What do I want? An apology.

[Doug McCrae]

Your sample size is flawed. Not every online person views this forum or elects to vote in polls.

Surely not registering an opinion is a good indicator that someone doesn't care? Also it depends what Deimodius means by 'this community'. People normally talk about ENWorlders more than they do 'ENWorlders who post in General RPG Discussion' so I would take it mean the former.

The 164 is actually the more problematic figure than the 2271. Ideally I could take the number of people who posted to the main Dragon thread - Paizo no longer publishing Dungeon and Dragon - expressing dismay but I've no way of counting that. The thread had 1460 posts. Obviously half of those are Nightfall. An estimate, probably a gross overestimate, of those that wanted to keep the mags would be half that number - 730. That's 30% of 2271.

 

[Enforcer]

The poll itself (along with every poll on this site) also suffers from self-selection bias (i.e. people with strong opinions on the poll's subject are more likely to answer the poll, thereby skewing it towards those opinions).

In my opinion, it's pointless to use message board polls to prove any argument.

 

[Atavar]

I'm not disputing the emotional impact this can have, and is having, on people. Heck, I'm still pretty bummed about it. I simply think that all of this passion and energy being stirred up is better served DOING something constructive about it (e.g. orgazine a boycott, start a letter writing campaign, start up your own magazine, whatever).

Focusing that energy, instead, on a "I'm taking my ball and going home unless you say you're sorry" attitude is, in my opinion, a waste of time and energy.

Do you have the right to waste your time and energy that way? Absolutely.

Do you have the right to think it's NOT a waste of time and energy? Absolutely.

Does that put that kind of attitude amongst the right ones to have? In my opinion, no.

But opinions are like @$$h0le$, everybody's got one.

Back to the grind....

Atavar

 

[Deimodius]

And the reason that many of us are scratching our heads, muttering "what's the big deal?" is that we don't think there is a large portion of the D&D playing community who would have said no. Dragon/Dungeon readers were already a very small portion of D&D gamers

Enforcer, as seen in the quote above, I believe your argument is flawed. The only people who are really affected by the cancellation of the magazines are those who purchased it. Those who _didn't_ are irrelevant to the discussion since the existence, or cancellation of the magazines has no affect on them. Thus a poll asking (or including) NON-readers whether or not the magazines should be allowed to die in print format does not demonstrate the will of the people who will actually be affected by the outcome of the poll.

If the magazines had been allowed to continue concurrently with the DI, people who were already NOT readers of the mag would likely subscribe to the DI in the same proportion (of non-mag readers) who will be subscribing now. Thus the ONLY people WotC wants to force to move from mag to DI are the consumers of the magazine!

Their decision affects 0% of players who were NOT consumers of the magazines.
Their decision affects 100% of the players who ARE consumers of the magazines.
(Note: I am not suggestion that 100% of mag consumers are angry, just that it is a fact they are affected by the decision).

WotC _should_ have asked two questions, one to the consumers of the mags, and one to the non-consumers.

Consumers: Would you prefer to have the content of Dragon and Dungeon availlable online _instead_ of print.

Non-consumers: Would you like online content?

If the majority of mag non-consumers subscribe to the DI, nothing has changed.
if the majority of mag consumers _do not_ subscribe, nothing has changed.

The only way this decision actually makes sense is if the majority of magazine consumers would prefer to (and ultimately do) subscribe to the DI. That remains to be seen, but perhaps instead of suggesting that the number of people upset are the minority, you should ask if they are, in fact, the _majority_ of those who consumed the magazine.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The poll itself (along with every poll on this site) also suffers from self-selection bias (i.e. people with strong opinions on the poll's subject are more likely to answer the poll, thereby skewing it towards those opinions).

Ah, but strong opinions are exactly what we want to measure.

 

[atom crash]

Why should WotC offer an apology? They've done nothing yet to apologize for.

Sure, I'll miss Dragon and Dungeon as much as the rest of you. I've been subscribing for years and have tons of back issues. I look forward to getting both mags in the mail each week. Even my wife knows when to expect them because I can't shut up about them; she's happy for me when they do arrive. I'm really going to miss that.

But WotC is planning to offer something cool in their place. Only time will tell now if that cool new product will live up to the hype as well as the function, utility and tradition they are leaving behind by putting Dragon and Dungeon to rest.

I'm seriously surprised that so many choose to decry their new digital initiative before we even know what the heck it's going to look like. Or cost. I doubt I'll subscribe to their new service myself (I don't want to spend any more time sitting in front of a computer than I already do, though I might buy print collections if they are made available for a reasonable price), but I can see how it will have value for many people

Like so many others, I was shocked and outraged last week when I heard the news. Now? Not so much. I'm moving past it, and looking forward to new things. Things like Pathfinder. Like spending more money on Dungeon Crawl Classics and D&D minis.

The more I think about it, the more I see this as Wizards' way of saying, "Hey, atom, we love you but you're just not in our target demographic anymore." I guess I can deal with that.

[In my head I see this funny conversation at the WotC office between two staffers at the water cooler:
First Wizard: "We're killing Dragon and Dungeon? Are you crazy?"
Second Wizard: "No, we're just moving the content into a brave new format, online no less, where more and more people expect to find this kind of content."
First: "Man, those guys on the internet are going to be ticked off. They'll call for our heads to roll!"
Second: "But we're offering something really cool in its place. Dragon and Dungeon won't be going away. They're just changing, evolving. Who can hate that?"
First: "Yeah, but those grognards are gonna be steamed! They'll roast us alive"
Second: "Well, we can't please everyone all the time. And it seems like no matter what we do, we can't ever please the grognards. They're always upset about something. But you know what, this digital initiative is going to be good for us and good for the industry. The younger kids who spend more money on our products are gonna think the new stuff is really neat. The grognards will either buy into it or they won't. Nothing we can say or do is gonna change that."
First: "You're probably right."]

 

[Cowpie Zombie]

POST DELETED

Chainsaw Mage, you are my new hero.

 

[Atavar]

POST DELETED

Even if you are joking...SHAME ON YOU!

Disgusted,

Atavar

 

[Enforcer]

Ah, but strong opinions are exactly what we want to measure.

And yet your post above used the poll to show that no one cares...

And I disagree with this one as well--the poll is skewed to show that strong opinions exist--yes or no, it doesn't show how strong they are or provide a representative sample of how many people hold them.

 

[Deimodius]

Enforcer, I notice you haven't responded to my rebuttal from above.