Why no love for WotC? (and why now?)

[MerricB]

The problem with randomn miniatures is...well they're random. It really sucks getting another Tordek the Dwarf mini when you're really needing an ogre mini. I've heard people talking about the "secondary market", but has anyone actually looked into it!? I have no desire to spend a huge amount of money outbiding someone on Ebay, then have to spend several more dollars for shipping. Even at my FLGS, which sells individual minis, some "rare" D&D miniatures routinely run up to $15. Granted that I might pay $15 for a nice, large pewter miniature (such as a dragon), but $15 for a cheap plastic, pre-painted mini is absurd.

Yes. Rares can really, really suck when you need them and you don't have them.

However, have you looked at the cost of the common and uncommon minis? That's the other side of the coin. PopularCollections.com has the Skullcrusher Ogre (an uncommon) at us$2.99. That's on the higher side of the uncommon prices.

How much are Reaper Ogres? About $7 or $8 each.

If you don't like buying DDM randomly - and I really don't blame you - investigate Ebay and online stores for the commons and uncommons.

The other side of DDM is trading. If you get rares you don't want, you can trade them. It is amazing what the global online community is doing with that. One of my friends is a student with very limited funds. He's been playing DDM since it came out, but if he's bought much more than 20 boosters over the two years I'd be very surprised.

However, he has five Orc Champions - one of the best rare figures there is for skirmish play. Terribly expensive to buy. How did he get them? He traded for them online with the figures he didn't want.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

One way to 'test' the waters so to speak, would be to release a set of figures that aren't found in the random sets but are filling the void in standard play and see how well it sells. If it sold poorly, would people still feel that WoTC owed it to them to continue making products that didn't sell and were non-random?

The cost of making such a set would probably be too high. Plastics have a very large start-up cost; it is only by making them in bulk that Wizards does so well.

Wizards originally planned two non-random sets, but withdrew them because:
a) they were coming out too late after the sets the minis were drawn from
b) a lack of interest from distributors
c) you could get the component parts online for less than Wizards could make them for (except for the Ogre... and these days Wizards make uncommon Ogres...)

Cheers!

 

[Belen]

The problem with randomn miniatures is...well they're random. It really sucks getting another Tordek the Dwarf mini when you're really needing an ogre mini. I've heard people talking about the "secondary market", but has anyone actually looked into it!? I have no desire to spend a huge amount of money outbiding someone on Ebay, then have to spend several more dollars for shipping. Even at my FLGS, which sells individual minis, some "rare" D&D miniatures routinely run up to $15. Granted that I might pay $15 for a nice, large pewter miniature (such as a dragon), but $15 for a cheap plastic, pre-painted mini is absurd.

As far as variety, Wizards could have solved the problem by doing boxed sets of minis. For example..."set of fighters", containing several fighter minis, "set of wizards", "set of orcs", "set of aberrations", etc.

The secondary market rocks. I never bid on minis on Ebay. I always use the buy it now function. Also, you can buy a complete set of the commons and uncommons for each set. This goes for around $25 on ebay for 40 minis.

As for the rares, if you do not want to buy them, then you can always trade with people at maxminis.

Finally, metal minis suck. If you cannot paint, then you're screwed. I hate to paint. The plastic minis are a godsend for me.

 

[nothing to see here]

Target market? I think the market is too diverse to produce anything other that a "largest minority" sort of target. <shrugs> Glad I don't have a marketing job.

Funny; I always believed that, no matter what their difference of opinion, gamers have more in common with each other (regardless of preferred system of play) than they do with non-gamers. I'd reckon that the biggest challenge WoTC marketers face is increasing the overall size of the gamer market(and, in so doing, ensure that RPG's remain a viable business segment). On every other measurement...from ease of targeting to market share, they seem to already have it fairly good.

 

[Altalazar]

I like Wizards. I think they are doing a far better job than TSR ultimately did. What a disaster that was.

I like the books, though to be fair, I haven't had much time to peruse them. I get 3rd party stuff that interests me as well, though not very much of it thus far.

