Dungeon and dragon WOTC forums

[SteveC]

They have actual work to do.

If they took a moment to listen to the yowls of every whiny grognard they'd want to quit within a month.

When you are running any business, especially a magazine, listening to your customers is real work. Running two magazines with deadlines every month is a tremendous amount of work for a staff of professionals to get done. A huge part of that process is keeping up with what is working or note working in your product.

I think a lot of the reasons for complaints from the fans comes because WotC assumed they had the personnel to handle the books and online/PDF publishing, when they obviously did/do not.

And finally, publishing requires one to have a thick skin. Anyone who can't handle the "yowls of whiny grognards" at this point in D&D's development cycle should quit. It's, unfortunately, part of the job. Only once the books come out will we start to see the love fest again.

--Steve

 

[Incenjucar]

/off topic

When did the word grognard become a negative?

/topic

Grognard is fine on its own.

Grognard+whiny=AGH.

--

My point is that there is a VAST amount of really silly complaining going on... most of it repetative and much of it ignorant (after all, the edition isn't OUT yet) and some of it outright aggressive and rude. While, ideally, they would just cherry pick, that has its own frustrations.

As for legitimate questions...

How to put this...

This is like interrupting Sherlock Holmes when he's at his violin trying to figure out how in blazes Moriarty did it.

The information will be available... there is a desire to share it. But now just may not be the best time to ask, especially since so much of it is, in fact, a secret at the moment, and so much of it isn't even known.

 

[Scribble]

Wizards of The Coast has done such a poor job managing the new Dungeon and Dragon, that they should immediately, and unconditionally refund all of the money we subscribers have given them... Wait...

The whole thing has me worried. Dragon and Dungeon are currently free as a teaser. Now is the time they should be SPECTACULAR. That is how they will sell the DDI. Plus, I know they are busy, but doesn't that imply there isn't anyone who's job is the DDI or even just the Dragon and Dungeon portion of it? Those now e-zines are an important part of D&D, and they should treat them as such.

I read this a lot, but I disagree.

Right now, they're giving us free dragon and dungeon as a bonus. Right now, instead of just a void, they're giving us free gaming material, and previews for the next edition.

My guess is that once the DDI goes fully into function, they'll have a specific marketing scheme (conceived by people who actually have training and stuff to do so) designed to boost its sales that will be far more effective then simply giving it out for free.

 

[Darkwolf71]

A quick search for posts by users with "WotC" in their name on the official boards reveals pages and pages of responses there.

It's a big, big messageboard. Just because your question wasn't answered doesn't mean that dozens of others aren't.

Upon closer examination.
In the last month the following forum areas have had less than 10 WOTC posts: Gleemax, Wizards COMmunity, Avalon Hill, Dreamblade, Dungeons & Dragons (3.x), d20 modern, Dungeons & Dragons out of print, and RPGA.
This is not counting the 6 areas with 0 WOTC posts.

The rest of the areas:
Maple Story 36 posts.
Magic: The Gathering 67.
Magic Online 139.
Star Wars 32.
D&D Minis 65.
D&D Forgotten Realms 48.
d20 Design 11.

And D&D 4e? 29 WOTC posts in the last month. That's not alot of questions answered.

Going back 3 months there are 86 WOTC posts. Minus the 29 already counted makes it 57. Roughly 29 posts per month on average. From there I searched for anything older than 3 months and got 198. But we all know that nothing that old gave anything that could be called a legitimate 'answer'.

So, there are basically 86 posts in the D&D 4e forums that were made by Wizards employees. Technically that qualifies as 'dozens' (assuming that these posts actually answer anything) but it's not a number that I find particularly encouraging.

Generally speaking, when it comes to 4e, there is better, more accurate, and more detailed information available here. Which is why I abandoned the 'official' forums months ago.

 

[TerraDave]

When you are running any business, especially a magazine, listening to your customers is real work. Running two magazines with deadlines every month is a tremendous amount of work for a staff of professionals to get done. A huge part of that process is keeping up with what is working or note working in your product.

I think a lot of the reasons for complaints from the fans comes because WotC assumed they had the personnel to handle the books and online/PDF publishing, when they obviously did/do not.

--Steve

They seem to have systemically underestimated what they have gotten themselves into.

I do wonder about their resource constraints. The idea would be to burn through a good amount of money right now to make a lot more money starting in June. And they could make a lot of money with a strong launch. I mean I am sure they will do well enough. But I am not sure they will make the kind of money they could have.

 

[SteveC]

They seem to have systemically underestimated what they have gotten themselves into.

I do wonder about their resource constraints. The idea would be to burn through a good amount of money right now to make a lot more money starting in June. And they could make a lot of money with a strong launch. I mean I am sure they will do well enough. But I am not sure they will make the kind of money they could have.

I agree. As has been mentioned quite a bit, both magazines are free at the moment, but they are also definitely sub par for what we are used to. Showing me something sub par and then suggesting that it will be a lot better when I spend money on it is a ... less than stellar marketing strategy.

Everyone knows what's going on: the 4E launch is taking up a lot more resources than WotC thought, and publishing two web and PDF magazines takes up a lot more effort than they expected. That's okay!

All we really need is for someone to say: "hey guys, 4E is taking up all of our time at the moment, so Dragon and Dungeon are taking a back seat." Add to that: "We're hiring additional staff, and have decided to give the first two post 4E issues for free so that you can see the new product in it's final form" ... and I'm golden.

If they were to say something like that, and stick to it, I'd strongly consider subscribing myself.

--Steve

 

[Darkwolf71]

All we really need is for someone to say: "hey guys, 4E is taking up all of our time at the moment, so Dragon and Dungeon are taking a back seat." Add to that: "We're hiring additional staff, and have decided to give the first two post 4E issues for free so that you can see the new product in it's final form" ... and I'm golden.

If they were to say something like that, and stick to it, I'd strongly consider subscribing myself.

--Steve

But they'll never say that. It's like there's this WotC collective mindset (heh, gleemax domination ) that if they don't admit there is a problem, well then, it doesn't really exist.

 

[Monkey King]

Well, I know that all the screams of "I feel like I've been raped" that occurred when it was announced that the two mags were leaving Paizo's stewardship did a lot to make them take the fans a little less seriously.

I mean, they knew people were going to be upset but I don't think they realized how absolutely bonkers people were going to go.

Eh, I think the change that bothered people wasn't that the magazines left Paizo's stewardship, but that they were canceled.

The DDI may be many fine things, but it is not a magazine; it's a subscription web site.

Mind you, this left the door open for other people to do magazines.

 

[Incenjucar]

But they'll never say that. It's like there's this WotC collective mindset (heh, gleemax domination ) that if they don't admit there is a problem, well then, it doesn't really exist.

To be fair, that's pretty standard in the business world.

If you admit to trouble, not failure, but just trouble, suddenly your life becomes a Dilbert strip.

 

[Darkwolf71]

To be fair, that's pretty standard in the business world.

If you admit to trouble, not failure, but just trouble, suddenly your life becomes a Dilbert strip.

A little honesty will buy a lot of grace.

"Well, we bit of a bit much. We're having trouble juggling it all right now. Please be patient and after we get 4e launched we'll be able to give the 'magazines' and DDI more attention, as they deserve."

Instead we get, "Every thing's fine. We have everything under control. Going just how we want it to." Even when it's obvious that it's simply not the case.