Dear WotC: Be Blizzard

[The Little Raven]

Don't do this again. Do what Blizzard does. Finish the game, polish it 'till it glows, then announce a street date.

Blizzard also makes massive game system changes during the patch cycle as well as during the expansion cycle. If WotC did what Blizzard really does, people would be bitching endlessly about their core books being made obsolete because of massive systemic changes.

I mean, look at the talent system. It was functionally the same up until Cataclysm, when they made a massive change, and now they're scrapping that massively changed talent system for an entirely new one in the following expansion. There's no way WotC could "be Blizzard" in that regard, because it's comparing analog apples to digital oranges.

 

[The Little Raven]

In order for 5E to do well, they should not tell us how GREAT it is over prior editions as they did with 4E. My concern is they are not truly in touch with what's going on until AFTER the fact. 2005 they started R&D on 4e, 2 years after 3.5 came out. 3/3.5 lasted 8 years, 4E/4E essentials lasted 4 before they decided they screwed up.

This is pretty blatantly lopsided. You're comparing one edition's entire lifespan to the point in another edition when they opted to begin working on the next edition. A more accurate comparison would be that 3.X/3.5 was 5 years old when they decided it needed to be replaced with 4e, compared to 4e being 4 years old when they decided it needed to be replaced with 5e/D&DNext.

 

[Andor]

Blizzard also makes massive game system changes during the patch cycle as well as during the expansion cycle. If WotC did what Blizzard really does, people would be bitching endlessly about their core books being made obsolete because of massive systemic changes.

I mean, look at the talent system. It was functionally the same up until Cataclysm, when they made a massive change, and now they're scrapping that massively changed talent system for an entirely new one in the following expansion. There's no way WotC could "be Blizzard" in that regard, because it's comparing analog apples to digital oranges.

True, but MMOs because of the server based models, are actually a poor model for RPG releases, oddly enough. I was actually thinking of games like Diablo and Starcraft where Blizzard is imfamous for telling eager fans that it'll be done when it's done and no we won't give you a release date until it's gone gold.

It is of course, ridiculously easier to update digital media than print media. When I was in the airforce (back when we dropped rocks off pterodactyls) we had a system to allow continuous improvments and update to our tech manuals. They were all bound in 4 inch d-ring binders (dozens of them) and every week you'ld get a stack of new pages in the mail and you'ld have to spend a few hours (every week) going through the books, pulling out the old pages and replacing them with the updated ones. The airforce can afford to do that. Wotc cannot. I suppose they could issue books in ring binders with some blank pages and allow you to print your own updates as they arrive by e-mail. But probably not.

That having been said I'm playing a game right now where for the first several sessions we only had a digital copy of the rules, and then finally got some proper hardcopy. And oh my GOD is print more convenient to work with. I love hypertext dearly (and used the d20 srd to make hypertext character sheets), but for flipping through a book as you level up a character nothing beats paper.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

WotC should adopt the two primary goals of Blizzard

1. Easy to learn, difficult to master
2. The product will be released when it's ready

Blizzard learned early on not to promise patch / release dates. If you hit them, no one cares. If you miss one though, oh boy, there will be hell to pay.

 

[MacMathan]

Why? Paizo's errata documents are somehow significantly shorter than WOTC's?

In the sense that Paizo is not beholden to a large entity like Hasbro and can print it when it is ready.

Also in the fact that Paizo has taken a previous genre/idea(3.5) and polished it to make their name and well deserved reputation.

 

[mudbunny]

In the sense that Paizo is not beholden to a large entity like Hasbro and can print it when it is ready.

Also in the fact that Paizo has taken a previous genre/idea(3.5) and polished it to make their name and well deserved reputation.

Also note that the formatting of the errata documents for WotC are done in a way that they will get a much, much larger page count. The Paizo document gives the change only. The WotC documents reprint the entire entry with the new change. That makes them much, much longer. The power format of the powers also eats up space.

 

[shamsael]

Blizzard and WotC have so very little in common that this is an utterly ridiculous and completely unrealistic request. Hasbro dictates how WotC is run. Blizzard dictates how Blizzard is run.

Vivendi Universal dictates how Blizzard is run.

 

[mudbunny]

Vivendi Universal dictates how Blizzard is run.

To be honest, Blizzard brings in so much money (probably somewhere around $100,000,000 a month), that Vivendi Universal probably really doesn't want to disturb the ecosystem that is their own personal printing press.

 

[MacMathan]

Vivendi Universal dictates how Blizzard is run.

Actually didn't they get bought and folded into what is now called Blizzard Activision.