Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vocenoctum" data-source="post: 3688186" data-attributes="member: 2477">I suppose it's okay, but just since you asked!<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I disagree, simply because some customers are not worth the cost it would take to bring them back. I don't think WotC is trying to alienate people by any means, but I think they have categorized some folks as "not worth the effort" at least in the short term. Gleemax Alpha is not so much a D&D thing, and even now does at least as much as what it replaced (regular forums) so I don't think it's really a bad thing. It hasn't even officially launched yet. The TOS argument is over semantics really, but I already posted in that other thread, so anyway.The DI is a harder thing to guess, since it really seems like they were caught surprised by it, and for them it's unusual. Usually stuff is planned well in advance.It's a function of size, certainly, but I think WotC is getting more available on this forum. It's always been a function of ENWorld that it is more accesible to third party folks, while WotC stuck mainly to their own site. (I mean, MaxMinis would see occasional WotC folks, so I don't think it was a strictly "we don't post anywhere" thing. It does seem like WotC always has to answer the "big questions" when they come here though.)Like I said, I think WotC didn't feel that the Dragon situation was helping them, so they didn't renew it. The timing is the thing.Keep in mind, at least from my view, this WotC feeling has been here long before Dragon's end. If you searched a year ago, you'd probably find the same threads on "is WotC still relevant" as today. A year before that also. Many folks might still harbor resentment from the 3.5 switch, even.Me only since around issue 89, I actually got into D&D through the magazine. The magazines took an initial quality jump IMO when Erik got into them more and more, but then it got too repetitious to me, hence why I was dropping. I haven't picked up GR stuff for a long time.Truthfully in both cases, I found that the material, while quality, added nothing to my games and very rarely saw use. Dragon had the added complication of being hard to find stuff in since the issues might have a central theme but still not as easy to search as a real book.See, for myself I think that's where the problem started. I don't think WotC discontinued the magazines because they wanted to do the DI (heck, they wanted to kill them years ago, that's how Paizo was formed), but because the magazines were not providing the level of support and pull through that they wanted. In addition, using Greyhawk IP and such probably added another level of complication. It might have just been new WotC policy not to license out anything at all.I think the DI was more of an afterthought, Dragon & Dungeon were dead regardless.I answered that above, for my opinion on the matter, but I will say that keeping the product because it's a "legacy" doesn't make much business sense. Dragon and Dungeon were continually reimagined throughout the years because they were constantly fighting for business. The horrible cover text was a perfect example. Like Dungeon/Dragon needed to compete with other magazines...Dude, seriously, do you guys not know about Magic: ONline?It's been going for a long time now, and I know a few folks that play and trade.(If you're talking about something else there, my apologies.)</blockquote>

Verification