quality of recent WotC products

[GlassJaw]

It doesn't require hiring a new employee. If you want to get to 100%, yes, it probably does. But WotC can still greatly reduce the amount of errors in-house. Most of the errors are not difficult to find. It requires essentially chopping up the book and giving sections out to different people. Give one person chapter 1, another person chapter 2, etc. I'm pretty sure 50% of the errors could be found this way and it doesn't take long.

Where I work, we deal in 1000+ page technical manuals. While one person may be responsible for putting in the changes, the books gets divided amongst the group (there isn't one person who is the "editor") and they proofread their section. It's fairly efficient.

It's not a question of how talented or adept the folks at WotC are, it's a question of how much time and money they are given to play with

Actually, I think it is. Like I said, I'm firm in my belief that proofreading would require such a small percentage of the development cycle that and they just simply choose not to do it. I'm not even getting into the discussion on mechanics and balance either (which I have issues with as well - big shock ).

 

[Eremite]

It doesn't require hiring a new employee. If you want to get to 100%, yes, it probably does. But WotC can still greatly reduce the amount of errors in-house. Most of the errors are not difficult to find. It requires essentially chopping up the book and giving sections out to different people. Give one person chapter 1, another person chapter 2, etc. I'm pretty sure 50% of the errors could be found this way and it doesn't take long. (snip)

I am wondering whether this could also be accomplished in the course of playtesting? Of course, my own perception is that the majority of the new releases either haven't been playtested or have been playtested by rabid fanboys who don't use a DM in their games....

And, you're right; the issue is that the overwhelming majority of these errors could be found in a quick read by someone who is at least semi-literate.... Aren't professional editors supposed to be that...?

(snip) I'm not even getting into the discussion on mechanics and balance either (which I have issues with as well - big shock ).

Hehe... I don't think it would be possible to cover that topic in a single thread!

 

[Jesse Decker]

It's not going unnoticed

Wow, tough thread to wake up to.

Not to churn out a response from the bland-o-tron, but this is the best I've got right now: We hired two more developers over the summer, and we're working hard to address this issue. I'll be back here, and be more specific, as soon as I can.

Thanks all,

 

[Garnfellow]

Wow, tough thread to wake up to.

Not to churn out a response from the bland-o-tron, but this is the best I've got right now: We hired two more developers over the summer, and we're working hard to address this issue. I'll be back here, and be more specific, as soon as I can.

Thanks all,

Jesse,

I appreciate the response. Not to pile on, but these issues have also been discussed in the following threads:

• Monster Manual III Errata
• John Cooper reviews MMIII, and finds loads of mistakes
• John Cooper does it again [Libris Mortis]

Based on your post (blandotroned or no), I am hopeful that things will change for the better. Thanks.

 

[wedgeski]

I'll be back here, and be more specific, as soon as I can.

Thanks Jesse - I'll look forward to hearing what you have to say on the matter.

 

[GlassJaw]

we're working hard to address this issue. I'll be back here, and be more specific, as soon as I can.

Thanks for posting Jesse. I will say that this simple message goes a long way. I'm definitely interested in what's to come.

 

[woodelf]

Wow. 40-50 hours? I wish John would chime in on how long it takes him to go over the stat blocks, which I would say would be the most time-consuming to proofread. If it takes him 40-50 hours, or even half that time, I doubt he would spend the time doing it.

Well, starting from the animal entries in the D20SRD, i probably spent 20hrs researching online and tweaking the stats to reflect the actual capabilities of the real-world animals, and then differentiating them to represent specific breeds, rather than generic classes (to flesh out the critters for my pseudo-arabian campaign). And that's only a few dozen creatures, with relatively simple statblocks. I'm not sure how direct the comparison is, of course--not only did my work include some research, but there were some judgement calls involved (such as how to reflect animals' real-world speeds in the game system) which took some time fiddling around with possibilities and comparing them. But, nonetheless, i'd expect it to take at least a couple dozen hours just to find theerrors in a book the size of a typical RPG hardcover, at least for a high-crunch game like D20 System. And possibly a couple-dozen more to fix them (for anythat're more complicated than straightforward addition errors).

 

[MerricB]

Remember, it probably takes Wizards about 6 months - year (more towards the shorter period of time) to get the editing problems fixed for products. There's a big lag time between design, development, editing and the final printing.

Complete Divine was the big wake-up call for Wizards, but they weren't going to be able to fix the next few products properly.

Hopefully in the VERY NEAR FUTURE we'll see an improvement on these stat blocks.

Cheers!

 

[Ranes]

In the eighties and nineties, when I wrote and edited games material, I could earn between five and ten pence (sterling) per word, as a freelance. One hundred pounds for one thousand words, at the top of my game. And fifteen years ago one hundred quid was worth a lot more than it is now.

The going rate today is approximately three cents (US) per word, roughly two pence. I'd be better off serving drinks at the local pub.

No more editing or writing rpg products for me.

Merric's right about the lead time required (actually, I'd bet it's on the longer side, Merric) to get a higher standard of product onto the shelf.

For what it's worth, despite the clangers and howlers to be found in some of the recent books (and Dungeon and Dragon), I think WotC's editing standard has been very respectable, overall (ie over the last four years). Indeed, the standard has been higher than anything else I can recall coming across in the industry. And you have no idea how riled I get by editorial gaffes in professional publications. Having said that, the only post-3.5 WotC books I've bought are Unearthed Arcana and Races of Stone, neither of which hurt my eyes too much. I have been put off the Complete series by what I've read on ENWorld.

Jesse, it's good to know that WotC is taking steps.

 

[MerricB]

Merric's right about the lead time required (actually, I'd bet it's on the longer side, Merric) to get a higher standard of product onto the shelf.

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!