It may be so that the magazine has maintained the same page count over the last months, but IMO dropped in quality. I'd like to read inspiring articles again...
March, April, and May were all about the same, but they were all still less than what we were getting at the end of last year, with this month being shorter than the last few months. Or at least it appears so article wise.
In total articles or total pages? The latter is what determines the full content of the magazine. There might be some heavier and longer features this month.
The low-point in Dragon was in its first year when there was a few 70-ish page issues and one in the mid 60s. Since then they've hovered nicely around the 80-100 mark.
In total articles or total pages? The latter is what determines the full content of the magazine. There might be some heavier and longer features this month.
The low-point in Dragon was in its first year when there was a few 70-ish page issues and one in the mid 60s. Since then they've hovered nicely around the 80-100 mark.
Looks like this month might set an all time low. I just added up all the page totals for this month so far(Wilden article included because it is "out"), and we have 38 pages of PDFs right now. Add in 4 pages for cover, TC and editorial for 42. Then adding in the average page count for the non-pdf material, 16, from the past four months(384-16, 385-10, 386-13, and 387-24) and you end up with an estimate of 58 pages with one article left to boost it up(so it should break 60, but probably not by much).
March, April, and May were all about the same, but they were all still less than what we were getting at the end of last year, with this month being shorter than the last few months. Or at least it appears so article wise.
In total articles or total pages? The latter is what determines the full content of the magazine. There might be some heavier and longer features this month.
The low-point in Dragon was in its first year when there was a few 70-ish page issues and one in the mid 60s. Since then they've hovered nicely around the 80-100 mark.
Last december's issue was 115 pages, with only 10 pages of columns. November's was 116 pages, with 15 of columns. January was 94, with 13 pages of columns. April's issue was only 85 pages, but only had 9 pages of columns. May's was 93 pages, but had 22 pages of columns. And as Ranadiel said, this month isn't looking like it will be much past 60 pages, and that's counting the columns. That's a significant decrease. This week we've only had 2 dragon articles. It's pretty hard to argue that this is a normal month.
And I held their feet to the fire then. I'm not a fanboy willing to ignore a slight or screw-up.
But I'm also not a rabid WotC hater. They've been good at keeping a consistent amount of material coming.
Honestly, they're allowed to slip one month.
Sometimes the articles in the works just don't work. Someone might have gotten busy and missed their deadline, and an proposal they bought might turn-out to need more work or revising.
Add in the restructuring when everyone is struggling to re-learn their job.
If they have a couple months with low content then it's time to gripe. Or voice displease with your wallet. Really, they're putting out more crunch than will ever been used. A third of feats and a sixth of powers will never see more than isolated use.
Despite being a long-time supporter of DDI, since they switched to the new format of more shorter articles, I have stopped bothering to read them. The only articles I read with regularty are the Alumni and the rare article about a big bad or an adventure setting.
I just don't like the glut of new character content we see every month one bit. I miss they days when Dragon was a place to get inspiration and ideas rather than a constant flood of new feats and powers.
My players complain that making or leveling a character on the CB has become a nightmare with all the extra feats and powers. We will probably switch to rulebooks only for characters.
This isn't a slam on DDI, I love the CB and use the Compendium a lot (until you can apply a template, the MB is largely useless to me), but I think Dragon has taken the wrong path. All too often folks focus on getting more for their money, but I prefer quality over quantity.
In Dragon there are a lot of wasted opportunities for fluff. The Channel Divinity articles could provide great hooks and background on religious churchs, sects or traditions. Articles like Class Acts or Power Play shouldn't go away and they can be crunch heavy, but I'd like to see less of them in favor of more inspiration for my characters (and npcs).
My players complain that making or leveling a character on the CB has become a nightmare with all the extra feats and powers. We will probably switch to rulebooks only for characters.
I have never needed to use it, but you can always set up a campaign in the character builder to be only the rulebooks.
I say Thank God!!
Despite being a long-time supporter of DDI, since they switched to the new format of more shorter articles, I have stopped bothering to read them. The only articles I read with regularty are the Alumni and the rare article about a big bad or an adventure setting.
I just don't like the glut of new character content we see every month one bit. I miss they days when Dragon was a place to get inspiration and ideas rather than a constant flood of new feats and powers.
My players complain that making or leveling a character on the CB has become a nightmare with all the extra feats and powers. We will probably switch to rulebooks only for characters.
This isn't a slam on DDI, I love the CB and use the Compendium a lot (until you can apply a template, the MB is largely useless to me), but I think Dragon has taken the wrong path. All too often folks focus on getting more for their money, but I prefer quality over quantity.
I agree. Remember the old articles featuring new uses for cantrips, or articles talking about different materials for weapons? I do.
I like the power articles, but sometimes they completely drop the ball (im looking at you wizard article with fire powers).
