This is my Elemental Airship.

[Neverfate]

This just in: D&D is basically a concept after 30+ years.

I'm trying to be nice to OP and didn't just wanna quote him and say, "You're doing it wrong" simply because there isn't a wrong way to D&D OR a right way to do it.

Like, hating people on the other side of the fence isn't gonna validate your side of the fence. ENworld isn't going to take a stand or read you text walls. Hell, I really didn't. I'm just bored. Enjoying the vampi. . . OK, that class really blows (yes I avoided that pun. Deal with it!).

 

[Gryph]

You are wrong... First off they could offer the rest of the maps for free in full color on the ddi subscription with little effort they don't because they don't know there market ... there are a few other reasons but these are the biggest two..(they are already there just in the wrong size and resolution. Also many companies offer other map packs like paizo and there doing very well.

Let's see, good easy to follow premise to your essay. They could indeed do some photoshop magic to make the artwork more usable, but then how much of their (not there, minus points for grammer) market has access to full color printers that can reproduce the maps at that scale? I do, but then I am perfectly aware that I'm in the minority amongst the gamers I know. Maybe they know their market just a little?

You are dead wrong on the pre packs... there are people that spent thousands on those awful miniatures and the marketing and idea was always god awful.... Making rare monsters are you kidding me???

You were aware of their existence so how awful was the marketing? Please substantiate your points with clear examples.

Interesting side note, it is a fairly well understood marketing ploy that the "gamble" payout of randomly assorted packs results in better sales. Take for example, the early days of CCGs when several well designed games sought to garner market share by selling non-randomized product. All of the names escape me now.

They could have ONLY done map packs separate to the modules and they would be in the black with them right now and still making them.

I know of no meaningful cases where a company has done such a thing, unless you mean generic map packs? In which case I believe their strategy is to print them on heavy cardstock. Tiles, so to speak. Still, maybe you have discovered a rich money making opportunity.

Btw how you do think I can afford commissioning airships? My parents give me the money?

Didn't give it much thought. The existence of sufficient funds to commission airships was sufficient basis for my comments and as the posted photos do not look retouched (not that I would be able to tell) <shrug>.

I work in marketing and sales but thats besides the point. Lets look at the market though... Everyone Im sure has heard of this company Below.

www.geekchichq.com


They have a 7 month lead time and they don't even bother with updating there site there doing so well.... believe it or not there are alot of professionals dying to spend crazy amounts of money I'm not even talking about the higher end though everything I'm speaking of is mid range...

Excellent, a clear illustrative example. I usually prefer them a little sooner in an essay, but I asked and here they are. So let us see, 7 month lead time, site isn't being updated, and I have indeed heard of these wonderful folks. Still that suggests one of two things to me, either it is strictly a hobby company and they make a nice supplement to their regular income; or, as I believe given the prices of the beautiful tables, the owners are life-style artisans and they are happy to live on the proceeds of a modest number of expensive sales.

Either way, the existence of a premium product company that lives on a very small client base is of no value in evaluating the market strategies of a division of Hasbro who mass produces and mass markets game products supporting an employee base in the hundreds (thousands if you count the employees of their manufacturing vendors). What kind of marketing do you do?

This isnt about growing up and frankly some of the reason there able to get away with it is because some of there loyalist (like yourself) are pretty vocal regardless I expect this thread to be trolled indefinitely.

I'll chalk up the loyalist comment to lack of research and honestly my remarks were incendiary enough to draw irate fire in response. Posting expecting to be trolled in response is generally considered trolling.

Say whatever you want in counterpoint but you have no idea what your talking about. The real market.. the one were we arent all 45 and living in our parents basement who make 35K+ a year that can spend 70 dollars a month or every couple months on video games or 15 dollars a month on a wow subscription want this to be better.

This sounds like a conclusion rather than a premise. I don't believe you have adequately supported any conclusions at this point.

The real market, the one where median income is under 50K for a household of 4, or the one laboring under unemployment rates hovering around 10%? Perhaps you meant the real market of high school and college kids with high precentages of disposable incomes that are not real high in actual dollars?

While its true that I'm in the 3 percent or less that run the game on the Wil Wheaton (actually my game is more elaborate than most celebrities games.) level.. it doesn't mean I'm a spoiled kid whining simply because I'm not getting my way.

Don't sell yourself short, you are well above the 99th percentile when it comes to props and spending on the peripherals of D&D. Certainly being in that elite company doesn't make you a spoiled kid; your whiny, self-entitled posts make you a spoiled kid whining because you're not getting your way.

I chose en-world because I actually believe many posters may actually take your stance.Also for gods sake you dont need to spend a dime to play dnd almost all the books can be pirated and most people dont even use there canon.

