Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Goken100 Jul 19, 2011 6:41:57	Wizards, Thanks for getting the updates to the digital products done not only on time, but a week early.  That's great progress, and kudos are deserved. I'd just like to reiterate how harmful it is to your brand and products that there is a two-month delay between release of magazine content and the release of that content into digital tools.  I encourage you to inspect some of the many games going on in your own message boards (in the PBP Haven, etc).  There is rampant confusion about what new content is available.  And are people actually using content that has been released but isn't in the CB yet?  Almost universally no.  So the only thing that is accomplished by releasing this content before it is ready for the digital products is to muddy the waters of when it is available and legal. My recomendation is to hire some tempt staff to get really caught up with adding content to the digital tools.  That's probably not in the cards because spending more is dirty in the corporate world.  So the only other way to get on pace is to slow down in releasing new content, so that's really what needs to happen until all releases are aligned. Cheers, Goken
#2 Jharii Jul 19, 2011 7:44:42	Why punish non-subscribers by slowing their access to new material? The delay is not a result of not being caught up.  It is reportedly in place as a layer of quality control.
#3 Goken100 Jul 19, 2011 7:57:23	Why punish non-subscribers by slowing their access to new material? The delay is not a result of not being caught up.  It is reportedly in place as a layer of quality control.       Right.  So don't half-release content before quality control is done.  Finish it up, release it on every front.  Then you've got a nice clear signal of new content, making DDi that much more attractive and professional. I suppose another option is to release content as playtests ahead of time.  Then re-release the content as officially legal content a few months later both in an article and in the digital tools.  That solves the problem that we saw with Themes recently.  They just quietly appeared in the CB suddenly.  There was no article, announcement, or anything that said "HEY EVERYONE NOW YOU CAN ACTUALLY USE THOSE THEMES WE SHOWED YOU TWO MONTHS AGO!"   It was much clearer when new Themes were debuted, but many did not use them because they weren't integrated into the way people play yet.  Now they're integrated, but you have to be keeping up with the minutia of updates to even know it.
#4 thespaceinvader Jul 19, 2011 8:15:01	I couldn't agree more.  One of the (many) reasons why I find DDI so unappealing at the moment is the delay between the release of the content, and the availability of the content on the digital tools.
#5 Kalex_the_Omen Jul 19, 2011 8:52:10	So the fact that print products are in the digital tools on release day is trumped by the fact that they are more cautious with the magazine content?
#6 Goken100 Jul 19, 2011 9:16:03	So the fact that print products are in the digital tools on release day is trumped by the fact that they are more cautious with the magazine content? The new simultaneous policy with print products is fantastic, I don't want to down-play it at all.  On the contrary: hooray for that policy, now more please! I don't think it's a matter of caution.  It's that there's enough lead-in time to get the bugs worked out of content for print products due to the built-in delays for publishing.  So I certainly understand the problem that the magazines are facing.  They are desperate to get out as much high-quality content for the magazines as they can, and are already facing a wall of criticism over past delays and dirths of articles.  It's just that the lack of cohesion and professionalism that comes with two release dates is ALSO very harmful to the DDI brand. I'm warming up to the "everything in DDI is a playtest for 2 months" idea.  They've already embraced it with class compendium articles.  Just make it that way for everything.  The only real change that this would cause is that there would have to be a second updated release for each month's content that includes revisions and coincides with the digital release.  In fact, such a second official release might even serve as a compiled product for folks, who have been clamoring so desperately for one.
#7 Mand12 Jul 19, 2011 9:20:03	I'm not clear on why QA can't be done prior to publishing an article in Dragon.  Why does it have to sit on the shelf for a month just so CharOp can pick it apart to find the flaws?  Why can't they be tested and resolved prior to showing up in the table of contents list for the month?
#8 Goken100 Jul 19, 2011 9:31:27	I'm not clear on why QA can't be done prior to publishing an article in Dragon.  Why does it have to sit on the shelf for a month just so CharOp can pick it apart to find the flaws?  Why can't they be tested and resolved prior to showing up in the table of contents list for the month? Mostly conjecture, but I think the article content sits on the shelf not due to rule QA so much as technical development for the digital tools.  Print products are "in the can" in a final version for something like 6 months before their official release as everything gets laid out, printed, bound, and shipped.  Plenty of time to get the bugs worked out for adding to the Compendium, Character Builder, and Monster Builder.  Which is why it was possible to institute simultaneous release. Articles for Dragon and Dungeon?  Judging by anecdotal evidence, the final version of the content has a MUCH smaller wait time.  I'd guess they need a few days to lay it out and add art and such, but even that could theoretically be done at the same time as playtesting and other QA.  So really the final version might not be given to programmers until the week that the article is released. This is not an excuse, just an explanation.  I understand it's a problem.  I'm just saying that it's a problem that CAN be fixed, and one that needs to be fixed.
