Last year after the OGL Scandal, WoTC had told us that they would put Earlier editions under CC license. they even gave us a soft deadline of "By the end of the year" because there was no point to Delay it any longer. Yet it is now 2024 and still no word or update about this. its almost like they forgot and want us to forget. Lets not forget and lets remind them this still needs to happen.
Quotes to remind people of them saying these things
https://www.dndbeyond.com/community-update#AutumnCommunityUpdate <--- Community update post of them mentioning it. "Review Previous SRD Editions for Inclusion in Creative Commons: Before adding previous editions into Creative Commons, we need to review the materials in detail as it has been many years since their publication."
I imagine older products are a much lower priority for them than the new release they're sinking all their investment into. But there's no harm in reminding them as long as we don't get spammy about it.
And here's a fair-minded review of all of the promises that were publicly made by WotC after the OGL Fiasco a year ago and where we stand on them (several are pending the D&D 2024 release, but the others are definitely a mixed bag to be generous).
Been waiting for this myself. Deadlines are more like guidelines, but one has to wonder how or even what they're coming through if it's still on the table.
Will entire sets of rules be let loose? Or Settings? Will others be able to use content from the Draconomicon? Mechanics from Tome of Battle? Lore to use (or fix) Athas and Darksun?
Been waiting for this myself. Deadlines are more like guidelines, but one has to wonder how or even what they're coming through if it's still on the table.
Will entire sets of rules be let loose? Or Settings? Will others be able to use content from the Draconomicon? Mechanics from Tome of Battle? Lore to use (or fix) Athas and Darksun?
It would be good to know.
Some of those are easy questions - they will not be adding any setting or lore information to Creative Commons. They have never said they would and considering how much they make from licensing IP, there is zero reason why they would even consider it.
Also mechanics that weren't already in a past edition SRD are not likely to happen either, but mostly because of they effort involved. They were only talking about the previous SRDs. Other mechanics would be great, but that is FAR more effort, and considering their massive layoff and that they are already late on releasing the previous SRDs (which is actually a very simple task if they had any remaining staff still familiar enough with them to know there's no "Strahds" or other lore info hidden in them like the 5e SRD), I don't see them building new SRDs of additional past edition rulebooks.
(As an aside, for an OGL version of the concept behind Tome of Battle, Path of War is a great book!)
Also mechanics that weren't already in a past edition SRD are not likely to happen either, but mostly because of they effort involved. They were only talking about the previous SRDs.
Kyle Brink did actually mention in the Nerd Imersion Interview (and it was brought up in other interviews i just couldn't find them but i recall being excited for it being mentioned). that 4E and even 2nd was on the Table and that they would make SRD's for them to put under CC, because people were asking about other editions in some of these interviews.
I imagine older products are a much lower priority for them than the new release they're sinking all their investment into.
I'm sure you're right, but they still said they'd do it, and they still said they'd have done it by now. As the quote goes, you can't talk your way out of a trust hole, you have to act your way out of it. I'm seeing a lot of talk and not a lot of action.
But there's no harm in reminding them as long as we don't get spammy about it.
I'm sure you're right, but they still said they'd do it, and they still said they'd have done it by now. As the quote goes, you can't talk your way out of a trust hole, you have to act your way out of it. I'm seeing a lot of talk and not a lot of action.
They did? Which specific date did they give? I went through every link in the OP and I didn't see Kyle provide one, but I could have missed it.
I'm sure you're right, but they still said they'd do it, and they still said they'd have done it by now. As the quote goes, you can't talk your way out of a trust hole, you have to act your way out of it. I'm seeing a lot of talk and not a lot of action.
They did? Which specific date did they give? I went through every link in the OP and I didn't see Kyle provide one, but I could have missed it.
I'm sure you're right, but they still said they'd do it, and they still said they'd have done it by now. As the quote goes, you can't talk your way out of a trust hole, you have to act your way out of it. I'm seeing a lot of talk and not a lot of action.
