So, that was it. I sent an email to Customer Service and they assure me that my account will be cancelled in 5-10 days. It feels odd. For the last year, I have looked forward to the new content in Dragon and Dungeon, I have happily used the character builder to create characters (and not so happily attempted to do anything exciting with the Monster Builder) and resolved arguments at the table using the content in the compendium. In my opinion, the ideas behind DDI were brilliant. It was an exciting new way to monetise and distribute RPG content in a digital age.
However, the last few months, the service has degraded. The character builder was replaced with one that has less features , to no obvious benefit for the customer. The DDI community responded with a lot of criticism(To be fair, a lot of it wasn’t constructive, but the DDI community are paying customers, not paid testers). The announcement of the betas of the VT and the Online MB made me think that WotC had learned from their mistakes, and would actually take on board some input from their customer-base. I was wrong.
So, what we had was a similar situation to the launch of the Online Character Builder for the Monster Builder. No updates for a long time, followed by a patch that removed/broke content. Then the online version comes on and it has fewer features than the earlier one.
Fool me once…Obviously I should be the one who feels ashamed.
If WotC wants to play at being software developer that is fine, but I don’t really have the spare cash to pay for their fun at the moment. They seem less talented than dedicated hobbyists and to be honest, I don’t feel as if I can justify supporting their efforts to provide a degrading service to their customers. So I am voting at first with my wallet and will stop paying for the service.
Of course there is a knock-on effect. It is not the easiest thing playing fully errata’d D&D without the DDI subscription, and a game as complex D&D relies on common ground between the group as established by the rules. So I will probably not run any new D&D games in the future either, instead of focusing on other games from companies that do not punish their customer base for giving them their money. So that means that in one year alone there will be 8-12 people who will not be playing/be exposed to 4e in the clubs that I offer to run games.
Anyway, so long and thank you for a great run. I hope that things will improve to the extent that it will be worth my while to resubscribe, but I am not holding my breath. I have quite a few shelves of gaming books from other companies that are going to get some more love from me.
I pretty much am doing the same. Going to attempt to play via the other tables and play by post systems around other sites. Shame though, for the company in charge to be doing it worse than the fans themselves.
Ah well.
Good riddance.
For me I am willing to wait. I use the online character builder and find it perfectly satisfactory for my needs. I don't really ever use the compendium and glance at the occasional magazine article from time to time.
The monster builder is a big step backwards and a giant leap forward at the same time. It lost a lot of functionality in the transition but it now has a more solid foundation on which to grow. The main reason they even bothered to release it was to simply make importing monsters into the VT beta much easier. Sure you can't really make any new monsters or edit exsisting ones much, but what you will be able to do is import the MASSIVE amount exsisting monsters into the VT without having to spend 10-15 minutes doing it manually.
I think the VT if done properly can bring a whole slew of new players into the game which is a good thing for everyone.
If they don't, however, listen to those, who have been, and would be continuing to pay them if they kept up an acceptable level of service, then the issues that are causing their customers to leave them, and prevent new customers from signing up, will continue without being fixed.
This is at heart, not an issue of feature x in application y, but rather their whole approach to the services, and comments like yours, Telloc, I think are adding to the problem, as they allow the company to feel vindicated in branding lost customers and lost sales, as "whiners" instead of looking constructively at how they should conserve their business.
I can understand the fustration felt by many and can even understand people wishing to cancel their accounts and go a new direction. What I cannot understand is their desire to post on the forums justifying their deciscion.
I think that's because a lot of the people leaving would prefer not to, they would prefer to keep paying for the service they use to have. They are trying to make WotC aware that the only reason they are leaving is because they have failed to continue to deliver the level of service they were use to. They aren't leaving because it is too expensive, or because they don't want to use the service or cirmustances have changed. WotC have lost their subscription entirely due to their own mistakes and mismanagement of the service over the last few months.
For me I am willing to wait. I use the online character builder and find it perfectly satisfactory for my needs. I don't really ever use the compendium and glance at the occasional magazine article from time to time.
I complete understand that. For me the character builder doesn't do what I need it to do, it doesn't support any of the house rules from my campaign, and it doesn't allow any of the custom items from my old campaign.
If I hadn't seen the classic character builder then the online one looks fine, but I have and so it looks like a shadow of it's former self.
I enjoy Dragon and Dungeon, they are also a shadow of their former self.
The monster builder is a big step backwards and a giant leap forward at the same time. It lost a lot of functionality in the transition but it now has a more solid foundation on which to grow. The main reason they even bothered to release it was to simply make importing monsters into the VT beta much easier. Sure you can't really make any new monsters or edit exsisting ones much, but what you will be able to do is import the MASSIVE amount exsisting monsters into the VT without having to spend 10-15 minutes doing it manually.
I think the VT if done properly can bring a whole slew of new players into the game which is a good thing for everyone.
