Interview with Scott Rouse, Chris Perkins & Bill Slavicsek

[Henry]

And, in fact, it's still happening.

And so it is...

just a reminder folks, if anyone sees someone still throwing gasoline on the fire, let us know by reporting the post. The sooner we know about it, the better...

 

[Khairn]

Don't you think it would be just easier for them to just start the DI with 4E rather than have to convert over later.

Food for thought...

For WotC it would not be a good idea to start DI with 4E. Just consider the emotions that went wild when they decided to dump the magazines for online content. That's nothing compared to the strife that will ensue when they introduce 4E.

That's why I think its important to WotC to have as many campaigns and players using the DI as possible. That way when they convert the DI to 4E, you can either continue to receive the support you've depended on to help run your games by switching to the new system

Here are a few fun similarities between the new DI and the many MMORPG's that are raking in ooodles of money

monthly fee's ... check
regular updates, new quests & adventures ... check
developers / programmers who gather player info for future updates ... check
dependance / reliance on a central site to play the game ... check
vocal players who are upset at rule changes that "nerf" their character ? ... check
company / player co-operation in the development / playtest of new material? ... check
paid expansions / new systems .... check

The 2 are getting more and more similar every day.

 

[ScotMartin]

Scot Martin, I absolutely love your suggestions, especially on the information compilation. That said, however, I think it is far too optimistic - I doubt it will be THAT good.

Well, they asked us to tell them what we *wanted*, so I laid it out. I certainly don't expect all of that will come to pass, but I think a lot of that is possible to some scale down the line. Hey, at least I didn't ask to be able to play back combats as movies with realistically rendered 3D models of all the participants!

The information being compiled properly on-line is particularly important to me. The other day in our game, a player wanted to use his Knowledge Arcana to find out what he knew about a Stone Golem's abilities. I knew they'd done a series of Know Your Enemy articles on-line, but there was no handy way on the Wizards site to quickly find which of the 16 articles in the archive had that info (answer: none of them! They never did the stone golem).

-Scot

 

[Zaukrie]

I too would like to thank lurking lidda for being here. In addition to being busy at work, she's having a baby at Gen Con (ok, during Gen Con - she has not yet been talked into actually having it as part of the Con).

She has been pretty good about posting on DDM sites, and will even drop a hint or make some cryptic remark that gives all us obsessed something to do for a few days. She also has asked for opinions on the WotC boards. Hopefully we also get to see more of her here. She is also just a little bigger than the real Lidda, though not by much (if my memory is correct from last year's Gen Con).

 

[Mistwell]

The most telling thing to me in this interview is the timing of the announcement with relation to Paizo.

The decision to make the announcement at this time was worked out with Paizo, and at their request. Paizo has subscribers, printers, advertisers and circulation partners who all needed to know what was going on. As for the WotC part of all this, we never had any intention of launching our efforts before Paizo’s run with the magazines was complete.

Some folks suspected earlier that WOTC was taking the hit for Paizo, and that sure seems to be the case from the implications in this interview.

I really do not think the plan, well in advance, was to announce this change at this time. I think the original plan was to hold off on the announcement until the final magazines were out, just like was done with The Starategic Review magazine becoming Dragon Magazine. Either that, or the issue before the last issue.

It then sounds like Paizo negotiated to make the annoucement earlier, because they wanted to get the jump on getting current subscribers educated on their new products.

WOTC agreed out of their stated friendship with Paizo. But, that doesn't mean they were suddenly prepared a month or two early for this announcement. So, they did what they thought was the next best thing and just let Paizo take the spotlight. Which backfired. And I also blame WOTC for agreeing to the early announcement if they were not prepared for it. Friends or not, if Paizo didn't ask for this change in schedule early enough for WOTC to prepare for it, then WOTC should have just told Paizo no and to suck it up.

I wouldn't at all be surprised if the way I just laid it out is the way it went down. In which case, if Paizo also knew well in advance that the license was being cancelled, then it really is at least partially their fault for pushing to run the announcement earlier than planned.

