Dragon 397 - Table of Contents

[Herschel]

Aside from the Warlord, I'm REALLY tired of the Fighter/Wizard/Rogue/Cleric being teh 'only' classes to keep getting more and more goodies and attention. Yeah, grognards know those classes best and Essentials was aimed at them and new players, but call me getting a little perturbed with lack of nifty for the rest.

 

[MrMyth]

I really feel that the target WotC should be aiming for with the magazines should be to match the late-Paizo era, both in terms of word-count and quality. Make the magazines excellent, and they become a real selling point for the DDI. Make them poor (low quality or just too short), and they become a joke... in which case they're better off not doing them at all.

See, I'm not sure they even need to worry about aiming for a print-era - they had two solid years of the online magazines being filled with content, with quite a few outstanding articles, and overall just being more useful for playing the game than I ever found the print magazines to be. The decline in quality hasn't been a result in going online - it has been a very recent thing, and I'm guessing based on an overworked DDI staff trying to keep existing features running while implementing new ones like the VTT.

I mean, I'd love to see them revamp things, start providing more adventures like you suggest, and return to having regular features and reliable content. But honestly, even just getting back to where they were a year ago would be incredibly welcome.

As things are now... well, other aspects of the subscription are enough to keep me subscribing. But for a while, the magazines were the primary reason, not just a small bonus in the background.

 

[delericho]

and I'm guessing based on an overworked DDI staff trying to keep existing features running while implementing new ones like the VTT...

I really hope it's a completely different team that's responsible for putting together the magazines from the one that's handling the tools!

 

[MrMyth]

I really hope it's a completely different team that's responsible for putting together the magazines from the one that's handling the tools!

I suspect the core staff of each team is seperate, but wouldn't be surprised if there is some overlap, and that there is some amount of resources getting diverted or positions getting shuffled around.

Mind you, this is all just speculation, but I can't imagine any other reason why we would have them suddenly drop to half the content they were previously producing with no real explanation.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

However, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that the current combined total is actually less than a single print magazine. And that surely can't be considered acceptable?

Hmmm, but since we're in the online world calling it '2 magazines' or '1 magazine' is pure semantics. Dragon is the area of the site that has player articles, Dungeon is the part that has DM articles. Nobody ever guaranteed X amount of content. You can be satisfied or dissatisfied, and obviously we'd all be happier with more quality and more volume of content. Nothing wrong with people pointing out that what they're getting is not sufficient for them in either way, but I'd say make the complaints to WotC or stop subscribing and they'll pay the most attention.

The minimum should be 3 adventures per month, one for each tier.

Ideally, I think they should do five:

1 short zero-prep Heroic Delve
1 short zero-prep Paragon Delve
1 Adventure Path module (run 1 AP per year, lasting about 9 months, running across 15ish levels)
1 standalone adventure (H, P or E tier, whatever the AP isn't using)
1 setting-specific adventure (H, P or E, whatever's left)

This gives "something for everyone" - short adventures for the DM who needs something to run right now, longer adventures for DMs to drop into their campaigns, support for published settings, support for all tiers, and a monthly Adventure Path for the DM who wants a pre-canned campaign (and to generate buzz).

Lets see: 2 delves = 6 encounters. 3 adventures, hmmmm. If an AP runs 9 months for 15 levels, that's 5/3rds of a level per month, at say 7 encounters per level that's roughly 10 encounters making an 'adventure' by your reckoning. So we're up to 36 encounters per month, at say 2 pages per encounter that's 72 pages of content right there. I'm going to venture the opinion that 72 pages of adventures per month is probably quite a bit more than WotC can manage to churn out, quality be damned.

It is a nice theory, but lets assume realistically they can do 30 good pages of adventure a month, or around 15 encounters. That would get us say 2 delves and one adventure. I like the idea of doing one thing for each tier roughly, though honestly in the long run epic IS going to have less demand. So maybe they do one delve length AP thing every month, meaning they can do what, maybe 5-6 levels in a year, so maybe they supplement that sometimes to get in a tier every year or a bit more, so maybe 15 levels in 12 months. Then they can do a stand-alone adventure and maybe another delve depending on if they can put out a bit extra that month or put a bit less into the AP that month. Actually, if you think about it, that's not far off from what they've BEEN doing, though there have been some months that have not lived up to that. So there you go, WotC, give us 30 pages of adventures a month.

