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.

 

[Trickster Spirit]

Except that, I think, there should be more to be said. Are there other products they're planning on selling that are also delayed? What are they doing to alleviate the bottleneck? Are they alleviating the bottleneck on products they'll be selling but leaving the free conversion guide to rest as a lower priority?

I know a lot of people have been saying that issues like jury duty have a pretty big impact on small companies. But the fact is WotC isn't a small company. The D&D team may be pretty small within WotC, but WotC should be able to marshal resources to work through most bottleneck issues.

You bold the word should, but even so I read it and mentally adjust that to the word could.

You're right - the D&D team is small, but WotC could invest more resources to the department to prevent delays over someone being pulled due to jury duty. But should?

It's clear they've decided from a resource allocation POV that they disagree with you.

If the conversion guide isn't high enough priority to merit that treatment (and, being free, I can see why it might not), it would be nice to hear that it's an exception rather than fuel the idea that everything may be jammed up in the same bottleneck.

Sure, it would be nice to hear! But perhaps the fact that they're not saying anything about whether it's an exception or not means that it's not an exception.

Personally, I'm not sure what the difference matters. Either it's an exception and they've just back-burnered the conversion guides to get everything else out on time, or they're delaying other unannounced projects as well. Let's say they had wanted to put out a FRCS (or MMII, or Elemental Evil player's option book, or whatever) in 2015, but the jury duty situation means it's going to have to be delayed until next year.

What does acknowledging internal delays or cancellations of unannounced projects get them?

 

[S_Dalsgaard]

What does acknowledging internal delays or cancellations of unannounced projects get them?

A lot of grief seems to be the answer...

 

[Kramodlog]

Ok, I have a question here. For those who have criticised WOTC in this thread for any of the following: dishonesty, incompetence, or disingenuousness.

What do you hope to accomplish?

After that, WotC employees do read threads on ENworld. They might not post in them, but they read. If Mearls reads that his "what's a cancellation tweet" was badly received, maybe he'll won't take us for idiots next time. Even if it doesn't

I'm serious. If you honestly believe, and I have no reason to doubt you, that WOTC is being dishonest when it says that the reason that the conversions docs will be 4 months later is because of jury duty, then what do you hope to accomplish by talking about it? Do you think they're going to suddenly reverse policy and start saying something else? What are your expectations?

When a company did something that I felt was dishonest and bothered me, I voted with my feet. I stopped buying their products and stopped frequenting their websites and stopped talking about them. I went from someone who would regularly cheer the company to someone who rarely, if ever, actually directly talks about their products. I am no longer their customer and fair enough.

If you think WOTC is being dishonest, why on earth would you not simply vote with your feet? It's not like it's 1985 anymore. There are half a dozen very well supported D&D games out there that are D&D in everything except name. Pathfinder, 3e, OSR games, you name it. There is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from enjoying D&D and having nothing to do with WOTC.

So, with that in mind, what's the point here? You think (whoever you happen to be) that WOTC is either dishonest or incompetent. Thing is, nothing has really changed from WOTC in years. It's been like this for darn near a decade now. WOTC has become increasingly tight lipped with fans, never less. Back in the early Oughts, you'd see all sorts of WOTC people over here talking about the game. Then that dropped to Scott Rouse. Now, seeing a WOTC rep over here is like seeing Bigfoot. Considering these criticisms of dishonestly and incompetence have been coming around and around, generally by the same group of posters, again and again, year after year, at what point do you give it up for a bad idea?

So, again, what exactly do you hope to accomplish by constant kvetching on the honesty of WOTC announcements?

Your message essentially resonates as "If at first you do not succeed, quit. There is a beer waiting for you in the fridge." Not sure this is how people have managed to change things they care about.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Except that, I think, there should be more to be said. Are there other products they're planning on selling that are also delayed? What are they doing to alleviate the bottleneck? Are they alleviating the bottleneck on products they'll be selling but leaving the free conversion guide to rest as a lower priority?

Well that's a communication style issue. Opinions in PR circles differ as to whether is is best to mitigate bad news with good, or if associating good news with bad is counterproductive.

One thing is clear, though- companies do it both ways.

I know a lot of people have been saying that issues like jury duty have a pretty big impact on small companies. But the fact is WotC isn't a small company. The D&D team may be pretty small within WotC, but WotC should be able to marshal resources to work through most bottleneck issues. If the conversion guide isn't high enough priority to merit that treatment (and, being free, I can see why it might not), it would be nice to hear that it's an exception rather than fuel the idea that everything may be jammed up in the same bottleneck.

Just because WotC is part of a larger whole does not mean they can draw resources from other departments in the company. Low-priority projects, those that depend on specialized training or skill sets, or that are under the control of specific personnel may not be able to do that at all.

And it should go without saying that if everyone is busy, there may not be enough hands to reallocate anyway.

