I am doing this as my final farewell after reading and pondering Ken Troops amazingly backhanded post about the months long delay on the virtual table top and how this was well known but never announced until after, of course, the sales of the 4th edition books.
The entire reason I purchased 4th edition was to play online with my many, many friends scattered across the country.
I've been a loyal customer of both TSR and later Wizards, a customer of this product line spanning back to the white box set in the 1970's. I personally own a collect of probably four hundred different titles and that does not even begin to touch purchases of magic cards or figures, star wars and other game books also sold by Wizards.
I am sorry to say that I am so totally offended that I do not plan to purchase any future card product, figure, book or anything bearing the Wizard or Hasbro logo. I have kids and this means I am not going to purchase for them any kid oriented toys or board games produced by Hasbro or any of its affiliates.
I will be following this up with a letter of complaint to both the executives at Wizards and Hasbro regarding the absolutely poor practice of using the virtual table as a sales tool for the book line and then failing to update the customers and public about an obvious and known total failure to bring the product out on time.
When are other customers going to wake up and stop allowing the corporation to take your money and then fail to deliver on major pieces of the product line. When are other customers going to wake up and when they read a senior executive write publically that if a months late virtual table top means that many customers go away then...oh well. So be it. You have a nice game book we sold you so be happy. Pay no attention to the fact that you purchased said book so you could use the virtual game table when in fact there is none available nor will there be any available any time soon...perhaps not for many months.
So Wizards...yep they are nice...but you know what. You can KEEP them, you like them so much. I mean don't knock yourself guys if its so hard. Seriously. Yes there are other games out there and other game companies and despite being a loyal fan for thirty years I've darn well had enough of all this nonsense.
The really, really sad thing about all this is that I had thought for years that I would go to my grave as a fan and customer of dungeons and dragons. I mean its been my roots and my major hobby for a lifetime. It is a really significantly sad thing for me to have to say, hey...I get the message. You guys can't be bothered...you have big plans. I as a long standing customer do not fit into those big plans.
All it would take was for Ken Troop and his crew to have posted a clear announcement about the delay on the virtual table prior to the release date on the game books to have kept me as a customer. That is it. Just a little honesty. Other companies practice it all the time.
Instead I had to go to my friends and apologize to them. Yes apologize to them because I was the one banging the drum for 4th edition based on a combination of the books and virtual table top. Without the table the books are totally useless to all of us as we all live in different regions of the nation.
Now I have explain to them...that Ken's project is months and months and months late. By the time the table comes out I can tell you my friends and I will be world weary with waiting around and have plenty else to do with our lives. I'm done. Thank god there are so many other little table top games out there worthy of playing.
So here come my books Ken. Consider them a friendly parting gift, one long time gamer to another. A sort of momento of my 30 years as a loyal customer being ganked successfully.
However, as is customary for these sorts of "I'm leaving and I'll never be back!" sort of posts, which I am very used to seeing on various MMO boards, I must ask the obligitory question:
Can I have your stuff?
You do know that different internal teams work for different subsidiaries, don't you? Wizards might be owned by Hasbro but that doesn't mean Hasbro was fully aware of the ramifications of this past weekend. I would rethink your hotblooded rage, if I were you.
And I KNOW for a fact the wizards staff wont give two pieces of crap about losing you as a customer but ME as a fellow dissapointed player, "I" appreciate what you are doing.
I sell D&D books out of my video rental/hobby shop and I told my friends and customers about the table top and all these great features, and i PERSONALLY look like an ******* now... these people they go on the site and we ALL feel like idiots. we were all treated like idiots after spending hundreds of dollars. I sold over 15 PHBs and many gift sets. well over 1000 retail. Some would have bought regardless of online, some bought out of hype. the bottom line is every one of them was screwed by this company. Its a joke and I wish wizards would give D&D to someone else for the sake of the fans, someone more interested in the game than in money grabbing at the expense of anyone
above poster - D&D is a multi million dollar franchise with recent movies attached to it, and a HUGE money franchise do you really think Hasbro is not interested in overseeing it?
Point is the lack of honesty, which is worse than anything.
That seems like a bit of an overreaction. Yes, Wizards dropped the ball horribly, and this is one of the biggest PR disasters ever (or at least has the potential to be), but boycotting all the way up to Hasbro? Really?
You do know that different internal teams work for different subsidiaries, don't you? Wizards might be owned by Hasbro but that doesn't mean Hasbro was fully aware of the ramifications of this past weekend. I would rethink your hotblooded rage, if I were you.
Why not boycott up to Hasbro? They own WoTC.
Anyway, lets let people make their points without undeserving criticism.
