Ryan Dancey - D&D in a Death Spiral

[Jhaelen]

There is not a single new monster in the Creature Catalog. Not one. In other words, there was no creative growth in the monster department whatsoever.

I think you may have failed your saving throw

In my book that's a good thing. I wouldn't have wanted to see a new monster take up the space of an old favorite. Put new monsters in the regular monster manuals, please. The Dark Sun Creature catalogue is for Dark Sun monsters. And it can't be a Dark Sun monster if it's a new monster!

I don't think I've seen new monsters in the Eberron Campaign Guide either (Can't talk about the FRCG, since I don't have it). And to be honest: I'm missing quite a few favorite Eberron creations.

Now, several setting-specific (Dark Sun or Eberron) monsters have become part of mainstream and thus have appeared in regular monster manuals, but that is something I don't like a lot.

The monsters tend to lose what made them special by ripping them out of their roles in setting. At the very least such monsters should include a sidebar telling about their place in their origin setting.

E.g. in 3e several Dark Sun monsters were released in MM2 and several monsters obviously created specifically for the Eberron setting in MM3. At least MM3 had sections describing how to use the monsters in the most important settings, but you still couldn't tell about their true origins.

P.S.: I just noticed I'm completely getting off-topic here, so:

Nope, Mr. Dancey wasn't right, so far. Or rather, his predictions are about as right as a typical random prediction by Nostradamus.

 

[delericho]

The Campaign Setting is a pretty solid effort, but the art in the book is all over the place, and on some pages it's obvious that they pulled art from wherever they could just to fill space (there's too many examples of people in metal armor, wielding metal weapons, etc.).

This is something of a problem, though it might just be a communication issue - maybe whoever ordered the art wasn't sufficiently familiar with the setting?

The Creature Catalog is perhaps the most shockingly lazy 4E product I have seen to date. It did nothing more than recycle some of the "core" monsters from previously published versions of Dark Sun. There is not a single new monster in the Creature Catalog. Not one. In other words, there was no creative growth in the monster department whatsoever. The book is nothing more than a big "stat bloc conversion" of 2E monsters into the world of 4E.

I have to ask: what more is really needed? After all, the 4e Monster Manual (the first one) has hardly any (if any) new monsters, but that's hardly a problem - the book is there to do a particular job, and it does it well. Doesn't that also apply here?

 

[Dire Bare]

I'm gonna have to totally agree with you on Dark Sun; in fact, it's the recent purchases on the Campaign Setting and Creature Catalog that have me suddenly doubting the future for WoTC. The Campaign Setting is a pretty solid effort, but the art in the book is all over the place, and on some pages it's obvious that they pulled art from wherever they could just to fill space (there's too many examples of people in metal armor, wielding metal weapons, etc.). The Creature Catalog is perhaps the most shockingly lazy 4E product I have seen to date. It did nothing more than recycle some of the "core" monsters from previously published versions of Dark Sun. There is not a single new monster in the Creature Catalog. Not one. In other words, there was no creative growth in the monster department whatsoever. The book is nothing more than a big "stat bloc conversion" of 2E monsters into the world of 4E.

Plus, the interior art is largely , too small, and fails miserably to live up to the genius visions of Brom and Baxa from 2E.

I'm gonna go into this in greater detail later, but I just bought the Creature Catalog yesterday and it really, really pissed me off.

Oh, and let's not forget that because WoTC simply refuses to hire enough qualified people to run DDI, the inclusion of all the Dark Sun material has been delayed "until early October," which in WoTC parlance means "some time before New Year's."

Bwuh? Sorry, still don't see it. Art is subjective, and just because you don't like it, doesn't make it a sign of WotC's decline. There is a lot of fantastic art (IMO, of course) in both the Dark Sun Campaign Book and Creature Catalog . . . but, as usual, there are pieces that I think suck . . . or are good but don't match the tone of the overall work. But that doesn't worry me.

And, what did you actually expect with the Creature Catalog? The whole point was the conversion of older, iconic Dark Sun monsters to the new edition. Sure, it would have been cool to see some new monsters in there, but I think your expectations were a bit off. What about the Campaign Setting? They didn't really invent much new "fluff", but converted the older setting to the new edition. Why doesn't that piss you off?