The compiled version of Dragon 388 is up, and it's 66 pages. This ties it for the previously established all-time low of Dragon 370. Put another way, Dragon 387 is nearly 50% larger than Dragon 388. Of the 66 pages, 43 of them are non-columns. So far as I can tell, only one article (Class Acts: Wizards) was written by a freelancer who isn't Robert J. Schwalb.
I'm also a little concerned that July also appears to be significantly lower than what's been established ever since WotC went to the new format. While I suspect part of it has to do with the D&D group's re-organization, and another part to do with convention season, it's disheartening to see such a drastic decrease.
I'm hoping this is just a one off, but I think we are entitled to voice our concerns.
I suppose the articles could have improved in quality, but I don't read them like magaziones anymore (they don't feel like magazines to me, but that is for another thread). I tend to just go back and find what I need when I want it.
So far as I can tell, only one article (Class Acts: Wizards) was written by a freelancer who isn't Robert J. Schwalb.
He is prolific.
Sad how the magazines are so open for everyone to write and add to, and advertised as a place to start out, yet they reserve so much of the content for people they know. But I suppose that's part of WotC's employee strategy. Mass lay-off then you rely on the past employees as freelancers so you don't need to pay benefits or pensions.
This month's drop in article quantity has been dramatic. There are only 7 articles in Dragon which are not columns or previews and 5 non-column articles for Dungeon. Compare to May with 15 non-column articles in Dragon and 9 in Dungeon. That means that content this month has almost halved since then. If there's another month like this, I will definitely not consider it worth the $ to keep up my subscription.
The conspiracy theorist in me does suspect some DDE involvement, similar to the book shortage between 3e and 4e. You don't want to release a whole bunch of new content for what is about to be an out-dated format and style.
In a few months, post-DDE, we might be happy that the content they held back was released with the new design goals in mind. In the meantime, it is hard to delay gratification.
Still, not being a fan of the generic power and race articles (which do little for me, even when they're for the appropriate class and race) I don't mind the change in content. And I like the idea of Big Features in the magazines - even if split-up over a few weeks - like the Psionic Traditions article.
To be honest upfront, my S.O. and I will probably continue paying for DDI as long as we're players and DMs because the tools are so dang useful, but we consider Dragon content (and to a lesser extent, Dungeon content) to be an important part of what we're getting for our money. July's Dragon had eight shortish content articles, plus a short story and the usual columns. That's... less. A lot less. Additionally, many of those were content-light, and some weren't exactly the best material Dragon's seen, to put it delicately. This month's looks like it has ten content articles, assuming that nothing gets cut, plus some more fiction, the usual columns, and some Countdown to Products I'm Going To Buy Anyway. (Regarding the fiction: I don't dislike it, but I can get fantasy fiction anywhere. I can only get official D&D 4e game material in one place.) We're getting only as many - or even fewer - new content articles than was the case when articles were much longer (and denser) on average, and many fewer articles than was the case immediately after the switch to shorter-form articles, which is a pretty disheartening trend.
I mean, I'm paying for this? Really?
I subscribed to DDi for access to the character builder, and to a source of support for my characters through dragon- that means actual viable character options.
As of late, the actual usable content that isn't story fluff has been drastically lowered from the norms I'd come to expect previously, with no apparently awareness on behalf of the staff, or whoever's in charge of content control. While I'm locked in for another year of subscription, I can't help but wonder if it's really worth it, given the sheer level of.... well, unusable material that's showing up in Dragon.
I mean, last month several articles I was looking forward to were delayed or removed, and we got several more articles that weren't really under dragon's stated mandate. While the short stories are nice, they aren't what I'm paying for. Similarly, the various 'here's some dungeon magazine content we're going to put in dragon' seemed kind of off. Dungeon magazine exists for dungeon magazine content- and while some degree of crossover is inevitable, I, personally, don't want to read about how this monster is put together, or how that statblock has been improved in a magazine that is a player resource.
If I want to read dungeon content, I want to read it in Dungeon.
There's also something else that's bugged me lately, and that's the lack of support for races and classes that need support- while articles are limited by their writers, there's been a lot of consistent report for certain races and classes, and a whole lot less for others.
In simple speak: The Assassin and the Changeling need more support. They need a significant amount of more support.
For me the magazines have seemed quite light the last few months. There has also been a significant ammount of Dark Sun preview material thrown into the article count. As the book is essentially out now, that is all but useless content.
It really is a shame they made it so exceedingly difficult to play D&D without the Character Builder and Compendium.
Now the previews that we get are giving out less information than the free previews used to and we're seeing maybe two short dragon articles a week and maybe one dungeon article a week.
Although I agree that we need to see some support for the magazine exclusives.
Little surprised to still see this topic. July's magazine was back to the average page count.
Although I agree that we need to see some support for the magazine exclusives.
