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My Two Copper Pieces: DnD Miniatures and E-Magazines - Blogs - Loremaster
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Palomon

My Two Copper Pieces: DnD Miniatures and E-Magazines

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by
Palomon
, 01-13-2011 at 12:41 PM (3337 Views)
While I hate to have my first official post on Loremaster.org feature complaints about Wizards of the Coast's latest announcements, I do have some thoughts about these announcements and I think it will be a good point for me to start putting down my thoughts on. While I don't like bashing the company that is in charge of my obsession, I do like giving constructive criticism and that's what I am to do here: give meaningful comments, not complain.

Here's the link for the announcements if you haven't stumbled across it yet: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.a...mp/2011January I may summarize parts of it, but if you want clarifications read the article.

I'm not at all shocked or disappointed in the announcement concerning the production of D&D Miniatures. WotC announced that it will stop production on the D&D Miniatures line, aside from the occasional release of special sets, such as the recent Beholder Collector's Set or the Icons lines. Personally, I predicted that this is what would happen once the Monster Vault was announced, and I was even more convinced of this fact when WotC announced that they would continue to release Monster Vault sets within the same model. The feeling I've gotten from everyone else is that that not many other people were shocked, either.

Neither am I disappointed in the fact that we will no longer see regular miniatures sets. I've enjoyed using tokens since I got my first generic set while acting as DM at a Gameday. They are cheap and much more functional. I do have a collection of minis, but it's small and I typically don't have enough to cover a full group of monsters, which leads to confusion and diminished immersion when I have to say, "pretend this drow is a githyanki." Tokens are ideal for quick games and large battles. Sure, I'll still buy miniatures on the secondary market, but this doesn't get money into the hands of WotC. When I go to my FLGS, the D&D Miniatures section is one of the smallest sections in the store, being dwarfed by metal miniatures, board and card games, and even the dice bins. In my opinion, ceasing production was bound to happen, and it's probably the right choice for WotC.

My big annoyance comes in the direction WotC is taking with Dragon and Dungeon magazines. I know that the only change is that we can no longer download the articles as a monthly compilation. We'll still get the articles. However, at the end of each month I always download the full magazine. Now, I'm going to have to be downloading the individual articles. It's not that big of an inconvenience to do that, but organizing individual articles on my hard drive is. Effectively, all that WotC has done here is remove an option to download the articles as one file. I don't understand what this improves. I know that it gives them more flexible deadlines, but I don't care about missed deadlines; I care about being able to organize the content in a functional way. I know it's not the end of the game, but I know it will provide some headaches for me.

Anyway, that's my two copper pieces. Anyone else have opinions on these subjects?
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  1. Matt James's Avatar
    Hey there Palomon, great first blog post. I'm a bit saddened by the stoppage of minis. I use them a ton in all of my games.

    As for Dragon and Dungeon magazines, I never really used the compiled PDF, so it doesn't really affect me much. I can say that they have the metrics though, and if the data supports that a swath of people were still utilizing it, they would not have gotten rid of it. I can't imagine there is any conspiracy here, and while there will be those displeased and affected by this change (people such as yourself), I'll have to wait and see what the total impact is in the community.

    Let me ask, what sort of resolution do you see that could rectify the issue? I know a couple of WotC guys that browse this site and it could be beneficial if they saw some options from people who are affected. I'm not saying that it would change anything, but maybe it would help them to see?
  2. Sartredes's Avatar
    I think WotC misunderstood what people wanted. I think people just wanted to have the "Compiled" version of the articles available via the link from the magazine article archive once the compiled magazine was available, not instead of the compiled mag. I too like being able to download entire compiled issues for personal archiving purposes, but would appreciate the ability to be taken to the most current version of an article from the online article archive.
  3. ERJHolton's Avatar
    The end of compilations is something I have a problem with as well. However, without the website metrics that the DDI group used, it's hard to use anything but the anecdote of my own consumption pattern--download an article several times over a month, download the compiled issue once for archiving--in a counterargument that says their interpretation of the metrics is flawed.

    Additionally, they haven't made clear how subscribers can receive timely notification when an article gets revised. It seems asinine to have to randomly recheck articles every couple of weeks on the off chance there's an update for it. Creating a robust way to communicate these updates would go partway to mollifying me though.
    Updated 01-13-2011 at 01:48 PM by ERJHolton
  4. Palomon's Avatar
    I don't really have much of a solution past keeping it the way it was. That way, some readers could use the individual articles while some (like myself) could continue using the full compilations. However, I'm sure WotC isn't going to change it back immediately after the announcement. In the meantime, I'll work on a way to organize files myself (seeing as how it really is my problem, not WotC's). I guess I just didn't see anything wrong with how they were already producing the magazine. I understand that most users read the articles individually, but their model already allowed for that.
  5. Matt James's Avatar
    Check out http://www.koboldquarterly.com. It has a great old-school feel and superb content for 4e and Pathfinder. Good stuff all around.
  6. Darth Jerod's Avatar
    I had sent in a feedback email to DDI about the article vs compilation. Sometimes I find it useful to download the compilation that is if I liked it. I typically just view online and download if I really enjoyed the article.

    I think I will be able to live with this change, the mini's on the other hand, that hurts. I just got into DM'ing 4e after a LONG hiatus of D&D Dungeon Mastering since my typical trappings are Star Wars. I started collecting recently for D&D, I guess I will just have to start looking at the secondary market. It would be nice if they released Tier sets for iconic monsters.

    The tokens are really nice but for instance I wanted to run the recent Dungeon adventure Bark at the Moon and there are just not enough tokens to work for lycanthropes. I ended up using a combo of mini's and tokens (for minions) and said humans were lycanthropes. Oh well.
  7. Gryphonclaw's Avatar
    I wasn't surprised by WotC dropping the minies either. Too much to make compared to profits would be my guess. Tokens are cheap to make in comparison. Palomon, I hated the change with Dragon and Dungeon as well. It no longer became a true magazine when they went digital and even less so. Now it's just a collection of articals under a banner heading. I personally downloaded an artical to preview an issue and then download the whole issue.
    I got one or two suggestions as well Matt. One: Go Back to the way it was done before, Two: Don't release the articals invidually just the whole "issue" at once for download, Three: Print Best of Features or Four: Any combination of the above. The Best of Features could be a small print mag maybe no bigger than the race books they attempted to print. Print two or three articals from each issue for $10 or an adventure of two. They could be the Best of Dragon and Best of Dungeon and indicate which issue they were from. This way people would still get a magazine, especially if they were no longer insiders and maybe convince the few that aren't to join.
    Oh, Palamon, I am also not too thrilled with the board game stuff. D&D is RPG not a board game
    from Milton Bradley.
  8. gaming tonic's Avatar
    After the fact I know but as far as the compilation of the magazine into a magazine goes I hate the way it is now. Wizards of the Coast signed me up with the idea that they put out a magazine and let me have it my way for the last few years. Changing it now is really not what I was originally sold. I don't want to be a complainer but the magazine is very slim pickings now anyway. I read a lot on forums and message boards and it seems like an easy thing to fix because lots of people are unhappy about it.
    The minis on the other hand, I knew that was coming. There are piles of great companies that make miniatures so no big loss in my opinion. I rarely could get together a whole set by buying boxes and was reduced to purchasing individual minis on the internet. I am still going to have to do that so no change there.