Revision to Dragon article Class Act Rangers?!

[Silverblade The Ench]

Revision to Class Acts: Ranger

Today, we posted a new version of the Class Acts: Ranger article that originally appeared on July 13, 2009.

To put it bluntly, the previous version of the article was of unacceptable quality. You, the readers, correctly pointed that out and we agreed. Hence, these revisions.

We apologize for this lapse in quality.

Though we believe that this particular article is an isolated failure in our mission to provide D&D Insiders with high-quality, exciting content every month, we still take this failure very seriously.

We're confident that the new version of the article adheres to our (and your) high standards for all published game material -- whether that material comes to you on paper or via the digital format.

We're also reviewing our process for designing, developing, and editing Insider content to identify places where additional time or training are required to avoid such errors in the future.

We appreciate the trust that you place in us, and we'll strive to continue to justify that trust.

Thank you, and good gaming.

Andy Collins
RPG Development & Editing Manager
Wizards of the Coast R&D

 

[chaotix42]

Interesting! What was wrong with the original content?

 

[avin]

Who wrote the original?

 

[JustKim]

A lot of the powers in the original were mismarked as immediate interrupts when they had no triggers, and should have been standard actions. As far as I know that was the only problem.

 

[Derulbaskul]

It must have been really, really, really bad if the author of the Epic Level Handbook saw fit to post an apology.

 

[Shemeska]

So much for the often promoted notion of e-Dragon quality being better than Dragon because it's all being done by WotC in-house.

If it was that bad, how did it get through editing and approved by probably more than one person before being posted online?

 

[coyote6]

Alcohol?

 

[Scribble]

So much for the often promoted notion of e-Dragon quality being better than Dragon because it's all being done by WotC in-house.

If it was that bad, how did it get through editing and approved by probably more than one person before being posted online?

Stuff Happens?

It's pretty cool how quickly they can fix it though.

 

[Derulbaskul]

(snip) If it was that bad, how did it get through editing and approved by probably more than one person before being posted online?

Hmmm... probably the same way all that late-3.5E crap got "approved by probably more than one person before being" printed with erroneous stat blocks, maps etc....

I still think that WotC's editing needs at least one extra step: toss the material to the CharOp posters and let them rip it apart before it is published in any form.

 

[Shemeska]

Hmmm... probably the same way all that late-3.5E crap got "approved by probably more than one person before being" printed with erroneous stat blocks, maps etc....

Honestly, if that happened often and I saw it, I don't much remember it. I largely stopped buying stuff from WotC after 3.5 was released, except for Lords of Madness and FCI and FCII. The last editing issue I remember from the 3.5 era was the state of the editing and development in Complete Divine. I think that one got a public apology of sorts as well, but I'd have to go back and look.

I suspect at a certain point once 4e was in full fledged development, less attention was paid to 3.5 books by the in-house developers and editors (since a lot of late 3.5 books were done almost exclusively by freelancers, and oddly enough happen to have been some of the most creative of that edition's offerings, seemingly with much more creative freedom). Speculation though just based on what I remember about the 3.5 books.