Rate WotC as a company

[Maggan]

When a site run by volunteers is a better option than the primary industry leader's own website, don't you feel there is something wrong?

Quite the contrary, actually. A corporate web site has to toe the corporate line, and conform to many limitations that a fan site doesn't have to. A fan site can also offer more variety and different viewpoints on the hobby.

So I expect the best site to be one which isn't affiliated with the publisher, and that extends to any roleplaying game.

That actually means that I think WotC should work closer to EN World, and offer a more structured support for the site, as well as working with their own digital offerings.

/M

 

[Samuel Leming]

Here's a shameless copycat poll for Paizo!

Sam

 

[delericho]

About two years ago, I would have given them a solid 4, or maybe even a 5. There was a spell of about eighteen months when they put out a huge number of really good books, and things seemed to be going really well.

However, even since the cancellation of Dragon and Dungeon magazines, things have been sliding. And while WotC clearly still have the ability to put out some excellent products, and while they seem to have done a good job on 4e (even if it isn't to my taste), it seems that everything surrounding the game itself has been going wrong.

At the moment, they only rate a 2.

 

[S'mon]

I think that they suck! Their new system is just awful (could they make it any more D&D Minis and any less D&D?) and their attitude towards gamers and 3rd party companies is not just harsh, it's downright offensive and insulting!

I voted '3'. In corporate terms they're kinda 'meh' these days, the glory days of the late '90s and the OGL are long gone. So is Johnathan Tweet, a brilliant designer. But, heck, they are not Palladium or Games Workshop. I haven't seen hordes of lawyers sending cease and desist letters towards gamers and 3pps the way Palladium, Games Workshop, and old TSR are/were wont to do. Right now they're overall average. Their computer/online stuff is a bit lame. But I'm not angry at them.

 

[3catcircus]

I voted '3'. In corporate terms they're kinda 'meh' these days, the glory days of the late '90s and the OGL are long gone. So is Johnathan Tweet, a brilliant designer. But, heck, they are not Palladium or Games Workshop. I haven't seen hordes of lawyers sending cease and desist letters towards gamers and 3pps the way Palladium, Games Workshop, and old TSR are/were wont to do. Right now they're overall average. Their computer/online stuff is a bit lame. But I'm not angry at them.

The "bad old days" of lawyers and C&Ds is over. The only reason that happened is because people weren't smart enough on copyright law, fair use, and licensing. You've got companies publishing their own games based upon 3.5 rules. You've got companies publishing 4e-compatible products without any license. You've got companies who published open versions of prior editions of the game.

Frankly, the C&Ds from Palladium have always been just this side of the rantings of a madman.

 

[S'mon]

The "bad old days" of lawyers and C&Ds is over. The only reason that happened is because people weren't smart enough on copyright law, fair use, and licensing. You've got companies publishing their own games based upon 3.5 rules. You've got companies publishing 4e-compatible products without any license. You've got companies who published open versions of prior editions of the game.

Frankly, the C&Ds from Palladium have always been just this side of the rantings of a madman.

Agreed - incidentally I teach copyright and trademark law, and from conversing with TSR in-house lawyers online back in the '90s my impression then was that TSR's own lawyers had only the most tenuous grasp of copyright and trademark law. And that this was a big reason for their aggressive c&d campaign. They thought you could lose copyright protection if you didn't go after fan sites!

The problem is that a mid-sized company like TSR cannot afford to pay huge salaries to in-house lawyers. But good lawyers can make a lot of money working for themselves. So the kind of people who end up working in-house for a company of TSR's size are rarely first rate. I expect Hasbro has pretty good lawyers though - for one thing they seem to keep a low profile, always smart! Conversely, we have small 3pps now like Kenzer and Necromancer headed by real lawyers, I agree that definitely makes a difference.

In Palladium's case it does appear to verge on sheer lunacy. GW genuinely seem to know what they're doing though - not that it's legal, but they use legal threats to their own advantage. TSR just shot themselves in the foot.

 

[lutecius]

I don't know about wotc’s other activities but I really don’t like the direction dnd has taken:

Marketing considerations affecting game design too much.

