With the second issue arriving, I'm sure that a lot of people have varying thoughts about it. I just wanted to share my own and hear what other people have been thinking and maybe get a general feel on how people are receiving Dragon+.
My Thoughts
The Bad
-Issue failed to load until a day after release
- Issue crashed repeatedly
- The articles offereded no useful content for playing D&D table top style
-I felt like I was being forced to read through commericals for video games instead of a fun D&D magazine
-The issue felt incredibly short. (Though probably due to lack of interesting content in my opinion)
The Good
- If you like the D&D video games this was a good issue (I think? I don't play them myself)
-Ed Greenwood is nice to hear from
- Stories about different dice roll styles were mildly amusing
Overall
This was worse than the first issue by far. I wasn't feeling so great after the first issue, but still had hope. Now I am very unsatisfied and nervous about what this publication is really supposed to be about. Like, I get it. You want us to play your video games you are making. But please... have at least ONE article that is relevant to table top gaming and is not pure fluff.
Anyone else care to share thoughts? I really want to know others opinions.
*EDIT: I don't play the D&D adventure league so that article was not relevant to me so sorry if I didn't initially give it credit.
**Edit I also do encourage positive ideas about the issue, as I don't want this thread to turn into a bash thread of Dragon+. Constructive feedback totally welcome though!
It's nice to know I'm not missing anything - I don't have an Android or iOS device.
It's just a marketing tool, I guess. Wasted on me.
Ive enjoyed issue 2 very much, in fact more so than the inaugural issue. I think most people are not getting the angle though. The new Dragon magazine is equal parts marketing tool and article/game contents. Its cleverly done to draw in players to try all D&D products, not just the TTRPG as it did before. I love the layout, graphics, app features, really well done Wizards, look forward to the next issue focused on demons and the next story arc.
joeburgos wrote:
joeburgos wrote:
I am having trouble loading the new issue. Maybe there is just a ton of traffic. I am not sure but jeese what am I suposed to do while pretending to work!
DizzyWood wrote:
Reinhart wrote:
This is issue sucked, just like the first one. Old Dragon mags were treasures with great utility. I would devour them for weeks and they still decades later stand the test of time. The new Dragon was just ten minutes of my life I will never have back. As great as 5th edition is, the so-called magazines are absolute garbage. Literally garbage. Wizards should be ashamed to label them Dragon. I honestly still have a hard time believing how crappy they are.
Dragon+, like the print version of Dragon before it, primarily exists for marketing purposes. That cannot be understated.
I feel like we, as players and DMs, have been a little bit spoiled by the high-content, near-zero marketing in 4e's digital magazines.
But that's okay. This issue wasn't really for me, since I'm not a fan of the Realms, don't play Adventure League, and don't play the video games. It was interesting a bit to see the history of the video games of D&D (though they skipped a few things, and failed to mention any of their collaborations with Nintendo in the past), and I especially liked the comic and the dice-rolling article (which I was looking forward to ever since the survey).
I'd like to see more player-surveys, since those are some of the most interesting stuff in Dragon+. In addition, more focus-eyes like that of the Goliath last month, would be interesting.
I guess I feel a little bit let down this month because Unearthed Arcana's focus this month really didn't touch on anything I really wanted to use (I MIGHT use them, but I'd prefer more player's option playtests than DM advice material I can dig up from my 3e and 4e libraries). That combined with a lack of interesting articles for ME personally in this month's Dragon+ leads me to have to focus my attention elsewhere for a month since we won't be getting much more crunchy bits from WotC this month. That said, August starts the Rage of Demons season, and with it, a ton of new content to explore (and possibly an AL Player's Companion like the one for Elemental Evil). The errata document for this month along with the next major update to the Basic Rules are worth parsing more. There's a lot right now, just not a lot that expands my options as I'm looking to start up a new game and want the most possible options for my group.
I still believe in Dragon+. I just think of it the same way as I do my Game Informer subscription: it's primarily there to get me to buy stuff, but I can read it for the articles hidden amongst the advertisements. It's free, so there's that too – WotC gives away so much free content, I'm quite grateful to them.
Reinhart wrote:
Reinhart wrote:
Unearthed arcana is my replacement Dragon (well, a tiny version).
I am not interested in Dragon+, at least from the snippets I've heard/seen so far.
So, my thoughts earlier were about D+ in general.
This issue is exactly what I want, minus the fact that it "lacks" anything like the goliath article, or similar highlight of a race/class/other element of the game, in fluff terms, article.
I love having an app that gives me pretty much everything going on in DnD right now, complete with interviews, product highlights, comunity content, and this time around, exclusive fiction content.
