Rate WotC as a company

[Brown Jenkin]

Maybe. I don't think its likely that they were referring specifically to D&D with that statement, but it could be an indication that they want tighter controls over all of the IPs that they own, D&D being one of them. Again, this looks like the type of statement that would be indicative of some high level communication from corporate headquarters telling brand managers in all areas to reign in their IPs and licenses. Or it could be that I'm reading entirely too much into it.

They definitely have a lot of valuable IPs. Me, I'm looking forward to the GI Joe movie, so it isn't like I have no appreciation for any of their properties. At least with GI Joe, I have no personal stake in whatever direction they decide to take with the brand. I can just sit back and eat popcorn.

Its interesting though that tighter controls is not the actual practice right now. After an early attempt at a C&D to stop Scrabulous they have instead decided not to sue and have basically allowed Scrabble to be copied without real attempt at stopping them.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

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.

I thought about your post and these three points stuck with me.

Printing Quality: The physical product of the 3 core books are below the quality of the 3rd edition books (if 3E product quality was a 8/10, 4E is a 6/10). I did not really knock WotC for this as I picked up all three books for less then what I spent for the 3E core books (4E =~ $54 for all three from Amazon, 3E $60 from my FLGS). While I dislike the decline in quality, I feel that I purchased the books for the game system not to look good on my coffee table. I do hope this quality issue does not become a trend though.

Online: DDI has not been officially launched and 4E plays just fine without digital aid. I do not think it is fair to judge WotC's unreleased and currently unfinished product. I have gotten a lot of use out of the compendium and I will hate that I will need a subscription to access it in the future.

I do think it is fair to ask why the Dungeon and Dragon magazines were pulled from Pazio before the online initiative was ready. It was a bad PR move and while I have no first hand knowledge, I'm sure it was a factor for Pazio to move ahead with Pathfinder and the OGL instead of supporting 4th Edition.

Advertisement: This was poorly handled. I remember very clearly the announcement you are referring to. I dislike being misled. For me, that statement hurts WotC. As a customer, my expectations were set by this statement. I am sure that many 3rd party companies also set their expectations based on this statement.

Furthermore, the advertisement for 4E was openly hostile to 3rd edition. I think this furthered the community's split around the issue. Too much focus was given on the shortcomings of 3rd edition. Announcing how bad your previous product was is not a way to build confidence in your new product.

I originally voted 5. If I could turn back time, I'd vote WotC at 4.

 

[JeffB]

Well, I'm a 4E fan, but I had to rate them a 2. I'm rating them solely on RPG products and practices.

Some reasons

1) 3E, specificaly 3.5- which drove me away from playing D&D. Good intentions, poor execution (IMO of course).

2) Dungeon & Dragon dropped. Sorry, I like paper magazines and hate PDFs and don't buy PDFs of any kind.

3) DDI Debacle- More great intentions and poor execution

4) GSL Debacle- this thing is a joke, and has put a big crimp on some really good companies making some really good 4E compatible material. While I don't feel WOTC is obligated to even putting out a license, if you are going to do it, at least make it somewhat of a win-win for everyone involved. Now, the 3pps and thus the consumers are pretty much screwed.

5) D&D Minis- I've never bought a pack and never will- the collectible aspect is something I won't support. If I'm buying a product, I don't want to gamble on it being something I will or will not need or use.

6) The 4E Preview books while not a big factor, struck a negative chord with me.

It's quite clear the WOTC of today is not the company that "saved" D&D and TSR. While I understand the business has changed and needs to, I really miss the last couple years of 2E and the first couple of 3E- back then they would have got a 5 rating out of me easily.

EDIT_ I forgot to add in the quality of the 4E books and KOTS- plenty of binding and smudging problems here

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Online: DDI has not been officially launched and 4E plays just fine without digital aid. I do not think it is fair to judge WotC's unreleased and currently unfinished product. I have gotten a lot of use out of the compendium and I will hate that I will need a subscription to access it in the future.

The reason I bring up Wizard's online stuff is because the 4e books themselves advertise their DDI which, a month after the Core books are out, still aren't up, and still have no promise of being up anywhere near the vague future.

DDI was supposed to be a MAJOR part of 4e, with all the errata, lots of cool fluff and rules before they came out in books, a new version of their magazine, and a fun way to play with your friends online. And yet, between the fact that DDI will probably never exist and their idea of charging you TWICE to use it with virtual minis - one of their major selling points! - it's just been one huge disaster.

 

[Hussar]

Honestly, I can only judge a company by how it's treated me.

WOTC in the past 8 years has given me, for free, the following:

• Enough professional quality modules to run 1-20th level campaigns
• Professional quality maps that I've used in my games
• Freebie excerpts from every product
• Enough background material on their campaign settings that I can run Eberron or FR for years if I want to
• Customer service answers that were timely and usually right

Their products have usually been well edited (at least for RPG standards), balanced, and well done. They may not have the best product in a category, but, typically, they'll be at least second best. None of my WOTC books have any major flaws and I've never had any problems with them.