They did? Which specific date did they give? I went through every link in the OP and I didn't see Kyle provide one, but I could have missed it.
I'm sure you're right, but they still said they'd do it, and they still said they'd have done it by now. As the quote goes, you can't talk your way out of a trust hole, you have to act your way out of it. I'm seeing a lot of talk and not a lot of action.
They did? Which specific date did they give? I went through every link in the OP and I didn't see Kyle provide one, but I could have missed it.
I'm sure you're right, but they still said they'd do it, and they still said they'd have done it by now. As the quote goes, you can't talk your way out of a trust hole, you have to act your way out of it. I'm seeing a lot of talk and not a lot of action.
They did? Which specific date did they give? I went through every link in the OP and I didn't see Kyle provide one, but I could have missed it.
"I think it'll happen this year" isn't a specific date. Is that it?
It's not that year anymore.
The point being that the "I think" qualifier means this wasn't a hard commitment to a deadline. Maybe it was the plan as he knew it at the time but life happened and it's taking longer. Maybe he didn't have any real idea and just ballparked it. Maybe WotC is nefariously stringing us along to... maintain a status quo that pretty much everyone was content with before they rocked the boat and that they're unlikely to disturb anytime in the near future given how it went over for them last time.
Also, maybe they hadn’t anticipated certain responses to the various UA playtests (Warlocks, Druids, Monks) and had assumed they would have gotten through quicker than they did. Leaving some room to do SRD work.
And I agree, “I think” isn’t a hard deadline. It’s more like “I think it will be this year, but maybe not”
This is redundant, this is Bob WorldBuilder playing the clip from the same video, unclear from the clip whether he did any outreach back to the WotC's comms apparatus that got him the quote in the first place to do an end of year followup.
"We're looking at it. I think the answer is yes." Honestly this doesn't even take significant experience having conditional conversations in the adult world to parce. This is the sort of hedging parents make to children. Mature perspective realizes this.
"I don't see why not, other than the work involved" followed by a little laugh at the sort of intensive archival type work it would take WotC legal review to create a new SRD.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/community-update#AutumnCommunityUpdate <--- Community update post of them mentioning it. "Review Previous SRD Editions for Inclusion in Creative Commons: Before adding previous editions into Creative Commons, we need to review the materials in detail as it has been many years since their publication."
Read correctly in the document you're citing, this means that as of September the review for consideration of moving prior editions into SRD hasn't even been done. But it's still on the board.
In the end you want to see promises where what was offered was consideration. After all, a review won't result in an SRD it would result in conclusion of the feasibility of an SRD including a calculation of cost to produce an SRD over doing everything else WotC would likely rather be doing (if you were creative, or even corporate or legal at WotC would you be jonesing to work on an SRD for a system that you'll never produce an actual product for?).
I think it's fine to ask for a status of the SRD review, maybe we'll see that in the next community update; but to treat it as a failure to the community is a pretty hollow rallying cry IMHO, especially based on your own "evidence" of the failure.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Why mention it if you don't want the community to expect it?
The SRD stuff is part of the image-rebuilding effort. That's why he mentioned it in all the image-rebuild interviews. He's not just bubbling over with excitement to talk about the cool things he's got happening. It's a strategy. And you can tell it worked because all the YouTubers said something to the effect of, "hey, they didn't have to do that. That suggests they really do care!"
Talk is cheap. And look, when you choose to say it's happening before the end of the year, you choose to have people respond when it doesn't happen by the end of the year. Did he say "I swear on my life"? No, but he didn't have to say anything at all. Every detail that turns out to be false undermines the whole. When your aim is to rebuild trust, you really shouldn't be careless like that, and that's taking the charitable reading.