I Applaud the OP for DOING SOMETHING. I encourage others. I have posted the email of a wired reported on the "Get the Word Out" Thread if you want someone to email.
The important thing is that we stop complaining about it in the bubble of the forums and make sure that other people outise hear about it and some attention from some sort of media gets turned on WotC.
Cheers!
I know this is probably the same feeling many people amy have, buying the books in hope for playing right away.
Good luck to you. Don't forget there is othe VTTs out there.
That being said i fail to see what the announcement comming after the rollout, has to do with anything.
The fact of the matter is that a HUGE proportion of people bought into the physical 4E products offered by Wizards BECAUSE THE TOOLS WERE PROMISED TO BE READY AT RELEASE. Do you understand that? Is that idea getting through?
Sure, we're all now bummed and wish it wasn't as it is, but what the hell, we're all (mostly) adults and we're accustomed to disappointment. But with regard to being misled by a marketing campaign and shelling out cash for books when we fully expected to be able to subscribe to (and pay for) the D&Di tools at the same time? To be lied to and for the company to STILL (as of this posting) to say NOTHING publicly to let people know they messed up? Oh no, I don't think so. **** no. Disappointment is one thing. Taking my money on a promise and then flipping me the bird is another whole animal.
Do you now understand why so many people are ******?
Blackflagon
[i]The fact of the matter is that a HUGE proportion of people bought into the physical 4E products offered by Wizards BECAUSE THE TOOLS WERE PROMISED TO BE READY AT RELEASE. Do you understand that? Is that idea getting through?
you are not paying attention. I get that people THOUGHT that you had to buy the phisical product in order to use the online features. This is because these people were not paying attention. They were never told that this would be the case. These people stupidly bought something without looking at it first. that is their fault., not that of WoTC.
Yes the compendium and the magazines were promised at the release (they clearly stated that the other features would come later, in ampersand). But it was repeatedly stated that this was not connected the sails of the books.
people got screwed by their own ignorance, NOT WoTC.
The DDI Rules compendium will not be a complete set of the rules like the 3.x SRD. in another thread it was stated that the rules for combat will not be included explicitly. It has also been stated that the Virtual Game Table will not automate the game for you. The DM will still have to figure damage and whatnot when a PC hits a creature.
From everything I have been able to sift from these forums over the past three days (and check my posts I have been here alot in the past three days) DDI is there in ADDITION to the books. Everything i have seen regarding DDI says you will need the books to be able to play. You will need to the books to know how combat works. You will need the books as a DM to create adventures. You will need the books for lots of things that are not simple stat block explanations of the rules.
I also think it is rather dismissive and quite rude of you to laugh off the outrage of all of these people as "their own fault" when Ken has admitted that WotC was to blame for poor communication. Don't you think his admission at least indicates in part that WocT screwed something up? They have not really been the kind of company to Mea Culpa in the past even when they have had a good reason. What makes you think they would start now when if they were not at fault?
Cheers!
Read my post again without inserting your own leaps of logic into it.
People were promised the whole package. They wanted to buy books for money. Check. And in so doing, they wanted to buy the online tools, again for money, just like they were told they could. But now that the books are sold, they're just now catching on that the tools they wanted to pay for in conjunction with the books aren't available and will not be for some time.
For many of them it was an all-or-nothing purchase. They would not have bought the physical product without purchasing the promised digital products as well. Many of them (myself included) need the digital products in order to actually play with our gaming groups again due to geographic limitations.
I haven't seen anyone else post that they thought they NEEDED the books to use D&Di. Not anywhere. You're the only one making the leap of logic to that retarded conclusion, not us, my friend.
And to clarify my statement in light of the updated posts... Yes you need the books to play D&D 4E on the Game Table, but you certainly could pay for the D&Di stuff without books and make up your own rules/world/characters, etc. to play in it. The point is that you're not listening and you're stuttering when you repeat yourself. Take a moment to READ what is being said instead of getting your skirt and pom-poms ready.
The lack of automatioon is a feature. not a drawback. it means that a dm could just as easily run a 3.5 campaign, or heaven forbid a competitors game rules on the tabletop.
yes WoTC missed a deadline. and they admited to it. But that's all they did wrong (i admit it is a big mistake though). People paid for books and got books. it has always been know that there would be a seperate fee for the online features.
yes WoTC missed a deadline. and they admited to it. But that's all they did wrong (i admit it is a big mistake though).
Technically my friend if WotC was using DDI as a selling point for the physical media that is the books and knew that the Digital offereings that are DDI would not be ready and they did not do their very best to notify the public then that might not be all they did wrong as far as the Law is concerned.
