D&D 3E/3.5 3.5: Out With A Whimper

[Vigilance]

Perhaps I'm wrong...but I don't remeber screaming and outrage about Dragon and Dungeon during the switch from 2nd to 3rd. Much as some posters try to make it seem like fans don't understand what an edition switch is, they do.

I can tell that you never, ever, read Dragon during the transition from 1e to 2e.

There was screaming and yelling alright.

 

[Henry]

I can tell that you never, ever, read Dragon during the transition from 1e to 2e.

There was screaming and yelling alright.

Yeah, but how much of that was caused by Zeb Cook's "Who dies?" article? Funny thing, some of that thing came true (half-orcs gone, assassins gone) and the fans just went back and re-added them from 1E! I had half-orcs, assassins, and heck, even replaced the ranger's anemic favored enemy back with the giant-class bonus from 1E again. Truthfully, I expect the same thing to happen with 4E, but it will just look prettier in someone's PDF.

 

[Imaro]

They didn't "snatch" anything up. This wasn't a hostile takeover from Paizo. The magazines were always Wizards' property and they decided to do something else with them.

I mean this is all nitpicking words...okay they chose to revoke Paizo's license for the magazines they were publishing.

They've also said there will always be free articles, so yes, I imagine you will get to browse. I'd also guess there will be a monthly model, as well as longer commitments that will be discounted. Sort of the way Marvel does their new e-comics service.

But do I get to preview the magazine before I buy it?

No, what they said was that they felt the internet was a place where they could reach more people than print. It's not the content that they are trying to improve, it's the distribution model.

Right...so they never claimed the e-zines would be as good or better than the print magazines. I remeber some threads on the WotC board where they stated things to the effect of just give us a chance, the e-zines will be as good as print mags. When I get home from work I'll try to find these posts and post them here.

Let's be clear, Wizards knows what they're doing here. They have one of the most successful e-gaming businesses around, in Magic Online. The gentlemen in charge of the electronic side of things, as opposed to Chris Thomasson who's an editor, is a longtime veteran of Magic Online, which has high customer satisfaction and is very profitable.

So no, they really aren't rookies to providing things online.

Okay...show me, don't tell me. And I'm talking about with D&D not Magic. Magic makes way more money so there is a stronger impetus to make it shine.

Again, I they've said they're going to have free articles every month even when they begin charging for the service. I'm not sure why you want to try to paint this service as an attempt to rope people in blind to a 1 year commitment when we haven't been told a single thing about how the pricing will work.

They have said it will work on a subscription model...I'm sorry if this doesn't equate to buy per issue in my mind.

Signs and Portents is great. It also contains a LOT of advertising to support its free status. What Wizards is doing is something different. I think a better analogy is Marvel Digital Comics and Magic Online, both of which seem to be doing rather well getting subscribers.

No comparing them to another gaming magazine is a good analogy...and personally I don't care how Mongoose does it, especially when it's free, good material for my Runequest game every month. And my previous post already addressed the page count/advertising thing.

 

[Hussar]

Imaro - you do realize that Dragon and Dungeon will be monthly again in 6 months right? Yes, you will have to pay, but, they will be monthly. Supposedly.

And, let's not forget that Mongoose is doing about ten different games in one magazine. Your S&P mag gives you what, 2 maybe 3 Runequest articles a month. At the outside? Dragon is only doing D&D. It's not an entirely fair comparison.

Again, it's truly strange to me. People are reading Dungeon and Dragon in far greater numbers right now than any time in the past ten or fifteen years. I have no doubt of that whatsoever. Dragon sold about 50k issues a month at best during the Paizo years. I'd be very interested to know the number of downloads that Dragon 360 got. I'm going to go with my gut and think that it was likely more than 50 thousand downloads.

Would be interesting to see the numbers though. Forex, if they had more downloads, then taking over Dragon and Dungeon is pretty much justified from their point of view. After all, on the of the main reasons given was they wanted wider distribution. Now, if they had equal or less numbers, then, Imaro, I'd be right with you in saying that they screwed up.

