The 3 reasons why I am done with WotC

Nightfall · Apr 20, 2007

Was,

I think that's the take of many people that have been in D&D since before 3rd edition and even 3.0.

Minicol · Apr 20, 2007

Lumboloid said:
Over the past several months I have become more and more dissatisfied with WotC on the whole.

1. The rising cost of Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures
2. The aweful proofreading of the books released by WotC
3. The cancellation of Dragon and Dungeon magazines

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.

Me too, but for slightly different reasons :
1. The rising cost of Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures
I bought quite a few in the beginning, but it took me a while to realise that
a - they are ugly on the whole
b- a lot of them are weird creatures I would never use
c- they took from my budget for RPG books
d- made in China, God knows by whom or how. China is hardly known for respecting its employees' health or freedom.

Have not bought them in years, and do not intend to ever again

2. The aweful proofreading of the books released by WotC
Except for the very latest ones, I would not agree here

The problem with WOTC books, is not they are badly proofread. its, well.... THEY ARE LAME.
And BORING ! My friends often comment on how my collection looks brand new. Well the secret is, even if I make my will save and manage to read one fully, it's very unlikely I will open it ever again, except maybe to look at the art.

There have been a few exceptions to this of course, but the problem with the heavy formatting and uniformisation makes for poor reading, and bad gaming.

Poor reading : where are the new ideas that would spark a campaign ?
Bad gaming : feed a new generation of munchkin rules lawyers to disrupt my games

I had hopes when I saw that a new series of adventures was at long last released. Except the new format sucks. It akes twice the space of the older one to convey the same level of information. Most of what is written is useless :

I don't need a map to place my monsters
I don't need the same information to be referenced twice or thrice or ... in as many paragraphs. I have eyes. i can read.

And I could use NEW ideas. Sure having a remake of an old favourite COULD be nice, if it was properly done, but haow about some creativity ? For a change ?

3. The cancellation of Dragon and Dungeon magazines

I am ANGRY about this.

DRAGON managed to turn a nice idea now and then, but mostly DUNGEON, DUNGEON was full of excellent adventures. How many wonderful home games did I build thanks to its pages ? Now it's gone.

I am surprised by this : the adventures on DUNGEON were so much better than Wizards' own, that it had to happen.

There were scenarios and PLOTS (something Wizards is not able to do)
There were interesting adversaries (something Wizards is unwilling to provide)
It was cheap (unforgivable)

I surf a lot on the Internet. Seriously, I don't think how a web site could ever come close to a magazine in terms of content.
Not to mention ease of use and referral duing a game.
Sure, I MIGHT print pages. MIGHT....
But if I spend all my money on paper and ink carttridges, where is the gain to me ?

And that's assuming they manage to hire someone competent enough to fill the new website with anything remotely interesting, and I strongly doubt it. It will be so much more convenient to have just a giant online advertising page.

All of this, sounds like the death of the game to me.

Maybe the problem with WOTC is that they have taken a feeblemind too many ?

Nightfall · Apr 20, 2007

Stereo,

Nah it's just symptomatic of the fact the management in WotC has New Coke fever.

Minicol · Apr 20, 2007

Glyfair said:
Plus China is undergoing changes that are causing costs their to rise. I read a report not too long ago that stated they were trying to slow down their economy's growth so that their inflation doesn't rise so fast that there is a major crisis. That sort of situation is going to lead to higher production costs at some point, if it hasn't already happened. Perhaps drastically higher.

All that being said, the OP never said that the price increase was unreasonable. Just more than they wanted to spend for that product.

If the prices are going up, then they could cut the cost on ugly minis and dump them, instead of dumping DUNGEON and DRAGON.

Nightfall · Apr 20, 2007

Stereo,

Yeah that would make sense but again, it's this "New Coke!" fever sweeping the WotC management.

Jakar · Apr 20, 2007

Lumboloid said:
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.

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.

This made me laugh. You have gone to 3rd party because of the bad proofreading at WotC. To me that is an oxymoron if I have ever heard one.

Nightfall · Apr 20, 2007

Jakar,

It might seem that way but trust me, you just have to read reviews by John Cooper to see the truth of that statement.

DonTadow · Apr 20, 2007

Nightfall, \

Previewing the magazine has not been an option in a few years with Dragon and Dungeon. They sell them in plastic wrap. WOTC has obviously been checking out the PDF market. RPGNow, Drivethru and other sites have really showed how promising it is to sell d20 materal online.

WOTC will probably be able to preview 3 or 4 upcoming issues at a time of the magazines with excerpts.

Lets remember, profit equals us. WOTC doesn't become the big evil corp without us. If we were buying it in droves and supporting the advertisers the magazines would still be here. But many of us has changed our focus to electronic products (enough so where there are 4 electronic stores).

Desdichado · Apr 20, 2007

Lumboloid said:
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.

Well then. Given how the sentences you posted right before this were:

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.

I'm sure WotC figgers they'll get along fine now that you've resolved not to purchase any of their products that you just barely said you already don't purchase anyway.