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

[Herschel]

...., but get away from the game and, more to the point, from message boards. They have a way of bringing you down. I know I get the same way at times......

Yep.

As I like to say: Whenever you start to feel good about humanity just visit an internet message board for a shift in perspective.

 

[MerricB]

Do you have any evidence for this statement? I have not heard any such thing from WotC, and I see no reason to believe this is the case as opposed to greater ease of development and maintenance.

"We also wanted to move to a solution that promotes individual account ownership and hinders piracy." - Bill Slavicsek, November Ampersand

 

[MrMyth]

Do you have any evidence for this statement? I have not heard any such thing from WotC, and I see no reason to believe this is the case as opposed to greater ease of development and maintenance.

They mentioned it in the podcasts.

I'm in the camp that trying to assign one singular reason to complex business ventures is silly. I suspect their goals included discouraging piracy, encouraging long term subscriptions, allowing their new design team to rebuild key elements of the program from the ground up, allow mac use, and eventually unify the CB with other online tools.

I think some of those reasons are good ones, and others are not. I think other approaches could have been taken, and may or may not have worked better. I certainly think the entire launch of the product was terribly handled from the start.

But I think it foolish to dismiss the entire project as simply a bid against piracy, and to judge it as a success or failure on that account alone.

 

[darjr]

Oh, I'm not judging it solely on it's failure to fight piracy. I'm also judging it on it's failure to be a better product.

And I do agree that businesses usually make decisions based on a host of reasons, some more important than others, however listening to the podcast the fight for piracy seemed to be primary. In fact it seemed to be the motivator for moving it to an online version, everything else being of secondary benefit. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but WotC as a company have done other things for the sake of piracy that I've thought were just foolish.

I don't want to turn this into a piracy discussion, however.

 

[abyssaldeath]

Disagree on this specific point. The stupidity of this move is just mind boggling. "We're loosing money because people are pirating stuff, let's make it impossible for them to pay us for it, instead!" That is not the logic of any rational mind. Never mind the very idea that piracy = lost sales is simply untrue. This is the sign of a company that's kicking and screaming in the digital age because the rules have changed.

I wasn't just free download piracy that they were fighting. It was also some PDF distributors selling the same copy of the PDF several times and pocketing the money. It is those distributors that put the nail in the coffin PDF.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I honestly think that if WoTC is going to continue making D&D, they need to get as far away from books as possible.

More miniatures, tiles, board games, and things that lead you online to the DDI.

But then again, I think they need to make the DDI free as the character creator part and charge people for access to things like Dragon, Dungeon, VTT, etc... Getting people to make character to play your game should be something you want to encourage as much as possible, especially when you're going to be pulling that data to see what they're doing. Making a beta product and charging the customer for it while misleading them for months as to whats going on on the other hand...

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I honestly think that if WoTC is going to continue making D&D, they need to get as far away from books as possible.

More miniatures, tiles, board games, and things that lead you online to the DDI.{/quote]
This bit I agree with

But then again, I think they need to make the DDI free as the character creator part and charge people for access to things like Dragon, Dungeon, VTT, etc... Getting people to make character to play your game should be something you want to encourage as much as possible, especially when you're going to be pulling that data to see what they're doing. Making a beta product and charging the customer for it while misleading them for months as to whats going on on the other hand...

This bit, not quite, Here I would make the VTT free but point to and provide via DDI lots of addons that make the VTT simple to use.
If I was to make the CB free then only for the first 3 levels or so and some free level 1 to 3 adventures, with an open ended story. Want to see the end sing up on DDI.

ALso if the VTT access is free and the initial level characters then one can run sponsored on line encounter type games for the uninitiated with some goodies redemable when they sign up.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This bit, not quite, Here I would make the VTT free but point to and provide via DDI lots of addons that make the VTT simple to use.
If I was to make the CB free then only for the first 3 levels or so and some free level 1 to 3 adventures, with an open ended story. Want to see the end sing up on DDI.

ALso if the VTT access is free and the initial level characters then one can run sponsored on line encounter type games for the uninitiated with some goodies redemable when they sign up.

Yeah, I think you've outlined what I would consider a pretty good strategy. It is VERY analogous to the 'free to play' direction that MMOs are starting to take. Let anyone play levels 1-3 for free, run low level VTT sessions, and give them access to plenty of content in that level bracket for free (they already have tons of stuff of this ilk that has easily paid for itself already and can be written down as lost leaders).

I think what they really still need though is a more mass market presence for this kind of a 'new D&D for the 21st Century'. Putting Red Boxes in Target is not bad, but as corny as the old cartoon was it sure plastered the D&D name all over the place and if you had certain well-known actors who have made no secret of having played the game to do some voice acting for it? Hmmmm. Done reasonably well it could certainly suck in a bunch of mind share and grow the game.

Really I think if you look at what they have been doing and trying to do in the past couple years they really ARE moving in this direction. Not with blinding speed or no missteps but it seems to be within reach at least. If that platform, VTT, CB, AT, and a good online community and resources really materializes it could be leveraged to do some very nice things. And if WotC eventually can't manage to pull it off then someone will in some form.

 

[Echohawk]

As I like to say: Whenever you start to feel good about humanity just visit an internet message board for a shift in perspective.

Dogbert agrees.

 

[MrGrenadine]

Frankly, given how often they need to update it with new content, CB should have been a web app from the beginning.

I agree, except I would say that the CB should have been a fully functional, robust web app that was completely updated in a timely manner from the beginning.

(I still haven't created one successful character with it, due to some feat omissions and problems with power swap feats.)