Upcoming Changes to D&D Minis Line

[avin]

Exciting? More exciting than visible Balor/Elder Green Dragon/Goristro?

I seriously doubt.

If size is changed you're going to lose a costumer. I won't buy again all my dungeon tiles / flip mats / minis.

 

[avin]

if the minis are as "awesome" as 4E and the last few sets of minis, I'll pass.

the last huge set was amazing.

 

[delericho]

I find myself wondering if there is a pattern of "generations" of gamers that WotC could tie into. That is, with the exception of a small hard-core minority (us), do most gamers get into the game, play for a few years, and then gradually drift away? If so, how long do they game for, on average?

If it could be established that over a period of 5 years (say), 90% of the player base has actually refreshed, then I would argue that that is the ideal "edition cycle", both for new editions of D&D, but also for D&D Miniatures. To the hard-core, you'd be selling "the same stuff over again", but to the 90% of the market that has been refreshed, it would be new stuff being sold.

(They could help emphasise this by also mixing up the "core set" of monsters in MM1 somewhat with each edition - perhaps 5e has Orcs and Goblins in MM1, 6e has lizardfolk instead, 7e has gnolls...)

And so, in year 1, you release PHB1/MM1, and the "core miniatures" sets containing PC minis for the races/classes in the PHB1, plus most of the common monsters in MM1. In year 2, you release PHB2/MM2, and release your next wave of monsters, covering the common options from the new books, and also "filling in the gaps" from year 1. And so it goes.

Then, after 5 years (or however long the "generation" cycle lasts), it's time for a new edition and a new miniatures line, all being sold to a (mostly) new fanbase. This would also be an ideal time to consider adjusting the scale, and thus begin a new cycle of battlemats, dungeon tiles, or whatever else.

(It's probably not a great idea to change the scale in mid-stream. Better to commit all your atrocities at once - that way, in six months most people will have moved on. If you do something every six months that annoys people, though, they won't forget, and will instead build an ever-expanding list of the horrible things you have done.)

 

[S'mon]

I think a very high proportion of RPG expenditure is by older, long-term players. So the Games Workshop model of murdering your player base every few years is probably not a good idea. You do want to keep fresh blood coming in, but WotC-D&D needs to retain more than 10% of the existing player base every 5 years.

Looking at the London D&D Meetup, I'd say of the typical 30-40 attendees over a weekend (Sat + Sun sessions) ca 40- 50% are newer gamers who started within the last few years, and 50%-60% veterans who started pre-2000. Actually the distribution is pretty much U-shaped, with a lot of us from the '80s and a lot of us post-2005. Maybe 'W', the centre of the W being those who came in with 3e, but they seem relatively few.

 

[S'mon]

BTW I've always bought singles on the after-market, but this thread inspired me to drop £11.49 on my first randomised pack, a set of Legendary Evils from amazon.co.uk No way to know what the visible mini is, I'm hoping all the Balors haven't already been removed... a Remorhaz would be ok - Remorhaz is £9 + ca £1.50 shipping from the only UK retailer I've found stocking them, so £11.49 all-in would be a good deal with the extra minis.

OTOH in reality I'll expect I'll get a Storm/Frost Titan or somesuch. :\

Edit: Actually the Storm Titan doesn't look half bad. The Frost Titan looks terrible, though. In terms of looks, Frost Giants/Titans really got the shaft in 4e, they were once these cool ice-viking guys and they look laughable now.

 

[Shazman]

Uh-huh.

Really, at this point, what is it that you expect? The guys at WotC can't actually tell you anything substantive about their plans at this point, except to clear up the (frankly, ill-conceived) rumors flying around that WotC was shutting down their minis production. Of course they're going to tell you that what they've got coming up is awesome. They're making it! They wouldn't adopt a plan unless they genuinely thought they could make it awesome, because if something is awesome, it sells!

Now, the real problem is this: if they don't come out and tell you everything they possibly can about it, the community reacts. And, unfortunately, this is not a community known for its ability to react maturely or appropriately. When we don't hear anything, people start rumors. Other people pick up on those rumors and give them more credibility than they really deserve. I mean, you actually had people convinced that WotC might be shutting down minis production, despite all the evidence that there's no way that could happen (including the announcement of the Orcus "mini" while this rumor was floating around!).

Furthermore, if the WotC guys make substantive announcements and later have to change their plans, the community eats them alive. In the video game world, having to revise your final feature list is par for the course and the community lets it go in a couple weeks. In the tabletop gaming community, a company can be forced to revise their plans, and the community leaps at their throats for over a year, even after their eventual product turns out to be pretty stellar (see: D&DI Character Builder). I mean, you know you've got some real issues, as a community, when the video game fanbase is able to handle itself better.