See for me and I suspect many DM's that have weekly games, they couldn't care less about the VT, and the new monster builder isn't a giant leap forward it is just a massive step back.
Ignoring the fact it doesn't build monsters at the moment I'm sure in time (probably several months time) it will. One thing it doesn't allow like the OCB is copy and paste or any form of exporting other than printing. So their is no easy way to use what you produce with it with your table top game, it really is designed with the VT in mind, not you home game.
Perhaps WotC think they can afford to ignore DM's after all we are the smallest group at the table one to every five players. Also perhaps they think home games are a smaller market than the potential VT market who knows, but everything they have done recently seems to only support their efforts to protect their IP and online play, which are of course fine but not at the expense of your legal users, and your table-top games.
If they were being sensible they would support as many methods of use as possible, some people like Dragon some people like Dungeon, some like a VT and some like a home game. The problem I see is that while trying to expand in the VT market they have neglected their existing customers, and hence people are leaving and complaining about it.
Still some people (those waiting for a VT, Mac users and the like) are going to be happy with the move, and perhaps WotC will gain enough their that they can afford to ignore the people that enjoyed the magazines, or home games that play anything other than vanilla D&D, doesn't mean those people have to be happy about it.
Who will they listen to, paying customers, or people who don't give the money but use their bandwidth to whine about them nonetheless?
Good riddance.
Did you work for TSR? Just curious...
Seriously, think about what you are saying... Atrocious has been a paying customer (and still is for the next 5-10 days) and is cancelling his account because he perceives they are NOT listening to him. Whether they are or not, doesn't matter... Whether he is in the majority or minority, doesn't matter... whether his dissatisfaction is justified in your mind, it is in his mind. As an individual customer this is all that matters.
Rather then simply leaving with a mouse click and never giving any feedback, he is trying to better the product and overall D&D experience by communicating his dissatisfaction. Rather then insult him or belittle his opinion, appreciate that he is trying to better the hobby in his mind. This seems to be the same thing you're trying to do.
And I don't think the forums are an accurate sampling of D&D players' opinions. I was buying 4E for a year before getting a DDI subscription, and it took even longer for me to join the forums. They listen to the not-so-loud, and they more than likely outnumber the people on the forums by quite a large margin.
Just something to think about.
I don't think the issue is that they don't listen to anyone- I think that issue is that they are trying to listen to everyone, and the balance is so difficult to achieve, even if it wasn't constantly changing, which any market does.
I think that may be one of the biggest problem. The RPG market has been extremely dynamic since... well, probably the early 90's when a true host of choicer options came out. It has only became more diverse as time has gone on.
They need to appeal to the hardcore D&D gamers, the more modern gamer who also looks to options like WoW or something, as well as pulling new people into the gaming community entirely. The stuff for the new gamers will piss off the core group. Too much crunch for the core group would alienate new players. And trying to increase the involvement of the modern gamers splits their focus on the other two even further.
Absolutely, and this is something that is a precarious juggling act. I think in the past, pre-Paizo... era of Dungeon and Dragon, TSR catered to its established player base. The Paizo era was very similiar. The magazines were still for granting additional options to the people who had tried everything or wanted to add content. Post Paizo... well, its been spread across a wider target audience.
As for software tools in general... well, Core Rules and Core Rules 2 seemed to be semi-successful at least, doing what was promised. I enjoyed using them. The products before that, I can't comment, simply because I have no experience using them. E-Tools/Master Tools was promised to do everything that DDI was supposed to, except the VTT. It was terrible, and was not really even useable until it was sent completely out of house to CMP. With CMP's intervention they were able to make it into a useable character creator and monster builder.
No matter what they do, somebody isn't going to like it, so everybody has something to complain about.
I agree. Somebody is going to complain...
And I don't think the forums are an accurate sampling of D&D players' opinions. I was buying 4E for a year before getting a DDI subscription, and it took even longer for me to join the forums. They listen to the not-so-loud, and they more than likely outnumber the people on the forums by quite a large margin.
I have no idea really, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Without access to some very sensitive information from WotC, no one has any idea. I like to hope that there is a large pool of players who never visit these forums, otherwise we are a very small community. I have been buying D&D products for nearly 30 years... and only registered on here when I had something that displeased me as a customer.
I don't think the issue is that they don't listen to anyone- I think that issue is that they are trying to listen to everyone, and the balance is so difficult to achieve, even if it wasn't constantly changing, which any market does. They need to appeal to the hardcore D&D gamers, the more modern gamer who also looks to options like WoW or something, as well as pulling new people into the gaming community entirely. The stuff for the new gamers will piss off the core group. Too much crunch for the core group would alienate new players. And trying to increase the involvement of the modern gamers splits their focus on the other two even further. No matter what they do, somebody isn't going to like it, so everybody has something to complain about.