I know blamming Paizo for anything in this is extremely unpopular. But, there it is. My opinion - in all likelyhood the PR problems and lack of information on the new DI is because WOTC was pushed to make the announcement much earlier than expected by Paizo, who could have negotiated that part much earlier with WOTC so both parties were prepared at the same time.

 

[The_Gneech]

Hey, at least I didn't ask to be able to play back combats as movies with realistically rendered 3D models of all the participants!

Wasn't that one of the things they were trying to do in the marketing version of Master Tools?

-The Gneech

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

The most telling thing to me in this interview is the timing of the announcement with relation to Paizo.

snip...

I know blamming Paizo for anything in this is extremely unpopular. But, there it is. My opinion - in all likelyhood the PR problems and lack of information on the new DI is because WOTC was pushed to make the announcement much earlier than expected by Paizo, who could have negotiated that part much earlier with WOTC so both parties were prepared at the same time.

The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle and mistakes were made at both ends, but they have a enough tact not to drag it into public view.

 

[lurkinglidda]

I too would like to thank lurking lidda for being here. In addition to being busy at work, she's having a baby at Gen Con (ok, during Gen Con - she has not yet been talked into actually having it as part of the Con).

She has been pretty good about posting on DDM sites, and will even drop a hint or make some cryptic remark that gives all us obsessed something to do for a few days. She also has asked for opinions on the WotC boards. Hopefully we also get to see more of her here. She is also just a little bigger than the real Lidda, though not by much (if my memory is correct from last year's Gen Con).

Tis true: I'm only slightly taller than the iconic Lidda. And there's no way I'll be having the baby at Gen Con...I'm all for PR stunts and stuff, but not on that level!

 

[kadh2000]

Chris: We have a lot of ideas that we’re happy with, but let me turn the question around. What would you hope for? What would make this exciting and useful for you? Another question for the community: How much of the magazine content were you able to use in your campaign? How much work did you have to do to accomplish that? If this new incarnation of the magazines could encompass anything you could want, what would that be?

I hope to be able to add to my dragon collection.
It would be exciting and useful if I could read with leisurely enjoyment. (say in the bathroom or on the bus)
I used too much to enumerate individually in my campaigns: the articles increased my base of knowledge, the subtle little ideas that percolate up from somewhere to make the game more fun, they added humor and good quotes, they gave us stuff to talk about.
All I had to do was read the magazine and remember. Sometimes I even copied the information. (There's where the idea of a virtual and print subscription would be awesome).
I'd want the magazine to be fully indexed with back issues, searchable, easy to print and manipulate what I wanted to, in a consistent format for related articles (every class would be written in such a way that I could drop it into a word or excel doc or something similar with exactly the same results in terms of format/style/ease of use.). I'd want reference links to real, verified sources when articles are based on historic ideas.
I'd most of all want for you guys to have told me what's next when you pulled the original format out from under me. I'd want an idea that I could get used to. I want you to tell me the cool stuff you have in mind so I can tell you what I think of it and tell you what else I want instead of duplicating your ideas in some cases because I'm making my suggestions from in the dark.

Kadh, who wants some faith and trust from them since they asked for faith and trust from me.

 

[Sammael]

<snip>

1. If you think that Hasbro corporate lawyers would have allowed WotC to pull a stunt like that just to help their "friends" out, than your view of corporate politics is a lot more rose-tinted than mine.

2. Paizo HAD to make the announcement, because of their obligations to advertisers. Furthermore, if they waited until the very last minute to make the announcement, they would have likely been forced to file for bankruptcy, which would have looked EVEN WORSE for WotC. This way, WotC can at least hope that most of the vitriol will be forgotten by the time DI is launched.

3. Speaking as an IT professional*, if WotC cannot provide any sort of information on the DI four-five months prior to its supposed launch, than the launch is either not going to happen, or the DI will be launched in a terribly unfinished and incomplete state. I can say this with 99% certainty.

*I work as a senior software engineer in a small IT company which has a 100% success rate on project delivery (not a single project was canceled since the company's founding in 1995, which is a rarity in IT), and we know a thing or two about project management and deadlines.