DDXP 2011 Product Spotlight

Jan 27th, 2011 - 1:00pm

Get the inside scoop from Wizards R&D as they present details on some of the year’s hottest upcoming releases, such as D&D Fortune Cards, Heroes of Shadow, and Neverwinter. Surprises await all who attend!

Liveblogging notes by @WolfStar76 for Baldman Games

Presenters:

Mike Mearls

Chris Perkins

Welcome and Introduction - explaining how Mike and Chris split their duties.  Mike is the more visionary line, and Chris is more production.

We’re about 2.5 years into 4E.  This seminar will cover where we are, and challenge assumptions about what we, the customers, want.  They will take feedback from this seminar back to WotC.

• Instead of making books for the sake of making books - they’re looking to tie products into Organized Play

• D&D Encounters has been tremendously successful.
• Now trying to tie many products to D&D

• -----------------------Technical difficulties, catching back up now -----------------

• Coming Encounters:

• March of the Phantom Bridage

• Introduces D&D Fortune Cards for an optional experience
• Expect lots of feedback on Fortune Cards

• The Dark Legacy of Evard

• Make characters with Essentials *OR* Heroes of Shadow

• Lost Crown of Neverwinter
• Beyond the Crystal Cave

• D&D Fortune Card Sets

• Shadow over Nentir Vale
• Glory of Neverwinter
• Fury of the Feywild

• Fortune Cards don’t quite fill the slot of a feat, and try not to be “encounter breaking”
• Books and Boxed Sets

• Player’s Option: Heroes of Shadow (April)
• The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond (May)
• Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale (June)

• Not just monsters
• Organizations are introduced

• Raven Roost Bandits
• Ironwood Circle
• Tigerclaw Barbarians
• Bandit groups
• Drow group

• Tokens and stats

• Neverwinter Campaign Setting (August)

• Similar format to Dark Sun

• GM and Player in the same book

• Based on the Encounters Season

• ALSO BASED ON A NEW 4E MMO FROM ATARI!

• Madness at Gardmore Abbey (September)

• Used to be a paladin’s redoubt - until the paladins fell
• Found a Chaotic Item (Desk of Many Things)

• Has warped the dungeon making it very replayable
• Going to be showing off cards from the Deck of Many Things
• Box set has a complete deck!

• Player’s Option: Heroes of the Feywild (November)
• Book of Vile Darkness (TBD)

• Tied to the SyFy Original Movie

• Unsure of the movie’s release
• Book release may shift to meet/match the movie release

• More than just a 4E take on the book

• A lot of crunch, but a lot more flavor.

• More maps . .

• Monster Vault includes two beautiful maps.
• Very versatile building map - can decorate with yor own accessories/tokens/tles to make it a tavern or a temple, or whatever else.

• Tokens

• 8 Token sheets in Monster Vault
• 2 sheets in Madness
• 2 sheets in Shadowfell
• Includes “the Ring” which turns Large tokens into Huge

• Shadowfell

• Greg Bilsland
• One book is a player’s options book
• The other book is an “encounters” book to help build adventures
• Introduces a “Despair Deck”

• Divided into 3 aspects

• Madness
• Fear
• Apathy

• DM Deck to add flavor and atmosphere

• DM hands cards to players to give flavor
• Adds roleplay and mechanical effects

• Also includes a benefit for overcoming the negative aspects of the Shadowfell

• Highlights how the Shadowfell affects emotions

• Gloomwrought Shadar-Kai are especially prone to these mood swings

• Full map of the city of Gloomwrought, and a tactical map for Gloomwrought or another city of your choosing.
• Mid-Heroic to Upper Paragon

• Deck of Many Things

• Cards have major effects

• Summon Death to take your soul
• Summon huge treasure to dump upon your party

• Chris Perkins always allows each player in the party to draw a single card - because you kow they will.

• Even though over half the cards are bad.

• New In-Store Event

• D&D Forunte Cards Strongly Suggested
• Starting in Sept
• One DEADLY Encounter
• BYOC - Bring your own character
• Event name TBD (stay tuned)
• Good chance your group will get CRUSHED.

