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What do you want to ask WotC?
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
ColonelHardisson
What? Me Worry?
Will the updates of classic modules to the current edition of D&D continue? Will they be part of this digital initiative?
Darrin Drader
Explorer
First of all, I could be doing this through private email, because as some of you know, I worked for WotC for a period of four years, and during that time I got to know most of the people in R&D and the brand team. I was also the primary source of contact for the D&D brand within WotC Custserv. I was, and I remain, a freelancer in the RPG industry. On the other hand, I'm also a player, a fan, and a reader of both magazines, and I have been for twenty-three years now.
The announcement that Dragon and Dungeon magazines were to be no more struck an emotional chord with me, as it clearly did with a lot of other people. My earliest memories of the magazine are from when I was eleven years old and had just been introduced to D&D by one of my best friends who I didn't get to see for years at a time because his parents divorced and moved across the country. D&D wasn't just some game we played, but it was a reason to stay in touch, and gave us something to look forward to doing again the next time we saw each other. As a side note, this friend now lives a lot closer, we speak a lot more often, he works as a web developer, and he likes to make Neverwinter Nights modules out of the adventures I've written for the website. No, he hasn't published any to the web.
At that age I was a very bookish kid who spent most of my recess time in the library. I was lucky that my school system saw value in roleplaying games and supported it with a subscription to Dragon and White Dwarf (I don't think Dungeon was around quite yet back then, but I do remember that the first 20 issues were by subscription only, and I couldn't afford the subscription a that time). I spent so much time checking out Dragon magazine because the books were released infrequently at best back in those 1E days, and it was my primary source of new information. I loved everything about the magazine - the editorials, the new rules, the adventures. I looked forward to that new magazine appearing in the library every month, even as I was constantly wearing out the non-glossy covers of the older issues.
Of course time moved forward and things changed. Second edition was released in high school, at which time the frequency of officially released products increased exponentially. I also had my first job during that time, so suddenly I had a disposable income that allowed me to buy a good amount of the new stuff that was coming out. It was somewhere around there that Dungeon went on the newsstand, and I was hooked after the first issue. As a DM with a regular group that met every week, I had a hard time believing that TSR was willing to release that much extremely useful (dare I say valuable?) material every month for such a reasonable price. And I've been buying Dungeon pretty consistently since then.
Sure, there's been a lot of years in between then and now, and I have to admit that I actually lost interest in the game in the late 2nd edition days. When I learned that TSR had folded and WotC had taken over, this triggered a personal revival in the game that continues to this day. The first thing I did when WotC took control was support their efforts by going out and purchasing a Dragon magazine and a Dungeon magazine.
Both magazines still mean a lot to me. Dragon was one of the first places where I had any gaming material published. I had a total of three articles appear in Dragon magazine back in 2002 (if I remember the date correctly) including an accidentally miscredited 3rd edition death knight template which ended up appearing in Monster Manual II, an article on a bunch of divinely inspired magic items, and an article that tied in with the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook (that last one I thought was the least remarkable of the three until I found out that Chris Perkins had used one of the strongholds I designed in his once famous Wednesday night game).
I have to admit that the announcement of the cessation of publication in magazine format hit me like a punch to the gut. In many ways I'm going through the various stages of grief, knowing that it won't be around anymore, that I won't be able to go into my local book store and pick up the magazines off the shelf, or have be able to annoy my wife with a not so small pile of partially read magazines sitting on my desk for weeks on end. This also means that I won't get to realize one of my personal goals, which was to eventually get one of my adventure ideas through the slush pile and into Dungeon magazine.
That said, there is a silver lining. Pathfinder actually looks good. I remember when Paizo took over the magazines and there was all the negativity as people said that they couldn't possibly do just as good a job with them as WotC did. Then, over the next few years, they proved the naysayers wrong. Paizo continued to publish quality magazines on a monthly basis. They also recently saved Necromancer. Pathfinder seems to be their way of keeping the adventure path alive, and continuing forward with their signature contributions to the D&D community. I decided to give my money to support them by signing up for a month-to-month subscription to Pathfinder.
As for the new digital initiative and transforming the magazines into online content, I am open to that. Over the last several years I've contributed as much or possibly more material to the WotC website than I have to their printed books. I chose them because I was able to quickly establish a relationship with the content developers, and because I was often able to create new material that I found personally interesting. Sure, it was true that fewer people were probably looking at it than were looking at the magazines, but I was just as happy with it, if not more so, than some of the stuff that I've written that ended up in print. My mind also boggles at the backlog of stuff I've written that the web team has in various stages of development, and hasn't yet made it to the website. There's some great stuff I've worked on coming your way (in my ever so humble opinion).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've been using and contributing to the website for a number of years, and to me, the daily updates have become as much of a treat as the monthly magazine. Moving the two magazines I grew up with to an online format makes sense, and it might even provide additional opportunities to me to continue to explore some of the shadowy corners of the game that I think deserve a spotlight shined in there. While the delivery system used for the content of the magazines will change, I seriously doubt that the content itself will change all that much. If I have to shell out a few bucks a month to access that content, then so be it. My wallet and I will be ready to help see Dragon and Dungeon into the new digital age.
The main point of all this is not to ask a question, or to suggest that I'm in any way entitled to anything from WotC, but to give a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has been involved with Dragon magazine and Dungeon magazine over the years. Especially, thank you to Chris Perkins, who served as my guide and mentor when I was just a wannabe published D&D enthusiast, to Jesse Decker, who saw fit to publish my first official D&D material in Dragon, and to Erik Mona for breathing life into the magazines month after month for years on end. My hat's off to you guys, and even if the magazines will no longer be in print form, your efforts will always have a prominent position on my bookshelf and in my game. Thanks for all the hard work, I can't wait to see what new form these publications will take, and what I'll be able to contribute to them.
The announcement that Dragon and Dungeon magazines were to be no more struck an emotional chord with me, as it clearly did with a lot of other people. My earliest memories of the magazine are from when I was eleven years old and had just been introduced to D&D by one of my best friends who I didn't get to see for years at a time because his parents divorced and moved across the country. D&D wasn't just some game we played, but it was a reason to stay in touch, and gave us something to look forward to doing again the next time we saw each other. As a side note, this friend now lives a lot closer, we speak a lot more often, he works as a web developer, and he likes to make Neverwinter Nights modules out of the adventures I've written for the website. No, he hasn't published any to the web.
At that age I was a very bookish kid who spent most of my recess time in the library. I was lucky that my school system saw value in roleplaying games and supported it with a subscription to Dragon and White Dwarf (I don't think Dungeon was around quite yet back then, but I do remember that the first 20 issues were by subscription only, and I couldn't afford the subscription a that time). I spent so much time checking out Dragon magazine because the books were released infrequently at best back in those 1E days, and it was my primary source of new information. I loved everything about the magazine - the editorials, the new rules, the adventures. I looked forward to that new magazine appearing in the library every month, even as I was constantly wearing out the non-glossy covers of the older issues.
Of course time moved forward and things changed. Second edition was released in high school, at which time the frequency of officially released products increased exponentially. I also had my first job during that time, so suddenly I had a disposable income that allowed me to buy a good amount of the new stuff that was coming out. It was somewhere around there that Dungeon went on the newsstand, and I was hooked after the first issue. As a DM with a regular group that met every week, I had a hard time believing that TSR was willing to release that much extremely useful (dare I say valuable?) material every month for such a reasonable price. And I've been buying Dungeon pretty consistently since then.
Sure, there's been a lot of years in between then and now, and I have to admit that I actually lost interest in the game in the late 2nd edition days. When I learned that TSR had folded and WotC had taken over, this triggered a personal revival in the game that continues to this day. The first thing I did when WotC took control was support their efforts by going out and purchasing a Dragon magazine and a Dungeon magazine.