I think this is a completely fair question to ask and it is the kind of thing Wizards of the Coast should give an update on. Though they did not promise to have everything done by the end of the year, they did set an expectation that the end of the year was a possible target. This is a pretty standard way to communicate--if you are going to do something, you should give an estimated time for completion, even if it is not a hard-and-fast deadline. If it is not a hard-and-fast deadline, you should qualify it by making it clear the date might be missed and, better yet, give reasons why it might be missed (for example, the blaming legal). This is particularly important if the person setting expectations is not fully in control of the deadline--Brink, for example, can talk all he wants, but he cannot promise Legal will get things done on his timeline. This is all pretty basic, and Wizards did exactly what they should have done.
Where they presently are failing is in the next part of basic communication--giving an update either just before the expected date was met or just after. They really should have given a bit of an update on this, even if it is a "Hey, with us gearing up for the revised core books release next year, turns out we were a bit optimistic on our timeframe." That is a pretty important step when you create these kinds of expectations, particularly if you are trying to show you are trying to be more transparent.
The lack of Wizards providing an update is also yet another example of Wizards' PR department displaying a shockingly naive understanding of some components of their player base's lack of literacy and communication skills. They really should know better--the OGL debate was riddled with individuals who apparently forgot the definition of "draft" and spent months (with some even still carrying this torch) perpetuating all manner of new definitions. It should have been expected a similar contingent of their players might equally have forgotten elementary definitions of words like "inclined", "want", "intention", and "think" or that phrases like "review", "work involved", and "have legal look at it" exist to temper expectations as to the expected return date.
Overall, this is certainly something players should ask about--Wizards does owe an update as they failed to meet the expected date. But there is going to be a contingent of the community that tries to paint Wizards as liars, as going back on their word, oathbreakers, or as crooked in some other way. Those are unfair accusations--and trying to paint a set expectation as a hard-and-fast promise is mistaken or misleading at best (and I am sure there will be folks who are actively spreading this misinformation due to malice). At best, this is another misstep by a company whose PR team who consistently makes unforced errors.
The last time Wizards updated this topic was back in September, when "Review Previous SRD Editions for Inclusion in Creative Commons" was still in the Upcoming column, not In Progress, that's a different category. The Community Update board is overdue by a couple of weeks, looks like it should have come out before Christmas. WotC, like many businesses, tends to go a bit dark and delayed around the holidays and turn of the year when it comes to communications. Compound that with not insignificant layoffs in WotC, including their D&D Community, which, I think we all know from cataloging elsewhere on this forum, hit community management as much as any other dept. at WotC, not having an update yet isn't surprising. Disappointing, sure, but mildly. When the board is refreshed, at best you're going to see the review as "in progress" or still "upcoming". Outrage will not be there at OGL levels, because there just isn't the same ecosystem of stakeholders, particularly those with livelihood stakes, on the same scale as those with stakes in 5e and its future.
I would rather them give soft estimates that they don't have to be raked over the coals for missing, than the likely alternative to these kinds of inquisitions, which is for them to say as little to us as possible. Would you prefer that?
I would rather them give soft estimates that they don't have to be raked over the coals for missing, than the likely alternative to these kinds of inquisitions, which is for them to say as little to us as possible. Would you prefer that?
That's a false dichotomy; in the other interviews he didn't say end of the year. Could've just stuck to that. No reason he'd have to go radio silent.
Which I think reads pretty clearly in my untrimmed comment. For the record, here's the relevant part to this aside:
Did he say "I swear on my life"? No, but he didn't have to say anything at all. Every detail that turns out to be false undermines the whole.
Y'know, just don't say specific dates if you're not actually trying to commit to actual dates. You and anybody else can choose to let him off the hook for this goof or not, but it is a goof. Either that or it's a calculated lie. Those are the only options. Now am I trying to say I never make similar mistakes? No, of course not, but I'm also not nearly in the same position. I'm barely making above minimum wage, you feel me? There's a different level of responsibility. And given the year WotC's had, I really just don't think they can afford any goofs at all. But that's just me.
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Last year after the OGL Scandal, WoTC had told us that they would put Earlier editions under CC license. they even gave us a soft deadline of "By the end of the year" because there was no point to Delay it any longer. Yet it is now 2024 and still no word or update about this. its almost like they forgot and want us to forget. Lets not forget and lets remind them this still needs to happen.