• VERY good chance

• Multiple Objectives - not JUST “kill the monster”
• Can retry with a new group if you fail

• Board Games

• Wrath of Ashardalon (Feb)
• Conquest of Nerath (June)

• More Axis and Allies style
• HUGE box with a big map showing more of the world around Nentir Vale
• Shows several of the factions in the area

• Faction based on the Nentir Vale area/adventurers
• Elven Faction
• Evil monster faction
• Lawful-Evil Slaver / Infernal Posessed faction

• Legend of Drizzt (October)
• Castl Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, and Legend of Drizzt are cross-compatible.

• Dungeon Tiles

• Caverns of Icewind Dale (Feb)
• The Witchlight Fens (June)
• Shadowghast Manor (Dec)

• HauntedHouse style tiles

• D&D Books

• FR Novels
• Practical Guide expansions
• The Abyssal Plauge series (core D&D Novels)

• Missing in Actions

• Noteworthy for their Absence

• Class Compendium: Heroes of Sword and Spell
• Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium
• Hero Builder’s Handbook

• Pulling back the idea of just putting out a book for a book’s sake.
• Focusing on tying books to Organized Play
• “We could publish, say, Arcane Powr 2,tomorrow, and you’d use, perhaps 5% of it.  We’re examing to ask “is this actually going to be used by the players?”
• “We have the content, we’re just tryig to figure out how to best get it to you”
• “Do mechanics-heavy books fit into our plan?  Will they need lots of updates after the fact” - trying to get out of the pattern of always playing “catch up” with fixing books.
• When asked about an “Encyclopedia of Magic Items”

• Compendium meets this need
• Don’t want to publish a book, then wait for 8 pages of PDF updates later.

• D&D Insider

• Virtual Table demonstration tomorrow

• Chris Perkins will be running a game for people back at WotC live
• Show and Tell session of where the VT is right now.

• Now treating D&D Insider the same as print product

• Same R&D and other analysis

• Web Metrics show that the compiled PDF was seldom being downloaded - most of the audience didn’t grab the PDFs.

• Far more downloads of the articles - which weren’t updated
• Much of the work was also going into the Compendium
• Can re-exam putting compiled issues together if/as needed.

• Could also move to a .zip file download of all articles

• No compilations means only one place to update - instead of article (old/unfixed version) and the issue (updated/fixed)

• Q: How do we tell you if we’d prefer Compilations

• A: That’s why we’re here.  We knew it was something of an issue before we got here, thanks to the message boards and the like.
• A: Community Forums, Facebook, Twitter - if the conversation is going on we’ll hear about it.
• A: Don’t forget Customer Service as well.
• Suggestion: Mark on the Article if/when it was last updated
• Suggestion: Tags and Keywords to make searching the archives easier

• Looking Forward

• What’s in store (so to speak)

• Quality and Focus
• Products tied to Organized Play events
• Things that excite and unite the D&D Community.

• Tell Us. . .

• What would you like to see from WotC?
• Q: Will the new OP Event by a single/fixed day event?

• A: No.  For experienced stores and players.  Very flexible.
• D&D Encounters is for new stores and players primarily.  
• New Event is for experienced stores and players to setup to meet their needs.

• Q: Any plans for plastic minis?

• A: Good Question.  Issues with the Global Economy.  Minis made in China - plastics costs have gone up significantly.
• No more scheduled random mini sets.
• Plastic minis in the board games and will see how those do
• Mind is open to minis, but it isn’t working financially
• Wait and See
• Audience Suggestion: Gamma World minis.

• Q: Item Cards for Encounters?

• A: We’re experimenting with that
• A: Madness of Gardmore Abbey boxed set will have some treasure cards to test market.

• Q: Mass market (Target, Wal-Mart) of Product?

• Red Box is the only product in mass market now
• Depends in part on popularity of the product
• Stores often have specifications on what they’ll take

• Q: What kind of support is there for organizers on university campuses and other non-store organizers?

• A: Background - its difficult to support non-stores, because many products that are given out as promos end up on Ebay.
• A: Easy to hold stores accountable, but can’t as easily hold groups accountable
• A: We know where conventions and non-store organizers are coming from, we want to support you, and are exploring options. (Chris Tulach)
• A: There are ways through the WPN that stores can run/play events off-site. We can work that out if you can get a store to sponsor your events. Contact Chris Tulach if you would like more information.
• We really are concerned with school/educational support. (Trevor Kidd)

• Q: Nothing about Ravenloft Campaign Setting?

• A: We announced it at GenCon
• A: We have decided to put it on the shelf, as we feel it isn’t ready yet.
• A: Very experimental - want to try and decide a better focus for it.
• A: Don’t expect it to show up soon.

