even need to go into this. Charging for virtual minis in the DDI we'd ALREADY have to pay for...assuming they ever get it up, which looks more and more unlikely. The horrifyingly bad message board quality. Nor is this anything new; WotC online content has been a joke - a BAD joke, but a joke - for quite some time now.

5) Lastly, their advertisement. As someone else stated, their statement of "We have no plans for 4e" on the same month as their 4e announcement. Cancelling Dungeon and Dragon for their boasted online content, and we all know how awesomely that's gone. Charging players to read developer's notes while they talk about putting journals and blogs online. Lots of this very strongly hurts the player.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Haha, nevermind. Delete me.

 

[racoffin]

People that could possibly rate WoTC a 0 or a 1 really need to take a deep breath and chill. They don’t punt puppies. They are not teh evils. There were always people who hated, hated, TSR. There will always be people that hate WoTC. But if you have such strong feelings about a company that just makes games you need to take a long walk in the woods and think about your life.

And that sentiment should work in reverse, no? All the people voting 5 and 6 should calm down and perhaps relax their attitudes a bit; there are fanatics on both sides of this argument. No, WOTC isn't the worst thing in the multiverse, but rainbows and butterflies don't issue forth from every footstep and ever product they create doesn't revolutionize the industry. The truth is more likely in the middle, and no matter if you hate the products or attitudes of the company or love every morsel of it, there isn't much reason to scream at your fellow gamer.