[UPDATED AGAIN!] PRINCES OF THE APOCALYPSE - First Review!

The first comments on Princes of the Apcalypse are in. Fildrigar is the first to rate and comment on the adventure in EN World's ratings system, and gives it a score of 5/5. The adventure doesn't technically hit the shelves until April 7th (or March 27th - next Friday - in preferred stores), so I'm not sure how Fildrigar got hold of one, but there it is!

[UPDATE -- the author has deleted his review.]

UPDATE 2 -- he has kindly reposted it!

Click on the image below, read the comment, and as soon as you get your copy be sure to rate and comment on it yourself!

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[Morrus]

I think mostly confirmed in designers & dragons. Though that book does draw from these very forums.

Does it? I don't have the book. What does it say?

 

[darjr]

Does it? I don't have the book. What does it say?

In the section about WoTC near the end when he muses over the life of 4e.

You should consider getting it. It is pretty amazing.

ENWorld is credited as a source. Though I think he confirms almost everything with other sources and interviews. He notes specifically when info is unconfirmed.

 

[delericho]

The higher-ups at WotC and/or Hasbro probably don't give the thumbs up on announcing 5e early and shutting down all print material during a two-year open playtest unless DDI is bringing in a nice chunk of revenue.

So they authorised the creation of a new edition on the back of DDI incomes, and as part of the strategy for that new edition they mothball the DDI? That doesn't sound like a sensible course of action.

 

[Kramodlog]

Obviously there's a reason why he feels he doesn't want to share that information with you. I can think of at least a couple of very good reasons.

Like what? I just can't understand why he wouldn't want to share it with the community.

 

[Morrus]

Like what? I just can't understand why he wouldn't want to share it with the community.

I'm sorry to hear that. Your understanding is not necessarily required, however. Drop it and move on.

 

[Kramodlog]

If you look through the thread you'll find various updates giving the number of DDI subscriptions. It seemed to be somewhere over 50k in the first post up to ~70k by the end.

That said, I'm not sure I can really recommend wading through all that.

Yeah, I won't. Are those estimated numbers or official ones? I have doubts about estimated ones.

(Worse, I'm pretty sure DDI must have canibalised sales of the books at least to some extent, and especially of the splatbooks, which should have been the "safe bets" as far as supplements are concerned.)

And why some thinkthe online builder was made.

Ah, I see. I thought it was the priority, at least for several years there. I may be wrong - I was very much an observer in the 4e days.

Depends when you look. At first DDI was just the mags and they were free and contained 3.5 material. They were supposed to bridge the period when we transitionned from the paper mags to the online mags with 4e content. They hardly were supported. I wouldn't say they were a priority then.

Then 4e launched and so did DDI. The tools were buggy, but they got fixed. The emags had regular articles. I do not know if DDI was a priority, but it had support.

And then came a contencious patch/update for the offline tools, the new (buggy) online tools, and articles were late or never materialized. People cancelled their subscriptions and WotC was issuing refunds. Not sure it was sucha priority. All the discontent, the refunds, the low quality of DDI, make me skeptical about speculated numbers of DDI members.

 

[DEFCON 1]

So they authorised the creation of a new edition on the back of DDI incomes, and as part of the strategy for that new edition they mothball the DDI? That doesn't sound like a sensible course of action.

Technically DDI isn't in mothballs, as I believe you can still subscribe to it if you are a current 4E player and still have use of the several online builders, compendium, Dungeon and Dragon Magazine archives etc.

But as far as having it available for 5E as well... they probably *could* have, but it would have come down to the cost of actually recreating all the online builders and compendium etc. for 5E... plus have the staff on hand to plan, organize, write and/or edit all the articles for the online magazines. Mike has said all along that they were taking a long view of the financials of the game, so it seems as though having an available DDI at launch was not something they were interested in taking on (even if it did generate revenue for 4E). But like everything else... I'd imagine that Mike hasn't dismissed DDI for 5E out of hand, he just hasn't felt expending all the resources right off the top to get it up and running was necessarily the smartest course of action.

After all... if the game is still going strong in Year Four, Year Five, and DDI *has* been put back up and running successfully at that point... most of us will probably forget about the first year of the game when we didn't have it.

 

[delericho]

Yeah, I won't. Are those estimated numbers or official ones? I have doubts about estimated ones.

They're taken from the membership of the DDI group in their Community, which I believe included all those who were DDI subscribers and had also filled out their CS accounts. So it was taken as a minimum number of subscribers. Like you, I was somewhat sceptical of the numbers, but didn't have any evidence that might cause me to doubt them, just a gut feel.

AFAIK, WotC have never released any official subscriber numbers, nor would I expect them to. (The paper mags, though, were required to reveal this information, hence the info in the first post in that thread.)

Then 4e launched and so did DDI. The tools were buggy, but they got fixed. The emags had regular articles. I do not know if DDI was a priority, but it had support.

Yeah, that was the spell I was thinking of - it seemed that every two weeks we got a stack of errata for the Character Builder, the magazines were putting out regular stuff, and I definitely got the sense that the books were the secondary concern behind the regular (and significant) income from subscriptions.

I may, of course, have had an incorrect impression.

 

[delericho]

But as far as having it available for 5E as well... they probably *could* have, but it would have come down to the cost of actually recreating all the online builders and compendium etc. for 5E... plus have the staff on hand to plan, organize, write and/or edit all the articles for the online magazines.

The plans for Codename: Morningstar would indicate that a 5e DDI was not on the cards. They might have changed their plans in light of the cancellation of that project, but we can be reasonably sure that it's plan B at best.

 

[carmachu]

I'm very glad to hear this is a sandboxy style adventure. It's the sort of thing I might actually use. But at $50.... I would very much prefer a return to the smaller, cheaper adventures. Happily Ensider appears to have me covered on that front!

Honestly I find it a bit annoying for fils to complain about the cosy. You 6 book AP from pathfinder costs considerable mor even a the subscription rate.