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doublereedkurt wrote:

It is my opinion that DDI will never happen. If it were going to happen we would see something by now. Time is money, so at this point the project is taking too many resources. Features are probably being cut like mad as we speak in a desperate scramble to get something out the door. ...

The effective way to develop a new technology is iteratively. ...

My own background is director of marketing for a software company, and I'm afraid that I think you've nailed it to some extent. To take what you've posted a little further...

I do think DDI will appear, but it will never be all that was promised, and it won't meet our expectations.

Part of this will be due to the pressure to rush something, unfinished, out the door, something they'll never get around to finishing. But you (doublereedkurt)also have to know from where you're coming from that they cannot possibly re-gear and decide to start throwing this out iteratively as some sort of public beta test, unless they'd always planned on doing so. To do so at this late stage can have no positive benefit. For example, do you get the impression that they even have a significant QA and support team in place to handle a beta test? I don't.

When I read Ken Troop's posts tonight, I get the distinct impression that this team is not, internally, on the same page with this project. He seems genuinely surprised that customers are so upset and surprised about the state of things. He seems to imply that customers would consider D&Di almost a bonus or an afterthought to 4e itself.

And yet, look at the past almost-year marketing for 4e. The emphasis was always placed on D&Di, even up to last week's Wired article. So WOTC Marketing is out of touch with the Executive Producer of the project, and apparently so are those responsible for the website (the only method of communication between WOTC and its customer-base), and the physical books themselves (if nothing is ready today, then there is no way they didn't know that when they let that last page plugging D&Di go to press).

So I have to wonder if the software engineers, product manager, QA, support and so on are any better connected to the project then everyone else? If not, then D&Di is in deep doo-doo. Even as a concept, D&Di is far too complex and ambitious to have been managed this way. And therefore, IMO, it will be ages (a year?) before it can possibly be stable and featured enough to meet the original PRD. Do you think budget internals at WOTC will support the project going on for another year? I don't.

Finally, I have to wonder how much market research was put into this. I personally have no problem with the pricing/features, but it's obvious from the response here that many do. Again, looking at the response from TPTB, they seem genuinely surprised about our reaction, and don't quite seem to have their messaging together on things like v-minis, add-ons, etc. I suspect there would have been much less objection to the pricing had D&Di been ready to go live this weekend with everything that was promised. Unfortunately, they're now stuck rolling out things one by one, and trying to figure out how and when they'll pull the trigger on pricing.

And yet they must have know at least 2 months ago that they were not going to hit the deadline, and they should have figured out how to adjust accordingly. Of the dozens of releases I've been involved with at my own company, I'd say only 1/3 met their original target date. But I certainly knew 45-60 days beforehand if they would or if they wouldn't. I also get the impression that they are, only now, looking to the forums as to how to prioritize the components of D&Di and in what order and in what state to roll them out. Admirable, but frankly, they should have already had a good idea of this before they even announced a single thing about 4e. This is not the time for market research anymore than it's time for unplanned beta testing. It indicates to me that the product may have been greatly designed in a vacuum, with little or no involvement of focus groups or any contact with the actual target customer base. If that's the case, do you think it will meet our expectations? I don't.

I'm not trying to be mean. I don't envy Ken or the staff here at all right now. I'm just being practical, and this is of course just my opinion. But it's an opinion based on my own experience, both directly in my field, and the history of WOTC in these kind of endeavors.

Perhaps, honestly, I'm just a little bitter, too. I'm a 42 year old who bought the 4e set on Friday. My first D&D purchase since the Mentzer boxes in the early 80s. I was so jazzed about 4e and D&Di that it pulled me back into a hobby I haven't touched in over 20 years! So, yeah, I'm disappointed. I feel like another company's deceptive marketing has let me down, and kicked me in the nostalgia part of my brain while they were at it. I know that wasn't the intention of anyone at WOTC. But "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

I wish them luck. I'm going to try to enjoy the books for what they are. Or maybe just pull out my old ones. If D&Di is, in fact, ever ready, I hope I'll still be interested.