At Least 4 Months For Conversion Documents

Those waiting for official conversion documents from earlier editions of D&D to 5th edition are going to have to wait a bit longer. WotC's Mike Mearls says that "the person who needs to do the final approvals on them is serving on a jury that will take another 4 or so months. Sorry!" So it looks like we're talking July/August at the earliest. Thanks to Adrian for the scoop.

 

[JeffB]

Brony

 

[DaveDash]

And I'm annoyed at the folks calling Mearls a liar. Especially over such a low priority product. You people amaze me. It's just mean-spirited conspiracy minded thinking that anyone at WotC would bother lying to you about something so trivial. Or even something actually meaningful. You have absolutely NO basis for that whatsoever. It says more about you than it does about Mearls or WotC.

Argh. I think I need to get away from this thread, it's getting toxic. AND we're discussing Ponyfinder . . . .

Either Mearls is bending the truth, or WoTC is an incompetent company to have business process held up absence of one individual, or its so far down on their care factor list that this is literally what is really happening.

All three of those things do not settle well with me at all.

 

[Iosue]

True, then he should say that. What are the "bigger fish" and why isn't WotC more forthcoming about that?

Seriously? The bigger fish are getting the next season of Encounters off the ground, seeing through the release of PotA, gearing up for the next big project after PotA, various work concerning Sword Coast Legends, attending the GAMA trade show, work concerning any other licensing deals we don't know about yet, signing off on finished material for next months columns, and making sure Greg Tito gets up to speed. I mean, I know they haven't detailed to us their long term plans, but the D&D website, Facebook, and Twitter have been constantly updating with news, projects, videos, previews of various media such as books and comics, all of which Mearls may not take a personal role in, but as Senior Manager of R&D has some hand in.

Either Mearls is bending the truth, or WoTC is an incompetent company to have business process held up absence of one individual, or its so far down on their care factor list that this is literally what is really happening.

All three of those things do not settle well with me at all.

Or maybe, just maybe, one particular low-priority project that was being handled by one person was simply put on the backburner when that person went on jury duty, while all of that person's high priority projects have been re-assigned to the rest of the team.

 

[DaveDash]

Seriously? The bigger fish are getting the next season of Encounters off the ground, seeing through the release of PotA, gearing up for the next big project after PotA, various work concerning Sword Coast Legends, attending the GAMA trade show, work concerning any other licensing deals we don't know about yet, signing off on finished material for next months columns, and making sure Greg Tito gets up to speed. I mean, I know they haven't detailed to us their long term plans, but the D&D website, Facebook, and Twitter have been constantly updating with news, projects, videos, previews of various media such as books and comics, all of which Mearls may not take a personal role in, but as Senior Manager of R&D has some hand in.


Or maybe, just maybe, one particular low-priority project that was being handled by one person was simply put on the backburner when that person went on jury duty, while all of that person's high priority projects have been re-assigned to the rest of the team.

That's not what Mearls said. If Mearls did say that, I'd be more than happy with that.

Mearl's basically said it's finished but.. . I've been working in corporate long enough to know that anytime anyone says "It's finished but" means it's not finished. Do you honestly believe that all this guy needs to do is approve it, and he's not going to do that for the next four months? Really?

Maybe he just said that without really thinking about what he said, and to him "final approvals" means a lot more than it does to me, but I'm skeptical.

 

[Iosue]

That's not what Mearls said. If Mearls did say that, I'd be more than happy with that.

Mearl's basically said it's finished but.. . I've been working in corporate long enough to know that anytime anyone says "It's finished but" means it's not finished. Do you honestly believe that all this guy needs to do is approve it, and he's not going to do that for the next four months? Really?

Maybe he just said that without really thinking about what he said, and to him "final approvals" means a lot more than it does to me, but I'm skeptical.

As a matter of fact, Mearls did not say it was finished. The actual quote of tweet(s) is:

person who handles final approval is on a jury for a fairly intense trial - out for six months

the person who needs to do the final approvals on them is serving on a jury that will take another 4 or so months. Sorry!

Incidentally, we don't know the nature of their final approval. If it was just rubber stamp approval, that could easily be given to someone else. It might be mathematical, as in the person doing the approval is the design team math guru, and its his or her job to double-check the math. It might be a case of that person being the old edition guru -- these conversion guides are his or her baby and they really want to make sure its good before they send it out.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

They don't need a MLP RPG, they need a MLP CCG!

 

[Wicht]

They don't need a MLP RPG, they need a MLP CCG!

My girls got that for Christmas, actually.

 

[weldon]

As a matter of fact, Mearls did not say it was finished…

Thanks for bringing some reason back to this thread. I really don't get the people all upset over Mearls "handling of PR" when he's just making some comments to people on Twitter. If everyone gets all bent out of shape because 140 characters on a personal account wasn't enough to properly convey a carefully crafted message about corporate policy, what do you think complaining about it is going to produce?

I'll tell you what will happen… Mearls and everyone else will stop talking about D&D on their personal accounts. I personally do not feel that a future where we don't get to interact with the designers about D&D on Twitter and the only information we get is from corporate press releases is preferable.

If you want more information from Wizards, that's fine. Go ahead and ask for it. But please stop with trying to crucify the staff because they aren't using their personal social media accounts to give you every detail of the business.

 

[Kramodlog]

Why not make official welcrafted announcements instead?

 

[weldon]

Why not make official welcrafted announcements instead?

I'm nitpicking a bit, but the "instead" in this sentence is the problem I was pointing out. We *want* the designers to be open and engage with the community on Twitter and other social media. If you also want more direct communication from Wizards about product plans, feel free to ask for it. But that's not an "instead." It should be an "also" because we want both.

I'm certainly not discouraging anyone from talking about Wizards policies or how anyone feels they could improve communication, but let's lay off the criticism of the staff for communication on their personal accounts.