I have never had any problems accessing the WOTC main site whenever I wanted to. I've never had any of these logging in problems that seem to plague others. Granted, I rarely post on their message boards, but, I frequently do search them for various goodies, like a very good primer for my Binder character.

So, all in all, I can't say that WOTC has been a bad company for me. They make products that I like, and some that I don't. That's groovy, I ignore the stuff I don't want to buy and buy the stuff that appeals to me.

About the only real hit, in my mind, has been the OGL stuff. That's just ungroovy. I think they could have left things the way they were without any major hit on their products. I understand why they went the way they did, at least I think I do, but, I don't really agree with it.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

DDI was supposed to be a MAJOR part of 4e, with all the errata, lots of cool fluff and rules before they came out in books, a new version of their magazine, and a fun way to play with your friends online. And yet, between the fact that DDI will probably never exist and their idea of charging you TWICE to use it with virtual minis - one of their major selling points! - it's just been one huge disaster.

You have two points in here that are your opinion that are presented as fact.

First - there is no reason to think the DDI will never exist. We've already got both online magazines, AND the rules compendium, which is being erratta'd as we speak. All we're missing is the VTT and the adventure generator. We have the cool new rules previewed before they come into the books. I take it you haven't read Dragon since you are claiming this.

Second - this has been repeatedly stated. YOU DO NOT NEED TO BUY VIRTUAL MINIS TO USE THE VTT. The virtual minis are an ADDED VALUE PRODUCT. You can use tokens, and you base subscription will come with virtual minis from the Monster Manual. YOU ARE NOT BEING CHARGED TWICE.

Sorry for shouting, but, jeez, this has been repeated so many times.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

You have two points in here that are your opinion that are presented as fact.

First - there is no reason to think the DDI will never exist. We've already got both online magazines, AND the rules compendium, which is being erratta'd as we speak. All we're missing is the VTT and the adventure generator. We have the cool new rules previewed before they come into the books. I take it you haven't read Dragon since you are claiming this.

I'm far from the only one that's sighed and grown tired of waiting for DDI, and again, it's been a month since 4e stuck on it's core pages GO CHECK OUT DDI and there's still not even a WORD from it.

Second - this has been repeatedly stated. YOU DO NOT NEED TO BUY VIRTUAL MINIS TO USE THE VTT. The virtual minis are an ADDED VALUE PRODUCT. You can use tokens, and you base subscription will come with virtual minis from the Monster Manual. YOU ARE NOT BEING CHARGED TWICE.

Sorry for shouting, but, jeez, this has been repeated so many times.

Re-read my post. One of DDI's selling points is it's virtual minis, not it's tokens. Making the person pay to use one of their selling points AFTER the person has paid for the subscription price is, indeed, making them pay twice for something. For that matter, making the person pay for anything after they've already put in a monthly subscription price is making them pay twice for something.

 

[Orius]

Again, this looks like the type of statement that would be indicative of some high level communication from corporate headquarters telling brand managers in all areas to reign in their IPs and licenses. Or it could be that I'm reading entirely too much into it.

That's pretty much what I think. Probably the CEO and/or board looking at company revenue wants to cut down on piracy as a whole, they might not even be thinking of D&D specifically. I mean they have G.I. Joe, Transformers, Monopoly, Clue, and tons of other toys and games besides what's at WotC.

I'm more worried about Hasbro pushing WotC in a way that causes them to crank out crap or new editions too quickly to be honest.

 

[Aus_Snow]

In my opinion, they've gone from about a 3 or even 4 to a 2. . . being kind here.

This is not the Wizards of the Coast of days gone by, in so many ways. Which, overall, is a damn shame.

 

[Hussar]

I'm far from the only one that's sighed and grown tired of waiting for DDI, and again, it's been a month since 4e stuck on it's core pages GO CHECK OUT DDI and there's still not even a WORD from it.

Except for Dungeon, Dragon, Gleemax and the rules compendium you mean of course.

Re-read my post. One of DDI's selling points is it's virtual minis, not it's tokens. Making the person pay to use one of their selling points AFTER the person has paid for the subscription price is, indeed, making them pay twice for something. For that matter, making the person pay for anything after they've already put in a monthly subscription price is making them pay twice for something.

No, one of the VTT's selling points for YOU might be the virtual minis. However, you don't need them to use the Virtual Table Top, plus, the basic package COMES WITH virtual minis. It's if you want to go beyond that basic package, you will have to pay.

So, no, they are not making you pay twice for anything. If you want to use Monster Manual monsters, you will be able to do so right out of the box. If you want your PC's mini to be personalized to your specific PC? Then you get to pay.