Most of you would know me as a fairly ardent fan of Wizards of the Coast. They make two of my favourite games - Magic: the Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons - and for most of the last few years their support of both games has been excellent.
However, this past year has seen the support for Dungeons & Dragons be particularly erratic. This has been particularly noticeable here in Australia. I understand that we're not the biggest market - indeed, we're a particularly difficult market to sell to due to shipping costs, spread-out population and the like. Fewer D&D books might be sold in Italy (for instance), but its proximity to all the other European countries make it a much easier market when it comes to manufacturing and shipping.
The way Wizards Australia seem to be operating these days is to bring in new D&D products every two months. I could live with this, but for some of its interactions with their other programs, particularly the D&D Game Days and the D&D Encounter season.
During the D&D Game Day that celebrated the release of the Dark Sun campaign setting, I was running the adventure without having seen the Dark Sun books. They hadn't arrived. They didn't arrive the week after, either. When they did, it was only the Dark Sun Campaign Setting - the monster book came out later, and we're still waiting on the adventure. (Word is that it's been pushed back another month: that is to November, or three months after it was released in the US.)
I've just been told that - thankfully - the Gamma World boosters and setting will be here in time for the Gamma World Game Day. Trying to run that day without those products would be, frankly, impossible.
Meanwhile, we've been running the D&D Encounters adventures as well in store. The new season of Keep on the Borderlands has been fantastic so far. Three encounters in, it's turning into a classic story: something that I felt neither of the first two seasons achieved. For those unfamiliar with D&D Encounters, you can gain rewards from playing in the game and completing various tasks. Two of those tasks are "Create an Essentials character" and "Create a Character Builder character". They're worth a lot of points, and my players would like to do that.
There's just two problems with that: Wizards have mucked up their schedule and you can't use the Character Builder to create an Essentials character (the only type that is legal in the game), and the D&D Essentials books aren't yet available in Australia. Well, not through Wizards Australia. I believe that the Rules Compendium will be out this week or the next, but that Heroes of the Forgotten Lands has been pushed back until next month.
As you might expect, that is making some of my players quite frustrated and angry.
The thing is, it's not like Wizards are ignoring us altogether. The new Master Tile Set for Dungeons is in. The Lords of Madness miniature set is in. We're getting regular D&D Encounters and Game Day materials on time. The Castle Ravenloft boardgame came in early, and we were permitted to run a demo of it in-store during the last Game Day. (That turned into quite a bit of publicity for the new game thanks to the fact that I posted detailed pictorial session reports on BoardGameGeek.com). I'm very grateful to Wizards Australia for granting us that opportunity, and their support of my local store for Magic events has been superb.
The impression I'm getting from Wizards at the moment is of an organisation where several parts of it are working really well, but some other parts are struggling. The marketing of its games - which I include Organised Play in - seems pretty solid to me. The design of its games likewise. I might not like everything, but they don't feel like hack products to me, and they're not afraid to experiment.
However, when it comes to their Digital component - the D&D Compendium, D&D Insider, their Forums and so forth - and their Production and Shipping, then we begin to run into trouble. We have the confusing state of affairs with Premier Stores that get stock early, but with various stores and countries getting stock late, does this actually imply that their manufacturing capability isn't up to it? The Premier Stores actually gain their stock early because Wizards couldn't handle sending it all out at one time?
Meanwhile, the recent announcement of a "Web-based tools system for D&D Insider" does make me wonder if this is a project that was supposed to be live now. It would make a lot of sense that when Essentials came along that a Web-based Character Builder would replace the old; thus, no need to add Essentials support to the current Character Builder, as the new version would handle it all.
That didn't happen, of course, and the ongoing problem of software development by Wizards seems to have raised its ugly head again. I am speculating, but I'm curious if any of you think this was a likely scenario.
In truth, I wouldn't have been nearly as annoyed about the lack of Essentials update to the Character Builder as I am at present if D&D Encounters wasn't pushing the D&D Essentials line. When Marketing pushes something that isn't available, you have a definite disconnect between the parts of the company.
The other disconnect comes from the contents of the D&D Red Box compared to Heroes of the Fallen Lands, but until I have HotFL in my hands, I can't knowledgeably comment on that.
