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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5485695" data-attributes="member: 82106">This has always been true though, and encounters are always the bulk of an adventure product. Even if combat encounters per-se aren't the bulk of it, the logic is still the same. If the party doesn't encounter X then anything related to X is wasted. Thus it is rare for published adventures to be non-linear. At best they may turn out to be 'do these 5 things in any random order', which is better but still makes player choice a bit of an illusion. I haven't read Spellguard, so I certainly can't comment on it, but Trollhaunt Warrens didn't seem terribly railroady to me. You have a large area of wilderness and various encounter locations therein. The party can proceed to tackle them in various ways and orders. It was presented such that the party will generally go from A to B to C, but it isn't mandated.Copying and pasting aside we already KNOW that the cost of production for PDF vs paper is much lower just on general principles. There are very low distribution costs as well. This is why print magazines invariably contain a lot of advertising. I was only commenting on the post I responded to. There was a desire for X amount of adventure material and my response amounted to "X is a lot, maybe it is more reasonable to ask for Y, I think we should get Y, not X." All further discussion about how X isn't really too much to ask for is fine, but given that we have pretty much shown that none of us is in a position to know exactly how much is reasonable it is simply a difference of opinion. Maybe someone could make a table of how many encounters have been in each issue of Dungeon, that would at least be some factual information... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Huh? I am not expressing a low opinion of anyone. Whatever the WotC team is going to do is going to require resources. If they are given X resources, they can Y amount of stuff with them. If they are given X/2 resources we can be pretty sure they are not going to still be doing Y amount of stuff with them, but something less than Y and that is not a reflection on the competency of their staff. It is simply a statement about how the world works.You're talking about how much they RELEASED in Feb. Now I don't know if Feb was a big month for Paizo, an average month, or a slack month. I know it was a slack month for WotC. So what am I comparing to what? Are you suggesting that there are no months where WotC doesn't ever produce more material than Paizo? My guess is that would be inaccurate. It also isn't taking into account that the two companies produce a different mix of material. You can criticize WotC for not producing more adventure stuff INSTEAD OF whatever other things they put out, that's legitimate. OTOH I could criticize Paizo for putting out such a tiny trickle of crunch or other material that they don't focus on which WotC does more of. How many crunch books has Paizo put out for PF again? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Except we can track DDI subscriber numbers pretty well. We know for a fact that they've been growing steadily. I don't disagree that if they were to keep making a crappier product at some point they will lose people. I'm not convinced that we're at that point yet. I also think that what WotC did was make a big push in D&D in '08 and '09. They basically said "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead." knowing they were investing in the game at an unsustainable pace but with the idea that the best way to go was to rapidly get a large set of material out there and bring as many people on as customers as quickly as possible. Maybe they thought that the business would grow to a level to sustain that output on into future years, but maybe not. Here we had '10 and they simply could not continue to burn money at the same rate on the product. So now as we come into '11 we have fewer releases and somewhat less content. That doesn't mean where we are at now isn't a healthy sustainable level. The lack of layoffs coming into this year kind of says to me they are trying to hit a steady-state maintenance level and have a good idea of sales that will support where they are at now. Once the dust settles we'll see where things stand. I think DDI is a two-edged sword and D&D is going through a big transitional period right now. How that will turn out is anyone's guess. WotC has bet on the future with a new system and DDI. Paizo has essentially bet on the past with an old system. You can see where both of them are trying to hedge their bets and keep one foot in each world, but the real question is does the game move forward or does it stay the same? Either company could end up being the going forward one, but I'll venture to guess that one or the other of them will fade rapidly in the next few years. WotC could end up with a real winning online centered formula, or Paizo could win with old-school conservatism and just making everything available as PDFs. Paizo could create their own equivalent of DDI, or WotC could give up on it and make mint off of boxed sets and accessories. Who knows? What seems clear is the old basic TSR sell a new book every month or two formula is pretty much dead.</blockquote>

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