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

[Corinth]

I think that's a completely wrong impression you have there. White Wolf is getting rid of nearly all d20 product lines. Arthaus (White Wolf's 'special project' publisher) has just started to publish "The Secret of Zir'An'", which is non-d20 and not subject to a license fee. They will also publish the 5th edition of "Pendragon" later this year. I think they just exchanged the horses in order to get more profitable .

WWGS annouced a few days ago that it shall no longer publish Zir'An due to sales performing well under expectations. The game's creators may continue to seek publication on their own. Pendragon v5, or an update about it, should be released at GenCon this weekend. However, their similiar relationship with Necromancer Games and Malhavoc Press shall continue.

 

[Turjan]

WWGS annouced a few days ago that it shall no longer publish Zir'An due to sales performing well under expectations. The game's creators may continue to seek publication on their own. Pendragon v5, or an update about it, should be released at GenCon this weekend. However, their similiar relationship with Necromancer Games and Malhavoc Press shall continue.

Thanks for the heads up . Isn't the situation of Necromancer Games and Malhavoc Press a bit different? Both companies do some of the publishing process themselves, they just use the Sword & Sorcery imprint (not to confuse mit Sword & Sorcery Studios) as a print outlet. 'Secret of Zir'An' is a game by Paragon Games, with Arthaus as publisher up to now and Sword & Sorcery as imprint label, i.e., one level more.

 

[DaveMage]

I think WotC does a great job overall.

They've done a few things lately that have really impressed me:

#1: They listened to fans who asked for Large Uncommons in their miniatures. With the Angelfire set, many of the large uncommons (IMO) were better than the rares. They didn't have to do it, but they did. As an RPG-only user of the minis, I wish there were more monsters than PC-types, but overall I have to say that they do a pretty good job.

#2: They donated several books to d20 Magazine Rack for the fund drive. They didn't have to that. They really didn't have to care at all. But they did.

#3: Maintained full color artwork and high production values. Every RPG supplement from them looks great (IMO). No other publisher that I know of comes close to them on a consistent basis with regard to production values. (There have been a couple one-shots from others that are very nice, but no one else that I've seen continually releases D&D/d20 products in full color with great art like they do.)

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I neither love nor hate WotC - when they have a product that I like I buy it. Unfortunately I do not much love most of their products.

That said, I had no big problem with 3.5, and agree with most (though not all by any means) of the changes.

I tend to buy what I see as the more reasonable choices - I do not like some of the wilder stuff in a lot of their books, so I do not buy them. I have bought Unearthed Arcana and Heroes of Battle, and have ordered (and am still waiting for) Stormwrack, so I am by no means ignoring them.

The Auld Grump oddly, it was a bad review of Heroes of Battle that led me to the purchase... one man's poison is another's glazed sour cream donut!

 

[Graybeard]

I too do not hate WotC. I own several 3.5 books but only buy what I like and think will use in my game. Lately, however, that has not been much beyond the Complete series. I did not like the Races series of books and although I found some interesting stuff in Sandstorm and Frostburn, I felt there was not enough of interest to convince me to buy them. I know some people that have lots of expendable cash and will buy anything that comes out from certain publishers but with a house and family, that leaves only the occasional RPG purchase. Lately, I have found many intersting, and cheaper, PDFs to buy. I get only the ones that interest me without having lots of extra stuff in a $35+ hardcover that I will never use. The DMG II falls into that category. I do not need all the world building stuff that was in it and there was very little else of interest in it for me. For other people, I'm sure it contains plenty of interesting stuff. I do not hate any particular publisher (or retail store for that matter). If there is a product I am interested in, I will buy it. It doesn't matter to me who makes it.

 

[VirgilCaine]

[Rant]
It all comes down to 3.5 for me. I thought that 3.5 was too soon and completely unnecessary. Besides, being unnecessary, all the revisions IMHO were definately for the worse. Useful spells were "nerfed", the new weapon size rules were really lame, combat now required a battle mat and miniatures (instead of being optional). To this day, both me and my gaming group refuse to play 3.5.