• Q: Will there be more options for Essentials Classes? I play a Hexblade and a lot of the feats and stuff for Warlocks don’t work.

• A: Player’s Option: Heroes of Shadow will help the Hexblade
• A: More information as well about how various races (like Dwarves) see and feel about Shadow Magic.

• Character Builder is giving a lot of great feedback on what people are playing

• Most popular race - Human
• Most popular class - Fighter
• Least popular class - Runepriest
• Feedback from the CB is great to show what classes need more support (Why aren’t people playing this?  Why ARE people playing that)

• Q: Champions of the Heroic Tier - what’s the status?

• A: The content of that book has been split into other books.
• A: Hero Builder’s Handbook has much of that content

• Q: Essentials line is fantastic. Will there be a shift in DDI from fluff back to crunch?

• A: This is part of the change in DDI moving through R&D, as such we’re going to be playing with the balance of crunch and fluff.  We know people like a lot of mechanical content, but hate updates.  Goal is to get the right amount of mechanical content, without need lots of updates after the fact.

• Q: Have you ever considered doing something like a Product Survery to the masses?

• We’re rolling out a series of D&D Articles by Bart Carrol.  Every day of the week will have a new column.
• Mike Mearls’ first series of articles in that chain will have surveys
• Goal is to open up communication with the fans.
• D&D is not a video game where it’s published and locked.

• Want to hear what direction players are going in, and catering to that.

• Crowdsourcing has always been part of D&D - how people are actually playing is more important than the actual rules.

• Q: Nothing about Game Days?

• A: That will be covered in the OP seminar next.

• Q: You mentions “how people play is what the game really is” but the DDI Character Builder doesn’t allow customization of the character.  Will there be more customization coming in the Character Builder?  Stability is also an issue.

• A: (Trevor Kidd) We recently released a patch with over 300 bug fixes - resolves most stability
• A: (Trevor) Customizability is on our road map.  We’ve released a road map for the next three months, but we have plans that go beyond that period as well.

• Q: Encounters on Wednesdays don’t work for many people with jobs and a family.  Yet the time period (2 hour sessions) IS a great match.  Any plans to release prior Encounters Sessions?

• A: We may start to emphasize play content in a shorter window into things like Dungeon magazine or other product.
• A: There are discussions around the office as to what to do with old Encounter Content
• A: May include Encounters “Expansions” in Dungeon - how to continue with the characters you’ve been playing the last 13+ weeks.

• Q: Is there any kind of target date for the Virtual Tabletop?

• (Trevor) No.  We will release it when its done.  We’re going to keep working on it, making it as good as possible.
• (Perkins) Even running the software myself, there are things about the UI that I know need polish.
• (Mearls) We don’t want to hurry to a release date, then disappoint people and drive them away.

• Q: Will the new Monster Builder have all the monsters, or just the newer ones (example Old Solor monster vs New Solo Monsters)?

• A: There is some overlap.  A monster re-released in the Monster Vault, for example, is the only one in the system. (Monster Vault Black Dragon, not Monster Manual Black Dragon)
• A: Un-updated monsters will still have the original stats.
• A: Can sort by source and see the source as well - to help pick updated monsters

• Q: The Monser Builder is one big sheet of stats?  Can we get cards or templates?

• A: That’s great feedback, we know the sheets aren’t currently ideal

• Q: Any more 3D terrain tiles?

• A: The currently planned sets are all flat.
• A: We’re looking at it, and interested in it, but its also a matter of keeping those tiles in proper perspective

• Q: Do you have any ideas for a method to keep Tiles fixed in place during play so they don’t shift when things are moved around?

• A: Sticky Tack works.
• A: (Perkins) I just use Translucent (not Transparent) Tape - it doesn’t remove the finish. (Tulach: it’s called Magic Tape)
• Audience Suggestion: Write an aritcle on how to safely secure your tiles without harming them

• Q: How can I play higher level characters in organized play, if I normally play in a non-LFR/OP home game?

• A: That’s something we’re working on.
• A: LFR allows for higher-level character creation and play. However characters must be made LFR-Legal (magic items and a few other options need some conversion).

• Thank you for coming!  We’re here to listen to your feedback at the show, so please don’t be shy to come up to us, and to share your thoughts!

Thank you for reading my liveblog notes!

• Q: