Sell the fluff, pimp the crunch

[cignus_pfaccari]

I dunno. The present format of the character builder makes it kinda hard to compare feats and items so I can make an informed decision about them. Unless the feat name is incredibly obvious, you have to know what it does to find it easily. Yes, you can click on each one, and then you get an hourglass as it refers back to the server, and that enrages me much more often than my flipping a page or two in a book does*.

Really, a little preview descriptor added to each feat, like in the charts in the books, would make that vastly easier.

* - My job involves using a web-hosted database, on a much older and more arthritic PC. It's entirely possible that has something to do with the excess rage.

Brad

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

[MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION] ,
Not to derail the thread, but I respect your opinion, so I want to ask: Why are you not now, nor ever likely to be a DDI subscriber?

While I'm not opposed to digital distribution methods- indeed, I recommend them to my clients all the time- but they have downsides I don't want to deal with for my hobbies:

1. I do not want to pay a monthly rental fee for something I intend to keep for decades. That would be economic idiocy.
2. Don't like p.o.d. for books since the shifting of printing costs to me (who has no economies of scale) gets me an inferior physical product at a higher price OR an equivalent physical product at an even higher price.
3. Have had enough experience with computer failures, changing data formats and OS/hardware changes to know that even though my data may still be on a certain storage device, I may not be able to retrieve it. For my hobbies, at least, electronic formats are backups to physical products, not the other way 'round, and will remain that way for as long as it is feasible for me.
4. Most of the locations where I game, I do not have Internet access. The one place I do, I have access to all of my books.
5. I've used DDI on someone else's machines- generally speaking, I can still find what I want faster in a book than online...especially factoring in login & load times
6. In addition, sometimes, it STILL simply won't let you login. 2 sessions ago, while others were setting up the game, I was logging into the DM's account so someone else could print up their character (he had forgotten it)- and despite careful entry of the login & password, the program kept kicking me out. It took me nearly 20 minutes to login. That's unacceptable.
   
   It's not like I'm a Luddite. I haven't used many paper character sheets since 2005. I've been using the notepad of my portable devices- first, a Palm Tungsten, now an iTouch- to make 95% of my character sheets. It's a trend I expect to continue.
   
   At the same time, it also illustrates the problem I pointed out above: when I upgraded my home computer, my Palm was no longer compatible with it, so I bought my iTouch. In the meantime, my Palm decided to die. To retrieve the data I had on it- 300+ RPG related files alone, plus things like a chordbook for an alternative guitar tuning i'd been writing up for 2 years- I had to set up my old computer again (which, THANKFULLY, I had not yet gotten rid of) and burn it all to a CDR.
   
   All because the Palm & the iTouch don't talk to each other.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Not to derail this or beat a dead horse, but not everyone has internet access fast enough to DDI. We all do, or we would not be posting here so much, but not everyone does.

WOTC needs to think of those people who absolutely cannot do things online only.

 

[delericho]

It seems to me, then, that selling fluff books and pimping the crunch through DDI is the perfect solution for everyone, including us as consumers.

The problem is that the market spoke long ago, and it seemed to say "we won't pay for fluff."

Bluntly, I can do fluff as well (if not better) than WotC. Many DMs feel exactly the same way. Also, we already have enough fluff to last several lifetimes. So, why would we pay for their fluff?

(By contrast, the crunch is something that's much harder to do well, because the game should hang together as a whole. And doing that is hard.)

In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that Dungeon & Dragon magazines should no longer be PDF's and solely be presented as web pages. I'd even go further and say that they should be presented as web pages that can't be copied or printed.

I wouldn't go that far, but I do agree that the current model where you can subscribe and get everything is too generous. Leave it a year or two, and they'll be utterly saturated with adventures, and have nothing left to offer us.

I would argue that the e-magazines should be made available for a limited time only (perhaps 3 months), after which they're gone. Of course, if people download and keep them in the meantime that's their busines, but that doesn't mean WotC should support the "sub for one month, download everything" model.

I, for one, would be happy with this paradigm. Would you?

My wallet would be very happy with this paradigm. But then, my wallet is very happy with the current paradigm - I've bought almost no RPG books for more than a year now.

 

[MrGrenadine]

Or WotC could just vet their stuff better and not need to errata so much. Or, like our group, you can ignore most of the errata.

The main thrust of your argument seems to be "since it's going to be errated anyhow..." If they really want an evergreen D&D they need to put their money where their mouth is and design one.

Exactly this. Why anyone would think its acceptable for a game company to constantly errata their own product is beyond me.

My preference? Everything released on DDi and as a purchasable, downloadable PDF at the same time.

Then every couple months, release a hardcover--original material (adventure paths, settings, rules), or material compiled from DDi in a way that makes sense.

 

[Lalato]

The best idea in this thread is the concept of a quarterly "Best Of" Dungeon or Dragon magazine. I would not make it hard cover, I would just put it in the Essentials book format. Hard covers cost too much and nobody wants to pay $30 for compiled magazine content.

I'm a DDI subscriber, but I might even be tempted to pick up a hard copy like this every once in a while. Better yet, offer it as an add-on to the normal DDI subscription. pay an extra $X.XX per month to get the best of series delivered straight to your door.

WotC... do this and I will pay the extra for sure. As it is now, I don't read as much of the content in the online magazines as I used to read in the old magazines. Something to do with taking the mags to the throne in the bathroom. #TMI

 

[was]

I still buy books but I definitely have to preview them first. Fortunately my FLGS always has an open copy to look at. Personally, at the current book prices I get tired of paying for fluff. The more crunch in a book the more likely I am to buy it.

 

[Kzach]

Or WotC could just vet their stuff better and not need to errata so much. Or, like our group, you can ignore most of the errata.

I don't think this is viable or a reasonable expectation.

Could they vet things and check for errors better before publication? Yes. Could they prevent all needed errata? Hell no. I just don't see that as possible given the multitudes of permutations possible. Until those permutations are revealed, they have no feasible way of identifying them before publication. Therefore to maintain a balanced game, errata is inevitable. And I, for one, welcome that... I just don't want to have to pay for it in the form of redundant books.

But if all crunch is digital, then it ceases to be a problem.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Therefore to maintain a balanced game, errata is inevitable. And I, for one, welcome that....

Define balanced game.

Actually don't as there have been enough threads on this already.


As for the best of books/compilations/softcovers, I really doubt they would sell. The first try last year was terrible. I do not subscribe to DDI, but the best of dragon and dungeon books were not even close to worth the price. And if I really thought I just HAD to have the content, I could sign up to DDI for a month and get it and a lot more.

And there is always the problem of who decides the best of.

I think the only way to make this viable would be to put out compilations of various content and sell that.

For example doing a book of all the Chaos Scar dungeon adventures wit whatever dragon content (if any) might go over better.

If there were a book with 7-8 Chaos Scar adventures and some other fluff or backstory, I might buy that.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Not to derail this or beat a dead horse, but not everyone has internet access fast enough to DDI. We all do, or we would not be posting here so much, but not everyone does.

WOTC needs to think of those people who absolutely cannot do things online only.

At least one ENWorlder I know of used to talk about being on dialup as recently as last year. I don't know what his current setup is.

Exactly this. Why anyone would think its acceptable for a game company to constantly errata their own product is beyond me.

My preference? Everything released on DDi and as a purchasable, downloadable PDF at the same time.

Then every couple months, release a hardcover--original material (adventure paths, settings, rules), or material compiled from DDi in a way that makes sense.

Agreed 100%...but I'd still prefer hardcover to softcover, and softcover to PDF.