Dear Paizo staff and submitters.
I am truly sorry that the expertise and love of setting that Paizo brought to Greyhawk is being discarded for inscrutable and non-transparent reasons. The use of Greyhawk as the base for adventure paths could have been incidental. Instead it was integral. Regardless of how I feel about the loss of Oerth that this move implies, I know how refreshing it must be to make your own setting and not be shackled by the past. Just please keep the crunch down and work out some interesting fluff. I couldn't give a dwarf's whisker for more prestige classes and desultory feats. I play for story. The world you are making for pathfinder had better be original and deep. We play D&D in the most part because we like to tell stories.
Oh. Thank you for the four years of progress made in what were stagnant IPs. The steady progression in quality made in your caring hands stands out for me as a beacon of hope in a world of marketing and mediocrity. You are the Hemingways of publishing.
Love from Taliesin.
But... but.. I paid my money. I want Dungeon, not something else. I want that feeling that I get once a month when I open my mailbox. I want my multiple adventures. I want my Dungeoncraft. Hell, I even want my letter from James!
I knew that WotC was moving all their content to a paid subscription model, but I was not prepared for this! Has WotC been asleep during this century? (I'm sure some could easily argue yes) It's all about BRAND IDENTITY! Doing this hurts WotC twice over! Not only do they hurt themselves by losing the institution that were Dragon and Dungeon, but they also hurt their best 3rd party developer. Way to go WotC, you ****ing retards.
Erik, I just wanted to say that the quality of Dungeon since you took over has been top notch. James, you've done an excellent job of continuing that quality. I look at all the "adventures" that WotC publishes and I can't help but shed a tear for the state of D&D. At this point I'm torn. I want Expedition to Castle Greyhawk (or whatever title it is this week...), especially with great authors, but at the moment I want nothing to do with WotC.
It's times like this that I thank the gods that I bought Ptolus and will be able to run adventures in Praemal for probably the next 5 years. Unfortunately, now I won't have Dungeon to help fill some of the gaps that Monte left. (Dear gods don't make me use my imagination!!)
Now with Pathfinder, I fear that it will suffer because many people will see it as not "canon." It can and probably WILL be just as high quality as the adventures in Dungeon, but without the BRAND IDENTITY, it will be a hard sale.
I for one, will be taking advantage of the 120% credit and will be purchasing some of Paizo's other GREAT products, especially the GameMastery Item Cards and other aids/accessories. (Don't tell Jason, he might get a big(ger) head! Especially if he finds out how Dungeonscape is probably one of my top 3 best 3.X WotC books!)
Sorry for the rant, but this is just ridiculous, or in other words it's "Inconceivable!"
p.s. How much would the D&D brand cost? Seriously. Would it ever be possible for Paizo to buy it? How about Paizo and a few other smaller publishers?
I was wondering if any of the adventure paths in Pathfinder are going to be set in Eberron or Forgotten Realms? If they're all set in Greyhawk, I'm not really interested. I know I could change them but I'm a lazy DM. :)
It can't be set in any of those three settings. Those are WotC intellectual property and cannot be used by anybody other than Wizards or their licensees.
p.s. How much would the D&D brand cost? Seriously. Would it ever be possible for Paizo to buy it? How about Paizo and a few other smaller publishers?
Wait a few years until they slammed the cart fully into the wall, then it will sell cheaply - but, of course, once your good name is ruined...
Stefan
DoctorRomulus, I'm sure when you made your post above, you were as upset as I when i started this thread. However, I also recently recanted a little and apologise (hat in hand) to Paizo. this is not their fault, this mess lies squarely in the laps of some nard at WotC.
Paizo _could_ have thrown up their hands and called it quits completely, leaving us only with whatever drivel WotC spews out of their gluttonous gut next (maybe we need a WotC monster for the new Pathfinder series?).
Though I regret what I said in my first post about Paizo, I should think that the extent of my anger only demonstrates how in love I have become with the magazines. Paizo took something that was already an institution in the D&D world and made it flat out more amazing that we could have imagined. THAT is probably the real reason that I am so angry with WotC, not just because we are losing a piece of D&D history (did WotC just bring out a big book celebrating that history?) but because the content, artwork, editorials, and graphic design of our favourite mags has been top notch or more for the past 5 years.
So, Doctor Romulus, don't hate Paizo, hate WotC.
In fact, I suggest we all use our accounts on the D&D boards to encourage all the noobs (and WotC regs alike) to come over to the dark side and check out Paizo, where the _real_ talent lies. Players who appreciate all the talent (whether it be fluff or crunch) from Paizo will convert, those who don't, well, they will likely leave WotC for whatever the next great MMORPG will be.
I am going to DL the submission guidelines for GameMastery and give them a look. I was all ready to write an adventure for Dungeon, but now I will have to turn that creative drive (potentially) to this new product. And as far as monsters go, really, the list of monsters we _can't_ use is rather short. Besides, as a community, I'm sure we can come up with something better than WotC.
Up with Paizo!
Down with Wizards!
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"My concern is that Hasbro looks at a certain other UK games company well known for it's hard about face into a hard corperate model and says; "that's a great idea, why don't you do that, Wizards"? "
They'd be complete IDIOTS to do the same model. As a long time GW player/hater, GW listens to its customers less than any other company I know and its bottom line shows it. GW is NOT in a good finicial position at the moment, judging by its public reports.
