Festivus
First Post
No, the Nentir Vale Gazetteer or something like that. At first I wasn't interested but now I am thinking about a home campaign set there.
Ampersand: 2011 releases officially gutted
- Thread starter captainspud
- Start date
No, the Nentir Vale Gazetteer or something like that. At first I wasn't interested but now I am thinking about a home campaign set there.
Nemesis Destiny
Adventurer
If their behaviour of late is any indication, they're probably waiting to see how their new direction takes off before making any final decisions about the fate of that particular book.
Then again, maybe they axed it too, but thought it was too far ahead on their roadmap to bother including it in their announcement.
Bitter_Chivalry
First Post
Uh-oh 
*shiver*
I'm getting a bad feeling about this - cancellations and changes of format (again?)
*shiver*
I'm getting a bad feeling about this - cancellations and changes of format (again?)
Wednesday Boy
The Nerd WhoFell to Earth
I get the idea that crunch could/should be relegated to DDI but not all of us use DDI or have much interest in it. Does this simply mean we're being left behind and the format of the game is changing this drastically? That's what I don't like.
I may be using DDI in the coming months as it seems in person games will be less possible with some of the groups and so we'll be trying to make it work online. In such a case DDI would be great. I guess I'm just a (not old) curmudgeon who wants books nearby/in hand to flip through and read. I don't want to have to open a computer every time someone wants to look at feats or what kinds of magic items there are out there. I want to hand them a book and let them flip through it.
I'm sure some of you are accustomed to groups where every player has multiple books and maybe several also have DDI. The thing is that's an almost ideal situation. In my case the DM (myself) buys almost everything and the players use it/borrow it when they need/want to. In such a case DDI doesn't help me much. It doesn't let me hand them a book when we're able to get together.
Change is fine but I thought WoTC was doing a fine job of making both the books and DDI useful for their respective audiences. Now it seems like those of us like me are being forced to join the DDI crowd just to see the kinds of products we were expecting in book form.
I may be using DDI in the coming months as it seems in person games will be less possible with some of the groups and so we'll be trying to make it work online. In such a case DDI would be great. I guess I'm just a (not old) curmudgeon who wants books nearby/in hand to flip through and read. I don't want to have to open a computer every time someone wants to look at feats or what kinds of magic items there are out there. I want to hand them a book and let them flip through it.
I'm sure some of you are accustomed to groups where every player has multiple books and maybe several also have DDI. The thing is that's an almost ideal situation. In my case the DM (myself) buys almost everything and the players use it/borrow it when they need/want to. In such a case DDI doesn't help me much. It doesn't let me hand them a book when we're able to get together.
Change is fine but I thought WoTC was doing a fine job of making both the books and DDI useful for their respective audiences. Now it seems like those of us like me are being forced to join the DDI crowd just to see the kinds of products we were expecting in book form.
If they're smart... that material will go straight to Dragon.
If you announce that generic Character Themes will be released to DDI each and every week, that'll bring bunches of people scrambling to get a subscription. A whole NEW WAY to add crunch to your character is exactly the kind of thing we SHOULD be getting from Dragon Magazine.
I mean c'mon... if we got new Themes every month, new Backgrounds every month, new Races like we used to... it'd instantly make Dragon (and the DDI subscription) really worthwhile again.
ShaggySpellsword
First Post
If I ran the zoo this would probably be the business model:
D&D Core: DMGs (maybe just one or two, as many as 3 ever), PHBs (the place to introduce new races and classes. They would need to be functional without anything other than PHB material for off-line players.), dungeon tiles, minis, occasional adventures, and Monster Vaults. These would have rare new releases but would pretty much stay in print, much as Essentials are meant to do. This would get people involved in the game and would supply accessories players want/need.
DM/Setting books: These would be evocative and well-written books targeted to DMs. Books like Demonomicon, Planar Handbook, and even setting books would fall into this category. They would occasionally go out of print as there would certainly be some point where noone else would really buy these books.
DDI: Primarily, this would offer lots of Dragon content (updated options for classes, new feats, new items, like what they currently do, but with even MORE content. This merges current Dragon magazine with all of the splat-books, and would get uploaded into the Character builder at the end of each month.) and Dungeon content (delves which incorporate dungeon tiles, full adventures, and new sets of monsters which would get uploaded into the Monster Builder at the end of the month, and House-ruling/DMing advice, subsystems, and other ideas concerning game design.) All Dungeon/Dragon material would go through the full R&D process, as they've recently shifted to. DDI would also include tools such as a Character Builder (on-line with easy off-line exportability) and a Monster Builder, minimum. PHB/Monster Vault info would make it into the builders a month or so after release.