I really don't understand the complaints about this app. To me, it is absolutely a successor to the mags. Maybe not directly to the 4e mags, which were primarily player options and other new game content, but since it's free, I don't expect a lot of that. I still want a PC program that they update with the same articles and features at the same time, so I don't have to use my wife's ipad (all my devices run windows) to access it, but that is my only actual complaint at this point.
Again, I think that if you literally only care at all about TTRPG content, it's not for you, but frankly I don't think it needs to be. If the customer base in general is unhappy with it, they have/will get that feedback, and adjust course accordingly.
Re: the articles that people are refering to as ads in disguise and the like. I don't think there's anything disguised about it. I think people are just generally more ok that some folks in this thread with product highlight articles. Yes, they're a form of advertisement, but that's fine, because they're not in the way of anything, and they are fairly interesting, since they're actually informative articles, instead of just "PLAY THE THING! BUY THE OTHER THING! HERE'S A PRETTY PICTURE! TIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE!"
DoctorBadWolf wrote:
I suppose that I had higher expectations of any publication that used the Dragon name. I cannot say that I have been in any way impressed with any of the content so far, but I also feel (hope) that the folks running the app are still very much in the experimentation phase of the product, trying to take in the feedback from surveys and working on a direction that they want it to go. Perhaps I'm overly optimistic but this is a prime opportunity to use Dragon+ as your mobile one-stop D&D shop.
Imagine a future Dragon+ utility where you could:
- Subscribe to the latest issue and grab the latest news for any part of the D&D product line
- Manage your D&D pdf downloads and purchases
- Post to the community forums in a mobile-friendly format (such as TapaTalk does extremely well)
- Use a dice-roller
- Provide feedback to WotC from the app
With newsstand going away on iOS devices this will provide the folks at WotC to develop a full app rather than just a magazine. I don't know how anyone else uses their mobile devices for the TTRPG but my iphone is critical to the overall success of my campaign and just a few of these items could really help!
Marandahir wrote:
Alduran wrote:
DoctorBadWolf wrote:
I went into this issue expecting to hate it, and was actually consumed with nostalgia for the ghosts of video games past. I grew up on Eye of the Beholder, Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. Heck, I think Shadow over Mystara is way underrated (given that Capcom just re-relased it), and I'm bummed it didn't get a nod in the article. Even the F2P Facebook game was fairly legit. So it's cool to see WotC embracing that history. Plus, I'm guessing that Sword Coast Legends is a huge investment for them so I'm not surprised its at the forefront of their stuff.
I think that as long as they keep the magazines themed, and that month's theme was digital, then we're in a good place.
If next month's theme is demons, and they give us demon concept art for the video games, demon optional rules for tabletop, a web comic about demons and a historical look back at demons in previous editions, then I think the magazine will be a win. And if they really want to nail me, having an essay about some of the social/political baggage that using demons bring with it would be great. And a full-page add or two is not going to kill me.
But if it's literally going to be nothing but SCL advertorial, it won't take me long to unsub.
RCanine wrote:
Mirtek wrote:
It's cool that we have a free magazine with D&D content to read on down time. I just wish they'd utilize it to introduce more settings. As usual, all we are seeing is more Forgotten Realms. 
Sands666 wrote:
DoctorBadWolf wrote:
DoctorBadWolf wrote:
Farmer42 wrote:
I was agreeing with you. Hence why I stated that THE IP IS THE ONLY REASON PEOPLE ARE PLAYING IT. How the hell do you get "not into D&D" out of "They're only in it because of the IP"? Not everyone is out to get you, man.
DoctorBadWolf wrote:
Farmer42 wrote:
DoctorBadWolf wrote:
lol that ain't exactly science, man.
That's just speculation. Considering how popular DnD video games are when they're made well, I don't buy it. At all. Also, social media suggests that most nerds are into DnD to some extent, and wotc was vastly conservative in their estimate.
If only those video game players did know about DnD in more of an "actually want to play" sense.
Does anyone knows if wizard is gonna make it (dragon +) available on the windows 10 mobile phones at any time ? or are we, windows phone users, getting slap in the face again.
DoctorBadWolf wrote:
Shasarak wrote:
DoctorBadWolf wrote:
joeburgos wrote:
So, I've read a few articles and watched a couple videos, and I can't find anything where Swordcoast's DM mode is being treated as a first of it's kind thing. They're excited about it, rightfully IMO, but I've seen nothing that implies that it's revolutionary or anything like that. They seem to feel that it's exciting in it's execution, and I agree that if it does what it looks like it will do, it's execution will be pretty exciting, perhaps even innovative within the context of a thing others have done before (ie, execution innovation rather than concept innovation).
IDK, maybe there are interviews or ads I haven't seen that present it differently?
DoctorBadWolf wrote:
DoctorBadWolf wrote:
Reinhart wrote:
Mirtek wrote:
Mirtek wrote: