Quote from: ggroy;466976In other words, a project in a "death march" phase.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_march_%28project_management%29

Probably.  I mean, if they are spending eight months, a year, or whatever re-inventing current technology, something has gone catastrophically wrong.

QuoteWonder if WotC outsourced the DDI programming to India, or hired a "gang that couldn't shoot straight" bunch of programmers.

:banghead:

:rolleyes:

From the reactions I found written late last year, it sounds more like the latter.  Most people seemed to be under the impression there is just the one dev team on this, but the consistency of the issues people wrote about points to them being either wildly incompetent, or going off some very vague specs that are constantly revised by WotC.

Whether or not that team is internal to WotC or third party is something I don't recall being heavily invested in.  Either way, WotC is maintaining TSR's track record of being utterly clueless when it comes to technology.

Quote from: StormBringer;467021, or going off some very vague specs that are constantly revised by WotC.

Gee, welcome to the club.  I build websites for the gubmint and we easily spend years on projects due to the constantly changing requirements and managers who have no fricking clue what they want or what is possible.  Seeing that wotc has no real plan for D&D and keeps shifting their priorities there, it's easy to guess why their software development is so slow and ineffectual - bad management.

Quote from: Ian Warner;466530Grim summed it up best on Twitter.

"They went after a new target ignoring their fanatical niche."

I think that is just beautiful. And as far as I am concerned, correct.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;466910In terms of how much ddi is making that is very hard to estimate.

The same could be said of print sales. In both cases, the folks who actually know don't say, but we guesstimate anyway.

Seanchai

Quote from: KrakaJak;466975If there are 1 million D&D players (WotC actual estimate). The average game has 4 players + GM. That means there are appx. 200,000 tables. If half of those tables subscribe to DDI (still a generous assumption, there's not much need for more then one subscription per group and there are plenty of free character builder competitors) then you have 100,000 subscriptions.

First, there are plenty of free 4e character builders out there? Where?

Second, huh? Why is looking at the number of tables more relevant than looking at the number of players? I know some people use other people's log in information, but 4 out of 5? That's a little high.

Quote from: KrakaJak;466975I'm sure the boardgames alone turn over more then 7 Million a year.

No doubt. Which is why I think Hasbro or WotC's management is being draconian about cutting costs and making D&D as profitable as possible.

Seanchai

If you want a free Character Builder, you will find it.  I have seen Builders made from scratch using Excel and mods to the old downloadable WotC Builder which keep it up to date.  I don't think there are a great many, but there certainly are enough, for Mac or PC.

As to the larger question of how many subscriptions are being bought, I don't think anyone here has a clue or a way to estimate.  Here's a group I guarantee exists - design freaks, kids, and manchilds who never play 4e at all but still have a subscription to DDI.  Dozens?  Hundreds? Thousands? No way to know.

Quote from: ggroy;466976Wonder if WotC outsourced the DDI programming to India, or hired a "gang that couldn't shoot straight" bunch of programmers.

My wife's company (she's a project manager for a big bank/credit card company) outsourced most development to India 6-8 years ago.  Now they are insourcing it back.  Its a lot easier for analysits/designers/architects/programmers to build the same thing if they are all in the same building or at least the same city.  And even better when the subject matter experts can also be in the same meeting physically.  (Something I told them when I worked at the same company.)

Plus, salaries are rising in the countries where the work was outsourced to, so the cost savings aren't as much.  And the people doing the work were turning over more frequently (again due to salaries rising, but also the other jobs there--working in india for an indian company for example are more desirable: no late night calls to the US, etc.)

Quote from: Esgaldil;467090As to the larger question of how many subscriptions are being bought, I don't think anyone here has a clue or a way to estimate.  

There's a group on community.wizards.com that DDI subscribers are automatically a member of.

Right now, it has 56,592 members. I'm not sure if canceling your subscription automatically removes you from the group.

Quote from: Seanchai;466597Moreover, Paizo - especially with statement's like the CEO's - is no longer the underdog. What's going to happen when they can no longer reasonably play the "we're just a small business who loves its customers" martyr card?

Seanchai

Sooner or later, Paizo will release some kind of new edition of Pathfinder. Then a portion of their existing fanbase can freak out and cry that they've been betrayed and Paizo has told them their business isn't wanted.

Quote from: Halloween Jack;467097Sooner or later, Paizo will release some kind of new edition of Pathfinder. Then a portion of their existing fanbase can freak out and cry that they've been betrayed and Paizo has told them their business isn't wanted.

My guess is that it won't be pretty either.

Paizo has, intentionally or not, been positioned as the caring alternate, the Apple of the RPG world, and people signed on because of that zeitgeist. After all, geeks love the disaffected underdog. WotC never had that. WotC picked up right where "T$R" left off and has always been the faceless corporate goon. When Paizo "betrays the trust" of it's fans, there's gonna be some apeshit on the Internets.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;467117WotC never had that. WotC picked up right where "T$R" left off and has always been the faceless corporate goon.

Revisionist history; they had a lot of goodwill until the mid 2000s or so. Ditching much of their staff who had been the human face of that goodwill (and building them up into competition exploiting that former image) must not have helped, though.

Melan is correct. While a new edition of Pathfinder RPG WOULD probably divide the fan base, it won't sunder it completely. Mostly because the people in charge of it (Namely people like James Jacobs, Erik Mona) continue to be the face and representatives of this product. If that goes, then yeah there will be as much betrayal as people feel/felt about 4th edition.

Quote from: Halloween Jack;467097Sooner or later, Paizo will release some kind of new edition of Pathfinder. Then a portion of their existing fanbase can freak out and cry that they've been betrayed and Paizo has told them their business isn't wanted.

It's quite possible that you're right, but I can't think of a good reason why they would do that!

WotC was cool until they fired a bunch of devs within a year of publishing 3e. And then they released 3.5 only a couple years later.

Quote from: KrakaJak;466661Ebooks took over dead tree sales a couple years ago. The majority of RPG products are .pdf ONLY because they would not sell a 1/10 the number of copies at retail. Many of the bigger publishers (SJ Games, White-Wolf) have abandoned dead tree damn near completely for .pdf sales. The only company I can think of that is still predominantly dead tree is Palladium.

Yeah, those GURPS eBooks really fly off the shelves - http://e23.sjgames.com/hot.cgi

I'm pretty sure that e23 is the only place selling GURPS eBooks (couldn't find anywhere else on Google anyway) - and in six years of running the store they've managed a whole ten products which have sold in to four figures.