I think if they could swing say about 1 more Dragon article a month and maybe make sure all the ones they schedule actually make it, and make sure they aren't all 4 page Robert Schwalb articles (nothing against Robert and his stuff, but it starts to get a bit silly when he's practically writing the whole magazine himself, get the man some help).

Really overall I think the magazine complaints are mostly getting a bit overblown, but we do pay a fair amount for this stuff, so they can afford to do something for us.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Aside from the Warlord, I'm REALLY tired of the Fighter/Wizard/Rogue/Cleric being teh 'only' classes to keep getting more and more goodies and attention. Yeah, grognards know those classes best and Essentials was aimed at them and new players, but call me getting a little perturbed with lack of nifty for the rest.

Be careful what you wish for. In a way, the fighter really got raked over the coals by the introduction of it's 'new goodies' in Essentials.

 

[mudlock]

Be careful what you wish for. In a way, the fighter really got raked over the coals by the introduction of it's 'new goodies' in Essentials.

/me looks at his fighter... looks at essentials.

I got a few more choices for utility powers and for feats. That's a raking?

 

[delericho]

Hmmm, but since we're in the online world calling it '2 magazines' or '1 magazine' is pure semantics.

True. But it's either 2 magazines each of which should be compared to the corresponding print magazine, or it's 1 magazine that should be compared to the combination of both.

Lets see: 2 delves = 6 encounters. 3 adventures, hmmmm. If an AP runs 9 months for 15 levels, that's 5/3rds of a level per month, at say 7 encounters per level that's roughly 10 encounters making an 'adventure' by your reckoning. So we're up to 36 encounters per month,

True...

at say 2 pages per encounter that's 72 pages of content right there.

It's only two pages per encounter if they persist with the Delve format. Now, two things about that format:

1) It's a distinct contributing factor to the poor quality of WotC adventures since it was introduced. Except for the "zero-prep Delves" I listed, I would strongly advocate they stop using it (and not just for eDungeon).

2) Even if they do persist in using the format, the vast majority of the text in those "2 pages per encounter" is simply copy-and-paste material - monster stats from their database, and environmental conditions from previous encounters in the series.

Really overall I think the magazine complaints are mostly getting a bit overblown, but we do pay a fair amount for this stuff, so they can afford to do something for us.

Paizo did two magazines per month, containing several meaty articles and 3 adventures per month. The magazines were extremely well-regarded. (Quality is, of course, subjective.)

WotC should be able to match this. They have access to the same freelancers. They have access to the mass of 4e gamers (many of whom one would have thought would be keen to get into 'print', and some of whom must be quite talented). They have access to their in-house designers, some of whom are the best in the business. And they have greater resources than Paizo.

In addition, WotC seem to believe that the future of the game is primarily online, via DDI subscriptions. The magazines should be a major selling point for the DDI. They certainly could be. Are they, honestly?

 

[lutecius]

I suspect the core staff of each team is seperate, but wouldn't be surprised if there is some overlap, and that there is some amount of resources getting diverted or positions getting shuffled around.

coding and game design require different competencies.

Mind you, this is all just speculation, but I can't imagine any other reason why we would have them suddenly drop to half the content they were previously producing with no real explanation.

I see one. maybe the design team is working on something else (starts with a 5...)

 

[Knightfall]

Release schedule of Class Compendium class articles as per Steve Winter's latest Dragon editorial

• Warlord (March)
• Fighter (April)
• Cleric (May)
• Rogue (June), and
• Wizard (July)

And the revision to Multi-class feats are coming "sooner rather than later" but no schedule yet.

You know, I was thinking I'd consider getting a DDI subscription in order to get this content, but I'm not sure I'm willing to do so just to gain access to one more full Essentials class and new builds for four existing classes.

WotC needs to confirm that they are going to Essentialize all the other "core" classes before I will even consider getting DDI.