April preview

[Felon]

Man, I don't checok out previews to read about some guy going off on a highly-personalized tangent about some DVD he rented. Save it for your blog, Bart, or come post in ENWorld's media lounge.

 

[Zil]

Just looks like the pre edition change lull.

But... with the changeover to 3E I remember seeing and reading lots of 3E hype before the change. Of course part of that was because I used to get a lot of my information through Dragon where they had this "Countdown to Adventure" segment that they ran for months. More-so, there was more of an active effort to help old players move to the new system and just comfort them through the transition. They even created a conversion book to help people convert campaigns, characters, monsters and the like. It wasn't perfect, but it certainly helped me convert my Planescape campaign in the early stages.

This time round, I'm not getting that sense of building expectation - perhaps if they hadn't effectively shut down Dragon/Dungeon.... This time the marketing is all weird. You would think they would use their preview article segments on the WoTC site to give lots of crunch and fluff previews from the new game to pique interest instead of, well, not say much at all on the new game. It's just weird.

 

[MaelStorm]

But... with the changeover to 3E I remember seeing and reading lots of 3E hype before the change. Of course part of that was because I used to get a lot of my information through Dragon where they had this "Countdown to Adventure" segment that they ran for months. More-so, there was more of an active effort to help old players move to the new system and just comfort them through the transition. They even created a conversion book to help people convert campaigns, characters, monsters and the like. It wasn't perfect, but it certainly helped me convert my Planescape campaign in the early stages.

This time round, I'm not getting that sense of building expectation - perhaps if they hadn't effectively shut down Dragon/Dungeon.... This time the marketing is all weird. You would think they would use their preview article segments on the WoTC site to give lots of crunch and fluff previews from the new game to pique interest instead of, well, not say much at all on the new game. It's just weird.

I get the sense they think their job is done, the last bit of interesting info will be the videocast showing a paragon level game. (I would have prefer they would have kept the same approach they did with 3E.)

 

[Chowder]

There's some possibility that the "lull" is a deliberate attempt to get people really desperate for new information, so that in the last month before release they can feed us that new information in a way that makes sure our attention is squarely focused on the 4E release at the moment of the release.

However, if this is the case, I think they could do a better job of it. I read the Wizards preview articles to see previews of Wizards products. Inserting a mish-mash of opinions about items unrelated to Wizards products in that article is a waste of my time and a waste of the author's time.

Up until about 6 months ago, I read the Wizards website religiously, and often visited their forums. Now, I never go directly to the Wizards web site at all. I go to ENWorld, and only visit the Wizards site if someone on ENWorld posts a link to an article there that might look interesting. Why did I make this switch? Because the Wizards website is no longer always the most up-to-date location for news about D&D, and even when it *is* the most up-to-date location, it presents information in such a poor way that I'll actually learn the news faster if I visit ENWorld. When you compound this with the fact that the Wizards website is often completely broken, and now dilutes D&D info with irrelevant nonsense ("Gamer Lifestyle"), I think ENWorld is going to remain my primary D&D website for some time.

I get the sense that the people at Wizards are good people who love D&D and understand how to improve it. And I get the sense that the pencil-and-paper part of 4E is going to be an improvement on 3.5E. But at the same time, I have concerns:

1. The sad state of the Gleemax/Wizards website technology indicate to me that, unless DDI is being done by a completely separate team, it's going to have serious technical problems. (I'm especially shocked by the way Gleemax was initially released in such a seriously broken form -- that was truly awful, and disrespectful to customers to expect them to use that.)
2. The pushing of the "Gamer Lifestyle" nonsense indicates to me that I may not be the target audience for Wizards anymore, despite being a lifelong fan of D&D.
3. The failure to release the GSL in a timely fashion, leading to Paizo's introduction of a competing product to 4E right during the time when Wizards wants everyone to be focused on 4E, may result in a slow start for 4E, which may in turn cause Wizards and Hasbro to cut resources from the D&D effort.

In any case, if The Rouse, or anyone else at Wizards is reading this, please note that I've loved every prior edition of D&D, love what I'm hearing about the pencil-and-paper part of 4E so far, and really want it to do well. But also note that, at the moment, I'm not inspired by the way you're showing it to me. I think the presentation needs some more polish.

Thanks,
-Chowder

 

[Iron Sky]

Up until about 6 months ago, I read the Wizards website religiously, and often visited their forums. Now, I never go directly to the Wizards web site at all. I go to ENWorld, and only visit the Wizards site if someone on ENWorld posts a link to an article there that might look interesting. Why did I make this switch? Because the Wizards website is no longer always the most up-to-date location for news about D&D, and even when it *is* the most up-to-date location, it presents information in such a poor way that I'll actually learn the news faster if I visit ENWorld. When you compound this with the fact that the Wizards website is often completely broken, and now dilutes D&D info with irrelevant nonsense ("Gamer Lifestyle"), I think ENWorld is going to remain my primary D&D website for some time.

This ^^^

 

[Bishmon]

Obviously they don't have a lot immanently due out, that's why the lack of WotC products.

Well, if you don't count the 4th edition PHB, DMG, and MM that are coming out in less than 8 weeks, I suppose you're right.

 

[Monkey Boy]

As for covering other things, that reminds me a lot of what Paizo was doing with Dragon on their preview section.

Paizo do a lot of things right.

I do not think gamer lifestyle articles in Dragon was one of them.

 

[Ryngard]

I miss Mat Smith's previews. Go back a few months and look at how decent the previews were. This, and the last one or two, have been complete garbage. Seriously man, this is horrible.

At this point we should see serious coverage for Keep on the Shadowfell, all three 4e core books (at least the index and backcover text), and then the covers/snippets on the June/July products.

 

[Vaeron]

Well that was disappointing and pointless, similar to the last "preview article". Truly, the non-marketing plan for 4E is very puzzling. It is all I can do to keep feeling optimistic about 4E when faced with such anticlimactic anti-marketing from WOTC.

Very puzzling. If they're just expecting word of mouth to sell this product they may be unpleasantly surprised. A lot of players and DMs are a bit peeved about another new Edition. Those are the ones they need to be going after. It reminds me a bit of how SOE released Everquest 2 and Everquest 1 continued to be the more popular game.

WoTC is going to have to do something to convince people who are perfectly happy with 3.x, or who haven't played before, and so far they've been appealing to the more invested crowd (aka people who post on D&D internet forums and the like).

If not for enworld, and a couple other sites, what news would there be out there, compiled in one place, about 4e? Definitely not on the Official D&D site. They've done a really poor job of marketing this.

 

[Anthraxus]

There's some possibility that the "lull" is a deliberate attempt to get people really desperate for new information, so that in the last month before release they can feed us that new information in a way that makes sure our attention is squarely focused on the 4E release at the moment of the release.

Geez, I hope it's not their marketing strategy, because it's just annoying me nearly to the point of being angry. :\

That was one awful "preview".