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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Deset Gled" data-source="post: 3065709" data-attributes="member: 7808">The problem that I have with this justification is that it assumes that quality is a one-time effort (btw Cedric, I'm not trying to pick on you, you were just the most recent poster to state this oppinion).  It isn't.  True quality assurance doesn't just mean getting things right the first time, it means looking at what the product turned out like the first time and fine tuning it more and more as time goes on.  It is in responding to problems that I think WotC has failed.For example, many manufacturing certifications (ISO, etc) have strict requirements for QA standards, including testing, problem reporting, resolution finding, change implementation, documentation, and a well defined process for all of these things.  WotC has their own equivalents of these in many places, but have dropped the ball on many of themIn regards to testing, I know that WotC has editors and playtesters.  They generally do an okay job.  But there are always bound to be problems that get through.  For finding problems, their system is limited, but potentially effective.  They have a fairly easily accessible Customer Service department, and their own message boards for people to discuss issues.WotC also has a decent system set up for documenting and informing people of changes.  For errors, they create errata.  For ambiguities, they have the FAQ and the sage.  And they have a decent heirarchy system with the Primary Source rule.When in comes to implementing changes, though, is where they have really dropped the ball.  In any case where they deem an error to not be significant enough (like this one), they choose to ignore it.  In other cases, they go against their own published standards (i.e. the Primary Source rule) and make changes to the product in the FAQ or RotG articles.  They are also very slow at implementing changes to the errata and FAQ, as noted by the continued existence of blatant errors like the lance entry in the FAQ (Hypersmurph even has an email from CustSev stating they know about the problem and are working on getting it fixed.  The email is now a few months old).  The issues that I think are the worst though, are when they make changes to existing product and they don't even point out which parts have been revised (this is present in the Spell Compendium, and I believe in Complete Psionics as well).  These changes also requires you to spend more money to get the fix, which is just adding insult to injury.The bottom line is that WotC does an (arguably) acceptable job of quality the first time around, but they are horrible at follow through.</blockquote>

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