If you're among those who believe that a company being forced to keep something under wraps until they're sure of it is "stupid and patronizing" despite the undeniably hostile reactions from the community when they do come forward with what they're planning and then for whatever reason cannot deliver on it, you are probably part of the reason why they have decided to play things the way they do.

It's not so much what they say as how they say it. They could state that they were making changes to the the line that better reflect how their customers use minis and couldn't say anything more about it now or something similar. Instead, they sound like they are talking down to us like we are all small children or rabid fanboys. Furthermore, they used this tone before to promote 4E, and it was generally derided by the community. You'd think they would learn.

 

[avin]

Instead, they sound like they are talking down to us like we are all small children or rabid fanboys.

Agreed. There are different manners of saying the same thing. While I believe Trevor was good intentioned and is a good guy his choice of words sound a bit like me talking to my 2yr old daughter.

Furthermore, they used this tone before to promote 4E, and it was generally derided by the community. You'd think they would learn.

Yeah... All that buzz about how 3E was bad turn me and my friends against 4E. We waited for months until I decided to buy the books and give it a shot (and we are the kind of people who like to experiment systems/editions).

I ask myself: what could be more "exciting" than having the opportunity of buying a cheap Balor? Moving back to blind can be the right move to Wotc as a company but telling the costumers this is exciting? Well, they'll have to improve something.

That reminds me of promising "icreased quality" of miniatures when skirmish was cancelled, showing that nicely done goliath, and delivering that green fiasco... I'm not optimist...

As I've said: there are lots of ways of saying the same thing

 

[Drkfathr1]

My hope would be that they finally do themed sets, with specific assortments of related creatures. Maybe even larger boxed sets with all the monsters you need for a small adventure.

I know those would have to be more expensive, but they might have broader appeal in the mass market.

 

[Fifth Element]

Furthermore, they used this tone before to promote 4E, and it was generally derided by the community. You'd think they would learn.

It was not generally derided by the community. Those who didn't like it complained about it. Those who didn't care said nothing (except sometimes in response to the first group).

I mean, no one's going to start a thread saying "4E Marketing: The Tone is Fine With Me." Most of us couldn't care less about the tone.

It's a common phenenomenon, both on the internet and in life. Those displeased are far more likely to communicate it than those who are satisfied.

 

[Dausuul]

I mean, no one's going to start a thread saying "4E Marketing: The Tone is Fine With Me." Most of us couldn't care less about the tone.

Indeed. It looks like standard marketing boilerplate to me; the thing you say when you want to plug your upcoming release a little but the big bosses haven't agreed on messaging yet. I yield to no one in my ability to wage scorched-earth forum warfare over quibbles, but freaking out about this seems a bit excessive even by my standards.

As for the PHH line: I had a post earlier deriding the quality, but then I took a look at Greyhaze's galleries and realized a lot of them are actually pretty good. I'm not sure why I assumed they were crap... sure, a lot of them are repaints of old sculpts, but at least they picked good minis to repaint, and now I can get a Frenzied Berserker for two-fifty instead of ten bucks. (A quick paint job will take care of the silly blue cloak.) Consider me a newly converted fan.

But let's be honest, PC minis are not a good choice for the booster pack approach. I'm an unusual case; I supply all* the minis for my game, PCs and monsters alike, and I'm willing to drop a fair bit of disposable income on them, so I have an interest in collecting an array of PC minis. (Of course, I also buy everything on the secondary market... I regard booster packs as a way for less savvy gamers to subsidize my purchases. They buy yochlol tempters and chillfire destroyers so I can get doom dreamers for $0.89. )

As a rule, the player looking for a female eladrin fighter just wants a female eladrin fighter. She has no use for the male tiefling warlord and the male dwarf rogue that come with it. So you're asking her to shell out $11 retail for a single mini, which is substantially more than you'd pay for a metal mini of much higher quality. Sure, the metal mini isn't pre-painted, but still.

If WotC wants to continue selling PC minis separately from monsters, they should move to selling singles. They could probably get away with charging $4-$5 apiece. Or they could just merge the PC line back into the monster line, which I suspect is what they'll end up doing.

[SIZE=-2]*Well, almost all. One of the players has an unpainted metal kender mini that he uses for his halfling rogue; the rogue is a reincarnation of a character from his 2E days, and that was the mini he used for it then.[/SIZE]