D&D 5E Kind of confused about the staggered releases.

[Ravenheart87]

Actually Ravenheart, 3.0 was released in the SAME Month.

I don't know how did you get it, but as far as I remember the official release dates were 2000's August for the PHB, September for the DMG and October for the MM. The PHB even has a section at the end with monster stats you can use until the MM is out.

So one can't be blamed for being upset.

Well, if you get so upset about such minor issues, then so be it. Just don't throw a hissy fit about a missing spell.

 

[Ravenheart87]

Oh look, release dates: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showwiki.php?title=3rd-Edition-D-and-D-Collectors-Guide#Core-rulebooks

 

[delericho]

I don't know how did you get it, but as far as I remember the official release dates were 2000's August for the PHB, September for the DMG and October for the MM. The PHB even has a section at the end with monster stats you can use until the MM is out.

Yep. Not only did the 3.0e PHB include a survival kit to tide people over until the DMG and MM were released, but the 3rd party "Creature Collection" was released on the same day as the PHB, before the MM came out. That caused a certain amount of controversy at the time - somewhat mitigated by the large number of errors in that 3rd party book.

 

[fjw70]

FJW, If they had planned it correctly we would not have had to wait for all 3 of them, which they could easily have done. This is more of a marketing ploy on their end (I believe) and they are hoping to build up anticipation. The books are already at the printers I am sure and being printed already. If they are STILL editing and revising the rules for the DMG it is to late in the game and they are bound to make some mistakes.

Since neither one of us is a WotC insider I doubt either of us has any information about whether the books could have been completed sooner.

 

[Jake Johnson]

Ditto this. I don't spend any time over on WotC's boards anymore so please summarize the whines of the posters there for us here, plz.

I'm right there with you guys (would like to read the whines from WotC forums reproduced here). You would think there would be enough whining to read in these forums, but sadly, there is not.

 

[Jer]

Actually Ravenheart, 3.0 was released in the SAME Month. Aug 2000 AT Gen Con. I was there that year when it was. I bought the books as well.

You got magical 3.0 books then, because the rest of us had to wait a month between the PHB and the DMG, and then another month for the MM. I remember the agony of the wait quite clearly, even if we were too busy playing through Sunless Citadel to really need the additional info yet.

Are you sure you're aren't remembering the 3.5 release at GenCon in 2003? I'm pretty sure that they had a big release of all of the 3.5 books together at GenCon 2003. Was it in Indy or Milwaukee?

(Other than the 3.5 and 4e releases, all of the other releases have been staggered. I remember the 2e release quite well - it had the same month-to-month staggering that 3e later had)

 

[Agamon]

Asking if this is something to be annoyed about is something that would upset me. It would be like asking if when I ordered fries with my Cheeseburger and getting pickles instead and saying... "is it worth getting annoyed at" Should we bring it to attention of the company? YES!! We paid for something. We should get our monies worth too. If it is a rules breaking error it should be both pointed out and dealt with! Saying is it worth getting annoyed about would just add fule to the fire in my opinion and should be avoided.

Your analogy makes more sense if the entire spell section was missing. What we have is one less fry than we expected.

 

[the Jester]

Oh look, release dates: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showwiki.php?title=3rd-Edition-D-and-D-Collectors-Guide#Core-rulebooks

...which clearly show that the 3.0 books were released on a staggered schedule.

I definitely remember it that way, too; that's why there were monsters in a small appendix in the first printing of the PH.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Actually Ravenheart, 3.0 was released in the SAME Month. Aug 2000 AT Gen Con. I was there that year when it was. I bought the books as well. Yes they were full of errors and I did not use them to say that they were not full of errors, but that it is not an excuse that having a staggered release, that they will limit the errors, it very well could but in it's history RPG core books typically release in the same month. 4E did as well and again it was full of errors. But again this is all due to their proofing the books enough ahead of time. Will any game book be without errors probably never but it should never be so glaring as the past two editions were and looks like we might be getting the same problems.

So one can't be blamed for being upset.

The 3.0 PHB released in August, and included a special insert in the back with some monster stats to hold people over until the MM and DMG were released over the next two months. Maybe they had some special edition release of all three at Gen Con that I didn't attend or know about, but for general release it definitely was staggered over three months. In fact the only edition that released all at once was 4E.

 

[jodyjohnson]

If this hasn't been mentioned, WotC D&D is going with more of a small staff plus outsourcing rather than the staffing up and then staffing down that occured with 3.5 and 4e.

The staggered release also allows them to focus the entire team on each book rather than splitting into teams and having inconsistencies due to communication. The staggered release isn't about the micro errors (spelling, grammer, omissions, clarity) but large systemic errors that occur when the teams get out of sync on specific mechanics.

We won't know how that worked until we see the other 2 books.