#9 Kalex_the_Omen Jul 19, 2011 9:46:29	I'm not clear on why QA can't be done prior to publishing an article in Dragon.  Why does it have to sit on the shelf for a month just so CharOp can pick it apart to find the flaws?  Why can't they be tested and resolved prior to showing up in the table of contents list for the month? It is, but I think what people are missing here is this.  When people howl about print material being messed up, you can wait until the next erratta document to see it fixed.  With the magazines it can be fixed within weeks of first "publication" and therefore WotC waits until after that process to push it to the digital tools.  Very reasonable in my opinion and something I'd very much like to see continued exactly as is.
#10 Mand12 Jul 19, 2011 10:07:02	To clarify what I'm not clear on, I don't understand why those post-publication weeks can't get shifted to pre-publication weeks.
#11 Jharii Jul 19, 2011 10:31:36	Very reasonable in my opinion and something I'd very much like to see continued exactly as is. I could see it get narrowed down to a month for items that cut the mustard and the items that don't get extended to the two month time frame.
#12 Mock Jul 19, 2011 10:43:24	To clarify what I'm not clear on, I don't understand why those post-publication weeks can't get shifted to pre-publication weeks. Likewise. It always struck me that if they got ahead of the publication timeline, they'd have that material in on release (or rather, the month of release). Material to be released in November gets finished and vetted by mid October, say. It's obviously not the way they've chosen to do things, but I don't know of any factors that make it simply impossible to do so.
#13 Kalex_the_Omen Jul 19, 2011 16:59:04	To clarify what I'm not clear on, I don't understand why those post-publication weeks can't get shifted to pre-publication weeks. You aren't understanding me.  The public can't make an uproar about something they haven't seen.  The material must be published first, we complain, they change it, and then it goes into the builder.
#14 Kalex_the_Omen Jul 19, 2011 17:00:16	Very reasonable in my opinion and something I'd very much like to see continued exactly as is. I could see it get narrowed down to a month for items that cut the mustard and the items that don't get extended to the two month time frame.  I could agree with this.  We don't know how the data entry works though.  Assuming this is possible I think it is fairly reasonable.
#15 drnick Jul 20, 2011 11:07:41	Why does it have to sit on the shelf for a month just so CharOp can pick it apart to find the flaws? IDK if I had a nickel for every time someone says that WotC should vet their material with CharOp before making it official I'd probably have like 4 or 5 dollars by now.
#16 Huscarl Jul 20, 2011 12:32:53	At present, the turnaround times on Dragon and Dungeon are too short for material to deploy simultaneously on the website and in the tools. The producers, Chris Perkins and Greg Bilsland, are doing yeoman's work to extend the schedule, but it's a tough job that will take months to accomplish. Even once they establish a comfortable backlog of material, it's an open question whether we'll alter the current system. A cynic might look at the lag between publication and inclusion in the tools as WotC letting the community do its development work for free; someone else might look at it as WotC inviting its most invested customers to give feedback on new material before making it an official part of the game. Right now, we're taking the second viewpoint because we see it as a key strength of online publishing, not a weakness. Arguments can be made for several different approaches, and we may try a different one at some time to gauge feedback. But things are likely to stay as they are for the rest of 2011, anyway. Steve
#17 Goken100 Jul 20, 2011 13:22:35	At present, the turnaround times on Dragon and Dungeon are too short for material to deploy simultaneously on the website and in the tools. The producers, Chris Perkins and Greg Bilsland, are doing yeoman's work to extend the schedule, but it's a tough job that will take months to accomplish. Even once they establish a comfortable backlog of material, it's an open question whether we'll alter the current system. A cynic might look at the lag between publication and inclusion in the tools as WotC letting the community do its development work for free; someone else might look at it as WotC inviting its most invested customers to give feedback on new material before making it an official part of the game. Right now, we're taking the second viewpoint because we see it as a key strength of online publishing, not a weakness. Arguments can be made for several different approaches, and we may try a different one at some time to gauge feedback. But things are likely to stay as they are for the rest of 2011, anyway. Steve