The second thing that turned me against WotC was their attempt to integrate a collectable miniature wargame into D&D. I've never been a big fan of "collectable" anything, but I hate the idea of trying to turn D&D into Mage Knight. If I wanted to play Mage Knight, I'd play Mage Knight!
[/Rant]

Agreed on both counts. D&D is an RPG and should have non-collectible miniatures. Period. Covering weird characters and non-core monsters (i.e. monsters from non-MM WotC books) in the minis doesn't help either.

 

[Mokona]

I like what WotC's doing. Keep it coming, please (including updates to the SRDs).

And the notion of "collectible" minis, rather than individual offerings, just feels like a bad marketing scheme, rather than anything aimed at helping out the customers.

I hope WotC doesn't listen to the constant complaints like this. Merric's point about miniatures is an important lesson. If WotC made non-random miniatures we'd have about four figures to choose from; an Ogre, an Orc, a Goblin, and a Human.

Instead, because D&D miniatures are random we get ~10 different Kobolds which is exciting to some people (people that aren't me but that's ok ). But I at least appreciate the variety of things that I like that others don't and the variety of beasties that others like that I don't. Everyone wins with randomness and everyone loses otherwise. Ebay solves the problem for anyone who only wants Orcs while WotC makes choice available to the rest of us, and you can even get variety in your Orc hordes due to D&D miniature randomness.

 

[Aldarc]

With the exception of a few books, WotC has lost most of my interest. I still highly check up on them and find a good deal of their products useful (Sanstorm, Frostburn, etc.), but unfortunately the rift began to form with D&D 3.5. I am cheap; I don't like buying a set of three books twice. As previously mentioned, 3.5 felt too early at the time, so I was put off from buying them. And since they update the SRD, I have never bothered buying them either.

And it just so happened that at the same time WotC was developing 3.5 with the standard and stale elves, dwarves, and orcs with their warriors, priests, mages, and thieves, Malhavoc Press was developing Arcana Unearthed. Needless to say, I found AU to be far more refreshing than what WotC was offering. Good riddance to Vancian magic. Hello racial levels, ceremonies & rituals, and flavor that permeated through it all. But it was not just Malhavoc. No, no, no. Because you see, Green Ronin had caught my eye earlier with the great masterpiece book called "The Book of the Righteous," which got rid of killable gods and racial pantheons and provided a marvelous example as to how to set up a pantheon.

Then you have the Grim Tales from Bad Axe Games, Midnight from Fantasy Flight, Dragonmech from Goodman Games, and much more that is far more inspiring and original.

 

[Ranger REG]

I felt that 3.5 was a mistake. Like many in the vocal minority, I felt it was indeed a half-a**** edition, not really a full expansion. Some of the rules changes were good, others were bad, many were of no serious consequence. But due to the change a lot of 3.0 material became "outdated". Yet even in the wake of this many of those who love WotC get highly annoyed when talk about 4th edition comes out. Personally, I feel that WotC brought such talk on themselves simply by releasing 3.5.

But 3.5e is not officially dubbed "Revised and Expanded Edition." It's simply a revision over the initial 3.0e.

Granted, they could have made things better like including 2 prestige classes for each base classes for a total of 22 prestige classes (I'm spoiled by the format presented in d20 Modern). I also think they might have thought things through had they delayed the release until Year 5 of 3e (i.e., 2005, this year should have been the Year of Revision).

Now there are other companies out there that I feel are producing new, highly flavourful, and interesting material. WotC, by its very nature, has to play things a bit conservative, not moving away from Vancian magic, the core races, and the rest.

The Vancian magic system has become a signature part of D&D as much as Bugs Bunny for WB cartoons. Personally, it needs to be revised more but that would mean boosting low-level spells and power down high-level spells so that wizards don't start off as weak that relies on fellow fighters and then become all-powerful at level 20. But to make such reform would invite hostilities from hardliners.

 

[Darrin Drader]

No hatred here towards my former employer. Actually much love. Now that I don't get my books for free, I'm more than happy to fork over my hard earned dough to buy the latest books. In the history of 3rd/3.5 edition, there are a total of 2 books I don't have: Races of Eberron and Races of the Wild. I still may pick up Races of Eberron at some point in the future.