But if they want to follow suit and have to borrow money to pay shareholders....they can go ahead.
If this was one of the exciting new developments you were talking about, Erik, then you can cram it with walnuts.Not sure how to respond to this, but I like walnuts, so we'll go with "thanks!"
Dragon/Dungeon Ending: Not exciting.
Pathfinder: Exciting.
GameMastery Modules: Exciting.
New Paizo Campaign Setting: Exciting.
Planet Stories Classic Fiction Line: Exciting.
You be the judge.
--Erik
I understand the need to put a positive spin on this, but you can't pretend that Dragon and Dungeon are equal to one or even all of those.
In any case, it sounds like readers of Dungeon will have decent substitutes. People who relied on Dragon for material of a higher quality than Wizards of the Coast crapped out are out of luck, though. Maybe they took back the license so we wouldn't have a better alternative to their books...
In conclusion, f$@% WotC.
WotC SUCKS!!! The Paizo people on the other hand are talented writers and their magazines have brought me a great deal of joy. I will try Pathfinder but I WANT DRAGON AND DUNGEON MAGAZINES BACK!!!!
David, as we were discussing in other threads before the hammer fell, there have been some problems with delivery of the mags to those of us here in Canada, and that was my concern also with Pathfinder, until it was pointed out in another thread that, because it is a book, not a magazine, it is not considered a periodical, and thus won't be treated like a second-class citizen.
Chief Technical Officer
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THAT is probably the real reason that I am so angry with WotC, not just because we are losing a piece of D&D history (did WotC just bring out a big book celebrating that history?)
If you mean The Art of Dragon, that's a Paizo product.
I converted my subscriptions to Pathfinder. I am willing to give it a try, since its being created by the same talented folks. I will also probably check out the GameMastery line as well.
The price of both, I am not so happy about. They seem quite high -- which will directly play into my decision to buy the new products lines. The need to rock to justify that price point. If they start to become "meh", then they'll become less worth it.
I am excited by the new Paizo-Necromancer partnership as well, so I will be intently watching Paizo, and hope for great things.
WOTC on the other hand is simply cutting off it's nose to spite it's face. I cannot fathom why they are pursuing this model, and I wholely expect it to fail. I have no intention of supporting it.
Sakkara
THAT is probably the real reason that I am so angry with WotC, not just because we are losing a piece of D&D history (did WotC just bring out a big book celebrating that history?)If you mean The Art of Dragon, that's a Paizo product.
I think he means the WotC book, "30 years of D&D" or something along those lines, that came out a while back.
Will the GameMastery adventure line have a subscription option with pdfs as well?
I second this. I've always thought that Dungeon adventures were of high quality--even the "worst" were pretty good.
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I'm not buying into this...
Pathfinder seems like a really stupid substitute. The small, easy-to-incude-in-your-game adventures are of the same quality as the larger campaign arcs and if one of them doesn't suit a DM's needs, there were always a handful of others -- at 1/3 price -- you could use.
More importantly, a DM can browse a 9 page adventure to see if he or she can use it very quickly. This is a big time saver. The Pathfinder is a super adventure that will take months of prep time before a DM can run it. That's BS! I only just started running an AoW campaign; I've not read a single STAP adventure because someone else will probably DM it for me as a PC. Yet I still have gotten lots of mileage from Dungeon the past dozen issues. Pathfinder may be a good magazine (w/ 96 pages, gee wiz) but it is not nearly sufficient to take the place of Dungeon. Let alone Dungeon and Dragon.
-W. E. Ray
Y'know ....my wife actually gave me a hug when I told her that MY magazines were getting canned....she's a sweetie..
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Y'know ....my wife actually gave me a hug when I told her that MY magazines were getting canned....she's a sweetie..
So did mine, she knows how important those magazines were to me and to the hobby as a whole. After all, she can see how many shelves I have dedicated to just my Dragon collection from over the years. It just amazes me that my wife, who doens't play any RPG's at all, can see their importance more clearly than WotC.
Well, I could talk of my 25 years of gaming and what I'll miss or didn't like here and there, but all Ill say is "thanks Erik" not a bad few years of gaming this 3rd edition. You and the staff have made a good product. I will take a look at pathfinder. I will not do pdf, have not, and maybe have found a way to kick my "mini" habit. Glad I know how to paint figs... and I still have those AD&D books, humm?
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I'm sorta extra upset because I recently DLed the submission guidelines and was about to start work on an adventure for Dungeon. It seems like we don't have an outlet for that now.
I also had an idea for a Bazaar of the Bizarre I wanted to submit. :-(
Ummm...hold that thought.
Paizo has chosen the book route. This does not mean that others are not interested in picking up the magazine route. Out of respect for Paizo's work (and because this is Paizo's board and not mine), that's all I'm saying. I will be saying more elsewhere later.
More on topic, I will miss Dungeon magazine. I'm a tech writer by trade and do a lot of copyediting and typos in Paizo's products are the rare exception. Sadly, there is a great deal of game product that leaves me with the feeling "I can do better than that." Paizo has never left me with that feeling.