And I don't think the forums are an accurate sampling of D&D players' opinions. I was buying 4E for a year before getting a DDI subscription, and it took even longer for me to join the forums. They listen to the not-so-loud, and they more than likely outnumber the people on the forums by quite a large margin.
Just something to think about.
I agree completely and instead of actually doing that (by releasing pre-generated characters instead of Essentials, hiring out their digital products to a competent company, and other mistakes) they have been chasing the almighty dollar...
They've pulled miniatures? 4E came out not long after 3.5, relatively speaking. Most people are probably still using their old ones. Shoot, I use chess pieces. If they don't sell enough, they either pull the product or the dollars are spent on miniatures rather than efforts to, say, improve the Adventure Tools.
No more Dungeon or Dragon Annuals? Again, they didn't sell that well. Why spend $20 on a book with select articles when you can buy a one-month DDI sub and a flash drive, for about the same amount, and download all of the complete issues they have online? Not worth printing.
If DDI subs actually do decline, D&D will respond. Personally, I wonder why they still have a monthly format. It's entirely online, with no Annuals planned. Just put out the articles whenever they're ready, don't count the words before the editing is done, and make some of them DDI-exclusive. (They're sort of there already; it's just not intentional) Yes, Dragon and Dungeon are D&D gaming staples, but if the market is moving away from them, perhaps their time is up. And then the expectations will also not be there. It's just a bunch of bonus articles bundled into the DDI sub. Yeah, it'll suck not getting as much, but at least we won't be expecting more than we get.
Umm... they're not a non-profit company. Chasing the dollar is kind of the idea. And I have not seen evidence to suggest an intent to make money and nothing else. Sure, they've made missteps as they've tried to adapt to one thing of another, but these people care about D&D as much as we do or more. Given that, I think it would be fairest to say that D&D does indeed try to make money, but they can't do that with things that don't sell. Examples:
They've pulled miniatures? 4E came out not long after 3.5, relatively speaking. Most people are probably still using their old ones. Shoot, I use chess pieces. If they don't sell enough, they either pull the product or the dollars are spent on miniatures rather than efforts to, say, improve the Adventure Tools.
No more Dungeon or Dragon Annuals? Again, they didn't sell that well. Why spend $20 on a book with select articles when you can buy a one-month DDI sub and a flash drive, for about the same amount, and download all of the complete issues they have online? Not worth printing.
If DDI subs actually do decline, D&D will respond. Personally, I wonder why they still have a monthly format. It's entirely online, with no Annuals planned. Just put out the articles whenever they're ready, don't count the words before the editing is done, and make some of them DDI-exclusive. (They're sort of there already; it's just not intentional) Yes, Dragon and Dungeon are D&D gaming staples, but if the market is moving away from them, perhaps their time is up. And then the expectations will also not be there. It's just a bunch of bonus articles bundled into the DDI sub. Yeah, it'll suck not getting as much, but at least we won't be expecting more than we get.
There are a couple of reasons to keep a monthly format.
First, a deadline to have a specific number of articles done actually helps. As we have seen, when you change the structure of your deadlines, they start to slip, and you ned up with fewer, not more, articles.
To be fair, this can be any kind of dealdine structure, be it weekly, daily, monthly or bimonthly, but there needs to be a deadline and an attempt to meet it. A little slippage will happen; You can't always meet deadlines, but it is important to have them, and if you stop having a regular schedule, then they start to slip more and more.
Second, it provides a way to search for articles. if there was a better search function, this would be a moot point, but the Search function as it exists, as well as references for given adventures/information, all refer to the month the article exists in.
Third, it really feels wrong to pay for a blog, and if you take away the monthly structure, that is what it becomes. Without compilations, many feel it is there already.
Umm... they're not a non-profit company. Chasing the dollar is kind of the idea. And I have not seen evidence to suggest an intent to make money and nothing else. Sure, they've made missteps as they've tried to adapt to one thing of another, but these people care about D&D as much as we do or more. Given that, I think it would be fairest to say that D&D does indeed try to make money, but they can't do that with things that don't sell. Examples:
They've pulled miniatures? 4E came out not long after 3.5, relatively speaking. Most people are probably still using their old ones. Shoot, I use chess pieces. If they don't sell enough, they either pull the product or the dollars are spent on miniatures rather than efforts to, say, improve the Adventure Tools.
No more Dungeon or Dragon Annuals? Again, they didn't sell that well. Why spend $20 on a book with select articles when you can buy a one-month DDI sub and a flash drive, for about the same amount, and download all of the complete issues they have online? Not worth printing.
If DDI subs actually do decline, D&D will respond. Personally, I wonder why they still have a monthly format. It's entirely online, with no Annuals planned. Just put out the articles whenever they're ready, don't count the words before the editing is done, and make some of them DDI-exclusive. (They're sort of there already; it's just not intentional) Yes, Dragon and Dungeon are D&D gaming staples, but if the market is moving away from them, perhaps their time is up. And then the expectations will also not be there. It's just a bunch of bonus articles bundled into the DDI sub. Yeah, it'll suck not getting as much, but at least we won't be expecting more than we get.
