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2 years ago ::
Jan 12, 2011 - 6:23PM
#21
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Date Joined:
Sep 28, 2006
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A bit more information on the changes to the product line-up can be found in the following WotC Knowledge Base Article: wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg...
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2 years ago ::
Jan 12, 2011 - 6:43PM
#22
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Date Joined:
May 14, 2006
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If WoTC can't justify the expense of compiling the articles I would like to see them give Paizo back the job.
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2 years ago ::
Jan 12, 2011 - 6:53PM
#23
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Date Joined:
Aug 20, 2007
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So why did we decide to do this? It takes a lot of time to compile and reformat the articles for the end of month rollups and, unfortunately, the amount of downloads we’ve been seeing hasn’t been enough to justify the time it takes to put them together. By cutting that out of the equation, we free up more time to focus on other aspects of the D&D website. We’re not cutting back on content, we’re just eliminating an option that goes largely unused.
This is a terrible decision. Your right, content doesn't change but your taking away a level of service that you previously provided.
This whole move throws reason to the wind. Your not going to take the time to compile the ARTICLES for a MAGAZINE into a single ISSUE because it takes too much time? Then what am I paying you for? The last I checked I was subscribing to Dungeon and Dragon Magazines. (E-zines, whatever.) But now your telling me that I will have to download each article and somehow piece them together myself? That would make me some kind of editor...right?
$75 a year for a second-rate Character Builder product and two piecemeal digitial magazines?
Are you kidding?
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2 years ago ::
Jan 12, 2011 - 7:18PM
#24
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Date Joined:
Apr 11, 2008
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I feel that the wrong conclusion is being drawn regarding the number of downloads for an individual article versus the number for the compiled issue of Dragon or Dungeon. I tend to download an individual article and open it immediately for viewing rather than saving it somewhere and then opening it. I do this because I know that the final version of the article will be coming out at the end of the month, so I don't need to clutter up my hard drive with product which is likely going to change before the "final" version. As a result, if I want to look at that article multiple times during the month (maybe because I'm discussing it on the forums, or with friends at LFR), I download it again and open it for viewing. While it looks like I'm making more use out of the individual article by the downloads, I actually get much more out of the compiled issue. I'm also concerned that the updates to individual articles will fall by the wayside with the new process. When there's no deadline for errata, there's less pressure to get that errata done in a timely fashion. The wording in Ampersand (updates will be made "a few weeks after the original posting") doesn't fill me with confidence. It's also going to require communicating the existence of those changes in a piecemeal fashion. Before, we knew to look for those changes at the end of the month.
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2 years ago ::
Jan 12, 2011 - 7:28PM
#25
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If WoTC can't justify the expense of compiling the articles I would like to see them give Paizo back the job.
I can say, the act of compiling the PDFs into one file, isn't that hard or time consuming, at best, 5 minutes, worth of work for any one person.
How much work to get that up on the website, I can't say. But in my job, I've had to take many PDFs, and combine them into one file, and it's so easy. There is a combine PDFs option in Acrobat, which once you have all your files selected, you can make sure they are in the order you want them to combine, and click ok.
So I'm not sure why they feel not taking all the articles for that month, and combining them into one file can't happen.
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2 years ago ::
Jan 12, 2011 - 7:36PM
#26
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Date Joined:
Sep 21, 2008
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If WoTC can't justify the expense of compiling the articles I would like to see them give Paizo back the job.
I can say, the act of compiling the PDFs into one file, isn't that hard or time consuming, at best, 5 minutes, worth of work for any one person.
How much work to get that up on the website, I can't say. But in my job, I've had to take many PDFs, and combine them into one file, and it's so easy. There is a combine PDFs option in Acrobat, which once you have all your files selected, you can make sure they are in the order you want them to combine, and click ok.
So I'm not sure why they feel not taking all the articles for that month, and combining them into one file can't happen.
Page numbers? Table of contents? Cover art? Transitions that don't include blank pages? Honestly, none of these really seem that time consuming either... I mean, the articles themselves don't include blank sections at the bottom, so the transitions aren't a big deal, page numbers are automatically inserted if you set it up right, and table of contents might be really easy or really hard, depending.
Also, disappointing, in another thread we were discussing how Wizards should be cut some slack on their obfuscation of the calendar because normal magazine companies don't show off their schedule to thousands of customers breathing down their neck... and, er, now Wizards has declared it's no longer a magazine publisher.
So there goes that argument.
* * * *
As a side thought.
