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3 years ago ::
Dec 11, 2009 - 9:47AM
#11
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
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I think that's a reasonable change, for whatever my opinion is worth. I will take this opportunity to ask for a review of the status of online play. In my eyes, the MapTool LFR forums and the OnlineGameDay mailing list are public: anyone who's interested can play, signups are posted in the same format and using the same tools as a physical venue might use, and so on. You could make a case that non-players can't stumble across these forums, but particularly in the case of the MapTool forums, the LFR activity shares a forum with several other systems.
I recognize that this question is lower priority than many other things; just wanted to bring it up again. Thanks for all the administrative work it takes to get us a ton of free content and some really excellent game play.
While online play maybe similar in it's level of access, I think classifying it as "public" sort of conflicts with what I believe the intention of this policy to be. Making the the mods exclusive to public venues for the first 3 months is to increase attendance at cons and in-store play by giving them a little extra draw. Classifying online play as "public" would sort of cut the legs out from underneath the effort.
That's also an excellent point! I don't think either side of the debate is unreasonable by any means.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 11, 2009 - 9:53AM
#12
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Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2007
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I also wonder about Major Quests and Story Arcs. There was already a significant time gap between these adventures, and delaying Private Play release could put even more of a strain on maintaining story lines that were started in 2009, but not be available to play the sequal until late 2010.
Dan Anderson
@EpicUthrac
Living Forgotten Realms Calimshan Writing Director
Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
Meet me at TotalConfusion:
http://www.totalcon.com/RolePlaying.html
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3 years ago ::
Dec 12, 2009 - 11:09AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
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This wouldn't even be worthy of comment if the policy were in place from the beginning, but adding it now raises some issues for me.
As has been noted, implementing this now is equivalent to simply not releasing any modules for the next three months for private play. That's fine if the point of the campaign is public play, with home games being a less-supported afterthought. That is not, however, the way the campaign has heretofore presented itself.
I might be a bit on the Lawful side of the spectrum, but if the difference between public and non-public play is going to become of significant importance, it's problematic that the rules on that subject currently consist of a single sentence at the time you sanction a module. Considering that it is common for even that rule (as well as rules about date restrictions) to be entirely ignored in order to run slot zeroes, on the basis that it's within the spirit of the rules if not the letter, I would expect some pretty expansive definitions of "public" to be used.
Beyond that, with the decision (which I still consider bizarre) to go with undated unverified log sheets that don't list the event an adventure was played at, anyone who doesn't brag about their group's playstyle is likely to pass without notice even if they ignore the rule entirely.
While I think this would have been a fine way to go from the beginning, this direction meshes very poorly with the paradigm the campaign has been operating under so far.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 13, 2009 - 5:57AM
#14
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Date Joined:
Jul 27, 2003
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The delay does seem like a good way to help convention play. About the only thing I will truly miss with this change is not being able to order and report slot 0 games as non-public (since they were not) at the time of the game rather than when it is run at a public venue.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 13, 2009 - 7:18AM
#15
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2008
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Perhaps a compromise: Allow the events that premiered at DDXP to be convention/public play only for Q1 of 2010, with the other mods that come out over the rest of the quarter being public or home play. And then, in Q2, all mods get the 3 month delay. We already had that happen more or less with SPEC 1-3 and ADCP 1-1 in 2009, so it isn't a huge change. And it gradually moves the campaign toward this direction.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 14, 2009 - 3:19PM
#16
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I think there's an angle on this that a lot of people haven't considered.
When you go to a local convention to play LFR, have you ever noticed that the people there tend to be:
1) Shall we say, not very tactically savvy?
2) Have less than "optimal" PC builds?
3) Aren't as interested in the latest, greatest mod as they are interested in just having fun?
Note that this is less true about the big cons -- DDXP, Gencon, etc. -- than it is about local cons. But I've *consistently* noticed this.
For me, this makes playing LFR *less fun* at local conventions!
Now, what I've typically done is to play -- and *run* -- mods online. I generally play in venues that are NOT "closed," meaning that the public is free to join and play as well. Why should "public" play of this nature be penalized?
I understand that from a financial perspective, it's in WotC's best interest to support local conventions by having a 3-month delay on the release of LFR mods for private play, but what that also does is tilt the scales of LFR more in the direction of people who have a passing interest as opposed to people who enjoy playing with more experienced players, who enjoy creating optimized builds, and who enjoy a challenge.
Isn't there a better way to support local conventions instead of limiting ALL released mods to public play only for three months? Maybe create more public play-only events, but still release a reasonable subset of mods for private play immediately?
Otherwise, what WotC is doing is pissing off a significant portion of their customer base. I don't think any of them would stop buying WotC products as a result, but still, that's NOT a good thing to do.
Damon
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3 years ago ::
Dec 14, 2009 - 6:02PM
#17
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Date Joined:
Mar 17, 2005
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Almost forgot! I have a selfish question regarding this change.
I'm currently running a home game with the Embers of Dawn modules. I think probably at our current pace we won't be playing MINI 1-6 until Marchish anyhow, but just in case, would it be possible to have MINI 1-6 exempted from the new policy? I imagine there are a few people who've been playing this as a home game, particularly since it's a double slot. It would be nice not to have that interrupted.
Yes, this is almost certain to be the case. Given that the other 5 adventures were available immediately for homeplay, we expect to do the same for the finale (MINI1-6).
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3 years ago ::
Dec 14, 2009 - 6:04PM
#18
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Date Joined:
Mar 17, 2005
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While online play maybe similar in it's level of access, I think classifying it as "public" sort of conflicts with what I believe the intention of this policy to be. Making the the mods exclusive to public venues for the first 3 months is to increase attendance at cons and in-store play by giving them a little extra draw. Classifying online play as "public" would sort of cut the legs out from underneath the effort.
I pretty sure by public, Chris means "Where people can see you playing." They want to increase the actual in person visibility of games.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 14, 2009 - 6:09PM
#19
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Date Joined:
Mar 17, 2005
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Isn't there a better way to support local conventions instead of limiting ALL released mods to public play only for three months? Maybe create more public play-only events, but still release a reasonable subset of mods for private play immediately?
Damon
I wouldn't expect to see ALL adventures have the three month embargo. MINI1-6 (as I said above) will not, and it seems like that the My Realms will also not have that issue. There may be others as well (we are working on the 2010 schedule now so I can't list everyone specifically). You will see the majority of events have the three month delay for private home play, but we will make certain that doesn't mean there is absolutely nothing new for home play in Q1 of 2010.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 14, 2009 - 7:03PM
#20
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
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Almost forgot! I have a selfish question regarding this change.
I'm currently running a home game with the Embers of Dawn modules. I think probably at our current pace we won't be playing MINI 1-6 until Marchish anyhow, but just in case, would it be possible to have MINI 1-6 exempted from the new policy? I imagine there are a few people who've been playing this as a home game, particularly since it's a double slot. It would be nice not to have that interrupted.
Yes, this is almost certain to be the case. Given that the other 5 adventures were available immediately for homeplay, we expect to do the same for the finale (MINI1-6).
Thanks!
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