To be fair, the minis were a direct result of the US currency plummeting in the face of the Chinese, making them too costly to produce.
I actually agree on most of your points. I have no issues with D&D as a productline at all. In terms of design and publications, this is an incredible game. In fact I am likely going to make a major foray into Essentials in the not-so-distant future.
I only feel that WotC is lacking any sort of focus on the DDI side of things, and that this lack of focus is significantly reducing the usefulness of their services to customers like me.
Who will they listen to, paying customers, or people who don't give the money but use their bandwidth to whine about them nonetheless?
Good riddance.
Well, I don't know if they'll listen to the people not giving them money (but might if the quality/quantity/etc... were better), but they're really likely to ignore the people that are going to pay them regardless of content. WotC will show no concern for people that brainlessly go ahead and buy Insider, regardless of whether the new CB or MB show improved utility over the offline versions for those players or whether there has been an article of use to them in the past 6 months in Dragon or Dungeon.
In order for me to return to Insider, I need to see:
* A useful CB that allows for homebrew modifications and can be used without internet.
* A useful MB that truly allows customization of monsters.
* At least 1 article every other month for every race and class in the core books (PHBs and Essentials Ho books), and 1 article every 4 months for the races and classes in other books. Note that we're now talking about 30 class articles a month PLUS 20 race articles...
I doubt I'll get these things, so I will be unlikely to return full time. I might return for a 1 month period here or there to check something out, but only to sate curiosity. Dragon needs to support my characters if it is going to be an incentive, and I don't need to waste time on CBs and MBs that only give me half of what I need when I can just do it mmyself and get everything I need.
In order for me to return to Insider, I need to see:
* A useful CB that allows for homebrew modifications and can be used without internet.
* A useful MB that truly allows customization of monsters.
* At least 1 article every other month for every race and class in the core books (PHBs and Essentials Ho books), and 1 article every 4 months for the races and classes in other books. Note that we're now talking about 30 class articles a month PLUS 20 race articles...
I would be happy if they just gave us
* a useful CB with full houserule support
*a useful MB with up-to-date rule support
*at least 1 article each month for 1 race/class from the Player's Handbooks.
I would be happy if they just gave us
...
*at least 1 article each month for 1 race/class from the Player's Handbooks.
You do realize that with 10 races and 10 classes in the PHB 1, you'd only bet getting about 2.5 useful articles for a PC each year if that PC was a PHB I race and PHB I class? You might go 8 to 10 months without seeing an article that is of direct benefit to your PC. There might be some 'general' articles that provide small benefit to your PC, but it is rare for us to see general articles that are not out of balance (too strong or too weak) and have wide appeal.
I was very disappointed when I went more than 60 days or so without seeing a useful article for the PCs I was playing. Each race and class deserves 1 article every 60 days. That is what I need to see for Insider to be worth ther cost to me, generally.
I would be happy if they just gave us
...
*at least 1 article each month for 1 race/class from the Player's Handbooks.
You do realize that with 10 races and 10 classes in the PHB 1, you'd only bet getting about 2.5 useful articles for a PC each year if that PC was a PHB I race and PHB I class? You might go 8 to 10 months without seeing an article that is of direct benefit to your PC. There might be some 'general' articles that provide small benefit to your PC, but it is rare for us to see general articles that are not out of balance (too strong or too weak) and have wide appeal.
I was very disappointed when I went more than 60 days or so without seeing a useful article for the PCs I was playing. Each race and class deserves 1 article every 60 days. That is what I need to see for Insider to be worth ther cost to me, generally.
and it would still be up from what it is currently.
I would be happy if they just gave us
...
*at least 1 article each month for 1 race/class from the Player's Handbooks.
You do realize that with 10 races and 10 classes in the PHB 1, you'd only bet getting about 2.5 useful articles for a PC each year if that PC was a PHB I race and PHB I class? You might go 8 to 10 months without seeing an article that is of direct benefit to your PC. There might be some 'general' articles that provide small benefit to your PC, but it is rare for us to see general articles that are not out of balance (too strong or too weak) and have wide appeal.
I was very disappointed when I went more than 60 days or so without seeing a useful article for the PCs I was playing. Each race and class deserves 1 article every 60 days. That is what I need to see for Insider to be worth ther cost to me, generally.
Your expectation is unachievable. I just opened the Compendium and did a search with no text and it told me there are 60 classes. I added the search string of "Hybrid" and got 25. 60 - 25 = 35 Classes. Same thing for Races, got 38. There are at least 2 builds for each class so that 38 * 35 * 2 = 2660 total Race/Class/Build combinations. In order to get ONE article for YOUR SPECIFIC combo every 60 days we'd have to have 1,330 such articles EACH MONTH.