- Replacing old stuff with more popular options is ok. But I don’t buy that basic classes, monsters or spell types were only delayed because designers needed time to "get them right". It’s not like they were taken by surprise. If something as basic as druid or summoning didn’t work, it should have been fixed before tackling new races and classes or obscure monsters.
I don’t buy the page count excuse either (it's not like people were clamouring for 30+ pages of magic items in the phb).
The game feels like it was purposely made incomplete. Of course things were left out to sell later books.

- I also suspect that classes were made narrower and multiclassing was nerfed to prevent too much customisation and make new classes more appealing. If it was just done to avoid balance issues, then that's lazy/rushed design (not a marketing desision but not a good thing either)

- The increased emphasis on combat movement and miniatures smells fishy too.

Expecting fans to buy anything dnd, no matter how poorly produced.

- Cheap printing, binding and editing for an increased price.

- Recycled art. If all of it were outstanding pieces that couldn’t be matched, I would understand. But come on, the Succubus is the shopped half of an older cartoony picture.
Also, a lot of the new art feels awfully rushed to me, but it could just be a matter of taste, not the lack of time and money invested in it.

- Half of the last two miniature sets looks like something from a happy meal. And the few tiefling and dragonborn (core races) minis are rare?

- So far DDI is a joke, there is not much more to say about it. Oh yes, there is: as if charging for individual virtual minis on top of the monthly fee wasn’t enough, they actually thought about randomizing them too.

As for the online content, I’m not enthused about paying for the right to playtest new material before it's published or for articles that would have been free web enhancements in the past. But maybe I’m just spoiled.

- R&C and W&M. Charging for ads and outdated previews, at a time when the expected online content was almost nonexistent. There is not enough exclusive art or design notes in them to justify the price.

The GSL. If the D20 variants weren't serious competitors like M.Mearls says, why prohibit them now? Why prevent anyone from "fixing" 4e for those who may not like it as is? Who knows, it may even give wotc ideas for 5e.

Some might argue that it’s nice of wotc staffers to post in forums and address the fans’ concerns because they don’t really have to but I’ve found some of their posts rather disingenuous or even arrogant. Also, you can't really play the "friendly community" card when you have a personal stake in the discussed material.

In conclusion: 2. Bad WotC! Bad!

 

[Xyxox]

Rating their products isn't exactly rating them as a company, now is it...

I don't care whether or not you like their products - the fact is, as a subsidiary of a publically-held company, WotC needs to have a management house-cleaning because they've been doing a rotten job.

4E has been a broad success. Other games are doing nicely. The division is profitible.

I voted a 2 because of some moral qualms I have with them. If I were to judge WotC solely based upon performance as a division of a publicly traded company, I'd have to increase that to a 4, minimum. Id' up that to a 5 if sales performance of the 4E FR Campaign setting goes through the roof.

Management change won't fix the real problem, which is the company that owns them.

My guess is that WotC wanted to have a a larger marketing campaign for 4E. Hasbro wouldn't give them the budget.

Hasbro wanted more sales throughout the life of the new edition. The only way to deliver that is to release an incomplete version of the game.

Hasbro wanted to invest less money into the products themselves. WotC goes to a cheaper printer that happens to have problems with the ink.

Etc. Etc.

The problem isn't WotC. The WotC I knew didn't treat it's customers this way. The problem is Hasbro.

Everything you just said proves that Hasbro is doing what Hasbro needs to do to fulfill the primary function of a publicly traded company which is to increase share value for investors.

 

[Cadfan]

They are the primary ambassadors of our hobby. But I ask you this: if you were nurturing a new player, someone who was completely new to RPG's, would you send them to Gleemax, or WotC's D&D website, or would you send them here?

There's nothing wrong with WOTC's forums. I'd definitely send a new player there rather than to ENWorld.

 

[Sammael]

There's nothing wrong with WOTC's forums.

Why are they closed for "maintenance" during the US off-peak hours every day, then? The last five times I tried to access them (I'm from Europe), they were unavailable, so I just gave up.