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

[Wicht]

As long as there is a steady stream of content (and I see no evidence that WotC isn't planning on having a steady stream of content) why does it matter if article X is posted 4 days earlier than expected while article Y is postponed for 2 days beyond the original deadline?

Let's say Article A is scheduled for release on Wednesday, Jan 5th, and Article B is scheduled for release on Friday, Jan 7th. You release Article A on January 1st, a Saturday, but Article B is 2 days late and doesn't get released until Sunday, the 9th. This means you have a whole week with no new content. If your goal is to release something each week you have a weeks worth of "dead space."

Besides which, as you acknowledge, Article B makes everyone look bad. Now you can fix this by not having a schedule, but, IMO, that also makes you look unprofessional.

Delaying a release because it was not ready on time is bad. I hope you will agree that releasing a flawed product on time is worse.

Both are unprofessional and therefore undesireable. If I am running a business I would hate to have to keep choosing between 2 bad choices.

They also don't have a year's backlog of material ready in January. And while print magazines may have some content started or outlined a few months in advance, most of that content won't be finished until it's actually being prepared for the current month's release.

What evidence do you have of this? As I mentioned earlier in the thread, KQ sends out the contracts for their articles a couple of months before print and those are generally for articles submitted months earlier. In fact, the article I just had published in KQ 16 had been in their slush pile for about 9 months. Sure, layout is not done that far in advance, but the writing often is.

The difference between online publication and dead tree publication is that once an item transitions from started/outlined to finished for online publication, there is no need to hold it for weeks before publishing it. You can publish it as soon as it is done.

You can do that. But again, it means you will have content coming out at irregular intervals, a greater possibility of stretches with no releases; and if you are behind, everyone will know it too.

Say what you will, I'll continue to think releasing on a preset schedule to be the better way of running a publication, dead tree or electronic.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Ourph, which would you prefer of these options (assuming you didn't know the workings behind the scenes):

1. The articles for D&DI come out on a regular basis...you know when they're coming, and you get a bunch of articles throughout the week, every week.

2. The same quality and number of articles for D&DI come out, but there are very few in the beginning of the month, you usually get none on Monday or Tuesday, get a chunk on Thursday and Friday, and get a really big chunk at the end of the month.


Please pick 1 or 2.



Also, not part of the question, but I'll add that this was the paradigm of Dungeon and Dragon when they first went digital. Additionally, articles at the end of the month were often of lower quality or they didn't come out that month at all, because they did have monthly table of contents, but did go with the "release em when they're done" strategy you advocate.

 

[billd91]

Again, if we're talking about an online e-zine, why wouldn't you release the "complete ahead of time" articles when they are done, instead of sitting on them for days or weeks to stick to an arbitrary release schedule?

That arbitrary schedule is what people are going to use to budget their time, to plan our their work week. If the release team (web engineers, anybody else managing files that get released) is getting their work interrupted every time some content writer gets done with an article and wants to get it out to the fans too irrational to wait for the regularly scheduled weekly updates without throwing a hissy fit, how happy with they be in the workplace? How much of their other work will get done well?

What you seem to keep forgetting is that there are people on the production end of this content you think WotC shouldn't be sitting on. And these people have workloads of stuff to manage, not just distribute whatever is hot off the presses. Schedules are there to manage everybody's work in a reasonable fashion. Electronic publishing means that the deadlines don't have to be nearly as far out as a print magazine, but the flow of the workplace and quality benefit when it's managed smoothly.

 

[Ourph]

You can do that. But again, it means you will have content coming out at irregular intervals, a greater possibility of stretches with no releases; and if you are behind, everyone will know it too.

Say what you will, I'll continue to think releasing on a preset schedule to be the better way of running a publication, dead tree or electronic.

OK. I admit it. You've convinced me. It would definitely be in WotC's best interest and the interest of their DDI customers to slow their schedule for the release of content and sit on completed content in order to give the illusion that articles are never completed earlier or later than their internal deadlines.

Or maybe not.

Ourph, which would you prefer of these options (assuming you didn't know the workings behind the scenes):

1. The articles for D&DI come out on a regular basis...you know when they're coming, and you get a bunch of articles throughout the week, every week.

2. The same quality and number of articles for D&DI come out, but there are very few in the beginning of the month, you usually get none on Monday or Tuesday, get a chunk on Thursday and Friday, and get a really big chunk at the end of the month.


Please pick 1 or 2.

I honestly don't care. I would be quite happy with both. I treat the magazines like magazines and download the compilation when it comes out at the end of the month. I would PREFER that WotC continue to do the compilations so that I can keep doing that. If they choose not to (and I decide to continue my subscription after it runs out in March) I will just download the separate articles at the end of the month and compile them myself.

So the release schedule makes absolutely no difference to me unless they start skipping whole months.

Now that I've answered your question, maybe you'll answer one of mine. Why does someone who hasn't read Dungeon or Dragon for several months care so much about the day-to-day release schedule of that content?

 

[Ourph]

That arbitrary schedule is what people are going to use to budget their time, to plan our their work week. If the release team (web engineers, anybody else managing files that get released) is getting their work interrupted every time some content writer gets done with an article and wants to get it out to the fans too irrational to wait for the regularly scheduled weekly updates without throwing a hissy fit, how happy with they be in the workplace? How much of their other work will get done well?

You are assuming that these policy changes reflect changes to internal scheduling and deadlines. You also seem to assume they reflect some reduction in the amount of supervision and management that the writing and development people will be experiencing.

I think those assumptions aren't very well supported. I suspect they still remain and WotC is just choosing not to publicize them any longer.

 

[billd91]

You are assuming that these policy changes reflect changes to internal scheduling and deadlines. You also seem to assume they reflect some reduction in the amount of supervision and management that the writing and development people will be experiencing.

I think those assumptions aren't very well supported. I suspect they still remain and WotC is just choosing not to publicize them any longer.

You're making a lot of guesses that aren't true. I'm not even trying to make any assumptions about the actual situation at WotC because I really don't care. But I do understand producing content that goes through multiple levels of refinement, quality control, and release and how deadlines facilitate that process even if you do hold onto product a little while to meet an arbitrary release date.

 

[JoeGKushner]

So you would rather they hold to their schedule and put out a bugged CB update that (potentially) will break the CB as opposed to delaying the update to make sure that the bugs are fixed?

I would not.

However, I'm still baffled that they are charging people for this beta release.

How many times will WoTC let deadlines and utility slip without say, lowering the price, or going, "Hey, until we actually have something that works 100% of the time, it's free. We hope you'll stick around after that because we've PROVEN that we can be trusted."

 

[Aberzanzorax]

<snip>

I honestly don't care. I would be quite happy with both. I treat the magazines like magazines and download the compilation when it comes out at the end of the month.
<snip>

Thoughtful response overall, I commend ya.

I see here why it doesn't bug you. You're treating the emagazines more like regular magazines. To each his own, but I think that goes a bit against their whole "digital is better" paradigm of being able to stream content. I mean, heck, they're not compiling anymore, so I believe that their intent is not to make these "magazines" per se that you sit down and read all at once (which, I confess, is what I prefer as well), but more of an experience of article based content.

Now that I've answered your question, maybe you'll answer one of mine. Why does someone who hasn't read Dungeon or Dragon for several months care so much about the day-to-day release schedule of that content?

Ya know, I actually held off on answering your post for a while because I'm not entirely sure of the answer to this myself. I'll list some elements:

1. Originally I really loved Dungon and Dragon. It saddened me that they moved them to digital, slightly, but what made me very upset was how spotty their quality and quantity were originally. I fought hard on their forums to pressure them to improve this.

2. At that time I fully intended to make the switch to 4e. I wanted them to be putting out quality resources for my game.

3. In general, I began to adopt a bit of a watchdog stance toward the company as I noticed more an more of a "say one thing but do another" including the release of 4e without any of the digital products (and again pulled teeth from WotC to find out when the hell they were coming out).

4. I still care about the game, I have friends who play 4e (and when I fly out to see them, we play that game and use this content).

5. I look to the future of D&D, and worry about its stewardship. (I think this may be one of the biggest components, by the way.) I'm not just talking about 5e and beyond as editions (or the whole, maybe I'll prefer the next edition and can help steer it in that direction paradigm). I'm talking about the general health of D&D as well as keeping WotC accountable. In essence, I post because I don't want 4e fans (or any D&D fans) to be suckered or to roll over and take it when WotC is less than honest with them.

6. So, riffing off of point "5", it's the whole conglomerate of WotC snafus, backpedaling, lack of communication, inaccurate communication, etc (not doing a good job with Dungeon and Dragon magazines, pulling all PDFs, not having digital products at the release of 4e, not having several digital products STILL) that concerns me, not just the magazines.


But, you may ask, "Ok, it's not just the magazines, why do you care about WotC at all? You don't really play 4e?"


I guess my simplest answer to that is that I play D&D, they are its sheperds, and they're losing their flock.

 

[Umbran]

However, I'm still baffled that they are charging people for this beta release.

They are charging for a suite of content, of which the beta release is only one element.

How many times will WoTC let deadlines and utility slip without say, lowering the price, or going, "Hey, until we actually have something that works 100% of the time, it's free. We hope you'll stick around after that because we've PROVEN that we can be trusted."

Given that pretty much no software works 100% of the time, and that some folks will never trust them, no matter how good their performance? Never.

The real answer is, "How many times will WotC let deadlines slip, etc, without the subscribers canceling in notable numbers?"