Too late. Read it, posted a response elsewhere on the boards. Thanks anyway!
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It sucks IMO. I am gonna go over it again to make sure that my gut reaction isn't too overly flavoured by my "Grumpy old Gamer syndrome" but all I saw in my initial view was some stat blocks that may be liftable with very little else of value. I would have cancelled my subscription to the paper magazine if gave me that bad of quality more than once or twice.
FH
RIPOFF! After waiting months for an updated Tsojcanth, we get... a new "prologue." No caverns. But it tells us that the caverns are "coming soon."
This is no different from all of the "playtest previews" that actually give no insight whatsoever, but rather just tell us that some insight is on the way. I'm beginning to think there are actually no game designers at WotC at all: just a bunch of non-gamer guys trying to convince us they're still working on stuff while they desperately try to hire some designers.
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Seems to me that no matter what WotC does at this point some people are going to think it sucks. I have just glanced at it but I think it is great and it is only part one of three parts. The total being much more information than was orginally available in the 1st edition module. With what has come out in Dragon in the last several issues it is becoming a serious body of work.
And a Chimera - don't see many of those these days. I enjoy the classics updated - then again I guess I am a classic too these days.
well, i cant say that i read the whole thing, i did look at it, and the art that i saw looked pretty good to me. there are alot of monster stat blocks. i havent researched them to see whats new and what isnt. its 20 pages. i just think everybody should just give it a good read. and judge it based on what you read.
is this how your going to treat nicolas logue's work when it comes out? i dont know how many of you have noticed, but the guys here at paizo have been writing alot of stuff that has come out of woc lately. is it automatically bad becasue it has been published by woc? is everything paizo does automatically good becasue its been published by paizo?
does it really matter who publishes what? i seem to remember reading an awful lot of negitaive letters in prison mail and scale mail.
how much have you paid for this 20 page chapter? how much are you going to pay for the next two? if the next two chapters are also 20 pages, then thats a 60 page modual by my math. thats pretty significant. and with it being an electronic format, you can mark and paste it into word, and put the information in any format you like to run it. i always thought it was a little unweildy to turn so many pages in dungeon.
there is nothing that any publisher can do to make something completly unusable. there is always something worth harvesting. just give it a chance.
long live paizo, and long live dungeons and dragons, in whatever format it comes to us in.
I agree with Fake Healer & Kirth Gersen...it blows as much as I expected. WotC has never been able to publish a decent magazine.
Seems to me that no matter what WotC does at this point some people are going to think it sucks.You're right because I really like Ari. But why split it up?
Did they split it up to post a new Part/Chapter every week? I'd be okay with that... if they split it up to post a chapter every month... that sucks.
Too late. Read it, posted a response elsewhere on the boards. Thanks anyway!Cool, what thread has the other postings about this? I'm curious as to what people think about it.
Chapter 2 Coming soon!WTF-See if I had a magazine I could hold I be into chapter 2 because the whole adventure would be in my hands, then again would this adventure have even appeared? typical
Chapter 2 Coming soon!WTF-See if I had a magazine I could hold I be into chapter 2 because the whole adventure would be in my hands, then again would this adventure have even appeared? typical
I think "coming soon" means next week. They are going to release the whole adventure over the course of the month. (Read that on EnWorld but I believe it was posted in a blog.)
I guess at the end of the month, we will have the whole magazine. No real change from how they have been running their web site for a long while now. Whenever they feature a new product, they roll out supporting material/interviews/supplements over the course of the month, not all at once. It seems that LCoT is similar to Maure Castle, in that it's a lot longer than the usual adventure (part 1 is 20 pages without ads). So getting 3 parts, each part once per week, and then the fourth part (Nicholas Logue's adventure) in the last week is equivalent to releasing four different adventures once per week. Would people be complaining then (if it were 4 separate adventures)? Dunno.
Greg
&Chapter 2 Coming soon!WTF-See if I had a magazine I could hold I be into chapter 2 because the whole adventure would be in my hands, then again would this adventure have even appeared? typicalI think it was originally rejected by Paizo...
I don't personally know why, but the size it probably a good guess as to why. They've said that MC was a risk, devoting the whole magazine to one module. I'm not sure they'd be willing to take that risk again (seeing as they didn't do it again after MC).
Just my $0.02.
Greg
It makes perfect sense from a marketing perspective. With a totally online product, they want thier customers to log in as much as possible, which forces them to view whatever's on thier website 9advertisements, product placement, new releases, etc). SO by breaking the adventure into sections, thier entire suscriber base will end up logging in each week to get the next section.
