quality of recent WotC products

[Ranes]

I'd say the timeline you're talking makes sense, from my experience. Getting the new guys up to speed shouldn't take too long. Like you and others have said, it will be exciting to hear what news Jesse can give us in due course.

 

[Imruphel]

I was guessing that the design of a product starts a year before we see it, and giving it 6 months for the production side of things (layout, art, etc.). My normal guesswork based on not much personal experience and a lot of listening to designers/editors... but I wasn't really taking into account the training/break-in time for the new employees.

It is great to hear from Jesse on the subject, though.

Cheers!

Something that bothers me in this is that these products are not rushed so the issue is obviously not one of insufficient time. It's obvious that there just isn't the care and attention that is needed. I wonder whether some of the developers and/or editors responsible are non-D&Ders and, thus, approach these products professionally (in a sense) but without a fan's eye for detail and concern for consistency as well as a general awareness of what does and doesn't work.

Anyway, all that is irrelevant in one sense: it's time WotC improved its quality.

I am now wondering whether Complete Arcane is going to be yet another example of poor editing, ill-considered and unbalanced crunchy bits etc...?

 

[MerricB]

It should probably be emphasized that most of the "errors" we've picked up so far don't have very much impact on actual play.

Sure, the inaccuracies in the calculations for monster stats in MM3 means that when you advance them, things aren't quite right - but for the purposes of just running them "as is", there shouldn't be much of a problem.

The development process of recent books seems pretty sound. There may be some feats or spells that people think are "overpowered", but I don't think this is a universal opinion by any means - most of them are pretty good.

Prestige class development likewise, with a couple of exceptions.

Where things are really falling through is in the cross-checking for calculations/correspondences at the end of the development process, and - in the case of Complete Divine - the normal proofreading has failed as well!

Mind you, in the case of the Basic Game, if I'm to believe the review on the 3rdedition.org, someone should be shot at Wizards for getting it so wrong.

Cheers!

 

[Eremite]

Another issue for me is that I don't want stat blocks in products anyway, with the exception of adventures. In part, this is because I prefer designing my own NPCs according to my campaign rules etc....

I think, too, that it's time for a new stat block convention: stop repeating the full text of common PHB abilities such as evasion, sneak attack etc... or those abilities that appear in the prestige class just described (although I recall at least one PrC where the stat block had the correct details while the PrC description had it wrong).

Anyway, the current convention is just a waste of space.

 

[Garnfellow]

It should probably be emphasized that most of the "errors" we've picked up so far don't have very much impact on actual play.

I'm not sure that anyone here has really lost sight of that point, but I also don't think it's a simple "Get of Jail Free" card for WotC, either. You're right that individually, none of these "errors" are especially significant. It's the cumulative effect of all these niggling mistakes that should probably be emphasized.

Mind you, in the case of the Basic Game, if I'm to believe the review on the 3rdedition.org, someone should be shot at Wizards for getting it so wrong.

Wow, I hadn't seen that. If this review is anywhere near accurate, it would represent a much more serious issue. The problem of how to clearly present a simplified D&D ruleset to new players was solved in the early 1980s courtesy of Moldvay, Cook, and Mentzer. To think that WotC couldn't get this right in 2004 is pretty scary.

This weekend I had planned on buying several copies of the D&D Basic Game as Christmas presents for all my gaming friends who have kids. I'm going to reserve judgement until I see a few more reviews, but now I'm certainly not going to rush out and grab copies of this game just yet.

 

[Imruphel]

(snip) You're right that individually, none of these "errors" are especially significant. It's the cumulative effect of all these niggling mistakes that should probably be emphasized. (snip)

It's the cumulative effect plus what these small errors show about broader issues in terms of the lack of quality control through the development process.

I was looking at Monte Cook's Beyond Countless Doorways the other day and noticed these things: it had many authors, it was a fairly large product and it was very well edited. As successful as Malhavoc may be, they do not have anywhere near the resources of WotC yet they consistently get things right.

Quality is not about size, number of employees etc...; it's about doing the best you can do all the time.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'm surprised by the errors in the monster blocks. I work with Access and Excel and I'm 100% positive that those blocks can be programmed and fill out everything almost automtically based on size, type, and other factors. It can't be that hard can it?

Grammar on the other hand...

 

[Psion]

I'm surprised by the errors in the monster blocks. I work with Access and Excel and I'm 100% positive that those blocks can be programmed and fill out everything almost automtically based on size, type, and other factors. It can't be that hard can it?

SKR said they had such a thing in house when he was there.

What to you want a bet that when the WotC diaspora came, the person who maintained it got cycled out, it never got updated to 3.5e and they have been doing things by hand?

(Heck, 3.5 is more consistent as far as monsters goes; it's almost be EASIER to make a spreadsheet.)

Dungeon once had a requirement for writers to show their numbers. I don't see why WotC staff deserves any worse QA.

 

[Garnfellow]

Dungeon once had a requirement for writers to show their numbers. I don't see why WotC staff deserves any worse QA.

Personally, I use a modified version of the nifty Creating NPCs method put forth by the Game Mechanics. I find it to be extremely helpful in keeping my own math straight.

(The method is really geared for writers preparing NPC statblocks for professional submission, rather than use by at-home DMs. I really only recommend this method for freelancers, WotC staff, and seriously anal-retentive types.)

 

[ivocaliban]

What surprises me most about this issue is that certain volumes suffer far more than others. Is it merely a coincidence or are there different people working on different material? The Forgotten Realms Player's Guide, Complete Divine, and now the Libris Mortis seem to be overloaded with errors while the Complete Warrior, Races of Stone, and Frostburn seem to have relatively few mistakes. Is there a reason for this? Are the writers making fewer mistakes to begin with or are certain volumes receiving more focus from the editing department? Just curious.