In retrospect, I'm glad they did 3.5 when they did. I think it probably did need some tweaking, and ultimately, I think sooner rather than later worked out for the best. Tell me - how many of you would be screaming bloody murder if 3.5 was released now, invalidating a few dozen expensive hardcover books rather than a handful of soft cover supplements? I like to look at my library of D&D books and know that almost all of them are directly set for 3.5. I'd be pissed if they changed it now, actually. In retrospect, if they were going to do it, I'd rather it be sooner, than later.

 

[SBMC]

No conspiracy here . Companies had to enter the competition in order to get nominated. WotC chose not to do so.

That is something that needs front page RPG exposure - a lort of folks I talked to in person and on the net that follow the Ennies were really weirded out/concerned/angered/confused as to why WoTC had nothing in there - considering they are the gods of creation of current day gaming.

 

[Maggan]

And slightly on-topic

That is something that needs front page RPG exposure - a lort of folks I talked to in person and on the net that follow the Ennies were really weirded out/concerned/angered/confused as to why WoTC had nothing in there - considering they are the gods of creation of current day gaming.

I am also sure that there are those who took the non-appearence as proof of WotC:s great suckitude, and had much enjoyment out of the fact.

"Their books suck! Why, they weren't even nominated for a single Ennie! That's proooooooof, I tell you!"

Actually, I think WotC gets a lot of love, and not as much hate as before. Much of the uproar caused by 3.5, and the fears of 4e, and fears that WotC would totally sue everyone over d20, and the upset about people being let go from RPG R&D, and all that, have as far as I can see sort of dropped to a low grumbling from largely the same people who often can't abide with anything WotC does (I'm partly thinking about the "I haven't looked at anything WotC has done since 3.0/3.5/aquiring TSR/DDM/et al, but it all sucks!" crowd, but also the "d20 will ruin everything" gang).

Sure, people aren't always as exstatic as during the early years of d20, but hey, it's been five years, it's tough to be giddy with excitement over one single system for that long.

Cheers!

/M

 

[diaglo]

Sure, people aren't always as exstatic as during the early years of d20, but hey, it's been five years, it's tough to be giddy with excitement over one single system for that long.

i beg to differ.

diaglo "still giddy about OD&D(1974)" Ooi

 

[Gundark]

I thing that some of the claims about typos being the reason that there is WoTC hate is lame. The IKCG was FULL of typos (maybe not more than other products, but definetly more apparent) and people recieved that book and raved over it. While I love the setting the IKCG really could have been done better. With all the delays I was expecting a pretty polished book. Oh yeah and I have no hate for WoTC, the only company that I hate is Palladium.

 

[Pants]

I thing that some of the claims about typos being the reason that there is WoTC hate is lame. The IKCG was FULL of typos (maybe not more than other products, but definetly more apparent) and people recieved that book and raved over it. While I love the setting the IKCG really could have been done better. With all the delays I was expecting a pretty polished book. Oh yeah and I have no hate for WoTC, the only company that I hate is Palladium.

I've been saying this for a looong time. It seems that sometimes people are willing to turn their heads and look away when their favorite company puts out a poorly edited product.

WotC and Privateer Press are probably my favorite companies out there now (they produce material that I like), but I won't hesitate to blast them for poor editing or questionable mechanics. The Monsternomicon 3.5 has quite a few rules flubbs and some grammatical mistakes and the IKCG has rather nebulous Mechanika rules and those wacky Ogrun stats. WotC put out the MMIII and Libris Mortis, two of the worst edited books I've ever seen, though I think the MMIII is quite good (Libris Mortis is okay), despite the bad editing. Still, whenever I recommend the book I always mention the shoddy editing. I feel that's fair.

As for WotC, IMO they consistently put out fairly good books, unfortunately, they rarely release anything of truly excellent quality (FRCS, Draconomicon, and Expanded Psi Handbook are pretty much their best books). Unfortunatley, it seems all the truly excellent books (as defined by the community) cover subjects that don't interest me in any way.