Mike Mearls just asked on twitter what panels we'd like to see at GenCon.
My reply: I want to see apologies and mass resignations from the DDi team.
I would add the resignation of the invisible D&D Brand Manager as well. What is going on at Wizards at the moment is a disaster. The last six months or more have seen them destroy all the early work they'd done with the DDi, and been amazingly incompetent in replacing it.
So, just to be clear - since, a bit under a year ago, they replaced several key positions on the DDI team, leading to a transition in what DDI had to offer that was "a disaster", and is only now starting to bear fruit... you would like to see them
again replace the DDI team so that we can go through this same thing a year from now?
Yeah, that seems a terrible idea.
There's hardly been an original article or adventure in Dragon/Dungeon that hasn't been a preview in the last several months? (EDIT: *This might not be true; however, it feels that way and adventure support is certainly well down.)
This isn't remotely true. They've actually had a good number of interesting and original articles overall, and what few adventures they've had, have been good ones. The problem has been quantity, not quality - the severe reduction in page count and number (and size) of adventures.
This actually derailed the integration of Essentials into 4e, particularly with the loss of Heroes of Sword and Spell and (more significant from my point of view) Mordenkainen's Magical Emporium. More significant? Yes, because I would have expected it to give lots of common and rare items, which we're currently missing in the system. The new magic item system in Essentials? Doesn't work without the information from this book. I'm also a DM, so player options don't mean as much to me.
Largely in agreement here that those books would have been key to fully supporting Essentials. But I think you may have misjudged the cause of the abrupt drop in content production...
The DDi team seem to be working on too many projects, some of which are completely irrelevant to a large segment of their customers. So, you've got a Virtual Table. And the Monster Builder works with it. That's very nice. Does absolutely nothing for me... and it seems to be taking a lot of attention from the tools I actually need.
The biggest "wins" for D&D in the last six months have been the two boardgames: Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon. They're both a lot of fun, provide a great introduction to the mechanics and themes of D&D, and also show the ability of the designers to learn: Wrath is much better than Ravenloft.
Last year, the D&D team split into two components. One side focusing on the RPG itself, the other focusing on expanding the brand - on stuff like the board games.
That is where resources have been devoted to. It isn't that DDI is hogging all the resources - I think it is indeed understaffed and has bit off more than it can handle. And I suspect that, in the long run, expanding the tools available will be a winning strategy.
But the reason we've seen a slowdown in book content and game support is that half their design staff have switched over to these tangential projects like the board games.
Projects that, thus far, seem pretty successful.
Now, I agree that WotC needs to get a bit of focus and get things back on track. But I think that the meandering of the line and the issues with DDI have developed out of seperate situations.
Basically, you can't in one breath applaud them for the success of the board games while also blaming other departments for not pulling their weight. Those other departments aren't pulling their weight because
half their design staff got shifted to the board game division.
Once again, I think they do need to get their new act together. I think DDI is... slowly... on its way there. I think better communication remains what is needed most of all.
As for the main line? I dunno. I definitely miss the Magic Emperium. I don't particularly miss the Heroes of Sword and Spell - as a whole, I think the book wouldn't have done well. But I do miss the part of it that would have addressed multiclassing for Essentials - something that I think they can more easily present online.
I think they do have some cool upcoming products - Heroes of Shadow and the Shadowfell Boxed Set. Just... not sure what is coming beyond that. I think that will really be the key - when we see some new announcements of new products. That will show if they have truly found a new focus, or are still just milling about and trying to figure out where to go from here.