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Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

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Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#291

Post by indigochill »

jghn wrote: post #198
dumpsterlid wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just need to move on from DnD to other IPs at this point, it is absurdly clear that everyone putting all their eggs in the basket with wizards of the coast and it is just a bad idea. There are plenty of fantastic alternatives, we really don’t need the DnD universe. I mean, as highly acclaimed as BG3 is, people in general seem to feel that the dev’s previous game Divinity Original Sin 2 has better combat mechanics……

> We just need to move on from DnD to other IPs at this point Or go back to AD&D 1e like the good lord ... err gygax intended :)

Relatedly, Old School Essentials is, IIRC, B/X just more streamlined in presentation? They also have a cool-looking setting with Dolmenwood (as I gather, basically "a mix of darkness and whimsy in the style of old-school fairy tales") that just had a kickstarter for a big campaign setting guide earlier this year.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#292

Post by 8372049 »

freilanzer wrote: post #260
nextlevelwizard wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people are still going to pay money for D&D then they truly do not care about the hobby. I must admit before the OGL fiasco I didn't see much of the allure of other systems, but that really pushed me away and the world of TTRPGs is so much brighter and better than crappy D&D. I still play in one D&D campaign, but it was started before the fiasco, but I have already decided that at least I won't be running another…

As someone thinking about getting into Pen and Paper games, I'm surprised to read all this. What are the alternatives?

I didn't really enjoy D&D, but I loved Call of Cthulhu. It felt more free-form, i.e. more like an adventure and less like trying to game the mechanics. There is no board with CoC (at least we didn't use one). If the tabletop/board combat of D&D is its major appeal then obviously CoC will be less enjoyable.

As always, getting a good GM and a well-composed group is very important for how your experience will be.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#293

Post by 8372049 »

mcv wrote: post #272
solardev wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever want another huge, ancient labyrinth of a language that also kinda sorta runs everywhere, the Javascript world welcomes you with open tentaces! Here we're controlled by an evil older than Oracle itself (Microsoft and Typescript), with upgrades and crossgrades and cross compilers that deliver astounding 15% improvements in performance in exchange for a mere few animal sacrifices and a lifetime of misery. I…

Not that I want to defend them, but Typescript is probably the best thing Microsoft ever created.

If we are liberal with the meaning of "Microsoft created", there's Age of Empires II.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#294

Post by mattmaroon »

wand3r wrote: post #71
apstats wrote: post #43

I don’t think it’s possible to determine if a decision like this is a good one without working at the company. News articles like this are useless.

I'm not so sure. Whether this article is good or not is a moot point. Hasbro is publicly traded so there is verifiable information about the company available. As others have pointed out, we can see them rapidly selling off assets and IP and cutting staff. I'm not a professional analyst, but surely one could substantiate an argument for or against this decision. Edit: Also, this decision isn't a single data point. We…

MTG and D&D both grew by like 20% last year. If they’re fucking up with managing them it’s not showing in the numbers yet.

Also it would be hard to know from numbers anyway. Maybe if they managed it better it would be up 30% Neither product has significant competition so you couldn’t even really guess by comparing to an overall market.

Broader Hasbro numbers might be a little more comparable (there is an overall toy and games industry) but still tough.

It’s often hard to tell from the numbers that a company is being ruined until it is too late.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#295

Post by bonton89 »

consp wrote: post #286
jmcgough wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game dev is pretty different though. There's huge internal shifts in need for headcount since everything is often tied to development of a specific game. It's pretty common to lay off employees after a game gets shipped.

> It's pretty common to lay off employees after a game gets shipped. While it is common... Why? You can employ people on a limited time or production span duration. I don't see the point in pretending to give someone a permanent job to only lay them off anyways.

Probably helps keep their wages lower and prevents them from bailing on a late project like if they had a contract with a time limit.