I'll stick to pathfinder, least I can thumb through the entire thing while sitting on my throne :P
If it's one a week, and we can look at the whole thing before subscribing, that would be a good marketing ploy for fossils like me. In fact, a solid Tsojcanth remake would probably sell me on the new Dungeon. But what I saw sure looked to me like a case of "this is what we'll show you as a preview; you've got to subscribe to see any more-- which we may or may not have written, by the way, and might not ever publish." And that would irk me to the point of preventing me from ever subscribing, if true. Just have to wait and see.
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Just took my first good look: I like Marmell's adventure so far, and I'm looking forward to part 2. Also, I like "Ecology of the Death Knight." I can't get to Wizards from my office, but I was able to copy-and-paste the article and pics into Pages and email it to myself for a leisurely office perusal. I also took a look at the Dragon article "D&D 360," and found it a nostalgic bit of fun; especially, I dig the hyperlinks, though, which is making me rethink the DI...
Flame-on, if you like; my skin is quite thick.
Board ate my post (grrr)
Anyway, I downloaded and read it.
Good stuff:
Art
Encounters
Mediocre stuff:
Iggwilv is a witch, don't call her an archmage just because she has a few levels in it.
Bad stuff:
No synopsis of the adventure
The hooks didn't hook me
It isn't a "meh" effort, but compared to "ecology of the death knight" everything shines....
The need to work on the bad stuff, you need to hook the DM before you hook the players.
Mediocre stuff: Iggwilv is a witch, don't call her an archmage just because she has a few levels in it.
Not to argue (or threadjack), but I'm not sure what the distinction is here -- why insist on the witch label?
And if she has levels in Archmage, then she is one -- just as a character with levels in Eldritch Knight is an Eldritch Knight. She also fits the looser definition as a highly skilled and powerful arcane spellcaster. (She also fits the definition of a witch.)
More on track, I don't think it's a fair criticism -- others might be, though I like the module so far.
Regards :)
Jack
Not to argue (or threadjack), but I'm not sure what the distinction is here -- why insist on the witch label?More on track, I don't think it's a fair criticism -- others might be, though I like the module so far.
Guess I didn't like the introduction of Iggwilv. To me she was always the witch, so very powerful that as a DM you really didn't have to quantify it. Thus by labeling her as an archmage you lessen the mystery.
So true, it wasn't a very good criticism (mediocre at best ;>), I just disliked the continuity gap, but I guess that is just the way it works now.....
Although a comprehensive list of the sources that feature these characters would be prohibitively large, the following serves as a summary.
Umm, let's see. Online content, updatable at any time, hyper linked, wikis, blogs. I'll stop here.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I liked the fluff, miss good crunch though. It is a good start, but yes, having just a prologue is damned annoying. At least it's new art.
It would have been nice if rather than taking up the text with the taint rules, they'd just linked to the SRD.
I can't wait to see part two, but not sure I'd pay for it. sorry Ari.
I liked the fluff, miss good crunch though. It is a good start, but yes, having just a prologue is damned annoying. At least it's new art.
I suppose this is the approach WotC is taking -- continue to tease us with stuff throughout the month to keep us reading.
Which isn't sitting well with many previous subscribers/buyers used to the instant gratification of a full issue. One might think they've put absolutely no consideration into the consequences of their decisions.
I like the article it was a good start. Do you think there were any hints of 4E? I don't mind them breaking up the adventure and releasing each part every month. But I think they should have more content from the get go. The other adventures perhaps? There is just not a lot of content for me.
I been spoiled.
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If it's one a week, and we can look at the whole thing before subscribing, that would be a good marketing ploy for fossils like me. In fact, a solid Tsojcanth remake would probably sell me on the new Dungeon. But what I saw sure looked to me like a case of "this is what we'll show you as a preview; you've got to subscribe to see any more-- which we may or may not have written, by the way, and might not ever publish." And that would irk me to the point of preventing me from ever subscribing, if true. Just have to wait and see.
Everything is free until January. That is our opportunity to preview everything - see what we think and take action.
I personally never doubted that I would subscribe. I intend to support both Paizo and WotC. They have the reigns of the game I love to play...
You know, I thought it funny that after reading Ecology of the Death Knight (and being disappointed at the HTML format) that while reading LCoT that I thought about how much more handy it would have been if the article was better formatted for my screen than for a sheet of paper. Of course, for an adventure I'd be much more likely to print the thing out so I guess it's all good.
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42 pages to read while sitting at my PC.......no thanks, I tried to read it but I just can't bring myself to sit here and do nothing but read the screen for that long. I want a hardcopy but I ain't gonna start buying printer ink in bulk just to read this type of mediocre stuff.
I guess WotC has actually lost me now.
FH
How do you know if the material is mediocre if you didn't read it? Will Nick Logue's "Hell's Heart" be deemed mediocre because it did not appear in the print magazines.
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How do you know if the material is mediocre if you didn't read it? Will Nick Logue's "Hell's Heart" be deemed mediocre because it did not appear in the print magazines.