If there are people who bought books with an implied promise of DDI being functional, a promise which was implied through the promtional material claiming you could go to the site and register for your 10 day free trial; then they were duped into spending money they might not have spent.
WotC KNEW that DDI did not work as their previous promotional material had implied and did NOTHING to inform the GENERAL PUBLIC (general public does not refer to fanboys who would visit the site and ferret out the May ampersand article) that DDI would not meet earlier implied expectations.
THIS is the issue. WotC got people to spend money on books when those people might have waited. Those people plunked down lots of actual dollars for a physical commodity based on implied promises that WotC KNEW it could not deliver on.
Are you starting to see why people are angry now pressurepoint?
Cheers!
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dramp/20080507a
read it. you might learn something. it specifically says that the tabletop will come later. nothing was implied it is all plainly stated in black and white.
that is my whole point. people got screwed because they bought something without doing their homework.
i will concede this. i know that many people do not read ampersand.
that is my whole point. people got screwed because they bought something without doing their homework.
Sounds much less like a concession than like an effort to get in the last word and to insult your fellow players one last time.
I don't get people like you. I'm done with it.
i will concede this. i know that many people do not read ampersand.
that is my whole point. people got screwed because they bought something without doing their homework.
My friend I will attempt this one last time because I am a kind and patient man. The promtional material prior to that ampersand article, which is only dated ONE month ago, all implied the FULL suite of DDI tools would be available on Gameday.
Saying many people do not read ampersand is a gross understatement when you consider how many people did not even know that it existed. WotC had Marketing that was Widely distributed that led people to believe that ALL the DDI stuff would go live on Gameday. They were able to effectively communicate that message as evidenced by the number of people who bought the books with that in mind. Therefore they should have ALSO been able to effectively comminicate to JUST AS WIDE AN AUDIENCE that that would not be the case. The ONLY mention prior to Gameday that DDI would not include all the tools was the ampersand article. If WotC thought DDI was imprtant enough to Distribute marketing materials to a WIDE audience to SELL BOOKS then don't you think that they might have considered that they might want to communicate that a main selling point had been modified?
Posting an article on your website compared to the mountains of marketing material and blaming it on people not doing their homework is a specious argument my friend. If it was important enough to get the word out to sell the books in the FIRST PLACE then it was important enough to inform potential customers when that selling pint had significantly changed.
If even this is not sufficient to convince you I am afraid I can do none better and I yeild to stubbornness.
Cheers!
Didn't anyone buy the books just because they wanted to play? I can't believe that the gaming community has fallen apart that much, there has to be something else going on here.
Now, for Hasbro this is such a minor topic, as this is not a flagship line for Hasbro, that in terms of the overall, they very likely simply do not care. This may be something of a minor disaster for WotC though...and I for one hope that it will be. They were EXTREMELY misleading, purposely I believe, on a number of fronts, with fourth edition, and perhaps this time it will come home to roost for them in court. Maybe this time they will be forced to live up to their actions. I'd like to see that.
I would loose no sleep whatever to see fifth edition D&D, when it comes, no longer under either the WotC or the Hasbro labels. Indeed, with the many thousands of dollars (more than ten thousand all totaled I think) that I have spent on D&D products in the past 30+ years I can state unequivocally, that I doubt sorely that I would even consider buying anything further in the D&D line again, unless the parent companies change.
And THAT is a sad statement. And seeing it reproduced so often and in so many forums across the internet by so many long and loyal supporters of the line makes me wonder...have they finally cut their own throats? Hasbro is a major corporation and won't be in the least impacted by this. WotC is not however and this industry is still, whatever we'd like to think of it, still in large part a cottage industry, so this could be very bad for IT as a whole as well...
... and THAT is even sadder.
Isshia
the release of the compendium is late but the other programs were never promised at the release. People somehow got this weird idea that everything would be ready right away, but no one ever told them that.
I'm pretty sure that Wizards had said in the past (through articles on this site and through their various videos on Youtube) that D&Di would go live with the launch of 4e, this mystical "somehow" you are referring to, is WotC marketing.
You cant go around promoting a product and giving an exact date for its launch and then run off and print an article in the timbuktoo times stating that perhaps your launch date isnt quite correct and then point the finger of blame at the customer when they go out and buy your product and are disappointed to find out its not what they were expecting (or at least one that is pretty much tied into the one you were promoting)
that is my whole point. people got screwed because they bought something without doing their homework.
Congratulations! You have won the job of Director of Marketing at WOTC! You start Monday! :D
The software concept is not rocket science. It may not be as pretty as what DDI was supposed to be but it would work. I know I'd like to start playing online myself, my gaming group and I meet once a month or so. And that sucks!