Both magazines still mean a lot to me. Dragon was one of the first places where I had any gaming material published. I had a total of three articles appear in Dragon magazine back in 2002 (if I remember the date correctly) including an accidentally miscredited 3rd edition death knight template which ended up appearing in Monster Manual II, an article on a bunch of divinely inspired magic items, and an article that tied in with the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook (that last one I thought was the least remarkable of the three until I found out that Chris Perkins had used one of the strongholds I designed in his once famous Wednesday night game).
I have to admit that the announcement of the cessation of publication in magazine format hit me like a punch to the gut. In many ways I'm going through the various stages of grief, knowing that it won't be around anymore, that I won't be able to go into my local book store and pick up the magazines off the shelf, or have be able to annoy my wife with a not so small pile of partially read magazines sitting on my desk for weeks on end. This also means that I won't get to realize one of my personal goals, which was to eventually get one of my adventure ideas through the slush pile and into Dungeon magazine.
That said, there is a silver lining. Pathfinder actually looks good. I remember when Paizo took over the magazines and there was all the negativity as people said that they couldn't possibly do just as good a job with them as WotC did. Then, over the next few years, they proved the naysayers wrong. Paizo continued to publish quality magazines on a monthly basis. They also recently saved Necromancer. Pathfinder seems to be their way of keeping the adventure path alive, and continuing forward with their signature contributions to the D&D community. I decided to give my money to support them by signing up for a month-to-month subscription to Pathfinder.
As for the new digital initiative and transforming the magazines into online content, I am open to that. Over the last several years I've contributed as much or possibly more material to the WotC website than I have to their printed books. I chose them because I was able to quickly establish a relationship with the content developers, and because I was often able to create new material that I found personally interesting. Sure, it was true that fewer people were probably looking at it than were looking at the magazines, but I was just as happy with it, if not more so, than some of the stuff that I've written that ended up in print. My mind also boggles at the backlog of stuff I've written that the web team has in various stages of development, and hasn't yet made it to the website. There's some great stuff I've worked on coming your way (in my ever so humble opinion).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've been using and contributing to the website for a number of years, and to me, the daily updates have become as much of a treat as the monthly magazine. Moving the two magazines I grew up with to an online format makes sense, and it might even provide additional opportunities to me to continue to explore some of the shadowy corners of the game that I think deserve a spotlight shined in there. While the delivery system used for the content of the magazines will change, I seriously doubt that the content itself will change all that much. If I have to shell out a few bucks a month to access that content, then so be it. My wallet and I will be ready to help see Dragon and Dungeon into the new digital age.
The main point of all this is not to ask a question, or to suggest that I'm in any way entitled to anything from WotC, but to give a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has been involved with Dragon magazine and Dungeon magazine over the years. Especially, thank you to Chris Perkins, who served as my guide and mentor when I was just a wannabe published D&D enthusiast, to Jesse Decker, who saw fit to publish my first official D&D material in Dragon, and to Erik Mona for breathing life into the magazines month after month for years on end. My hat's off to you guys, and even if the magazines will no longer be in print form, your efforts will always have a prominent position on my bookshelf and in my game. Thanks for all the hard work, I can't wait to see what new form these publications will take, and what I'll be able to contribute to them.
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Winterthorn
Monster Manager
I am still very angry. But I'll be civil.
Many good questions from others here on the details, but I must repeat one in my own words that a few others have mentioned and remains on my mind:
How will WotC repair relations with D&D/d20 hobbists considering our righteous anger stirred up by such a grossly mis-managed announcement? Anyone with real marketing savy would agree this was badly handled. I am absolutely flabbergasted that such a bomb was dropped and nothing of substance was immediatedly presented to mute the utterly predictable explosion. (Vague marketing claims of future cool stuff is definitely not "substance" - it is just plain hot air compared what was done to us.) How come a detailed "compensating" presentation of what was to replace the loss of our gaming icons was not immediately ready? A smooth finish to a new beginning would have at least stilled the anger if not the skepticism. If I continue to be a customer of WotC it will always be tainted by this atrocious "gaff".