I read more than half and it wasn't something that stood out as good writing. I then skimmed the rest.
I don't need to shovel a whole plate of undercooked, underflavoured food down my throat to know what is on the plate. Maybe that was the only bad dish, but I don't like the experience of reading my monitor, especially for stuff of a mediocre vein. I will give a couple more (more critical)chances, especially Nick Logue's offering(I doubt I would do that for Richard Pett, though;P), but my first experience is turning me off to the experience. They would need to really bring it, though, if they want $10 a month for the crap they are serving up so far.FH
The second part didn't really grab my attention, the dungeon had like 20 rooms and encounters but not one of them grabbed my attention. The first part of the adventure with the set up and travel was better in my opinion.
Don't they know that a dungeon needs less rooms ;>
And then that awful encounter setup with a map attached to it, a complete waste of space!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t part two about as close as a direct conversion of the original module as 3.5 would allow? Well, that and putting it in the now infamous delve format.
I’m not certain about this – I have to go by my memories of the module as all my old D&D stuff was tossed when I left for college fifteen years ago. Could anyone with the original module comment on this?
I have two gripes with the adventure so far and they are more annoying than anything else.
My first gripe is the Delve format. The encounter formatting is fine but I find it annoying to have to flip to the back of the adventure for the encounters. For me it would work better if they left the encounters formatted the way they were and just sorted them into the descriptions of the different areas of the map. The flipping just makes it harder to keep track of where you were at (especially in a pdf).
My second gripe is that they never bothered to mention that they would update the original pdf with part two instead of releasing it as a second pdf. I don't mind since I prefer to have it in one file but it would have been nice to have been told that that was what they were going to do. I would not have known they did that if I hadn't decided to download it onto my PC at home.
Can anyone provide a link to the adventure, please...
I couldn't find it over there at the coast.
I would like to have a look at it, to write something here...
Thanx,- Tom
Tom -
You have to login (which is free, for now) in order to see it.
- Ashavan
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t part two about as close as a direct conversion of the original module as 3.5 would allow? Well, that and putting it in the now infamous delve format.
The main difference seems to be the rush to replace as many as possible of the original monsters with alternatives from the Monster Manual V, doubtless in an effort to spur sales.
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How do you know if the material is mediocre if you didn't read it? Will Nick Logue's "Hell's Heart" be deemed mediocre because it did not appear in the print magazines.I read more than half and it wasn't something that stood out as good writing. I then skimmed the rest.
I don't need to shovel a whole plate of undercooked, underflavoured food down my throat to know what is on the plate. Maybe that was the only bad dish, but I don't like the experience of reading my monitor, especially for stuff of a mediocre vein. I will give a couple more (more critical)chances, especially Nick Logue's offering(I doubt I would do that for Richard Pett, though;P), but my first experience is turning me off to the experience. They would need to really bring it, though, if they want $10 a month for the crap they are serving up so far.FH
It is an update of a 30 year old module. It is not cutting edge 3.5 edition work. It was a whole different thing back then...
Unless some takes an old module and uses the material to write something completely new up the the standards that has developed in the 30 years since this original was done.
I personally love when the old classics are updated to e3.5, but I do not expect something much better than the original it was the times...
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My second gripe is that they never bothered to mention that they would update the original pdf with part two instead of releasing it as a second pdf. I don't mind since I prefer to have it in one file but it would have been nice to have been told that that was what they were going to do. I would not have known they did that if I hadn't decided to download it onto my PC at home.
This kind of pissed me off as well. I originally thought they were putting it out in multiple parts just to make it easier to download with regards to file size. Why not just put the whole thing out all at once?
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My second gripe is that they never bothered to mention that they would update the original pdf with part two instead of releasing it as a second pdf. I don't mind since I prefer to have it in one file but it would have been nice to have been told that that was what they were going to do. I would not have known they did that if I hadn't decided to download it onto my PC at home.This kind of pissed me off as well. I originally thought they were putting it out in multiple parts just to make it easier to download with regards to file size. Why not just put the whole thing out all at once?
As they have said - their plan is to give us content a few times a week or maybe the whole thing was not ready yet so they gave us a part of it first. I was also surprised that it was attached to the first chapter but how much effort is it to delete the previous file?
Maybe a strange way to put out the next chapter but nothing for me to have an emotional reaction over...
I have skimmed it, it is a just like the 1st ed module (which was a dungeon crawl with a bunch of new monsters living side by side without justification most of which had been created for that module) There are some flavour changes (which I am not too fond of). The best bit of the original S4 was the second book and the background to the module. I would rather they had kept the flavour and background and changed the dungeon crawl aspect, not the other way around.
Figures ... slinks off to enjoy his battered 1e copy
Chapter 3 is up.I'll pass.
wasn't it originally supposed to be 3 parts... anyone else notice that it is now FOUR parts.
- Ashavan