Pagecount means nothing when you get five pages of generic, boring fluff (rather then interesting, fun, fluff, which shows up occasionally) and half a page of usable material.
So sure, your magazine might have normal pagecount, but content is still significantly lighter then previous expected installments.
Little surprised to still see this topic. July's magazine was back to the average page count.
Although I agree that we need to see some support for the magazine exclusives.
Pagecount means nothing when you get five pages of generic, boring fluff (rather then interesting, fun, fluff, which shows up occasionally) and half a page of usable material.
So sure, your magazine might have normal pagecount, but content is still significantly lighter then previous expected installments.
It also doesn't count when a full 22 pages are ampersand articles previewing content that will be out in 2 months, and isn't really playable content yet.
Little surprised to still see this topic. July's magazine was back to the average page count.
Although I agree that we need to see some support for the magazine exclusives.
Pagecount means nothing when you get five pages of generic, boring fluff (rather then interesting, fun, fluff, which shows up occasionally) and half a page of usable material.
So sure, your magazine might have normal pagecount, but content is still significantly lighter then previous expected installments.
It also doesn't count when a full 22 pages are ampersand articles previewing content that will be out in 2 months, and isn't really playable content yet.
Then the page counts of the last year of Dragon are much lower then what I was comparing to, as most were padded with PHB3 previews.
I've always thought Previews were lame, but at least the new lame previews are shorter.
- 103 pages total
- 4 pages of cover, TOC, editorial
- 11 pages of a flavor/crunch article on Sorcerer King Pact warlocks in Athas (pretty good)
- 6 pages on a flavor/crunch article on a new theme for Athas
- 2 pages on a crunch article for new Bard Weaplements.
- 4 pages on a flavor/crunch article for a new melee sorcerer build.
- 5 pages on a flavor/crunch article for new Warlord PPs
- 4 pages on a flavor/crunch article for Eladrin
- 4 pages on a flavor/crunch article for Gnomes (a very good one, BTW)
- 3 pages on a flavor article for Drow
- 7 pages on a flavor article for almost anyone
- 4 pages on a flavor article for a new group
- 23 pages on a fiction piece
- 10 pages on previews
- 6 pages on annotated previews
- 3 pages on previews
- 4 pages on Shelly's column, which is mostly about previews
- 3 pages on the alumni article, which is really a preview.
So, to sum up.
- 2 pages of crunch articles
- 34 pages of flavor/crunch articles
- 14 pages of flavor articles
- 23 pages of a piece of fiction
- 26 pages of previews
- 4 pages of "overhead"
The first three categories are what I care about, although I'm not a fan of the "90% flavor" articles. So the crunch and flavor/crunch articles represented 35% of the magazine. Flavor articles represented 13.6% (~50% total.)
Previews represented 25%, and the piece of fiction represented 25%, roughly.
I've turned off auto-renew. I'll pick up one more builder update, then stop paying for a few months. It's not really worth the money to me.
You guys are losing subscribers over this, an official response would have been nice.
Color me concerned again.
kilpatds, thanks for highlighting the preview content so nicely. That has really started to bother me, since it's preview content for books that will be released in 2 to 8 weeks. Most of those pages become redundant the second you purchase the book.
Sbustantial previews for content that is ~8 months out has some value to me, though not as much as new content. Any significant space dedicated to something that is being released soon is purely an advertisement. They may as well make full page adds in the preview's place.
Everything else I agree on.
And 25% is still a bit high for that.
If they turn the UA tag into the "we'll publish more player provided content, and put the stuff that's normal into the builder, but not part of the default campaign setting", and take the opportunity to increase their crunch/flavor publishing rate, then I'll probably resubscribe. But ... at the current rate of "~35 pages you care about" ... ...
PE Sorcerers has been removed from the content calendar. It looks like there are 8 Dragon articles for the month besides the columns, but one of them is the new Unearthed Arcana article, which basically is treated like the old Dragon articles (i.e. not official and usable with the DDI tools). Our next non-column Dragon article besides Curses is set for next Friday, over a week from now.
Color me concerned again.
Consider me equally colored.
If you don't like the new stuff, vote with your wallet. They'll get the hint.
I just deactivated my auto-renew and it is up next month.
Oddly enough, the last few months of hardbound books have been great.
However, if it wasnt for these horrid previews, I might have actually bought Essentials. Heck, I think alot of the anti-essential crowd would have bought it (probably hated it after still, but hey you would have had their money). There and those who would call it 4.5 or a bad idea regardless, but I think these previews have hurt D&D more than helped it.
I didn't mind the PHB3 previews and playtests becasue they were playable. You got to feel special being an insider because you had access to classes and the like before other people did. They were also months in advance.
Here's hoping the new Assassin is better than the old one, and maybe gets some decent support. You'd think being exclusive it'd be DDI's favourite class to add more options to. Instead I think only PHB3 classes have gotten less support, and thats because they are new.