Dragon #361 and Dungeon #152 news

[Mouseferatu]

Heh. I appreciate the sentiment, guys.

I just respect Patrick a great deal, and have worked with him on a project or two. I'm disappointed he didn't care for the offering this time around.

 

[Wolfspider]

I think he's talking about an idea I had back when Lords of Madness came out. I've gone ahead and dug up the thread: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=128237&

I'm still reading the thread, but I will say that it is a very interesting idea to mull over. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Garnfellow]

Heh. I appreciate the sentiment, guys.

I just respect Patrick a great deal, and have worked with him on a project or two. I'm disappointed he didn't care for the offering this time around.

Well, I haven't had a chance to download your Dungeon adventure yet (and I'm sure it is excellent), but even if it were the greatest thing on planet earth, ever, it still wouldn't make up for all the other problems Patrick (and others) have outlined.

And why haven't I yet downloaded a free remake of a classic adventure, written by one of the very best freelancers out there?

It's a tribute to how underwhelmed I've been by the quality of other offerings*, and how frustrated I've been by the terrible usability of the site. I'm sure I'll get around to snagging it eventually, and I'm sure that when I do I'll like it a lot, but right now I just can't get enthusiastic. That has nothing to do with you, Ari, or your work -- and everything to do with the shortcomings of the site. First impressions, as other folks have pointed out, really do matter.

* So far the Demonomicon article is the only thing that has evoked much more than a "meh" reaction from me.

 

[Umbran]

Hey, someone who read what I wrote. Thumbs up. I'm getting tired of 4e apologists I tell ya.

Being tired is not an excuse for being rude.

I'll be blunt - I don't care for this passive-aggressive painting of everyone who posts a counter-argument with one brush. Giving them all one label so you can publicly dismiss them as a group isn't what we call civil discourse.

If you want to counter them, do it on the strength of the actual arguments, not on the basis of a label you've slapped on them. If you want to ignore them, you can do so quietly.

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

Patrick is right on everything...except his indictment of the writing quality. As I've said, the same names we've seen in the online versions are the same names we've seen in the old magazines.

Marmell, in particular, is one of the more talented and refreshing voices in the industry.

Edit: Also, thanks to Umbran for dropping the courtesy hammer as required.

 

[PoeticJustice]

The other thing to keep in mind about Dragon Online is that it can't fulfill one of its primary purposes yet.

If Dragon is, among other things, a source of new mechanics... Then by definition, that aspect of the magazine is hampered until 4E is out. They can do previews, but they can't really introduce truly new 4E mechanics, and there's not a lot of cause to be introducing new 3E mechanics at this stage.

Personally, I'll be interested in seeing what Dragon looks like as of June.

Personally, I think they should have renewed their contract with Paizo for another year if they were going to do such a slapdash job.

Man, now I really get why they created Paizo in he first place. Wizards is terrible at magazine publishing.

 

[JoeGKushner]

In terms of Dragon not being able to do new game mechanics.... seems off the wall in some aspects.

They could use this time period for several things.

1. Convert Now: Not a peak at how things are going to be, but ideas on how to take your 3rd ed game to 4th ed and including some mechanics for all core classes to give them daily abilities. A preview of sorts that would be useful to all people playing now.

2. Support For Game Products: Incarnum, Legacy Weapons, Shadow Magic, and all sorts of other options have had very little support.

3. Setting Support: We've seen a little of this but more of it would always be welcome. If Greyhawk is going for good as the default setting, I'd love to see more Core Belief Articles with lots of fluff that would be useful to any edition.

4. Bizzare of the Bazzar, Ecology of the..., Creature Catalog/Dragon's Bestiary.... etc... could play around with the formats and showcase. Ecology of the Death Knight had some potential but complete lack of goods and it's sneak peak at Dungeon made it less than perfect in myh opinion.

5. Reviews including board games, miniatures, etc... If Dragon is online and part of the DI and part of Gleemax that's trying to encourage ALL gaming, it's time to open the magazine up to other game systems even if it's just in reviews.

 

[PatrickLawinger]

Heh. I appreciate the sentiment, guys.

I just respect Patrick a great deal, and have worked with him on a project or two. I'm disappointed he didn't care for the offering this time around.

Hey man, all generalizations are wrong in specific instances. I wasn't trying to bash you in any way, shape or form. I think you know that.

I am more keyed on the Dragon articles when I said that. I guess generalizing to avoid naming specific articles then jumps up and insults the articles that were good. Sorry about that. Truly the writing on those articles isn't really that poor either, I just feel it isn't up the standards set by Paizo for Dragon.

I guess the big thing for me is that I don't think that WotC is showing anything that makes me excited and interested in the "Digital Initiative" or in Dragon/Dungeon online and the people I know that would normally be drooling over this, well, they simply aren't. I am pretty much an easy sell, I spend a lot of money on gaming materials, and when you include how much I get in comps, well, you get the idea. WotC just hasn't sold me on this. If they haven't convinced ME to buy it, then there are a lot of people on the fence right now. If they want to get those people off the fence and getting ready to sign up, they need to set a firm release schedule, hold to it, and match Paizo's quality.

In my opinion (take it for what it is worth), the managers at WotC should have KNOWN they didn't have the manpower to do this full strength and they should have hired the people required to get it done. This way people actually working like mad to get 4e out don't have to be distracted writing articles for Dragon.

I agree that the people working on it are making a GREAT "online 'zine" but that isn't their goal. I think they simply don't have enough hours in the day to do the job they need to do on this and still work on everything else they are doing. They need more staff. Maybe they should hire Ari

 

[Vigilance]

I am more keyed on the Dragon articles when I said that. I guess generalizing to avoid naming specific articles then jumps up and insults the articles that were good. Sorry about that. Truly the writing on those articles isn't really that poor either, I just feel it isn't up the standards set by Paizo for Dragon.

Um, aren't the articles Wizards is publishing now articles they got from Paizo?

It seems really, really soon in the process to be saying "the Paizo writing was great, the Wizards writing sucks".

I seem to recall hearing that they'd received Paizo's unpublished articles and were going through those.

 

[PoeticJustice]

I'd never heard that wizards was using unpublished material. I really doubt it, given that most of the non-adventure stuff revolves around pitching 4E fluff and reporting playtests.