BTW: I am not fooled by tales of nostagia composed to mollify customers. (I've been to the WotC site to see how things have been spun.) I can see right through that ploy.
This leads me to ask: What "Digital Initiative" could possibly exist of equal or better value than Dragon or Dungeon magazines that would also be equally or more easily accessible to hobbists interested in the material? If the DI is online only - credit card required - many young/budget limited hobbists will be shut out! (If it ain't broke, why fix it? Eh?)
Also: Was any consideration made with respect to how the absence of Dragon and Dungeon would affect FLGS customer draw and retention? Those mags attracted regulars and new hobbists. (I imagine there are plenty FLFS owner's who are upset.) Less people drawn into the stores means a lower sales hit to everything.
Final question: what on earth was WotC thinking turning to online publication considering the fantastic success of big chain bookstores selling hard copy periodicals, novels, etc.? (Clearly hard copy is what the masses want!)
I have reached a point in my life where I am considering packing up the books and the hobby forever in the coming fall. This development seems to be a signal to me to do so.
I wonder if I am alone feeling this way...
PS: I am not opposed to online material in principle that supports a hobby, there is plenty good material "out there"
But I consider digital information of secondary value to hard copy. Nothing beats holding the literature in your hands.
Many good questions from others here on the details, but I must repeat one in my own words that a few others have mentioned and remains on my mind:
How will WotC repair relations with D&D/d20 hobbists considering our righteous anger stirred up by such a grossly mis-managed announcement? Anyone with real marketing savy would agree this was badly handled. I am absolutely flabbergasted that such a bomb was dropped and nothing of substance was immediatedly presented to mute the utterly predictable explosion. (Vague marketing claims of future cool stuff is definitely not "substance" - it is just plain hot air compared what was done to us.) How come a detailed "compensating" presentation of what was to replace the loss of our gaming icons was not immediately ready? A smooth finish to a new beginning would have at least stilled the anger if not the skepticism. If I continue to be a customer of WotC it will always be tainted by this atrocious "gaff".
BTW: I am not fooled by tales of nostagia composed to mollify customers. (I've been to the WotC site to see how things have been spun.) I can see right through that ploy.
This leads me to ask: What "Digital Initiative" could possibly exist of equal or better value than Dragon or Dungeon magazines that would also be equally or more easily accessible to hobbists interested in the material? If the DI is online only - credit card required - many young/budget limited hobbists will be shut out! (If it ain't broke, why fix it? Eh?)
Also: Was any consideration made with respect to how the absence of Dragon and Dungeon would affect FLGS customer draw and retention? Those mags attracted regulars and new hobbists. (I imagine there are plenty FLFS owner's who are upset.) Less people drawn into the stores means a lower sales hit to everything.
Final question: what on earth was WotC thinking turning to online publication considering the fantastic success of big chain bookstores selling hard copy periodicals, novels, etc.? (Clearly hard copy is what the masses want!)
I have reached a point in my life where I am considering packing up the books and the hobby forever in the coming fall. This development seems to be a signal to me to do so.
I wonder if I am alone feeling this way...PS: I am not opposed to online material in principle that supports a hobby, there is plenty good material "out there"
But I consider digital information of secondary value to hard copy. Nothing beats holding the literature in your hands.
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My questions
I'm also totally disappointed by the decision.
Both magazines were good companions since I started D&D two decades ago. I feel also sad for my local retailer, who sold many magazines each month.
OK. My questions:
- I'm from germany. I don't have a credit card. Will I be able to buy online stuff lets say through PayPal?
- I think it's proven that e-content is not useful on the gaming table (while it's useful for archiving and retrival). Do you consider the costs for your customers printing the stuff when calculating the prices?
- I like to have my stuff printed. The current situation ist that I will print your online stuff in medium quality, on ill-suited paper, and have to store the stuff in tons of paperwork. Compared to the smart format of the magazines it's a bad solution. Do you have any ideas on this?