Let's work backwords. Let's pretend that we think that 20 such articles each month is acceptable. That means that with the current level of content you'd expect to get ONE article for your specific combo every (2660 / 20) = 133 months or 11.083 years.
Who will they listen to, paying customers, or people who don't give the money but use their bandwidth to whine about them nonetheless?
Good riddance.
Read up on customer retention vs gaining brand new customers.
Who will they listen to, paying customers, or people who don't give the money but use their bandwidth to whine about them nonetheless?
Good riddance.
I hate posts like this- when children get access to the computer and ruin adult conversations.
For a measly $9.95 I get a lot of tools and articles. The article on Juiblex was freaking awesome! They are expanding on concepts too. While I didn't like the Legacy of Baelord's encounter format (I like the encounter per page format), it still was a great read.
Who will they listen to, paying customers, or people who don't give the money but use their bandwidth to whine about them nonetheless?
Good riddance.
I hate posts like this- when children get access to the computer and ruin adult conversations.
It's odd how you complain about an immature reaction by providing one yourself. In this case, a cheap shot. And, just so you know, my comment referring not to the opinion, but the manner in which it was presented. There are thousands of forum threads. It is unreasonable to think that the developers have the time to read all of them, and yet so many people, the OP included, start entirely new threads to simply state that they (one person out of thousands) are dropping their one subscription.
It was not in this thread, but I have in another suggested that there be a single "DDI cancellation/nonrenewal" thread, wherein anyone whose subscriptions are contingent on certain things can simply list them, and D&D can get their feedback much more easily, giving them more time to respond to it. Also, if you had read post #12 or #15 (both by me), you would have also noticed that my opinion had become more tempered after my initial posting. You may also have noticed that at the beginning of this response, I refer to my own post as a bit immature, but hey, every one of us is getting into huge debates over a game. Immaturity slips in a bit more easily. My point is, I can admit when I've been immature. Can you?
There are thousands of forum threads. It is unreasonable to think that the developers have the time to read all of them, and yet so many people, the OP included, start entirely new threads to simply state that they (one person out of thousands) are dropping their one subscription.
Well perhaps when they are browsing through skipping threads they will at least see several about leaving the D&DI and get the hint that way, without having to read them all.
/shrug
I would be happy if they just gave us
...
*at least 1 article each month for 1 race/class from the Player's Handbooks.
You do realize that with 10 races and 10 classes in the PHB 1, you'd only bet getting about 2.5 useful articles for a PC each year if that PC was a PHB I race and PHB I class? You might go 8 to 10 months without seeing an article that is of direct benefit to your PC. There might be some 'general' articles that provide small benefit to your PC, but it is rare for us to see general articles that are not out of balance (too strong or too weak) and have wide appeal.
I was very disappointed when I went more than 60 days or so without seeing a useful article for the PCs I was playing. Each race and class deserves 1 article every 60 days. That is what I need to see for Insider to be worth ther cost to me, generally.
Your expectation is unachievable. I just opened the Compendium and did a search with no text and it told me there are 60 classes. I added the search string of "Hybrid" and got 25. 60 - 25 = 35 Classes. Same thing for Races, got 38. There are at least 2 builds for each class so that 38 * 35 * 2 = 2660 total Race/Class/Build combinations. In order to get ONE article for YOUR SPECIFIC combo every 60 days we'd have to have 1,330 such articles EACH MONTH.
Let's work backwords. Let's pretend that we think that 20 such articles each month is acceptable. That means that with the current level of content you'd expect to get ONE article for your specific combo every (2660 / 20) = 133 months or 11.083 years.
Maybe I should have been using the word unachievable instead of unrealistic.
This +1,000.
Ironically I've been trying to resubscribe to no avail. Been trying to use paypal since I no longer wish to use credit cards and I keep being asked for a credit card to pay with PayPal. Digital River says that its required, WotC says it isn't. Kind of defeats the purpose if you ask me, but oh well. Gives me $8 to spend elsewhere each month I guess.
/shrug
Yeah, I think their PayPal system is broken and has been for years. Kinda sad that they've still never gotten it working and usable.
Your expectation is unachievable. I just opened the Compendium and did a search with no text and it told me there are 60 classes. I added the search string of "Hybrid" and got 25. 60 - 25 = 35 Classes. Same thing for Races, got 38. There are at least 2 builds for each class so that 38 * 35 * 2 = 2660 total Race/Class/Build combinations. In order to get ONE article for YOUR SPECIFIC combo every 60 days we'd have to have 1,330 such articles EACH MONTH.
Let's work backwords. Let's pretend that we think that 20 such articles each month is acceptable. That means that with the current level of content you'd expect to get ONE article for your specific combo every (2660 / 20) = 133 months or 11.083 years.
Your interpretation of his suggestion is incorrect, or you are purposefully exaggertating for effect. He's not talking about an article for every possible combination. He's already covered this misinterpretation of his request in a thread that you participated in.
