You've got to be kidding me...

[Vigwyn the Unruly]

Ooooh, the year is wrong. Ooooh, the world is ending. WotC is horrible because its the first month of 2005 and they got one little number wrong. Who the heck DOESN'T mess that up at least once or twice?!

The problem isn't the date. That's merely the icing on the cake. The problem is the consistently very poor editing/proofreading coming out of WotC these days. Witness, 50 monsters needed errata in this book alone.

As was said in the other thread about this...at least they RELEASE errata. And as was also said, the editors do NOT edit stat blocks. The actual designers do that part. It seems that no matter what, WotC will always get held to an unachievable high standard and then complained at for never reaching it.

Releasing errata does not absolve a company from the responsibility to put out high-quality work.

If the designers are editing the stat blocks, WotC should pay someone to actually check them.

The standard is not unachievable. John Cooper here does it time after time.

One or two errors is no big deal. Fifty is a big deal.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

And as was also said, the editors do NOT edit stat blocks. The actual designers do that part.

And that's a policy that needs to be seriously reevaluated. It's like releasing a math textbook that's only been checked for grammar, punctuation and spelling errors.

 

[Vigwyn the Unruly]

I'm heartened that WoTC actually swollowed their pride and published that errata. That had to be embarrasing.

Yes, I agree. That is certainly a positive, and I have to give them kudos for it.

By the way, lest anyone think I hate WotC, let me point out that MM3 is one of my favorite books, and I wrote a glowing review for it right here on ENWorld.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Releasing errata does not absolve a company from the responsibility to put out high-quality work.

Never said it does, but at least they admit to making mistakes. There are some companies that don't.

If the designers are editing the stat blocks, WotC should pay someone to actually check them.

How do you know they DON'T check them? Most of the mistakes that are found are tiny little one number off type of mistakes.

The standard is not unachievable. John Cooper here does it time after time.

There IS a difference between simply finding errors and designing/checking math/rechecking/etc. A big difference.

One or two errors is no big deal. Fifty is a big deal.

But how many of those errors would really effect gameplay? How many DMs or players are going to notice that the Jump for monster X is one off? Heck, even if the AC is one off, people aren't going to notice usually. The average gamer does not go through checking and rechecking the numbers. They play the game as is...and small errors like John Cooper finds are NOT going to drastically change or ruin the experience for anyone.

That doesn't mean I don't like what John Cooper does. I like the errata, and I'm glad he does what he does in his reviews, but that does NOT make it a big deal. Everyone is going to make mistakes. Everyone. You can check and check and check, but there is NEVER going to be a 100% promise of catching everything, especially when it comes to how complicated stat blocks can get.

 

[alsih2o]

Ooooh, the year is wrong. Ooooh, the world is ending. WotC is horrible because its the first month of 2005 and they got one little number wrong. Who the heck DOESN'T mess that up at least once or twice?!

As was said in the other thread about this...at least they RELEASE errata. And as was also said, the editors do NOT edit stat blocks. The actual designers do that part. It seems that no matter what, WotC will always get held to an unachievable high standard and then complained at for never reaching it.

With the errata out doesn't it seem like an ACHIEVABLE standard?

When a member of the boards finds so many mistakes doesn't it seem achievabke then?

Do you really find printing a book of rules wihtout 3 pages of errata unachievable?

 

[JustKim]

First it was chastising WotC for errors that directly affect gameplay. I can understand that, early in 3E there were some burning issues that somtimes hindered our ability to play the game.

As things got better, people still berated WotC for inconsistancies that should otherwise have been obvious. Okay, I can still understand that, maybe some people can't empathize as well with the spirit of the rules.

Recently as WotC has worked harder to unify and streamline the rules and reduce errors and inconsistancies (Even as people criticize that, too, as turning D&D into Magic), we have people such as John Cooper who pour over stat blocks and bring every tiny error to everyone's attention to make WotC's editing seem worse. I stopped caring at this point.

Now we have someone complaining about the file name of the errata file, something which could not conceivably under any stretch of the imagination affect gameplay or anything other than where the file appears alphabetically.

I suspect this all has very little to do with WotC's actual competence and everything with people's willingness to find fault in big companies such as WotC. No matter how the material evolves, the complaints don't stop- they just become more petty.

 

[Psychic Warrior]

Yes, I agree. That is certainly a positive, and I have to give them kudos for it.

By the way, lest anyone think I hate WotC, let me point out that MM3 is one of my favorite books, and I wrote a glowing review for it right here on ENWorld.

So the errors weren't that important then? (Since they didn't keep you from enjoying the book that is)

I don't know if I have ever even used errata. Its nice, I guess, but were the errors really so bad as to ruib the book?

 

[Treebore]

So the errors weren't that important then? (Since they didn't keep you from enjoying the book that is)

I don't know if I have ever even used errata. Its nice, I guess, but were the errors really so bad as to ruib the book?

90% of the time, no it hasn't. Even less so since 3.5. In fact I cannot think of a single errata correction that "fixed" anything that was broken. I am also not one to memorize everything either.

Plus when I bought and went through MM3 I thought there were no errors, other than a typo or two.

I downloaded the errata and prepared to enter them into my book. When I saw how extensive, and ultimately unimportant most of the errata was, I quit doing them.


The mistakes in 3.0 really ticked me off. These are nothing compared to those. I'll elevate my heart rate over something important.

 

[Vigwyn the Unruly]

First it was chastising WotC for errors that directly affect gameplay.

Every single little number directly affects gameplay. If a number is off by just 1, that changes the outcome of one attack/save/skill check/etc. for every twenty rolled. If it's off by 2, then fully 10% of all rolls related to that number will result in an incorrect outcome.

If you fail a saving throw by 1 and get paralyzed, then later find out that the DC was 1 too high, would you still say that game play was not directly affected?

 

[Vigwyn the Unruly]

So the errors weren't that important then? (Since they didn't keep you from enjoying the book that is)

Oh, I definitely enjoyed the book. I read it from cover to cover, and am using the monsters in it.

But, I did not enjoy the book as much as I would have if I didn't have to worry about the errors. And the fact that these errors seem to be getting more common instead of less (hopefully the new developer will help with that) is exasperating. I am much less likely to buy the next book when the current book exasperates me.

MM3 is an example of the best of WotC and the worst of WotC. It is beautifully illustrated and solidly built. The monsters in it are fantastically imaginitive and fun to play with. But if a PC gets killed by one of them, I'd like to be able to say hey, those are the rules, with some confidence that the monsters really were written according to the rules.

That's what I want for my $35, and it's not too much to ask for.