Why: DnD maintains a presence in Brick and Mortar stores, though on a smaller scale than currently. There won't be constant new releases every year. They'd cycle through a new set of Dungeon Tiles every 4-6 months, and 3-4 new DM-focused books a year. Player materials could be released in DDI to coincide with DM-focused book releases, thematically. DDI would be the primary revenue stream using te subscription model. Most of the Game-designers would work on this project. The DM-focused books could likely each be done by one or two great writers with a minimal amount of design work involved. They could publish "Best of Dragon" books every year to get material into non-subscriber's hands. They could take Adventure Paths published in Dungeon and put out Deluxe Box Sets of the them complete with tokens for the monsters, pull-out maps, and the entire adventure.
This would piss off people who don't want to pay a subscription to play DnD. Most of the new content would be Subscriber-only. There would be enough book stuff to play, but not enough for those who like new crunchy bits to experiment with every month or so.
I'm no business guy, but I think DDI killed the Splat book sales. That doesn't mean DDI was a bad idea...it just means that focusing on producing books full of crunchy-bits entirely duplicated in the CB was a waste of time, and other books focusing on setting, adventure hooks, and such, could have been a much better venture. Not to say people don't WANT those feats, build options, and Paragon Paths...just that you should charge them for them via DDI.
D&D Core: DMGs (maybe just one or two, as many as 3 ever), PHBs (the place to introduce new races and classes. They would need to be functional without anything other than PHB material for off-line players.), dungeon tiles, minis, occasional adventures, and Monster Vaults. These would have rare new releases but would pretty much stay in print, much as Essentials are meant to do. This would get people involved in the game and would supply accessories players want/need.
DM/Setting books: These would be evocative and well-written books targeted to DMs. Books like Demonomicon, Planar Handbook, and even setting books would fall into this category. They would occasionally go out of print as there would certainly be some point where noone else would really buy these books.
DDI: Primarily, this would offer lots of Dragon content (updated options for classes, new feats, new items, like what they currently do, but with even MORE content. This merges current Dragon magazine with all of the splat-books, and would get uploaded into the Character builder at the end of each month.) and Dungeon content (delves which incorporate dungeon tiles, full adventures, and new sets of monsters which would get uploaded into the Monster Builder at the end of the month, and House-ruling/DMing advice, subsystems, and other ideas concerning game design.) All Dungeon/Dragon material would go through the full R&D process, as they've recently shifted to. DDI would also include tools such as a Character Builder (on-line with easy off-line exportability) and a Monster Builder, minimum. PHB/Monster Vault info would make it into the builders a month or so after release.
Why: DnD maintains a presence in Brick and Mortar stores, though on a smaller scale than currently. There won't be constant new releases every year. They'd cycle through a new set of Dungeon Tiles every 4-6 months, and 3-4 new DM-focused books a year. Player materials could be released in DDI to coincide with DM-focused book releases, thematically. DDI would be the primary revenue stream using te subscription model. Most of the Game-designers would work on this project. The DM-focused books could likely each be done by one or two great writers with a minimal amount of design work involved. They could publish "Best of Dragon" books every year to get material into non-subscriber's hands. They could take Adventure Paths published in Dungeon and put out Deluxe Box Sets of the them complete with tokens for the monsters, pull-out maps, and the entire adventure.
This would piss off people who don't want to pay a subscription to play DnD. Most of the new content would be Subscriber-only. There would be enough book stuff to play, but not enough for those who like new crunchy bits to experiment with every month or so.
I'm no business guy, but I think DDI killed the Splat book sales. That doesn't mean DDI was a bad idea...it just means that focusing on producing books full of crunchy-bits entirely duplicated in the CB was a waste of time, and other books focusing on setting, adventure hooks, and such, could have been a much better venture. Not to say people don't WANT those feats, build options, and Paragon Paths...just that you should charge them for them via DDI.
Nemesis Destiny
Adventurer
Yes. That's precisely what I speculated last night shortly after this news broke.
moxcamel
Explorer
There's a lot of quotage here that I could "me too," but just in case anyone from WotC happens to put any stock in these forums, let me just add my voice of disappointment to the crowd. I like that articles are being subjected to peer review now (this is a "well duh!" thing and I'm pretty surprised that it wasn't already happening) but killing the magazine format seriously blows my mind. I don't even mind that (very likely) most of the content that would have been released in books will now be released online, but killing the most recognizable magazine formats in the hobby just smacks of management decisions being made by people who do not understand the hobby. This is starting to smell like TSR all over again.
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