D&D 4E 4e previews due in December

[Thornir Alekeg]

Where I have a problem with this is that somebody had a detailed enough plan months ago to list the articles that were to come out in the month of December.

The implication of such a detailed list is that there were resources assigned performing the tasks and a deadline for completion and yet not a single one of them came out as listed. True or not, the conclusion people outside will draw from this is probably one of the following:

The D&D staff of WotC has:
- Planning and projection issues
- Issues with completing assignments on time
- A large, unforseen issue that has required a shuffling of priorities and resources
- Somebody making promises they didn't have the ability or authority to make

To be honest, I hadn't seen the list of previews scheduled for December and January until I read this thread so I had no issue with the schedule of preview releases. WotC would probably be better off not making any promises and releasing on an internal schedule than making it public and not being able to pull it off. It certainly raises a few concerns on my part as to their ability to meet future deadlines.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

2 quarterlies, which is what... 2 magazines in 6 months with content by other writers (at least 4 other writers listed for issue #2)? While working on a 160-page adventure that featured other designers, since it's an open design project (hell, the thing has interviews with two of the designers).

Not to disparage his work, but if this was supposed to impress or show that one man can do more than WotC, then it has failed. This workload is nothing compared to what designing, developing, and launching a new edition of a game requires.



If you discount all the people that write all that material, yeah...

Now it is 3 quarterlies. And if I remember correctly, the old dragon had a lot of content from freelance designers!
But even only 3 quarterlies is a lot more content than WOC were able to put on their Dungon and Dragon website.

The 160 page adventure was written by Wolfgang. The Patrons were able to influence the direction the adventure took and had some other input.

Nonetheless, I repeat it again, WOC have a lot of people and are able to hire freelancers to write content for Dungeon and Dragon!
(The Iggwilv adventure was written by Freelancers for example)

If they are not able or willing to put content online, even if it is free, they should not advertise it or set deadlines.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

I got Christmas day off, and I don't work saturday or Sunday. I took Christmas eve off. A lot of people though get Christmas eve, Christmas, new years eve and new years off so they are taking the opportunity to take 2 weeks off for only 6 vacation days. The US isn't known for its generous vacation policies when compared to other developed nations. Some people are lucky though, my friend works for a non-profit that closes the "campus"(though its not a school) down for 2 weeks during this time, my sister works at Stanford university at the Hoover institute and the Campus is closed for 2 weeks so Hoover gets clsoed with it.

I just counted, I worked 24 days in the month of december....

 

[Beckett]

Ah, I should've put 'paper versons' of the magazines there.

Gotcha.

Thank you. Words like "cancelled", besides being inaccurate, seem to add an unnecesarry amount of emotion to the discussion.

Also, this?

And it's information we would've gotten in the paper versions, along with other information for our current games if they had the foresight not to cancel the print versions of the magazines and let Paizo do what they were doing no?

seems like a pretty rotten thing to do to Paizo. "Hey, that magazine contract we just renewed? Well, we're announcing 4E, so expect your sales to tank in 5..4..3..."

At this point, AFAIK, Paizo hasn't seen any more of the rules than I have, so why would we expect WotC to provide 4E preview material to print in Dragon? Particularly since Wizards can just stick the information on their website and get around the three month turnaround for a paper magazine.

 

[The Little Raven]

When did they do this?

They didn't. The option for the license was expiring, and with the new edition on their agenda, along with the idea of the digital initiative, they opted not to renew it. But some people like to make WotC out to be some evil company that actively goes and terminates contracts.

 

[The Little Raven]

Now it is 3 quarterlies. And if I remember correctly, the old dragon had a lot of content from freelance designers!

Yeah, so? I never said they didn't. I merely said that the poster's claim that those quarterlies is one man's work is patently false.

But even only 3 quarterlies is a lot more content than WOC were able to put on their Dungon and Dragon website.

9 months of content should be more than 4 months of content, I agree.

The 160 page adventure was written by Wolfgang. The Patrons were able to influence the direction the adventure took and had some other input.

I was under the impression that Open Design projects are collaborative projects. Is this not the case?

Nonetheless, I repeat it again, WOC have a lot of people and are able to hire freelancers to write content for Dungeon and Dragon!

They still have internal processes that we don't know about. They have internal editors. Everything has to go through them before it gets put out. Hiring more freelancers doesn't really do anything helpful in that regard, it just provides a larger backlog of material.

 

[the Jester]

Hiring more freelancers doesn't really do anything helpful in that regard, it just provides a larger backlog of material.

I must be misunderstanding you here. Are you asserting that a larger staff means things take longer? Or do you think that a larger staff would somehow make 4e more complex, or have more rules?

--Not sure I'm getting your point here spikey.

 

[The Little Raven]

I must be misunderstanding you here. Are you asserting that a larger staff means things take longer? Or do you think that a larger staff would somehow make 4e more complex, or have more rules?

Wizards has an internal editing and approval process that is the bottleneck for releasing content on the website. Hiring more people to write content will not improve the bottleneck. Hiring more editors will not speed up the improvement of the bottleneck, since you have to get every editor on the same page before releasing something. Also, because of the fact that they're in the midst of designing and developing the new edition, bringing in new editors might not help at all.

It's similar to software development, where bringing in new people can help... until it starts to slow things down, since there's more people to get on the same page, get approval, and so on, so forth. When you have to check with more and more people to ensure that the content you're releasing is correct, things tend to slow down.

I often see the "throw more money/people/resources at it" argument presented, but things don't always work that way in a group, collaborative project.

 

[JoeGKushner]

seems like a pretty rotten thing to do to Paizo. "Hey, that magazine contract we just renewed? Well, we're announcing 4E, so expect your sales to tank in 5..4..3..."

And yet Paizo is still doing 3.5 material right now.

At this point, AFAIK, Paizo hasn't seen any more of the rules than I have, so why would we expect WotC to provide 4E preview material to print in Dragon? Particularly since Wizards can just stick the information on their website and get around the three month turnaround for a paper magazine.

Well, unless I'm misremembering, since Paizo was an 'official' brand, I'd imagine that getting paper products into people's hands would be a good thing. Just like it was for 3.5.

 

[the Jester]

Wizards has an internal editing and approval process that is the bottleneck for releasing content on the website. Hiring more people to write content will not improve the bottleneck. Hiring more editors will not speed up the improvement of the bottleneck, since you have to get every editor on the same page before releasing something. Also, because of the fact that they're in the midst of designing and developing the new edition, bringing in new editors might not help at all.

Wait- so you think WotC works on consensus? I've always assumed that there was someone able to make decisions. I would imagine more editors could help in a scenario like this:

1. Current editorial staff = 3 editors and 1 editor lord. Current workload: 13 articles. Each editor edits 4 articles; the editor lord takes one, and double checks all the rest.

2. Add 1 editor. Now each editor only has 3, with one of them taking the extra article. So everyone's workload is reduced by at least one article, except for that one guy who keeps four articles.

Now, in my scenario, the 'editor lord' (an advanced editor) is the only one each normal editors needs to get approval from, rather than from each other. Now, I suspect that there may be a bottleneck at the 'editor lord' level, but that just means that they need to promote someone. And for this to work, you need to ensure that each EL doesn't have to double-check each other's work; you need people you trust to do the job right the first time through.

Maybe I'm wrong, though; I don't work in an environment where editors are required.