The 3 reasons why I am done with WotC

[GreatLemur]

Welll, evvery thang onn thiss lyne iz underlinned inn redd.

Except for inn which I forgot was a real word. Enworld has spell check.
On the posting page.

Or maybe you're just using Firefox?

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Enworld has spell check.
On the posting page. My apologies to the OP.

It does?

If so, please tell me where because I can't see it.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Agamon]

I'm with the OP. If they think the Dragon/Dungeon decision will draw more profit to their own coffers, it won't be from my wallet. I was going to go pick up Expedition to the Demonweb Pits tomorrow. Screw that, I'll save my money for Pathfinder instead.

 

[Nightfall]

WotC might get a few cents for me for a FEW releases, but yeah I'm not buying much from them as I will be Necromancer Games, Green Ronin or the other guys.

d20 forever more!

 

[Alaric_Prympax]

It looks like I'll only be buying EtCGH and that's about it from WotC.

 

[Banshee16]

I suppose my question would be - why weren't you buying 3rd party products BEFORE if you think, perhaps rightly, they 'work harder?' FWIW, every Wizards employee I've ever corresponded with seemed like an extremely hard-working chap, so I'm not saying this IS true. If you think it is, why weren't you supporting these 3rd party publishers before?

Me, I love 3rd party publishers, mostly because they've been willing to rock the boat far more both in game design (virtually everything from Green Ronin) and setting (Goodman's Dragonmech, Privateer's Iron Kingdoms, etc.). I think if you dip into their work, you'll find it's as good or better and worth buying on its own merits - not just because you're mad at Wizards. Some, though not most, are cheaper, too.

Really hard to buy 3rd party products these days, since so many companies have either cut back, or got out of it. I've got stuff from just about every company except for Necromancer....and that wasn't intentional.

Almost seems like they don't want our money....I'm finding it hard to find anything to spend my money on these days (gaming-wise), as there's so little being released, so there's very little choice.

Banshee

 

[Asmor]

Welll, evvery thang onn thiss lyne iz underlinned inn redd.

Except for inn which I forgot was a real word. Enworld has spell check.
On the posting page. My apologies to the OP.

That's your browser, O He-Who-Would-Try-To-Seem-Superior.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Really hard to buy 3rd party products these days, since so many companies have either cut back, or got out of it. I've got stuff from just about every company except for Necromancer....and that wasn't intentional.

Almost seems like they don't want our money....I'm finding it hard to find anything to spend my money on these days (gaming-wise), as there's so little being released, so there's very little choice.

Banshee

I used to have a lot of 3rd party stuff, but I was using it less and less. Most of the stuff I got use from was Fantasy Flight Games, but even then it was very DM dependent.

I liked a lot of GR stuff, but frankly it rarely saw use, and that's what's important for me.

WotC gets my money because the books I buy from them are generally useful to some degree. This won't change because the magazines are gone.

 

[DonTadow]

Over the past several months I have become more and more dissatisfied with WotC on the whole. One of the guys in my gaming group (posts here as Boerngrimm i do believe) and I have been talking a lot about this. Here are the three points that have made me decide to no longer support WotC.

1. The rising cost of Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures
I love these minis. I think they are great. They have greatly enhanced my game, but with the price having gone up I just can't justify spending the money on them. With the upcoming release Reaper's prepainted plastic minis there will be an alternative and I already have enough DDM that I can proxy just about anything.

2. The aweful proofreading of the books released by WotC
These $30+ hardcover books are filled with far too many spelling errors for me. I know that I don't use perfect spelling or grammar, but nobody pays me $30+ to read my message board rants. Also, the business of errata coming out as soon as the book is published i dumb. Check your products against each other before you send them to distributers.

3. The cancellation of Dragon and Dungeon magazines
For the money, those two magazines were the best value in gaming for me. Being in the tax bracket that I'm in and raising two children leaves me with very little extra cash to spend on gaming so my subscriptions to those magazines is where I got most of my new gaming material. Taking that away is terrible for me.

Because of these three things, I will no longer purchase any WotC products. To hell with them. The 3rd party companies work much harder so they can have my gaming dollar.

1. The game has gotten more popular and the value has gone up. Inflation sucks, but that's life.

2. Contrary to popular belief, WOTC doesn't finish the book one minute and release it the next. The book is usually at a printer for weeks. In this time, additional errors are found. Thus when a product is released, it has errata for it almost instantly. This is a very common practice with most reference books and software.

3. I've worked in the magazine business. IT's brutal and very difficult to make a profit in. Don't believe me. Buy the 2005 writer's digest. Then pick up the 2007 writers digest. over 40 percent of the magazines in the 2005 are no longer in the 2007 version. 90 percent of all new magazines go under within a year. Most magazines have a shelflife of 10 to 20 years. Dungeon and Dragon just didn't fit in with Wotc's future plans. The magazines are not going anyway. They are just turning them into electronic magazines. It is much easier to maintain and utilize reference material electronically. I and other subscribers have been asking for this for years. It sucks that I won't have my favorite bathroom reading material, but at least I'll have something far more useful.

 

[Dragonhelm]

1. The rising cost of Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures

This isn't such a big issue with me since I rarely use minis anyway. Still, for those who use them extensively, it could be a burden.

2. The aweful proofreading of the books released by WotC

This doesn't bother me as much either. They do have some bad proofreading at times, as seen with Complete Divine.

Truth be told, I'm more concerned about it on the publishing side, where not only some grammatical errors, but some setting errors are creeping through into the novels.

3. The cancellation of Dragon and Dungeon magazines

Yeah, this is a tragedy. Those magazines are staples of the RPG industry in general, and D&D specifically.

Because of these three things, I will no longer purchase any WotC products. To hell with them. The 3rd party companies work much harder so they can have my gaming dollar.

I think the 3rd party companies have more of a genuine love of their product. D&D has become a big corporation product line. It doesn't have the same hobby feel that it once used to.

Maybe I'm just getting to be old and tired, but I sometimes feel like the heart of D&D is gone.

Pwned. It was even underlined in red, dude.

Using "pwned" when commenting on someone else's grammar doesn't exactly sell your case.