Can Wizards turn around their D&D support?

[Kingreaper]

From a cynical point of view, perhaps this is intentional (especially with the change to the web only DDI character builder).

A possible underlying motivation is when a 5E comes along, they can remove the web only 4E DDI character builder immediately and replace it with a new web only 5E version. Anybody who still wants to play 4E, will have to resort to using either the unsupported "ancient" offline 4E DDI character builder or go back to doing character creation by "hand" from the 4E rulebooks.

Don't see that happening. Why? Because they have a choice: A) continue getting money from you for the 4E tools as long as you keep playing 4E
B) Stop getting money from you as long as you keep playing 4E, then have you move onto a different game, that may or may not be 5E (and if it is, they then start getting the subscription from you again)

Far more sensible to keep the tools online, and keep milking money out of you.

 

[Balesir]

Don't see that happening. Why? Because they have a choice: A) continue getting money from you for the 4E tools as long as you keep playing 4E
B) Stop getting money from you as long as you keep playing 4E, then have you move onto a different game, that may or may not be 5E (and if it is, they then start getting the subscription from you again)

Far more sensible to keep the tools online, and keep milking money out of you.

Just like they did with E-Tools, you mean. Oh, right, they yanked them as soon as 4E was in the works... Oh, well.

 

[ggroy]

Can someone remind me what Slavicsek's role in D&D is now? I remember reading about some position changes some time ago, but can't remember who ended up in charge of what.

Allegedly Bill Slavicsek is the head of the entire D&D division at WotC.

I suspect Slavicsek's job these days is to deal with the daily WotC/Hasbro politics. In particular, most likely he runs a lot of interference which "shields" people like Mike Mearls et al from the daily WotC/Hasbro management politics and bureaucracy. Basically Slavicsek is representing and fighting for the best interests of the people working on D&D, within the Hasbro bureaucracy.

 

[Ourph]

And, they'd just have to input this once to make it work. After the initial cost, pure profit.

1) Initial cost to program a new Character Builder that worked for 2e, including all the Skills & Powers options would be enormous; 2) If it was a "one and done" project we wouldn't have an online CB for 4e that still has bugs and problems several months after its release. 3) Given the snail-like pace of improvements to the online CB and MB, it is obvious that the Adventure Tools people at WotC are spread incredibly thin as-is. Adding another ground-up project to their workload would be a disaster (not to mention cruel).

 

[P1NBACK]

1) Initial cost to program a new Character Builder that worked for 2e, including all the Skills & Powers options would be enormous; 2) If it was a "one and done" project we wouldn't have an online CB for 4e that still has bugs and problems several months after its release. 3) Given the snail-like pace of improvements to the online CB and MB, it is obvious that the Adventure Tools people at WotC are spread incredibly thin as-is. Adding another ground-up project to their workload would be a disaster (not to mention cruel).

I don't disagree. Clearly, this would require a better investment on WotC's part into a digital initiative. However, I do think that investment would be profitable and make WotC the one-stop shop for all things D&D, for all editions.

 

[Nikosandros]

Allegedly Bill Slavicsek is the head of the entire D&D division at WotC.

I suspect Slavicsek's job these days is to deal with the daily WotC/Hasbro politics. In particular, most likely he runs a lot of interference which "shields" people like Mike Mearls et al from the daily WotC/Hasbro management politics and bureaucracy. Basically Slavicsek is representing and fighting for the best interests of the people working on D&D, within the Hasbro bureaucracy.

I'm not disputing this claim, because I have no information whatsoever, but I'm curious. What are you basing it on?

BTW, this is not a snark question, but a genuine one.

 

[ggroy]

I'm not disputing this claim, because I have no information whatsoever, but I'm curious. What are you basing it on?

BTW, this is not a snark question, but a genuine one.

Loosely based on my personal past experiences with working in a bureaucratic corporate environment.

Of the corporate jobs I've had over the years, the division boss was typically the person who ran interference for us against middle/upper management. This person typically shielded us from a lot of the corporate politics, so that we could do our jobs more effectively and independently.

Every time the higher management wanted to reduce or eliminate the division I was working in, the division boss would go to bat for us and reduce casualties while keeping the division afloat.

 

[wedgeski]

but it can be seen from the release of the new monster "builder" that they learned absolutely *nothing* from the disastrous release of the online Character Builder.

On the contrary: CB was a pre-beta app released as if it was ready for prime time; result: chaos. MB is a pre-alpha app released as a beta (meh, you can't win 'em all), which is stable, reasonably quick, and does the key thing I need MB for, namely re-levelling monsters. The result is "a good start". I would have liked to have seen more, and for that I'm disappointed.

But it seems to me they learned quite well from the release of the CB. In fact, the MB, incomplete as it is, represents the second sign (the first being the VTT closed beta) that the DDI software team is at last getting its act together.

Of course, ideally, the team would be five times as big, ten times as well financed, and already have released a MB that blows the offline version out of the water. But we should all know by now that was never going to happen.

 

[Kingreaper]

Just like they did with E-Tools, you mean. Oh, right, they yanked them as soon as 4E was in the works... Oh, well.

Were E-tools online only or downloadable?

Because if downloadable, you're entirely missing the point.

The reason to migrate to online only is that then, even when you stop making new stuff for 4e, people playing 4e will still have to pay a subscription fee to access the stuff you've already made.

If the CB was downloadable at the end of 4e obviously people would stop subscribing when they stopped adding new content. If it's online, people will keep subscribing even with no new content, because they don't have a copy of the content on their computer.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think the point Balesir was making was that if they can yank eTools, they can yank content from their online product as well.

Whether that is good business or not; whether WotC would do such a thing or not; those are different issues.

The fear, I think, is this: if they don't want to put content from earlier editions online due to concerns about cannibalization of 4Ed sales, it's possible the same concerns would be at the fore during a rollout for 5Ed.