D&D 5E Are you happy with how WOTC's D&D department interacts with the fans (Frequency/ Transparency/Methods)?

[Evenglare]

Simple poll. Are you happy with the way that the D&D team interacts with the fans? Frequency being how often they directly engage the community. Transparency being the clarity in which they are relating their future plans or past endeavors (such as morning star and the surprise announcement of Hero Labs). Methods being HOW they interact (usually through surveys and twitter mainly as far as I know).

The choice is simple. Yes or no.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Heh heh... I almost wish you included a second part to your poll:

"Are you happy with how people REACT when WotC tries to interact with them?"

Because that'd be a big-ass NO! on all accords.

 

[Queer Venger]

Wizards is doing a great job of keeping in touch with us, particularly through twitter. I would add that their surveys, their UA and errata, as well as the quality of products they are releasing is because they are in touch with the fans. That said, alot of fans expect Wizards to give them what they, (singular) want. Wizards is not obligated to do that. They are also not obligated to tell me of the products they have in store 1 year ahead of time. In fact, I much prefer when they announce a book like Sword Coast Adventurers Manual months before release. Wizards is being smart with the brand, particularly in the current era of failing publishers and gaming companies that have almost gone the way of the Dodo. They are branching out and cross-releasing books that appeal to just this very small table-top niched population, in order to keep the brand vibrant.

To Wizards I say, "Good job." You got me back to D&D because you are dong something right.

 

[TerraDave]

Yes, especially given how much people give them every time they say anything.

Having done my fair share of, er, giving in the past, I think they are now very consistent and transparent with their strategy. And their strategy is clearly making money, all evidence is that they are making millions, mostly from just 3 books.

This strategy seems to be people's problem. Not the actual communication.

 

[DongMaster]

Don't care as long as they keep releasing awesome stuff like they have so far.

 

[Uchawi]

It only matters if you are playing 5E.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I've been really impressed with their open responsiveness to their monthly polls. Normally when a company does a consumer poll, the input disappears into the abyss and you never hear about it again.

 

[Patrick McGill]

Their Twitter communications are near constant, and it's a much better platform for outreach than forums are.

As far as transparency, it's difficult for me to get up in arms about a company carefully managing what information they release. They don't want to announce a bunch of stuff far in advance, presumably so they can be more fluid with releases. If they announce a year's slate of products but don't stick with it due to changes involving feedback or unforseen production issues, they'll get a lot of bad feedback for not following through. It's simply the better option to keep under wraps until the thing is about to come out.

 

[Iosue]

Very happy. My only complaint is the design of the website. Otherwise, they've been active on Facebook and Twitter, spreading news and answering questions. Sometimes they show up here at ENWorld. They've been great about letting people know when there's going to be a delay in some product, and then delivering that product by the new date. When they were releasing 5e, they put out regular previews, and gave them to various fan-run D&D sites to release, spreading the love. They've been great about re-Tweeting or linking to various fan-made resources, live-games, and the like. Even when they were putting out the C&Ds on character generators, they let those generators continue once they removed PHB material, and stuck to the Basic Rules content. They've done a number of live Q&As over the past year.

So yeah, pretty happy and satisfied.

 

[Talmek]

I can't wait for this poll to go for about two weeks and see where the numbers end up. I personally am satisfied with the communication from WotC, seeing as they are not really required to interact with their customers at all. As numerous people have already stated previously, between Facebook, Twitter, and their own feedback surveys (including the communications back out to their customers demonstrating that they actually read the overall results of the survey) the folks at WotC seem to have opened a wide, wide line of communication that I have not seen from a company with any frequency or consistency.

Bottom line - Seeing that they own the brand and seeing that they aren't required to provide any feedback/communication to fans I think they're making a great effort to learn from previous mistakes.