Will 2011 be the last year of Wizards D&D?

[Umbran]

D&D Red Box: not compatible with any other product.

So? It wasn't like the original Red Box worked with AD&D either.

D&D Essentials: so much confusion as to what it is and who it is for.

I kind of hate to say this but... I think we created that confusion ourselves, talking ourselves into a kind of frenzy of speculation, rather than just looking at the product and letting it speak for itself.

D&D Insider: a worse disaster of implementation is hard to imagine.

Um, really? Hard to imagine? The software field is heavily loaded with far worse rollouts than WotC has had. "Vaporware" is a term for a reason.

On the contrary, it seems to me that WotC is on a steady (if slow) course of turning themselves into a company that does software vaguely intelligently. Think back to their previous forays into software: the CDs that came with the 3e books, the stuff that was supposed to be available for 4e's release but wasn't.

Have there been mistakes? Sure. But we are talking about a company that is converting itself from plain print publishing to software, without also dropping it's original core business, and (I assume) doing so without blowing budgets completely out of the water. That is hard, hard stuff to do. They are in the midst of a massive learning process, with a steep curve. If you expected something near perfection, you were kidding yourself, and that's not WotC's fault.

And, honestly, it seems to be working. Slowly, the beast slouches into the 21st century!

 

[MrMyth]

Oh, I agree that they should have continued support for the old one until the new one was ready for prime time. The rollout of the new CB was badly mishandled.

What I'm objecting to is the idea of supporting both apps in perpetuity. WotC has made some missteps, but their end goal of having a web-based Character Builder (and only a web-based one) is quite sensible.

Oh yeah, support both indefinitely? It might be possible, but certainly not without them having a lot more staff members available on their DDI team.

 

[Almacov]

I'm no shrink, but I feel comfortable saying that the kind of negativity we've been seeing on these boards lately can't be healthy. Especially since it has lost all sense of perspective.

You *should* tell them what makes you unhappy, and you *should not* pay for a service that you don't care for. But posting about it incessantly is self-indulgent and smacks a bit of wallowing in your own misery.

Agreed. Being upset is okay, and there have been a wealth of venues to express that already.
When one takes that frustration into other threads though, one has just become an allip.

As for WotC's continued involvement in the franchise, I really wish them well.
I don't see any likelyhood that they will stop producing anytime soon, but if they did it would frankly be pretty tragic.
Being a Hasbro subsidiary (despite all the downsides that can come with) puts them in pretty much the best possible position one could find to expand the game and audience. I'm somewhat shocked that it has taken them this long to start using the boxed set model again and get more product in mainstream stores. (Wal-Marts, Targets, etc.)
I hope they exploit the heck out of the chance.

 

[darjr]

For me it's like this.

Right or wrong I'm very unhappy with how things have went and how the company has done things. I cringe at the possibility that anyone I've encouraged to get on the WotC bandwagon has had the same experience. I know for a fact there has been at least a few.

I don't want to give WotC another chance to make me this unhappy again. I will not encourage anyone else to get into that position. It isn't one single thing, it is a list of things that ended with the Online CB clue by four.

There are other companies with great people that have shown me that they 'get it'. I have alternatives.

 

[Dausuul]

Um, really? Hard to imagine? The software field is heavily loaded with far worse rollouts than WotC has had. "Vaporware" is a term for a reason.

On the contrary, it seems to me that WotC is on a steady (if slow) course of turning themselves into a company that does software vaguely intelligently. Think back to their previous forays into software: the CDs that came with the 3e books, the stuff that was supposed to be available for 4e's release but wasn't.

Have there been mistakes? Sure. But we are talking about a company that is converting itself from plain print publishing to software, without also dropping it's original core business, and (I assume) doing so without blowing budgets completely out of the water. That is hard, hard stuff to do. They are in the midst of a massive learning process, with a steep curve. If you expected something near perfection, you were kidding yourself, and that's not WotC's fault.!

I must spread some XP around before giving it to Umbran again.

 

[Riastlin]

Given the weather we've had lately here in the Midwest I sincerely hope that 2011 will be the last year Mother Nature has the weather license.