Wonder if we could ever see those numbers from somewhere? I know we used to get them for Dragon once a year.

 

[Cadfan]

Heh, now I feel embarassed. I wouldn't have been snarky if I thought that Eric Mona would respond personally. That will teach me to follow my own rule about being respectful in the forum, even to game designers who you don't think are reading.

 

[Glyfair]

I mean this is all nitpicking words...okay they chose to revoke Paizo's license for the magazines they were publishing.

Just to nitpick a little bit more, they didn't actually revoke the license. The license was expiring anyway, they just decided not to renew it. In fact, allowed Paizo to publish past it so they could finish the Savage Tide adventure path. I believe that's what WotC did with all their licenses, just allowed them to expire rather than just revoking the.

The difference is slight. However, it's not like the timing came completely out of the blue. Paizo certainly knew that there was a date when their license would need to be renewed. They probably expected that it would be at the time. I'm not even sure how often it had to be renewed. It may have been the first time it came up, it might have had to be renewed every year since they got the license.

 

[Glyfair]

No : Reverse Dungeon was a comedic adventure. You played a tribe of poor weak evil little goblins, against the uber-good uber-powerful adventurers.

Very fun !

My longtime players still remember their time at it.

Yes, that's what I meant. They were lumping the adventure in with Die, Vecna, Die and The Apocalypse Stone, but they really weren't thematically similiar.

Thinking back, I remember them saying they were adventures to end your campaign with a bang. Maybe I'm misremembering. Maybe it they said they were adventures to end your campaign. If you were already to start a new game, maybe they felt Reverse Dungeon would be a way to end it by turning the tables and having the PCs be "the bad guys."

 

[Vigilance]

I mean this is all nitpicking words...okay they chose to revoke Paizo's license for the magazines they were publishing.

I guess. To me, the difference between "hey, I'd like my stereo back that I let you rent from me" and "someone snatched my stereo!" to be a little more than a nitpick. Snatched implies theft.

But do I get to preview the magazine before I buy it?

Will you get to preview the entire magazine? I doubt that. My guess would be that they'll have free articles each month along with a table of contents or a "this week in Dragon" type column.

Assuming that they will say "hey, here's this thing, we won't tell you anything about it, sign up for a year to see what's inside", which is the impression I had from your earlier post, seems like it's giving the guys WAY too little credit.

Chris Thomasson has worked on Dragon and Dungeon for a long time, Wizards has demonstrated that they do in fact know how to run an online service.

Right...so they never claimed the e-zines would be as good or better than the print magazines. I remeber some threads on the WotC board where they stated things to the effect of just give us a chance, the e-zines will be as good as print mags. When I get home from work I'll try to find these posts and post them here.

Ah but that's not what you said. You said they promised the magazines would be BETTER. I remember them promising they'd be as good (they have been imo) and saying that they felt like an online distribution model was a better way to reach folks.

They have said it will work on a subscription model...I'm sorry if this doesn't equate to buy per issue in my mind.

Subscribing for 1 month is a subscription.

Again, I don't know, but I'd be shocked if it didn't follow a model like this:

1. Subscribe for one month, 9.99/month
2. Subscribe for three months 8.00/month
3. Subscribe for 12 months 5.00/month

No comparing them to another gaming magazine is a good analogy...and personally I don't care how Mongoose does it, especially when it's free, good material for my Runequest game every month. And my previous post already addressed the page count/advertising thing.

So basically, you're mad that it's not free. I guess I can see that.

There's advantages to each method. Mongoose is hoping that offering free stuff will increase sales of their books. Since Wizards doesn't have any problem selling books, they are looking for new ways to monetize content and increase revenue.

Both are legitimate approaches.

 

[Rechan]

And this proves their not a smaller company than WotC how again?

I was disagreeing with the "high quality" part of the statement, not the size of their company.