Community

Aug 13, 2010 -- 5:42PM, PaoloM wrote:

Ok. Let me see how I can reply to all this without getting fired. I don't want to sound apologetic, but I want to try to provide all the information I can:

WotC is not talking because they're afraid of the old PR disaster

It would be silly to say that this has no part in our decision; the promise and the lack of delivery is a terrible thing to happen to any organization. But this is only a part of why we're being silent. And I'm trying hard to make sure this situation will not happen in the future.

WotC is not talking because they're not working on anything

I lead a team of six (soon seven) fantastically talented people. We ship content updates for all tools every month and update the website almost every day. These should not, in any way, shape or form, to be considered "routine" or trivial tasks. Content updates require resources for data entry, data verification, database schema updates, data translation, C++ coding, C# coding, WPF coding, QA, QA, QA and QA. Plus my overhead

The way the D&D game is designed requires a lot of rules exception handling and custom coding. It's not just "entering some stuff in a database".

What's more, a part of my team is actively and exclusively working on new stuff. Trust me, we'd like to have more hours during the day.

WotC is not talking because they're afraid their "stuff" will be cancelled

While this may of course happen (an asteroid may hit Renton, WA, for example, or Torog may want to remind us where we sent him/it/her/whatever), we're a bit too deep into the process to reasonably expect that we won't ship what we're working on. But yeah, this is a fair point.

WotC is not talking because they don't know when they will ship something

Oh, I know exactly what and when (to the hour) we'll ship. The fact that I can't tell you this doesn't mean that I don't know it (hell, if I didn't know this, I would probably be browsing monster.com now. And no, I'm not browsing monster.com right now).

WotC is not talking because they don't know what people want

Lots of employees and volunteers read these and other forums. I check DDi General many times a day and read all messages in "interesting" topics. If there's one thing I can tell you guys, is that we are listening and we are willing to provide you with the best tools to enjoy your D&D games.

So why is WotC silent?

There are other reasons why I - or anyone else - can't talk about what we'll do. This decision has been made some time ago and it will stick until we're ready to show off. After that, I hope we'll be able to be more open.

Thank you all for listening

This.

No, it isn't the answer that some people want, but to me, it's a candid and straightfoward response the criticism WotC has received.  No, it won't make some people happy, but for me, I can accept it just fine.

It does not matter what WotC does here, it won't be enough.  If they said, "hey, we're going to realse Tool X on such-and-such a date," that wouldn't be enough.  The criticism would be, "sure, the've announced a new tool, but they don't tell us what it does."   There's no pleasing some people, and some people aren't happy unless they can just complain ad nauseum. 

Sep 7, 2010 -- 1:15AM, DOMD wrote:

Sep 5, 2010 -- 3:07PM, Formulajh7 wrote:

Wizards of the Coast the Company DOESN'T CARE. Wake up!

 WotC is a normal business and genuinely trying to make money. Some of their decisions didn't fare well with the community, and several decisions probably didn't actually lead to more revenue, but that's part of the whole process. You can argue about how well they listen to the community (I'm on your side here) but, similarly, you could argue that not listening is a valid business strategy (e.g. Nintendo has a tendency towards this).

Of course they care. They want to make a product we buy. That's how they make money.  They care whether we like it, whether we feel happy with them as a company, whether we feel our entitlements are met.

Personally, I think that concerning DDI they're not doing a very good job, but that doesn't make me shout the whole community should "wake up". That's conspiracy-freak-talk right there.

 There is no consipiracy. WOTC doesnt think the VTT is an equitable idea... Its becuase they are BAD at what they do in regards to this product. They are also not willing to risk anymore money in this as they arent making neraly as much as they thought they would. The Lovely part of all of that is they are the ones activly decreasing the brands value. The buisness isnt run paticularly well. I should know.

Anyway think about this as well. The survey they did was a horrible way of getting feedback as this community doesnt represent the player base as a whole at all. You are proof positive of that. 

Here it the reality though. You are not helping anything but bring the franchise further into the ground by trying to argue with people like myself. By now I thought sales would allow them to see how wrong they were with the direction there going. Obviously that isnt the case so at this point someone else needs to step in and compete or they need to hit rock bottom and somehow still have the capital to invest in the proper direction.

P.S. I wasnt calling for the whole community to wake up in all reality. I dont care if people even agree with me. It's not even the employees as Im sure there are those that actually do want to see the brand succeed. Im simply writing this so that hoepfully someone in the organziation considers it as I know for a fact people are fighting for it and its gotten slammed down multiple times. In which case Ill sum this entire thing up. 

Spend the capital build the VTT and start taking your brand in the proper direction or risk having this game die out. You either act now or down the line someone will build a company and take your player base from you.

The end.