[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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[Kramodlog]

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.)

The biggest issue I had with those numbers was that they didn't drop. They only grew. When people cancelled subscriptions and asked for refunds it should have gone down. And you know, the elephant in the room. 4e wasn't that popular. That isn't conductive to growth of membership.

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.

And then it stopped. Not what I would do to a successful endeavor. Especially since it happened around Essential's launch. When new breath was supposed to be infused into 4e.

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

Reality is subjective.

 

[darjr]

The biggest issue I had with those numbers was that they didn't drop. They only grew. When people cancelled subscriptions and asked for refunds it should have gone down. And you know, the elephant in the room. 4e wasn't that popular. That isn't conductive to growth of membership.

And then it stopped. Not what I would do to a successful endeavor. Especially since it happened around Essential's launch. When new breath was supposed to be infused into 4e.

Reality is subjective.

They did drop. I verified it myself in the prior version of the software and I wasn't the only one that verified it.

 

[Psikerlord#]

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.

I dont like AP's either coz they're too long - at least me complaining is consistent!

 

[delericho]

The biggest issue I had with those numbers was that they didn't drop. They only grew. When people cancelled subscriptions and asked for refunds it should have gone down. And you know, the elephant in the room. 4e wasn't that popular. That isn't conductive to growth of membership.

As darjr notes, the numbers did drop, though you had to be quick to see it.

As for the popularity of 4e: WotC reckon about 1 million people actively play D&D on a regular basis. Compared to that, ~80k subscribers isn't actually all that many.

And then it stopped. Not what I would do to a successful endeavor. Especially since it happened around Essential's launch. When new breath was supposed to be infused into 4e.

That could indicate failure, or it could indicate a change in direction. The time in question was also marked by the transition from Bill Slavicsek to Mike Mearls as the big cheese over there, which as we know has also seen the shift towards a much more sparce release schedule.

If the higher-ups at WotC were indeed sold DDI on the basis of hundreds of thousands of subscribers, they may well have looked at the ~80k they actually got and concluded, "that's good, but not good enough to justify further investment." As such, when they went through the edition cycle again, since the old tools were no longer relevant, and with no willingness for further investment, the programme come to a natural end point.

Unless, of course, the strategy changes again.

 

[ssvegeta555]

Yep. If I don't like something ( HotDQ ) I'm just not going to review it. I'm not a professional reviewer, just someone who loves games. And this module blew me away. I quickly shelved the plans I had for my campaign, and pushed the party towards the Sumber Hills. My review is deliberately a little vague, because the book isn't out yet, and I don't want to get anyone in trouble. ( I shouldn't have it yet, not until Friday. ) I will try to expand it more this week.

And I wish there was a way to rate with half stars, because I would have rated several of the things I've reviewed 4.5. ( Including this one.)

I'm glad to hear that. HotDQ left a bad taste in my mouth, that's for sure. I'm glad to hear this module is much better. From what I can gather, it's closer to LMoP which I absolutely loved. And I wouldn't worry about being vague just because the book isn't out yet for a few more days. I say take advantage of the fact you're the only one who has access to the book. But that's just me.

 

[Fildrigar]

If we'd started with HotDQ instead of LMoP, we probably wouldn't be playing 5E, right now. I can't put my finger on it, but I just didn't like HotDQ. LMoP was a blast, though.


While I get you're not a professional reviewer, I'd love more information. I appreciate that you've come in here and given a bit more detail. Thanks. The fact that you were less than awed by HotDQ already lends weight to your review, IMO.

What I'm (personally and selfishly) interested in is:
- How ready is it to play "out of the box"? I didn't run HotDQ largely because it looked like a story outline with a couple dungeons. If I need to fill in the details and/or "wing it" for half the chapters, I might just as well roll my own.

It's pretty much ready to go out of the box. It has twenty or so plot hooks to possibly dole out to characters one way or another. It also has reasons for each faction to send adventurers there to check things out. The town that functions as a "home base" of sorts has two levels of clues/rumors/plot hooks depending on whether the party is level one or level 3/4. I, personally, adapted the plot hooks to be a series of dreams that I emailed my players a week before our first session. Each character had an individualized dream customized to their character. I guess I did a pretty good job personalizing them, as the players didn't really want to compare dreams at our first session. ( The Barbarian laughed about having a "wet dream" as he woke covered in sea water from a dream of the ship he grew up on being wracked by a storm apparently directed by a man covered in barnacles, hoisting a trident above his head. )

- How tied to the Realms is it? This is the other reason I didn't run HotDQ: I strongly dislike the Realms and didn't see any way to neatly decouple the adventure from the setting w/o massively rewriting portions.

- Corollary: Could it be move to Eberron? You said there was a small conversion guide. Does it have advice on integration or just where to file off the serial numbers?

As I said, eight pages of ideas for converting to other worlds, including Eberron. I haven't but skimmed that section, as I'm a pretty big fan of the Forgotten Realms. ( In fact, I did a lot of work to convert Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil to Faerun, back in the day. I know, sacrilege to some. )

- Is it a campaign or a big adventure? The difference is in including a place for the PCs to have some downtime and a base, as well as an opportunity (vs. requirement) to branch out from what's present and add a side quest or two.

It's not exactly a mega dungeon. While the places are all connected, they shouldn't be completed as if they are. Travelling back to town fairly often should be something that gets done. There are a good number of side quests presented, some related to the main quest, but some completely divorced from it. There are also a number of scenarios detailing the responses from the cults, as the heroes start taking down parts of the temples. ( They will at some point begin lashing out at the local towns and communities. ) As far as establishing a base, there are a number of places where it would make total sense to do so. One thing that gets mentioned in passing a couple of times, but I don't see directly addressed is the possible need to guard some of the locations as they get cleared out. These would be good places to establish a base of operations.

 

[Fildrigar]

That is the most disconcerting part of WotC's plan for 5e. They decided to put all their eggs in the AP basket. A type of product they never mastered and have a poor repution with adventures. Their main rival pretty much wrote the book on APs and is at the top of its game. WotC needs to out perform Paizo to impress everyone.

If only WotC also bet on one of D&D's strenghts as a back up. Um... What are D&D's strenghts nowadays that can be profitable? Campaign settings? Simple rules? Doesn't that mean more splat or rule variants?

So, why is it that you pretty much have to turn every thread that you participate in in the D&D5e part of enworld into a "crap all over Wizards" thread? I mean, here you are in a discussion of a review of an adventure quibbling about the number of subscribers to DDI. It's perfectly OK to not like things. Totally fine, in fact. But why do you have to try to bring everyone else down? I mean, I dislike Pathfinder, but you don't find me all over the Pathfinder boards snarking about Paizo. I very much dislike GW ( after years of being a fan, and owning far, far too many of their miniatures, ) but I don't go out of my way to trash talk them. So, why do you have to be a jerk? Why do you have so much direct, personal animosity towards them? Did Wizards pee in your breakfast cereal? Did they kick your puppy? Did your wife cheat on you with someone who works there?

Just asking.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

It's pretty much ready to go out of the box. It has twenty or so plot hooks to possibly dole out to characters one way or another. It also has reasons for each faction to send adventurers there to check things out. The town that functions as a "home base" of sorts has two levels of clues/rumors/plot hooks depending on whether the party is level one or level 3/4. I, personally, adapted the plot hooks to be a series of dreams that I emailed my players a week before our first session. Each character had an individualized dream customized to their character. I guess I did a pretty good job personalizing them, as the players didn't really want to compare dreams at our first session. ( The Barbarian laughed about having a "wet dream" as he woke covered in sea water from a dream of the ship he grew up on being wracked by a storm apparently directed by a man covered in barnacles, hoisting a trident above his head. )



As I said, eight pages of ideas for converting to other worlds, including Eberron. I haven't but skimmed that section, as I'm a pretty big fan of the Forgotten Realms. ( In fact, I did a lot of work to convert Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil to Faerun, back in the day. I know, sacrilege to some. )



It's not exactly a mega dungeon. While the places are all connected, they shouldn't be completed as if they are. Travelling back to town fairly often should be something that gets done. There are a good number of side quests presented, some related to the main quest, but some completely divorced from it. There are also a number of scenarios detailing the responses from the cults, as the heroes start taking down parts of the temples. ( They will at some point begin lashing out at the local towns and communities. ) As far as establishing a base, there are a number of places where it would make total sense to do so. One thing that gets mentioned in passing a couple of times, but I don't see directly addressed is the possible need to guard some of the locations as they get cleared out. These would be good places to establish a base of operations.

This is some really cool and helpful info.

 

[MoonSong]

@Fildrigar you meanie... I was perfectly fine skipping on PotA and now you had to come and ruin it for me... I hope you are proud, now I'm gonna need $50 and skip on the spell cards. Thanks a lot...

signed. A very grateful and angry bunny.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

@Fildrigar you meanie... I was perfectly fine skipping on PotA and now you had to come and ruin it for me... I hope you are proud, now I'm gonna need $50 and skip on the spell cards. Thanks a lot...

signed. A very grateful and angry bunny.

You can get for $30 on Amazon or Indigo.