The books went to the printer in mid-march, so they still had two and a half months to get everything ready for D&Di. From what I've seen in video's and such is that they have working applications, they've even demoed them last Saturday. So at the time the books, posters, and pamphlets were being printed, they probably believed the tools would be ready. What happened a month ago to make them say that the tools would not be available? I have no idea. Am I surprised? Not one bit, look at the other WotC digital initiatives that have been provided over the years. Thus far I have been unimpressed with the tools and applications that have been provided in the past. Why haven't they put what they have up in an Alpha? I have no idea.
Noooo, not you, Blackflagon. Someone else in this thread who thinks I'm a "jack ass" or, rather, found that was the only retort left to them. We cool, no offense taken, no apologies required.
Sweet!
WotC knows how many people read those articles because they run the website and have the metrics. It should have been fairly obvious that only a fraction of the community reads those articles.
What would have represented due diligence to me would have been the following;
1.) Call all retail locations hosting the game day event and tell them not to distribute the two DDI fliers.
2.) Post something large on the front pages of all D&D related websites operated by WotC.
3.) Instruct one of the community reps to make a stickied post about it in the 4th ed forums.
4.) Have Ken Troop call me to let me know that it isn't ready and have him personally give me a back rub while apologizing continually.
(ok, satire people)
This would have been a good start but all we got was one sentence in one article.
BTW, Can I have a job at the WotC Public Realtions department? In the five minutes it took me to conceptualize the message and post it I out performed your entire PR department and would have saved Ken Troop the trouble of having to make a post.
Not only that, Wave, but you would have saved them the literally tens of thousands of dollars in initial sales that are being returned, PLUS the income from many of those potential customers subscribing to D&Di, whatever the pricing scheme ends up to be. You would have saved them innumerable dollars in customer loyalty for years to come. You would have saved them much, much more than you give yourself credit for.
We all would have.
Why?
Because we understand how it feels to be on THIS side of the corporate shilling vs. customer sentiment equation. But hey, what the heck. We're just the small, rabid fan base. They'll still make lots of money on the other players in time. After all, that's what it's all about anymore at WotC. Money. Or at least it seems that way these days. I remember when they embodied a passionate love for our hobbies just like we do and they had this air about them that didn't reek of corporate greed. Now we're all disillusioned and the dream is over. Was it real to begin with? Hmm....
our clerics dad is a lawyer and we took our case to him as we believed the hype stirred up by WotC about the online tools, and still further the rumours they seeded and left to bloom in their forums was false advertising on a massive and blatant level. and you know what under australian law it is, even if they clear themselves of directly misleading the fact that they milked the chat rooms is cause to plea indirect and negligent false advertising.
so now i've got a $50 book of no use and our local DnD supply store owner was left holding his **** for recommending it to our DM and subsiquently us. Shame on you WotC
i will concede this. i know that many people do not read ampersand.
that is my whole point. people got screwed because they bought something without doing their homework.
No, people got screwed because they listened to Wizard's Multi-million dollar marketing campaign and strategy which emphasized the importance of D&Di as part of 'The 4e Experience". EVERYTHING out there -- including the last page in the bloody books -- advertises the D&DI product. There is nothing to indicate that it's not available as of now, and, for a while, it was impossible to tell via the main website that it wasn't actually out, and that there's no actual release date for anything.
So, they had this massive marketing campaign rolling, talking about D&DI, and then ... a dinky little post that, because of the spectacularly crappy design of the website, you have to dig for to find, to let us know that, no, D&DI is currently AWOL. And then we get backhanded apologies about it, well after the fact.
So at the time the books, posters, and pamphlets were being printed, they probably believed the tools would be ready. What happened a month ago to make them say that the tools would not be available? I have no idea. Am I surprised? Not one bit, look at the other WotC digital initiatives that have been provided over the years. Thus far I have been unimpressed with the tools and applications that have been provided in the past. Why haven't they put what they have up in an Alpha? I have no idea.
I don't want to jump on you, but, frankly, the least they could have done -- and something which, I think, would have satisfied due diligence requirements, would be to post a bold statement on the website and include and apologetic insert in all of the 4e books. That would've been simple -- ship the books with a box of inserts. Additional cost? Maybe $0.05-0.10 per book for printing and shipping -- the handling part in this case is offloaded to the booksellers.
This ... debacle of a roll-out has, in my opinion (though IANAL,) left the company open to legal action, even a class-action lawsuit. It's simply been handled that badly. It has cost the company much good will, and has overshadowed what I think, frankly, is a massive improvement in various aspects of the game system. What could have been a gold mine for WotC has turned into a vicious tar-pit, and the buffoons in charge seem to have no idea how to run damage control.