On the other hand, I wouldn't exactly be killing myself to ship on time if I was going to get laid off afterwards.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#296

Post by harimau777 »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #229
solardev wrote: post #84

This is the same Hasbro that tried to retroactively close off the D&D Open Game License (and thus the third party ecosystem). It was a massive betrayal that caused a ton of pushback: https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/jan/12/dungeons-and-d... They also sell so many overpriced kits with not much going on in them (just a few pieces of paper, not enough dice, sub par instructions ). Or really expensive character toy…

If people are still going to pay money for D&D then they truly do not care about the hobby. I must admit before the OGL fiasco I didn't see much of the allure of other systems, but that really pushed me away and the world of TTRPGs is so much brighter and better than crappy D&D. I still play in one D&D campaign, but it was started before the fiasco, but I have already decided that at least I won't be running another…

The biggest thing that I've seen D&D offer is support for campaign play. Systems like Blades in the Dark, Heart, and Mork Borg are great, but they are built around the assumption that characters are replaced (or in the case of Mork Borg, the world ends) regularly. A lot of other systems also tend to abstract away treasure in a way that I think is less satisfying for some players.

Personally, I'd love to see more systems that are less "wargaming" oriented than D&D but with a focus on long term play and, where possible, player growth.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#297

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

sklargh wrote: post #143
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OMG they rereleased spelljammer? Brb, gotta go buy some DND books. Which is to say, I am clearly part of the problem here.

Oh man it was super-disappointing and the end of my willingness to buy WoTC 5E. You'd be better off with the originals from DriveThru.

> Oh man it was super-disappointing and the end of my willingness to buy WoTC 5E. You'd be better off with the originals from DriveThru.

I mean 5e is less broken than 2e so maybe it would be OK (that's not a high bar, to be fair).

Hmmm, thanks for the feedback, will try to resist the urge to splurge.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#298

Post by marcosdumay »

solardev wrote: post #202
paulddraper wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never seen two Javascript codebases that looked the same I think you may have described every programming language. Except maybe Go

Probably JS was a victim of its own success in this regard, being both incredibly popular and incredibly long-lived, which drew hordes of amateurs (myself included) in. We all re-invented the wheel, though in my case it was more like an oblong hexagon =/ I rolled with it... but I feel terrible for anyone who has to maintain my old code after me, lol.

Most languages have perfectly functioning wheels right there installed and ready for use.

People keep reinventing the wheel on javascript because it doesn't have any.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#299

Post by brendoelfrendo »

mcv wrote: post #264
drxzcl wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the naive part is focussing on player options. I understand that groups generally have one DM and 4 players, do if you include player options you might sell 5 books instead of one. But that's the shallow, cash-in-now-fuck-next-decade mentality. Meanwhile they haven't put out a decent adventure in a decade. The internet is awash with people trying to glue their ramblings back into coherent campaigns and running…

> Meanwhile they haven't put out a decent adventure in a decade. Lost Mines of Phandelver, the adventure from the intro box, is pretty good (except when it switches to "every room has a monster" later on). It's very big for an intro adventure and there's tons of stuff in it. But it's quite possible that it's the only good one they made.

They did expand on it with "Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk," which I understand to be quite good. Unfortunately it seems like most other paths are ok at best. I'm currently running the Dragonlance adventure, Shadow of the Dragon Queen, and that's very much how I'd describe it: ok. There are some really weird omissions where the game doesn't have info you need to run an encounter as described, and the world-building and information included in the book is woefully inadequate to "color outside the lines" without making up lots of details out of whole cloth. For a book that represents the first Dragonlance adventure in many years, it's a disappointing introduction to the setting.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#300

Post by david2ndaccount »

mcv wrote: post #264
drxzcl wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the naive part is focussing on player options. I understand that groups generally have one DM and 4 players, do if you include player options you might sell 5 books instead of one. But that's the shallow, cash-in-now-fuck-next-decade mentality. Meanwhile they haven't put out a decent adventure in a decade. The internet is awash with people trying to glue their ramblings back into coherent campaigns and running…

> Meanwhile they haven't put out a decent adventure in a decade. Lost Mines of Phandelver, the adventure from the intro box, is pretty good (except when it switches to "every room has a monster" later on). It's very big for an intro adventure and there's tons of stuff in it. But it's quite possible that it's the only good one they made.

I regret to inform you that was released in 2014, almost a decade ago.
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