I briefly worked at Texas Instruments in their legal department as part of a team of 8 people who were doing important but not time-sensitive work. There was not a chance in hell of TI reallocating resources to us for a minor slowdown. Likewise, nobody on that team was going to be subbing for any of the patent attorneys- none of us were licensed to do so.

So WotC has a few hundred employees. So what? They're not all game designers. Do you want Rudy from HR or Sal from accounting or Millie from shipping doing the final approval for the conversion guide?

WotC has a limited number of people doing the work of designing the products for D&D. Sometimes, the're going to be unable to keep up with the release schedule for any number of reasons. It is what it is.

 

[Umbran]

What are they doing to alleviate the bottleneck? Are they alleviating the bottleneck on products they'll be selling but leaving the free conversion guide to rest as a lower priority?

If you are a customer in close partnership with another company, with money on the line if it doesn't come out at a certain time, some of those internal details may be reasonable to ask for. But, for retail goods? You aren't entitled to them. And that means you aren't really in a good place to be put off for not getting them. You should be gratified when you do get them, but don't go too far.

Or, to paraphrase Mr. Neil Gaiman, "WotC is not your beyotch."

I know a lot of people have been saying that issues like jury duty have a pretty big impact on small companies. But the fact is WotC isn't a small company. The D&D team may be pretty small within WotC, but WotC should be able to marshal resources to work through most bottleneck issues.

Except when the resource in question has very special knowledge. Yes, if they need a basic copy editor, or someone with facility with graphic design, sure WotC might be able to dig one up (though, ability to do that may depend on how budgets are structured - sometimes you *can't* just pass resources around). But you can't just conjure up a game designer from elsewhere in the company with sufficient understanding of the game and the business around it to make decisions. And this was a decision making issue that was said to be the hold up.

 

[Hussar]

Your message essentially resonates as "If at first you do not succeed, quit. There is a beer waiting for you in the fridge." Not sure this is how people have managed to change things they care about.

For some though, it's been about ten or fifteen YEARS of constant bitching about how WOTC handles D&D. At what point do you give it up as a bad job? And, again, how do you think posting on message boards is going to change their behaviour? What's the end goal here? You bitch long and loud enough and they start caving in to you? It's been about six years now, around that, that WOTC has taking this position of less and less direct interaction with the fan base through online forums. Because every single time they do interact, they get dog piled. Nothing is ever enough.

They state that a product is going to be delayed and give a reason why. That's not enough, so people accuse them outright of lying or incompetence. What could they possibly do to announce that this document will be 4 months late? Do they have to show their time cards? Do they have to lay out their day planners for your inspection so that you can see that they are busy ("Hey, you took a five minute piss break, back to the sweatshop for you!")? What? What would satisfy you?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

They state that a product is going to be delayed and give a reason why. That's not enough, so people accuse them outright of lying or incompetence. What could they possibly do to announce that this document will be 4 months late? Do they have to show their time cards? Do they have to lay out their day planners for your inspection so that you can see that they are busy ("Hey, you took a five minute piss break, back to the sweatshop for you!")? What? What would satisfy you?

I promise you that would not stop people from calling them liers, cheats, dishonest, or just badly working...

 

[Kramodlog]

For some though, it's been about ten or fifteen YEARS of constant bitching about how WOTC handles D&D. At what point do you give it up as a bad job? And, again, how do you think posting on message boards is going to change their behaviour? What's the end goal here? You bitch long and loud enough and they start caving in to you? It's been about six years now, around that, that WOTC has taking this position of less and less direct interaction with the fan base through online forums. Because every single time they do interact, they get dog piled. Nothing is ever enough.

They state that a product is going to be delayed and give a reason why. That's not enough, so people accuse them outright of lying or incompetence. What could they possibly do to announce that this document will be 4 months late? Do they have to show their time cards? Do they have to lay out their day planners for your inspection so that you can see that they are busy ("Hey, you took a five minute piss break, back to the sweatshop for you!")? What? What would satisfy you?

Such emotivaty. It is almost as if you are WotC.

Anyway, being critical can work with WotC. There were enough critics that they tried to make things more to critical people's liking with Essentials (e.g. auto-hit Magic Missiles). It was a bit late, so they listen to people and had a public playtest for 5e. A lot of old stuff is back thanks to being critical.

As for the jury thing, yeah, WotC lacks credibility. Saying it was jury duty sounded like the dog ate their homework. It is amateurish PR. It needs to be said or they won't try to improve. The road will be long though. They need a lot of work to regain credibility and good will from fans. It won't happen over night.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Or, to paraphrase Mr. Neil Gaiman, "WotC is not your beyotch."

Nice article.

 

[BryonD]

Or, to paraphrase Mr. Neil Gaiman, "WotC is not your beyotch."

When GRRM releases his next book, everyone griping will rush out to buy it.

When WotC releases something players want, everyone griping will rush out to buy it.

If WotC keeps dropping the ball, some fans might stop griping. That would actually be bad.