Why are there no offical map packs?

[scottchiefbaker]

My party is running through Thunderspire Labyrinth right now. Why are there no official WOTC map packs to buy? We just end up finding them online, printing them out, taping them together. Eats up a lot of paper and ink. Seems like WOTC could very easily print out all the maps and throw them in an "Official H2 Map Pack" and charge $25 for it.

Whatever they would charge would most likely be less money/time than it would cost us to print and put them together. Am I just missing something? Are we the only people that are tired of doing this?

 

[Zaran]

I think they were going to make maps for each module fit into their online gaming table but since that isn't happening they kind of let the idea drop.

This probably fits in with their targetting of all players and not just the GM strategy. The more products that everyone can use the better.

 

[Obryn]

This probably fits in with their targetting of all players and not just the GM strategy. The more products that everyone can use the better.

Seems pretty heavily weighted towards the DM, from where I'm sitting...

For players, we have PHB 1, 2, and 3. Also, 5 Power books to-date and 2 Player's Guides. Oh, and the Tiefling and Dragonborn magazine things.

For DMs, we have 2 DMGs, 3 MMs, 2 campaign guides, Open Grave, Underdark, Astral Sea, Elemental Chaos, Manual of the Planes, Hammerfast, and a boatload of adventures, including several hardcover adventures or adventure collections. And I feel like I might be missing one or two.

-O

 

[Herschel]

They do sell modular map packs to go with any adventure. They're called Dungeon Tiles. (if by chance you are unitiated)

They made a series of adventures with the map packs included in the 3E days and apparently they didn't sell well enough.

 

[Zaran]

Seems pretty heavily weighted towards the DM, from where I'm sitting...

For players, we have PHB 1, 2, and 3. Also, 5 Power books to-date and 2 Player's Guides. Oh, and the Tiefling and Dragonborn magazine things.

For DMs, we have 2 DMGs, 3 MMs, 2 campaign guides, Open Grave, Underdark, Astral Sea, Elemental Chaos, Manual of the Planes, Hammerfast, and a boatload of adventures, including several hardcover adventures or adventure collections. And I feel like I might be missing one or two.

-O

Oh, I don't mean to say that there aren't stuff for just GMs but I feel like they put out the minimum amount for each subject. One GM sourcebook for the entire Forgotten Realms seems a bit small. I'm probably just being bitter though.

Putting out two seperate products for one adventure would be to much effort when it's possible that not even the GM will purchase either one.

 

[DEFCON 1]

My party is running through Thunderspire Labyrinth right now. Why are there no official WOTC map packs to buy? We just end up finding them online, printing them out, taping them together. Eats up a lot of paper and ink. Seems like WOTC could very easily print out all the maps and throw them in an "Official H2 Map Pack" and charge $25 for it.

Whatever they would charge would most likely be less money/time than it would cost us to print and put them together. Am I just missing something? Are we the only people that are tired of doing this?

I think WotC learned this lesson all too well, which is why most Dungeon Magazine adventures tend to have maps made from Dungeon Tiles, so that people can build the dungeons represented (as Herschel said). And Zaran's probably correct in that the expectation at the time of the writing of Keep on the Shadowfell and Thunderspire Labyrynth would be that the Virtual Tabletop would fill the need.

Had they known the VTT was an undertaking they weren't going to be able to complete, I tend to believe the dungeons for those first modules would also have been designed with Dungeon Tiles in mind.

Actually... if you are a Community Supporter here on ENWorld, you might be able to do a Search to see if anybody on the boards ever made a Dungeon Tiles conversion of most sections of Keep and Thunderspire way bakc when. While you wouldn't be able to recreate them exactly, you probably could get pretty close (especially on Keep's first two dungeon levels.)

 

[OnlineDM]

For my own online games of D&D, I'm running the Keep on the Shadowfell. Now, while I prefer using Gametable (now called OSU-gt) to make my own maps, there is a site called the Mad Mapper that has nice scans of the official maps from the KotS with the monsters removed so that you can add them in. They're at this link.

It doesn't look like the Mad Mapper has done the same for Thunderspire Labyrinth, though, which is a shame.