Rant on Errata and what Wizards need to do to move forward.

[MrMyth]

Children's books and board games? Interesting. Actually sorry no, no interest in those unfortunately. How about merchandising something the players who know the brand already (ie the only people who would probably care) could appreciate?

Interesting. I can see your logic - basically, sell more random stuff to those who are already D&D players. Which they do, to an extent, such as with special miniatures and collector's books and other stuff.

But I think in the long run, expanding the brand is a far better approach. Children books and board games to get new players interested, and part of the gaming community, rather than trying to milk existing gamers for all that they've got.

I agree that they shouldn't be as frantic over piracy, but... I don't think that is the only logic in play, either.

 

[Ninja-to]

Gotta run out and will check on this later. However some quick additions.

The point of my thread is just to say that we have all the technology sitting here, and has been for years, to run D&D so much better than we are at present. Wizards needs to find a way to allow players and DM's alike to sit down at a gaming table with a laptop and play as we always have. To me it's more paranoia than anything else that's keeping this from a reality.

If people want to look at the books in the store, let them. Why not allow people to pay separately for a digital copy and a hard copy? That way nobody loses. I order my digital copy and tie it to my account. Once. Give the customers the choice. It's really not that difficult a concept.

I'm not saying I'm boycotting. Boycotting assumes I'm mad at WotC for something they've done. I'm simply not buying books that are rushed to print before being properly fixed. I'm not asking for perfect. Just asking for a little higher standard. I think you hit the nail in the head when you said they're slowing down instead of rushing out products. That was my point. I didn't realize that was happening now. Maybe there will be less errata because of it.

Despite the 123 pages argument, you also forget that these changes have occurred slowly over the years since release. This isn't a one shot deal. It's not like I bought my core books and only had to make one change. It's an ongoing thing and a nagging annoyance that is completely unnecessary. As I said all the books are in digital format on their computers. The work has been mostly done. Let me buy a copy digitally and stop worrying about me passing it out to others. All the books are and will forever be available to pirates.

I don't mean sell random stuff. That's the opposite of what I was saying. Board games and children's books seems random to me. Why not produce more official D&D material that we can actually use that are non-book? Miniatures was a fair step, even though I don't buy them personally, but they seem to be making a profit off them.

Gotta run. I'll have to try CB again later though I saw it on the weekend and didn't see any major improvements to the awful character sheets.

Wasn't aware of the upcoming D&D movie. They've had them before. My point was, make them good. Get known talent attached with a real story. Hell, me and my players were talking about a TV series. Forgotten Realms as a TV series could be interesting if done right.

 

[Ninja-to]

The new CB is slick.



Because paying $6/month for access to all rules material printed for the entire game of D&D 4e is way cheaper than buying every book ever released piecemeal. I did that in 3.5. I have had a taste of total information access, and it would be awful to go back.

In 2010, WotC released no fewer than 20 supplements containing new material that I wanted to have access to. Had I purchased them all individually, I would be out over $300. Instead, I paid $72 and got access to all the rules elements I could handle, and only had to buy the books I felt would be useful to have at the table.

How in the world would the model you're proposing improve things?

Slick you say? Well, from one single thread alone on the WotC own message boards, there are 52 pages of people who tend to disagree with you. (Edit: The one I read earlier I can't seem to find. Instead here's a general link to the CB forums on the WotC site. The point is there are a very large number of people who are extremely unhappy with the new 'online only' CB for various reasons.

http://community.wizards.com/go/forum/view/75882/135954/character_builder

That's just one thread.

Here's another:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/303305-can-wizards-turn-around-their-d-d-support.html

How would my model improve things? Let's see.

1. Produce less half finished products and make sure the products that are released are clean and relatively free of errata. Perhaps even public beta test parts of the material as is done with software.

2. Make those who actually use the material pay for it. You won't like that, but those of us who don't need or use the extra material shouldn't need to pay for it.

3. Having a digital version of all my books, if I so chose, and would very willingly pay for, would not only improve my game and make it incredibly convenient to DM, it would also encourage me to part with more cash. I would gladly pay for that convenience, especially if the books I paid for were kept up to date. I would also gladly pay for a software suite/tool that would organize all my books so that I could run an entire campaign with one application.

That's how the model would work. Those who don't want it don't have to go this route. Stay with the books and risk the errata. You could even argue that those with their DDI subscriptions can stay that way as well. All I'm asking for is the option to run my game from a PC as should be the case by now, with errata applied to the software. And if I can buy a D&D mug shaped like a hand of Vecna for my coke or a dice bag that looks like a familiar, all the better. (I'm half joking, but I wouldn't mind that mug)

 

[frogged]

Slick you say? Well, from one single thread alone on the WotC own message boards, there are 52 pages of people who tend to disagree with you.

Open letter...

That's just one thread.

That 52 page thread you linked to would be quite impressive, if the last post made to it wasn't dated May 19, 2008, before DDI even really existed, and years before the online character builder was released.

 

[Ninja-to]

That 52 page thread you linked to would be quite impressive, if the last post made to it wasn't dated May 19, 2008, before DDI even really existed, and years before the online character builder was released.

My mistake. I linked to the wrong page. I lost my link to the original it was similarly titled 'Open letter...' such and such. It's there somewhere.

 

[Mithreinmaethor]

My mistake. I linked to the wrong page. I lost my link to the original it was similarly titled 'Open letter...' such and such. It's there somewhere.

And if you are getting 52 pages of anything on the WOTC site you need to change your settings from 10 posts per page to 40

 

[S'mon]

I think 4e probably needed another 6-9 months of playtesting - proper playtesting, not just 1 hour encounters - to bed it in, identifying issues they initially screwed up like the amount of damage PCs & monsters should be doing by level, what skill DCs by level should look like, how skill challenges should work (I'm not sure they can have playtested skill challenges at all). If they had nailed down those big things prior to release then the errata would be fairly trivial errata, not major rules changes that disgruntle the player base left with near-obsolete books. They should probably have aimed for a Christmas 2008 release.

 

[Vicar In A Tutu]

How much errata has there been to Heroes of the Fallen Lands and Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms? Since these essentials-products are supposed to be "evergreens", will Wizards make a reprint with errata included?

 

[Mad Hamish]

As S'mon says the majority of errata is fairly minor and clarification

Big parts of the system that have been errated are

Stealth
Skill difficulties
Skill challenges
Battlerager fighter approach

there have been some other issues but in terms of big sections of the rules with problems IMO those were the main areas of the system as opposed to individual powers with issues and a lot of the rewrites were clarity changes or because of the way that later additions have added things.

 

[Erudite Frog]

People must have forgotten how errata was handled in 3e.