The number you are looking for is 73. This covers every race and class at least once.
Ironically I've been trying to resubscribe to no avail. Been trying to use paypal since I no longer wish to use credit cards and I keep being asked for a credit card to pay with PayPal. Digital River says that its required, WotC says it isn't. Kind of defeats the purpose if you ask me, but oh well. Gives me $8 to spend elsewhere each month I guess.
/shrug
Yeah, I think their PayPal system is broken and has been for years. Kinda sad that they've still never gotten it working and usable.
Yeah the issue is on Digital River's side (to an extent) in that they require a credit card since you have to agree to autorenewal when you first sign up. Of course, paypal is set up so that you can handle auto-renewal without a credit card, but Digital River is still not allowing this. It just seems very odd considering that WotC is obviously heading toward a digital distribution model. Requiring credit cards in order to purchase WotC products/services is going to eliminate some customers. Heck, even Nintendo, Zynga, Microsoft, etc. offer redemption cards that can be purchased without a credit card to allow people to buy their products.
But as I said, while its disappointing, I'll survive.
I would just hope that WotC has a serious conversation with Digital River about the issue as I don't see how this is possibly in WotC's best interest. I could just be missing something, but it seems odd to me.That is 7 x 6 = 42 new game elements a month.
Or 42 x 12 = 504 new game elements a year.
Over the 8 - 10 year life span of the edition that would be 4032 - 5040 new game elements.
Add that to the current bloat of 7531 Powers, 3051 Feats, 8977 Items, 532 Paragon Paths, 101 Epic Destinies, and 748 Backgrounds.
For those making MMO comparisons this should prove how inept those comparisons are. Most MMOs have a fraction of the races, classes and powers of D&D, and still struggle to keep everything balanced. Guild Wars has had no less than three complete rebalances of the game to address imbalance issues brought out by power gamers who published optimitzed character builds, and they have 1 race, 10 classes and 1319 skills.
And don't forget that Myztek has called for increased support should new races and/or classes be created, so the numbers above are only minimums if WotC wants to introduce any new material in book format (as they will in Heroes of Shadow). This month we get 3 new classes and additional builds for existing classes, plus 2 new races. So we need more than 6 articles a month now to cover everything.
I think it is reasonable to expect that certain classes and races are done being developed. No more elements for PH1 and most PH2 races and classes is fine. Focus instead on newer or under developed races and classes, and then there is no need to flood the magazines with crunch only content, and more people will be happy with them overall.
That is 7 x 6 = 42 new game elements a month.
Or 42 x 12 = 504 new game elements a year.
Looks great. Get-R-Done.
I have no problem with an article being more fluff than crunch, by the way. I just see no problem with each class and race being touched on in some way over the course of the year. My stance is that it is a realistic goal and should be something that Wizards strives for.
I think it is reasonable to expect that certain classes and races are done being developed.
This may be true. But there is a reason that certain classes and races are "over-developed." They are more popular. The odds of a Human Fighter being played is far greater than that of a Shardmind Battlemind, particularly when it comes to new players being introduced to the game. I don't think that increasing the powers of Shardminds and Battleminds is inherently going to make them more popular. They're pretty much a niche race and class, and they tend to be more complex to play than their Human Fighter counterparts.
But touching on all of them, everyone's specific interests are covered, especially if they are finite interests. And those people do exist. I have a friend that is (a bit disturbingly) obsessed with dwarves.
As for the MMO portion, there is a reason that balance is so imperative in an MMO, and that is not the quantity of the powers, it's the impact that everything has on PvP. D&D does not have that obstacle, inherently. Also, the game itself is the final say in everything. In D&D, the DM has it. In other words, balance can be established "on the fly" where needed in D&D. Parallels can still be drawn simply because there are similar fundamentals that both genres adhere to. It's certainly not as "inept" as you make it out to be.
So in closing, when it is all said and done, I don't think that our opinions are that that diametrically opposed as you may perceive or portray.
Looks great. Get-R-Done.
Except that I don't think that WotC is in any way obligated to Get-R-Done, or provide this level of support. In fact I would prefer if the magazines had remained unofficial additional conent. The idea that "everything is core" including the magazines was a bad decision in my opinion.
Boiling each of our stances down to it's most elemental components I would say this (please correct me if I am wrong).
Jharii & Myztek - more and constant crunch is good, perhaps even necessary.
Me - more and constant crunch is not necessarily good, and may in fact be very, very bad.
Except that I don't think that WotC is in any way obligated to Get-R-Done, or provide this level of support. In fact I would prefer if the magazines had remained unofficial additional conent. The idea that "everything is core" including the magazines was a bad decision in my opinion.