Thanks in advance
I'm also totally disappointed by the decision.
Both magazines were good companions since I started D&D two decades ago. I feel also sad for my local retailer, who sold many magazines each month.
OK. My questions:
- I'm from germany. I don't have a credit card. Will I be able to buy online stuff lets say through PayPal?
- I think it's proven that e-content is not useful on the gaming table (while it's useful for archiving and retrival). Do you consider the costs for your customers printing the stuff when calculating the prices?
- I like to have my stuff printed. The current situation ist that I will print your online stuff in medium quality, on ill-suited paper, and have to store the stuff in tons of paperwork. Compared to the smart format of the magazines it's a bad solution. Do you have any ideas on this?
Thanks in advance
Here's a good question I just thought up but I am sure someone may have asked it already:
Why cancel Dragon and Dungeon for DI when you can have all 3 simultaneously? Why not have DI and continue to let Paizo publish Dragon and Dungeon? What's the problem with us D&D gamers, fans, and such have triple the content for our games?
Why cancel Dragon and Dungeon for DI when you can have all 3 simultaneously? Why not have DI and continue to let Paizo publish Dragon and Dungeon? What's the problem with us D&D gamers, fans, and such have triple the content for our games?
Darrin Drader
Explorer
Brix said:
I have a suggestion.
One of the weaknesses of the monthly printed format is that the material is pretty much fire and forget (unless it happens to get picked up for inclusion in a new book, which is released from WotC on a monthly basis). The material is difficult, of not impossible, to organize and use at the table unless you either want to drag a whole bunch of magazines to the table, or copy it over by hand into your own notes to bring to the table.
One of the advantages of making the content available online instead is that you should be free to copy similar material from a number of "issues," organize them as you see fit, and then bring them to the table as a more cohesive unit rather than a scattered assortment of random stuff.
If you're concerned about printing, there are plenty of online services available that will print your material out with your choice of paper, colors, and binding. If you so choose, you can now compile your own book of monster ecologies, demonology, magic items, etc. etc. Since I'm guessing that WotC will charge a lot less for the monthly online material than the magazines cost, it really wouldn't be much of an investment to do this compared to what you are making now.
Just think of the possibilities of being able to easily distill your own books for your games from the parts of Dragon and/or Dungeon that you like the best. I think that's worthwhile.
Steve Winter (WotC_Huscarl), at the end of January 2007, wrote an article on Contributing Articles for D&D Miniatures.
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=782667
Can we expect something like this for D&D generally? Can we expect community contribution as part of the expected path forward?
Dve
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=782667
Can we expect something like this for D&D generally? Can we expect community contribution as part of the expected path forward?
Dve
Demmero
Explorer
Most of my other questions have already been asked by others, but one big one remains:
Would WotC like to apologize for the sorrow and outrage their announcement and subsequent handling of the backlash has caused?
I'm dead serious--this question has a 0% snark factor. Even their talk about being afraid of being ripped to shreds on these boards intimates that the fans--not WotC--are responsible for all the craziness of the last few days.
I'm not expecting them to reverse their decision (although I'd love to see that); they seem to truly believe that their digital initiative will rock, and perhaps it will. I expect them to stick to their guns and follow through on the path they've chosen.
What I DO want, however, is for them to 'fess up and admit that the way in which they mishandled this fiasco was horrendous. Anything less will leave a sour taste in my mouth.
Would WotC like to apologize for the sorrow and outrage their announcement and subsequent handling of the backlash has caused?
I'm dead serious--this question has a 0% snark factor. Even their talk about being afraid of being ripped to shreds on these boards intimates that the fans--not WotC--are responsible for all the craziness of the last few days.
I'm not expecting them to reverse their decision (although I'd love to see that); they seem to truly believe that their digital initiative will rock, and perhaps it will. I expect them to stick to their guns and follow through on the path they've chosen.
What I DO want, however, is for them to 'fess up and admit that the way in which they mishandled this fiasco was horrendous. Anything less will leave a sour taste in my mouth.
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