WotC, really? No...really? You can't maintain a publishing schedule?

[Aberzanzorax]

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Starting January 2011, magazine articles will be listed in their appropriate Dragon and Dungeon Table of Contents pages, but articles won’t be pinned to specific dates on the calendar. At the start of each week, we’ll post a news update announcing the magazine content that will appear that week.

A little history. Waaay back in the day, WotC revoked the license for Paizo to publish these magazines. Whatever, it's WotC property and they can do what they like with it. They brought the magazines in house and made them digital. (I suspect everyone reading this knows this bit of history.)

Their initial ramp up was VERY poor to say the least. It seemed as though they did not have a real plan on how to actually go about doing the thing they commited to do (publish these two magazines). Amount of content was poor (less than the content provided by their own free offerings...I have, or had if deleted, a post on their forums that counted the wordcount of the magazines...this is data driven, not idle speculation). The magazines were sparse, and the content leaked out seemingly "whenver the heck it was ready".

This lead to huge swings in content as the magazines got stronger. Some months there were huge while the next month was very sparse and poor. Content might come out on a given day or not...and customer would have to check the site to see if anything came out...often to find nothing.

So, their messageboard community, lead by Mudbunny, the volunteer representative, and myself, to a small degree as one of his news guides to put some pressure on them...asking them to produce the magazines with some professionalism.

Our requests:
1. Let us have the table of contents in advance.
2. Maintain a publishing schedule so people know whether to check for new content or not.

In short, run these magazines like magazines...not like free content they feel like putting out.



I see this recent backpedal to release material off of a real schedule as a way to decrease quality, decrease accountability to customers, and in general offer a sloppier product.

Please, WotC....if you're going to make these magazines...at least do a good job with them.

 

[Shazman]

Since they've laid off so many people in the last few years, they are probably too understaffed to maintain any kind of schedule.

 

[kitsune9]

I agree with Shazman, I think they're running barebones on the staff so they need to free up time toward the regular publishing schedule.

 

[Stormonu]

How well have they been hitting their past deadlines? I seem to recall there would be one or two articles a month that would get their deadline moved about.

It almost seems to me that they've had the same epiphany Blizzard had over the release schedule of its games - "We'll announce it's done when it's done."

 

[deinol]

How well have they been hitting their past deadlines? I seem to recall there would be one or two articles a month that would get their deadline moved about.

It almost seems to me that they've had the same epiphany Blizzard had over the release schedule of its games - "We'll announce it's done when it's done."

Yes, but a DDI subscription is for 2 magazines worth of content per month. Blizzard doesn't charge people for the expansions until they are released. You pay a WoW subscription to maintain access to the existing game.

If I were still a DDI subscriber I'd be upset. But I already dropped my subscription when they stopped supporting the stand-alone character builder.

 

[CleverNickName]

They've pulled resources from current projects, to work on development of a new edition?

I keed, I keed...

 

[Stormonu]

Yes, but a DDI subscription is for 2 magazines worth of content per month. Blizzard doesn't charge people for the expansions until they are released. You pay a WoW subscription to maintain access to the existing game.

If I were still a DDI subscriber I'd be upset. But I already dropped my subscription when they stopped supporting the stand-alone character builder.

Aren't folks still getting the CB and encounter tools too? I'd always thought that WotC itself described the Dungeon and Dragon articles as "bonus add-ons" instead of the primary content for the DDI subscription?

(And I was also talking about that eternal question "When will Diablo III come out?" ...and Starcraft II before that)

 

[shadzar]

I see this recent backpedal to release material off of a real schedule as a way to decrease quality, decrease accountability to customers, and in general offer a sloppier product.

Please, WotC....if you're going to make these magazines...at least do a good job with them.

Did you really expect any different with all the effort put forth to get Gamer_zer0 to do something about this to pass the info along back when DDi was first announced on "GLEEMAX!" and people were trying to work WITH WotC to try to get the ideas for a product the consumer wanted and how long that took and what in turn happened?

You, mudd, and Wolfstar(sp?) had to practically pull teeth to try to get them organized and to understand the quality and level of professionalism that would be minimally required for this endeavor, and they still didnt understand it. They still don't understand it.

I would be les worried about the professionalism of it, and with recent cancellations/delays/what have you of products, and the recent tweet about looking to see why those happened; to find out the state of ALL things they are doing since the quality of products and services of their digital initiative never really got better than "GLEEMAX!".

Weren't you also one of the first fearing that the "magazines" were doomed for being put into the digital initiavtive? Maybe speaking in a helpful manner so that the fears could be realized and steps taken to prevent those fears from coming true, but you were at the forefront of trying to help them, and they only partially listened with Ken Troop/Randy B. running things.

This change will allow us greater flexibility to fully develop and edit articles as needed without requiring last-minute changes to the calendar.

I think this says it all since the articles must be taking a back-seat to something else and cannot get started in time to have them ready and edited to make a proper deadline.

 

[MrMyth]

In short, run these magazines like magazines...not like free content they feel like putting out.

Wait. If they were print magazines, we'd get a compiled issue at the end of each month. We still get that right now - the only issue is with the scheduling of individual articles throughout the month, something that is essentially a benefit over the previous approach.

I mean, honestly, I'd love to see regular daily articles without them ever needing to adjust their schedule. But I understand why it happens, and I understand why they stopped posting the calendar after the unreasonable ultimatums some fans had made on their forums.
I'm... similarly taken aback by some of the claims about the early DDI magazine content. DDI itself had major issues, but the magazines were pretty much their one success. The initial months were free, and I don't recall them being especially sparse or that irregular. You mention some charts showing their wordcount - care to produce the link, just to give us some actual context on that?

Finally... there seems a significant desire to make the issue into something it is not. Sure, it may disappoint some customers when the release day for an article is changed. But associating that with decreasing the quality of the article itself is actually backwards. The main reason articles are shifted, I imagine, is because they are doing more work to avoid releasing an unfinished article.

Now, if you want to complain about the quality of the articles independantly, that's fine. There have been some issues with that in recent months. And it sounds like they are taking steps to address that - the recent delays are apparently tied in with a more serious review process.

And honestly, for myself? If they are going to focus on one issue, I'd rather it was quality over timeliness. We get the same number of articles by the end of the month, either way. I'd rather have them all top quality, rather than have them less polished but always on time.

If they were both, that would be great, and I hope that is what they are working towards. But stuff happens, and I'm happy as long as the final product itself is delivered without a problem - something WotC does indeed manage to do.

 

[LightPhoenix]

In short, run these magazines like magazines...not like free content they feel like putting out.

See, that's exactly what they shouldn't be doing. They're not magazines, they're e-zines. They're not bound by the same limitations and traditions that magazines have. IMO, aside from staffing, I'd say that their insistence on keeping to those magazine tenets is one of the biggest problems with Dragon and Dungeon.