I wrote this in response to the_Jester's blog, but it applies here, I think:
I don't know if it's just me, but I find the view espoused by Mike Mearls about "everything is core" quite odd. To me, "Everything is Core" has never meant "every game element must be in every game" - how could it? No group has enough players or enough time for every race, every class and every item, power, feat, yadda yadda to be included - so how could a gaming group making a conscious decision to exclude some elements be wrong? Look at the published worlds. Sure, you could include all elements from PoL, FR, Eberron and Dark Sun in one campaign - but it would look like one weird world! Presumably, home campaigns are expected to be no more "kitchen sink" than the published settings - how could they be? So, my view of "Everything is Core" has always been slightly different - I view it to mean "Everything is an Option". What I mean by "Option" here, though, begs clarification. I don't mean "meh, all the rules are pretty cludgy, so mixing some random assortment of them together is as good as any other scheme". I mean that everything is what I call a REAL option. In other words, every game element could be used in the same game, and - because every element is made with a set of clear design parameters and following a clear design philosophy - it would work, as a game. Every published rules element may be incorporated into your game without fear of it breaking that game; nothing needs to be added to the published elements in order to make the game work, as a game. And yet any subset of elements can be excluded from the game - if that is what your group wants for their setting.
Given this perspective, I see it as a thoroughly good thing, and I'm very glad that WotC seem serious about tightening things up to pursue it. I find it very sad that the perspective is being twisted to make it sound undesirable.
However, I think this interpretation is arguably true of every single edition of every RPG ever published and therefore is fairly useless when discussing Mike Mearls' statement, which because he felt compelled to make it seems to indicate that he was talking about something that was never true before in D&D and therefore special and deserving of special recognition.
In fact I believe he did go on to clarify what he meant, and that was that all content of the magazines would be written by the same game designers who wrote the rules books, and be vetted for play balance in the same way as those more traditionally "core" elements. While on the surface this is a good idea, the outcome proves otherwise in my opinion. Content that was in the past eyed as unofficial and optional, and followed little in the way of a content formula has now become viewed by many as not only offical (which it is after all), but somehow owed to the community on a regular basis and in certain amounts of content. These types of discussions don't seem to have occured before 4th edition and DDi made them possible. This is why I see "everything is core" as undesirable.
Jharii & Myztek - more and constant crunch is good, perhaps even necessary.
Maybe you missed the very next sentence of my response:
I have no problem with an article being more fluff than crunch, by the way.
Personally, I like a balance of crunch and fluff. I think I have mentioned that before. 12 articles per month, 6 crunch and 6 fluff, is a utopian magazine for my taste. This does not mean that one article has to consist entirely of crunch or fluff. I simply am presenting them as an arbitrary example.
Does this equate to "more and constant?" Maybe the "constant" part, if you want to break it down to that level. But I am most certainly not "anti-fluff," which I get the impression you think.
And I do understand that you like fluff. We've had several conversations in which I gathered that. I think where we differ in on the crunch question which is why I limited my commnets to that. I feel that you want to continue to see crunch in the magazines and that you think more crunch in the magazines is good. I disagree. I think more crunch is actually bad, because of the continuing and ever larger burden of play balancing it. However, I am not saying there should not be any crunch in the magazines because many people seem to like it. I just don't think a steady stream of it is a good idea, and I certainly don't think the suggestions to have a number of articles that currently comprise the total number of features we are getting is fair to those who don't want crunch.
Your expectation is unachievable. I just opened the Compendium and did a search with no text and it told me there are 60 classes. I added the search string of "Hybrid" and got 25. 60 - 25 = 35 Classes. Same thing for Races, got 38. There are at least 2 builds for each class so that 38 * 35 * 2 = 2660 total Race/Class/Build combinations. In order to get ONE article for YOUR SPECIFIC combo every 60 days we'd have to have 1,330 such articles EACH MONTH.
Let's work backwords. Let's pretend that we think that 20 such articles each month is acceptable. That means that with the current level of content you'd expect to get ONE article for your specific combo every (2660 / 20) = 133 months or 11.083 years.
Your interpretation of his suggestion is incorrect, or you are purposefully exaggertating for effect. He's not talking about an article for every possible combination. He's already covered this misinterpretation of his request in a thread that you participated in.
The number you are looking for is 73. This covers every race and class at least once.
I'm about 110% positive that I made this post before becoming involved in (reading) that other thread.
Your expectation is unachievable. I just opened the Compendium and did a search with no text and it told me there are 60 classes. I added the search string of "Hybrid" and got 25. 60 - 25 = 35 Classes. Same thing for Races, got 38. There are at least 2 builds for each class so that 38 * 35 * 2 = 2660 total Race/Class/Build combinations. In order to get ONE article for YOUR SPECIFIC combo every 60 days we'd have to have 1,330 such articles EACH MONTH.
Let's work backwords. Let's pretend that we think that 20 such articles each month is acceptable. That means that with the current level of content you'd expect to get ONE article for your specific combo every (2660 / 20) = 133 months or 11.083 years.