It's an odd situation at present: Wizards is doing very well in some areas, very poorly and others. I just wanted to share my thoughts on the situation.
Cheers!
However, this past year has seen the support for Dungeons & Dragons be particularly erratic. This has been particularly noticeable here in Australia. I understand that we're not the biggest market - indeed, we're a particularly difficult market to sell to due to shipping costs, spread-out population and the like. Fewer D&D books might be sold in Italy (for instance), but its proximity to all the other European countries make it a much easier market when it comes to manufacturing and shipping.
The way Wizards Australia seem to be operating these days is to bring in new D&D products every two months. I could live with this, but for some of its interactions with their other programs, particularly the D&D Game Days and the D&D Encounter season.
During the D&D Game Day that celebrated the release of the Dark Sun campaign setting, I was running the adventure without having seen the Dark Sun books. They hadn't arrived. They didn't arrive the week after, either. When they did, it was only the Dark Sun Campaign Setting - the monster book came out later, and we're still waiting on the adventure. (Word is that it's been pushed back another month: that is to November, or three months after it was released in the US.)
I've just been told that - thankfully - the Gamma World boosters and setting will be here in time for the Gamma World Game Day. Trying to run that day without those products would be, frankly, impossible.
Meanwhile, we've been running the D&D Encounters adventures as well in store. The new season of Keep on the Borderlands has been fantastic so far. Three encounters in, it's turning into a classic story: something that I felt neither of the first two seasons achieved. For those unfamiliar with D&D Encounters, you can gain rewards from playing in the game and completing various tasks. Two of those tasks are "Create an Essentials character" and "Create a Character Builder character". They're worth a lot of points, and my players would like to do that.
There's just two problems with that: Wizards have mucked up their schedule and you can't use the Character Builder to create an Essentials character (the only type that is legal in the game), and the D&D Essentials books aren't yet available in Australia. Well, not through Wizards Australia. I believe that the Rules Compendium will be out this week or the next, but that Heroes of the Forgotten Lands has been pushed back until next month.
As you might expect, that is making some of my players quite frustrated and angry.
The thing is, it's not like Wizards are ignoring us altogether. The new Master Tile Set for Dungeons is in. The Lords of Madness miniature set is in. We're getting regular D&D Encounters and Game Day materials on time. The Castle Ravenloft boardgame came in early, and we were permitted to run a demo of it in-store during the last Game Day. (That turned into quite a bit of publicity for the new game thanks to the fact that I posted detailed pictorial session reports on BoardGameGeek.com). I'm very grateful to Wizards Australia for granting us that opportunity, and their support of my local store for Magic events has been superb.
The impression I'm getting from Wizards at the moment is of an organisation where several parts of it are working really well, but some other parts are struggling. The marketing of its games - which I include Organised Play in - seems pretty solid to me. The design of its games likewise. I might not like everything, but they don't feel like hack products to me, and they're not afraid to experiment.
However, when it comes to their Digital component - the D&D Compendium, D&D Insider, their Forums and so forth - and their Production and Shipping, then we begin to run into trouble. We have the confusing state of affairs with Premier Stores that get stock early, but with various stores and countries getting stock late, does this actually imply that their manufacturing capability isn't up to it? The Premier Stores actually gain their stock early because Wizards couldn't handle sending it all out at one time?
Meanwhile, the recent announcement of a "Web-based tools system for D&D Insider" does make me wonder if this is a project that was supposed to be live now. It would make a lot of sense that when Essentials came along that a Web-based Character Builder would replace the old; thus, no need to add Essentials support to the current Character Builder, as the new version would handle it all.
That didn't happen, of course, and the ongoing problem of software development by Wizards seems to have raised its ugly head again. I am speculating, but I'm curious if any of you think this was a likely scenario.
In truth, I wouldn't have been nearly as annoyed about the lack of Essentials update to the Character Builder as I am at present if D&D Encounters wasn't pushing the D&D Essentials line. When Marketing pushes something that isn't available, you have a definite disconnect between the parts of the company.
The other disconnect comes from the contents of the D&D Red Box compared to Heroes of the Fallen Lands, but until I have HotFL in my hands, I can't knowledgeably comment on that.
It's an odd situation at present: Wizards is doing very well in some areas, very poorly and others. I just wanted to share my thoughts on the situation.
Cheers!