 

[Vorpal Puppy]

Mr. Dancey's speculation that Wizards could have spent $30-$50 million on their online initiatives is shocking to me. I know absolutely nothing about web development, but I always imagined the number would be much, much lower.

If anyone here does know something about web development and has some ideas about this speculative estimate, I'd love to hear them.

I have not read all ten pages of this thread so if this ground has already been covered, I apologize.

 

[Shemeska]

Mr. Dancey's speculation that Wizards could have spent $30-$50 million on their online initiatives is shocking to me. I know absolutely nothing about web development, but I always imagined the number would be much, much lower.

That range fits with the number I was told. My reaction was much the same.

 

[nedjer]

Mr. Dancey's speculation that Wizards could have spent $30-$50 million on their online initiatives is shocking to me. I know absolutely nothing about web development, but I always imagined the number would be much, much lower.

If anyone here does know something about web development and has some ideas about this speculative estimate, I'd love to hear them.

I have not read all ten pages of this thread so if this ground has already been covered, I apologize.

If they did, it would be safe to say they didn't get best value There are some almost amusing cases of companies hiring webtech without specifying what they want properly - then paying out endlessly as they add stuff on a feature by feature basis. But $50 million for a database and a few apps - with no 3D object and animation costs - (which could probably be structured after existing Sourceforge code).

Be interested to know more about what went on with that though, as I remember some comments somewhere about money being lost but there wasn't any detail?

 

[Umbran]

Mr. Dancey's speculation that Wizards could have spent $30-$50 million on their online initiatives is shocking to me.

I find it... incomprehensible, to be honest.

Take your typical Full Time Employee (FTE). Let's think about their salary and benefits for one year, and find a round number for it - $100K for our "back of the envelope" consideration.

Spending $30 million would have been paying for 300 person-years of effort - that's like a team of 30 people working on it for a decade!

I do not believe it possible that WotC, which has otherwise shown some solid comprehension of economics, would spend such money on the online initiatives.

If they had... well, I think several upper management would have needed to be fired.

 

[Shemeska]

I do not believe it possible that WotC, which has otherwise shown some solid comprehension of economics, would spend such money on the online initiatives.

If they had... well, I think several upper management would have needed to be fired.

Remember the "digital reconsolidation" and the layoffs during that period? They did have a management shakeup after all the outsourcing and subsequent contraction back in-house.

It was enough to deserve mention as a continuing expenditure in a quarterly Hasbro report around the time too.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Three things of note:

(1) Although I don't play 4e, I certainly hope (and expect) that Mr. Dancy is wrong.

(2) All of the reasons why Mr. Dancy's opinion should be doubted would apply rather equally, I think, to the TSR situation he had previously commented on. If motive is a big reason to say WotC is failing now, motive was just as strong when describing why TSR failed then -- esp. as at least one TSR employee openly said it wasn't so.

(3) From my POV, 4e under-performed based on WotC's projections (partly due to the PR fiascos, partly due to lack of VTT, partly due to the level of change involved in the edition, partly due to lackluster initial adventures). But I've seen nothing that indicates that WotC hasn't learned from at least some of its mistakes. Skill Challenges are, to my understanding, much better than with initial release, Essentials attempts to gain back some grognards, and I hear the Essentials DM set has a pretty good adventure in it.

If 4e had continued as it was, the GSL might have started a death spiral, as it kept some of the better adventure publishers from committing to 4e materials, and thus damaged support. And the first WotC 4e adventures were meh at best.

But they have started turning it into a game that I would be willing (from my position of limited information) to play, if not to run, and that is saying something.

I very much doubt that D&D is in a death spiral. No SoD, remember? It just failed (IMHO) its first save. The edition gets two others before death.



RC

 

[Umbran]

Remember the "digital reconsolidation" and the layoffs during that period? They did have a management shakeup after all the outsourcing and subsequent contraction back in-house.

I honestly haven't paid attention to exactly who was in what seats at WotC. Did they lose their CEO? If not, then they probably didn't throw away that kind of money.

In order for it to have cost that much, we'd have to believe that Hasbro would have allowed them to spend it and not stop them. We are told that Hasbro does not meddle much in the day-to-day operations, but recall again that $30 million is on the order of 300 person years of compensation - certainly several years worth of WotC's payroll budget. Hasbro didn't see that just whirling out the door?