Your interpretation of his suggestion is incorrect, or you are purposefully exaggertating for effect. He's not talking about an article for every possible combination. He's already covered this misinterpretation of his request in a thread that you participated in.
The number you are looking for is 73. This covers every race and class at least once.
I'm about 110% positive that I made this post before becoming involved in (reading) that other thread.
Yeah, you're right. Someone bumped this silly thread. My apologies.
Boiling each of our stances down to it's most elemental components I would say this (please correct me if I am wrong).
Jharii & Myztek - more and constant crunch is good, perhaps even necessary.
Me - more and constant crunch is not necessarily good, and may in fact be very, very bad.
Problem is, I think a more accurate comparison would be:
J & M: We find more character options to enhance our game, and would like to see continual support that we can make use of.
Kalex: Finds that too many options can overwhelm the game system, and rather than not use additional content, would prefer that others don't receive it at all.
Now, I'll readily admit that probably isn't the actual position you have. And there are good reasons to champion more fluff in the magazine - if that is the material you want, and don't want to lose out on it so others can receive what they want. But that isn't the position you are arguing. Jharii has readily said that having plenty of fluff is fine, if some support is there alongside it.
You find feat/power/option bloat to be unsustainable for the game. It's true that WotC has screwed it up in some regards, but unsustainable? I don't really agree - I think there is plenty of room for continual mechanical support in a variety of fashions that only enhances the game. And wanting others to be deprived of that, because you don't want it, is not an attitude I'm a fan of.
Again, it comes down to extremes. Saying that you want more flavor, fluff, background in the magazine, etc - a great viewpoint to have, and one I'd be glad to see more people offer. Saying that you want no crunch at all, and that even if others want it, what improves the game for you is for them to be denied additional content? Not as cool.
Look, I understand the idea to advocate caution. I don't think the burst of feats/powers/etc we got a year ago was a great thing, myself. I think there are a lot of useless feats out there, even though I also don't like seeing the 'feat taxes' like Essentials. And so I get that you want to caution about just pouring out new content just for the sake of doing so. But equating that to never releasing new content at all, especially when many people want that new content... that, I think, isn't doing your argument any good.
It does sound like this is tied in to your distortion of the "everything is core" philosophy. As others have pointed out, saying that everything has been equally vetted and designed and approved for use is not the same as saying it is required for use. That's something you came up with on your own, and its downright silly to use it to paint their desire to balance the game as an undesirable and harmful approach.
I don't think the issue is that they don't listen to anyone- I think that issue is that they are trying to listen to everyone, and the balance is so difficult to achieve, even if it wasn't constantly changing, which any market does. They need to appeal to the hardcore D&D gamers, the more modern gamer who also looks to options like WoW or something, as well as pulling new people into the gaming community entirely. The stuff for the new gamers will piss off the core group. Too much crunch for the core group would alienate new players. And trying to increase the involvement of the modern gamers splits their focus on the other two even further. No matter what they do, somebody isn't going to like it, so everybody has something to complain about.
And I don't think the forums are an accurate sampling of D&D players' opinions. I was buying 4E for a year before getting a DDI subscription, and it took even longer for me to join the forums. They listen to the not-so-loud, and they more than likely outnumber the people on the forums by quite a large margin.
Just something to think about.
I agree completely. Instead of trying to please everyone and failing to please anyone they should go back to the successful pre-Essentials model that was the best time this edition has had. The flame wars on these forums were minor compared to what it is now, and there was a quality book out every month. They should let Piazo cater to the people who still want to play drooling fighters and ruling wizards. 4e's strength was the ability to make interesting characters of any class, but Essentials-model is wasting that legacy.
However, I think this interpretation is arguably true of every single edition of every RPG ever published and therefore is fairly useless when discussing Mike Mearls' statement, which because he felt compelled to make it seems to indicate that he was talking about something that was never true before in D&D and therefore special and deserving of special recognition.
If it was even a definite aim in previous RPGs (and I'm not convinced that it was, making a "cool world" was far further up the agenda), it failed. Starting with the fact that there were no rules of consistency and balance to be adhered to in the first place, and continuing with many additions not following any idea of consistency or balance at all - especially if they were labelled "optional" or "variant"...
So, yes, I do think this was new with 4E - or, at least, unusual enough to be noteworthy.
In fact I believe he did go on to clarify what he meant, and that was that all content of the magazines would be written by the same game designers who wrote the rules books, and be vetted for play balance in the same way as those more traditionally "core" elements.
Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought he was saying that this is how the magazine articles would be treated from now on? I thought the recent delays in magazine output were caused by the dislocation of making this happen?
Also confusing (sorry - my fault), was that my comments I quoted were about the definition of "Everything Core" that seemed to be applied in the "playable monster races" article, not the most recent one. This seemed to say that kobolds ought not be defined as an 'officially' playable race, since everyone would want one and this could be bad for some games/groups. As an excuse to not publish a kobold PC race I thought it sucked...