On a serious note though, sure, WotC has made some mistakes. However, it also seems pretty clear that they learned almost instantly from those mistakes. Just look at how they've handled the announcements of the VT and online MB. (In other words, the same way they should have handled the online CB).

More to the point though, while some people hate Essentials and others love it, the fact seems to be fairly clear that D&D is still the leader in the table top RPG market. Pathfinder (which coincidentally is still essentially D&D albeit 3.5 with some fine tuning of the rules) finally tied D&D for 1 quarter in approximate sales. This was also the quarter that Pathfinder released most/all of their major books for the year (as opposed to WotC's model of steady releases throughout the majority of the year).

Obviously a lot of people do not like 4th Ed. A lot of people also love 4th Ed. One of my players got back into D&D after something like 15-20 years because of 4th Ed. (and this was pre-Arcane Power). 4th Ed. has continued to sell relatively well and its hard to imagine another company doing better. I love Shadowrun, but the companies that have run it over the years have simply been one clusterfudge after another (imho). Although I think in general that Shadowrun has been a pretty well designed game, I would not have wanted any of their companies to have taken over D&D for instance.

All of this leads me to believe that WotC is still a good steward for the game. We might not always like their decisions (in fact, its impossible to please all the people all the time) but they still keep coming out with quality products. Could they use more playtesting? Of course. Could they make improvements? Absolutely. Am I confident that another company would do a better job of running the game? Not really.

 

[ExploderWizard]

So? It wasn't like the original Red Box worked with AD&D either.

As it was never designed to be an AD&D product I fail to see the parallel.
That's like complaining that the new Dark Sun supplement isn't compatible with your Forgotten Realms campaign guide.

The new red box was marketed and sold as the introductory product to the essentials line. The product was incompatible with other essentials materials. Simple and utter fail.

The old red box was marketed and sold as the introductory product to the D&D line. It remained compatible and useful throughout the life of the D&D line of products. Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortal boxed sets all still required the Basic box contents to remain a complete game.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

There are other companies with great people that have shown me that they 'get it'. I have alternatives.

To me it's easy to compare WotC to other companies for "what to do" and "what not to do". But it seems to me that a lot of what generates the "what not to do" sentiment in WotC over other companies is because they're doing more than the other companies and attempting more challenges than other companies.

The deficiencies of the CB aside, it's a monumental program that works with a huge library and from what I've seen something that other companies haven't even attempted. Why not embrace the innovation they're attempting and give them a chance to make it excellent instead of villifying it for not being perfect?

It's a good thing to put out constant errata updates to fix game mechanics that don't work right, instead of doing what many companies do and leave their products as-is after printing.

And while I think there must be a better solution to piracy than not selling any PDF products, they're at least attempting to combat piracy instead of acquiescing like most companies.

Lastly, they try innovations within their product (like Essentials) to let more players enjoy their game. Maybe I'm unaware but I think most other companies stick to their rules system instead of improving it to cater to appeal to more fans.

I guess I feel like WotC should get more credit for trying something new even if it isn't perfect when most other companies don't go out on limbs.

(Let me reiterate: I'm not saying that WotC does everything perfectly. And note that this is from my personal experience, there are certainly innovations that other company are attempting that I'm unaware of.

And [MENTION=52905]darjr[/MENTION], I'm not quoting you as an attack on what you said but your quote prompted my thoughts on comparing WotC to other.)

 

[Falstaff]

I just wish Kenzer and Company owned D&D.

 

[KarinsDad]

It would be an absolute nightmare to build two parallel apps and keep them both up-to-date and compatible with each other. There would have to be major demand to justify such a thing, and I seriously doubt that kind of demand exists. How much extra are you willing to pay for this functionality?

What's wrong with using Java? Last I heard, source could be run as an application or multiple web applets. And it could run on multiple OSs. One basic source base. There would be some differences, but they wouldn't be in the rules engine or the GUI.

People who get a one year non-refundable subscription to DDI could have either, but a one month subscription only gets the online version. This would address some of the piracy issues via marketing.

The source framework could be re-used for Monster Builder and other apps.

It's not thinking outside the box that got WotC in this mess in the first place and they probably spent a ton of money on this corporate direction which is alienating a portion of their customer base.