I doubt you have a clue as to my stance. It does not include any tolerance for piracy or the encouragement of piracy. Whatever you think of the direction of the D&D design team, they deserve to be paid when someone uses their work.

Guess what though if you offered the maps and mini's (which would make the game crazy simple to run) that would have cut down drastically on most of that... Also what if they simply did a 15 dollar sub where they mailed you modules and maps along with ddi?? How many people do you think would pay it? What if they did a 30 dollar a month sub where they gave you minis every month that in a couple years you would have enough to run any module? You think noone would buy that right?? I mean they could have offer ddi a new module and simply the monster tokens for 15 dollars and they would make hundreds of thousands of dollars on that alone...

They don't for the same reasons that they passed the fortune cards though r&d and patted themselves on the backs when making vampires not a race but a class...

They dont know what there doing...

THAT'S why I'm "whining". I would like to see dnd get better I would like to see it stick around.

I't wont the way its currently going.

Look its pointless to argue with you though I only wrote this so I can just link back to this when the tirade of posts start coming through telling me "Hey you are so wrong we want dnd to stay awful!!! DDI is awesome the new online character builder and monster creator rock!! Shut your face man Vampires should be a class idiot!!!


Thanks.

I read the last several paragraphs three times trying to find something coherent to reply to. Alas, my cognition fails me. I will conclude with one last, simple question,

"Sir, have you been drinking tonight?"

 

[Hussar]

Formulajh7, a small suggestion, but, coming out guns blazing, and you're going to get the reaction you just got. It's not going to be terribly productive. Just a thought.

/snip

While its true that doing your own maps prevents cheating most of us will never make maps as nice as some of wotc artist created ones including and especially the tombs of horrors maps like the garden of graves for example... Also I always customize every adventure to my game like I assume most of us do so changing things is a given and I'm really not worried about cheating in the slightest.

Now, making very good quality maps is easy and not terribly time consuming. And, free is about as cheap as it gets. There is a fantastic site: cartographersguild.org that is all about doing just that. If you are willing to do a bit of work (and, judging by that model, I'd hazard a guess that you are) take a look at Gimp along with Rob A's Prettier Map Script will give you professional looking maps at any scale you want to do. Very simple and easy to work with.

Very few people want vampire (something that is most definitely a race) a class.... Vryloka Vampire... my god...

Well, that's certainly an opinion, but, judging from twenty years of Vampire the Masquerade, I'd say that playing a vampire isn't totally off base. Never mind how popular with the teen set things like Twilight are. This is just another way to try to appeal to a younger crowd.

Certainly not to my taste, but, I could easily see it catching on with a segment of the gaming population.

So I also play with some people in the gaming industry who have high expectations (as do I). My campaign for me is lots of fun... to me its one of a kind the props are nice but its ofcourse the story and the work I put into it that make it that way... I even do 3d terrain and have rules to use it but none of that matters here is the point... With the current way wotc is headed I will probably never buy another of there products again... This coming from the guy who commissions 3d terrain and airships...

And that is most certainly your prerogative. I haven't bought a WOTC product in almost two years, so, it's not like you have to.

Vampires as a class isn't kinks in the system though Its just down right awfulness exposing them as simply bad at this... That's ofcourse one of many many examples.

I think the old saying though stop bitching unless you could do it better is appropriate here. I do understand how this comes across.. I may actually try my hand at making things better.

Again, totally in keeping with the spirit of gaming. But, I've never understood to be honest, how a company producing a product that I don't like would make me stop liking a particular game to the point of throwing up my hands.

Maybe it's because I'm an old gamer and I went through the 2e days where TSR produced more material in a month than WOTC typically produces in a year. And that's honestly not much of an exageration. So there were tons of products that absolutely sucked for me as well as ones I really liked. I just shrug, buy what I like and move on.

I guess I'll never understand the need to buy stuff a person doesn't actually like.

 

[Hussar]

Let's see, good easy to follow premise to your essay. They could indeed do some photoshop magic to make the artwork more usable, but then how much of their (not there, minus points for grammer) market has access to full color printers that can reproduce the maps at that scale? I do, but then I am perfectly aware that I'm in the minority amongst the gamers I know. Maybe they know their market just a little?

Now, to be 100% fair, WOTC has long put up map images on their site that are absolutely useless. The scale is way too small, even to use them for VTT's. It sucks and this is something that everyone should complain about. There's no reason that they can't put up decent resolution maps, after all, there are a bajillion sites out there that are perfectly capable and hosting capacity is virtually free.

Low res maps suck and there's no reason for them to do that.

 

[Rel]

HOLY CRAP.

There is so much wrong with this thread that I just don't have the time or energy to deal with it right now. Thread closed and expect some follow up.