Wizards, you know how you go through extensive effort hyperlinking the table of contents, and inserting URL links in your PDFs and all that jazz? .. .. .. If you find it too time-consuming to put out PDFs each month, maybe you should stop doing all of that useless stuff that nobody ever uses. Seriously. Table of contents: "This article is on page 5. Either type '5' onto the bottom of your PDF viewer, scroll down five pages, or click this dandy hyperlink we set up! Also, you could have just ignored the table of contents altogether, and just scrolled down until you saw pictures that looked like what you wanted."
We don't need them bookmarked either. Dunno if you still do that...
There seems to be a dial of effort, from 0 (None) to 11 (Super-interactive-awesomeness!), and Wizards was like "Wow, 11 is really high... time to turn it all the way to 0!"
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2 years ago ::
Jan 12, 2011 - 7:43PM
#27
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Date Joined:
Sep 21, 2008
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Addendum: Though they have said they intend on adding errata to their articles 'some weeks later' on an individual basis (which makes me very nervous since already the quality of the errata was really, really low, and now they don't have a fixed schedule for it to force them to actually do the errata). This might mean that a significant amount of time was spent just before publication combing each article/the forums/QA/whatever to fix the articles up as much as possible in the very short amount of time between finishing the articles and release.
That's the biggest time-consumer I can think of however. WOTC, feel free to chime in and tell us what was so time-consuming about compiling your PDFs that you had to abort the production of a 25-year-old magazine.
If that were the case, it's okay WotC: you don't have to give us errata the day of publication! Here, we can compromise: release compiled PDFs, no errata, and you have exactly one month to go over the previous month's magazine for errata. That gives you four weeks, instead of like 24 hours. We get our PDFs, you get your errata, everyone wins! Everyone!
...sounds like a better plan to me. And I'm not even getting paid for my plans.
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2 years ago ::
Jan 12, 2011 - 7:47PM
#28
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Date Joined:
Feb 21, 2009
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I'll add my voice to those who want the decision for compilations rethought. I have all the compilations of the 4E issues of Dragon, and 4E brought be back to playing after a dozen-year hiatus.
As for the products dropped from the schedule: the place for the answer that's in the FAQ mudbunny pointed us to is in the Ampersand article. Along with more specifics -- "I know I gave you a preview of the Class Compendium. We've dropped it from the schedule because X. You will instead get the information therein from Y."
You've already given us a tiles preview earlier this week (or was it last?). A more complete explanation of the catalog changes would have been appreciated, especially for those of us for whom attending DDXP at the end of the month isn't an option.
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2 years ago ::
Jan 12, 2011 - 8:00PM
#29
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2008
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If WoTC can't justify the expense of compiling the articles I would like to see them give Paizo back the job.
I can say, the act of compiling the PDFs into one file, isn't that hard or time consuming, at best, 5 minutes, worth of work for any one person.
How much work to get that up on the website, I can't say. But in my job, I've had to take many PDFs, and combine them into one file, and it's so easy. There is a combine PDFs option in Acrobat, which once you have all your files selected, you can make sure they are in the order you want them to combine, and click ok.
So I'm not sure why they feel not taking all the articles for that month, and combining them into one file can't happen.
This. If by trying to save work they are talking about just the effort to combine the PDFs, ... then there must a be lot of work that I don't get.
But, if they are trying to save the work of -correcting- and -editing- the content once it is out in the article form so that it isn't completely overpowered or broken or just plain ... bad, then yeah, I guess they could save some effort there. Or they could do it right the first time.
I suspect that this is solely to save themselves their content being re-distributed. And that's all well and good for them. But what that means is that once more we are not getting the straight story from WotC. Which would make me unable to believe any further words out of the machine.
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2 years ago ::
Jan 12, 2011 - 8:05PM
#30
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I'm also disappointed that the compilations will no longer be available. I appreciate the fact that I could load the entire PDF onto my IPad and then read it like I would a regular magazine.
I'm lucky though. I have access to Adobe Acrobat so I will be able to create my own compilations. I just wish I didn't have to.
I also wish to echo the sentiments of one of the other posters - I worry that they are misinterpreting their statistics. I subscribe to the RSS feeds, and I usually view the articles as they become available. I scan them to see if they are of immediate interest or of timely content (like ampersand). If so, then I read them. If not, then I wait and read it later as part of the compilation. My reading pattern means that I end up downloading both the article *and* the compilation PDF. This means that the article download counts will always be higher than the compilation download counts.
It would be nice if someone posted the ratio of downloads of a single article vs. downloads of the compiled PDF that contains that article, just so that I could understand how big a gap there is.
One last note. It seems to me that it wouldn't be hard to automate the compiling of the PDF, especially using Acrobat X's new "Actions" facility. Surely it would be worth it for Wizards to automate the compilation and upload it for the customers who want the compilation but do not have access to Acrobat.
Rob
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