I like a lot of the stuff they've been putting in like the new tavern profiles and the eye on articles.
If they have to replace an adventure- I'm good with that.
Two problems with this:
1) It gives them license to gradually reduce the amount of content. It starts with "we'll replace an adventure" with an article, then moves to "we'll do two good adventures rather than three mediocre ones", then "we'll not do fixed deadlines; they'll come out when they're ready", then "having two magazines is dumb; let's amalgamate", then...
2) The first adventure to be dropped will always be the Epic tier one. And that's reasonable - far fewer people play at those levels. But that tier is already starved of content, and is an area where people are crying out for more support. If that's going to be the trade-off, I don't think it's acceptable. (Now, if they were to adopt the policy that they could run an article instead of the
Heroic tier adventure, I could get behind that - if only because it would make them think very carefully about whether to do it.)
A means of inviting non DDi subscribers to a session on the VTT. That way I will get a use out of it.
Yep. At the very least, they could do with setting up a "tester" account, which is tied to an email address and allows a limited number of VTT sessions (and perhaps access to one month of eDragon and eDungeon) before it must be converted to a paid account.
As far as the adventures go, other than the complete lack of epic support, a DM new to 4E who picks up a month of DDI has access to a ridiculous amount of adventure material.
Very true. I'm inclined to think that WotC should actually make the magazines (especially eDungeon) a 'seasonal' product (as opposed to "evergreen"). That is, two months after it is released, the files are removed from the website.
Conversely, I also think they would strongly benefit from tying their eDungeon adventures into the VTT, and I could see groups getting
really angry if they're playing an adventure when the files suddenly get removed. Perhaps the solution there is to allow the DM to register a small number of adventures as "in use", and retain the files for those adventures... for use by that DM only.
Besides, the one thing that seemingly everyone* agrees on is that WotC doesn't do adventures all that well. Do we really want them forcing out even more adventure material if it continues to be of the same low grade most people seem to rate it? Hire people who write better adventures you say? Yeah, that would be the obvious answer, but it hasn't been getting done to date, so why would we expect a change there?
WotC already have access to some phenomenal adventure-writing talent, so that's not the issue. I think two key parts of the problem are these:
1) Too many 'gimmick' adventures. This is especially true with print products, where they seem to feel the need to tie the adventure into some new mechanic (The Deck of Many Things), or make it a movie/video game tie-in, or make it a retread of a 'classic' adventure.
2) Too many really bland adventures. Soulless railroads and bland dungeon-crawls don't make for good adventures.
I think the issue here is that they require a certain level of sales to justify a product, especially in print, and adventures tend not to reach those heights. So, they kind of have to go for the tie-ins, and they have to shoot for the lowest-common-denominator to try to hit a middle ground.
Fortunately, none of that should be an issue with eDungeon, especially if they're doing several adventures a month. With three adventures, they could do one rock-solid middle of the road adventure (of general utility), one "experimental" adventure, and one Adventure Path module.
Chances are that every month some people will
hate the "experimental" adventure, but it probably won't be the same people each month, and also, some people will love them. In any event, the people who hate them will still have two other adventures for the month, so it's surely not a big loss.
(I also bet that, if there are ever to be "new classics" born of 4e, the "experimental" adventures would be where we see their genesis.)
And, equally, I daresay a lot of people wouldn't run the Adventure Paths, and would resent their introduction. But, again, there would be lots of people who absolutely loved them (assuming they were done well), and they would be talked about and become a strong selling point (as they were in the Paizo days). And, again, the people who didn't play the AP would still have two other adventures to use.
(Of course, there would be some who hated both the AP and the "experimental" adventures. Which is definitely a shame. But my gut feeling is that this would please more people than it drove away, especially if the overall quality went up. And my feeling also is that unless something is done, eDungeon may well die of mediocrity anyway.)