Quotes to remind people of them saying these things
https://youtu.be/Z8-2yiFT2PU?si=B8PsA2jJzciJOPg5&t=962 <--- 16:06 in this video
https://youtu.be/smyRYVzB_jQ?si=Npc66_fV5J6OM9z_&t=366 <-- 6:06
https://youtu.be/JPHirlVGkKM?si=AhZ3hjya9VFwJQjR&t=1039 < --- 17:16
https://youtu.be/vk9FuEAz53M?si=x6WqaFJ-iqwxJvOr&t=847 < ---- 14:06
https://youtu.be/qRVkrWvqKTQ?si=W3arF-dnU3D_7-j4&t=2893 <--- 48:13
https://youtu.be/JPHirlVGkKM?si=daC5B_8WT1bVyX7c&t=1265 < --- 21:05 (for the mention of 4E and older editions)
https://www.dndbeyond.com/community-update#AutumnCommunityUpdate <--- Community update post of them mentioning it. "Review Previous SRD Editions for Inclusion in Creative Commons: Before adding previous editions into Creative Commons, we need to review the materials in detail as it has been many years since their publication."
I imagine older products are a much lower priority for them than the new release they're sinking all their investment into. But there's no harm in reminding them as long as we don't get spammy about it.
And here's a fair-minded review of all of the promises that were publicly made by WotC after the OGL Fiasco a year ago and where we stand on them (several are pending the D&D 2024 release, but the others are definitely a mixed bag to be generous).
Been waiting for this myself. Deadlines are more like guidelines, but one has to wonder how or even what they're coming through if it's still on the table.
Will entire sets of rules be let loose? Or Settings? Will others be able to use content from the Draconomicon? Mechanics from Tome of Battle? Lore to use (or fix) Athas and Darksun?
It would be good to know.
Some of those are easy questions - they will not be adding any setting or lore information to Creative Commons. They have never said they would and considering how much they make from licensing IP, there is zero reason why they would even consider it.
Also mechanics that weren't already in a past edition SRD are not likely to happen either, but mostly because of they effort involved. They were only talking about the previous SRDs. Other mechanics would be great, but that is FAR more effort, and considering their massive layoff and that they are already late on releasing the previous SRDs (which is actually a very simple task if they had any remaining staff still familiar enough with them to know there's no "Strahds" or other lore info hidden in them like the 5e SRD), I don't see them building new SRDs of additional past edition rulebooks.
(As an aside, for an OGL version of the concept behind Tome of Battle, Path of War is a great book!)
Kyle Brink did actually mention in the Nerd Imersion Interview (and it was brought up in other interviews i just couldn't find them but i recall being excited for it being mentioned). that 4E and even 2nd was on the Table and that they would make SRD's for them to put under CC, because people were asking about other editions in some of these interviews.
I'm sure you're right, but they still said they'd do it, and they still said they'd have done it by now. As the quote goes, you can't talk your way out of a trust hole, you have to act your way out of it. I'm seeing a lot of talk and not a lot of action.
What would be spammy, in your eyes?
They did? Which specific date did they give? I went through every link in the OP and I didn't see Kyle provide one, but I could have missed it.
Determining spam is the moderators' job, not mine. I was merely referencing the existence of that forum rule.
Right here: https://youtu.be/vk9FuEAz53M?si=5lWfVF6gRz0cUpCX&t=887
Ah.
"I think it'll happen this year" isn't a specific date. Is that it?
It's not that year anymore.
The point being that the "I think" qualifier means this wasn't a hard commitment to a deadline. Maybe it was the plan as he knew it at the time but life happened and it's taking longer. Maybe he didn't have any real idea and just ballparked it. Maybe WotC is nefariously stringing us along to... maintain a status quo that pretty much everyone was content with before they rocked the boat and that they're unlikely to disturb anytime in the near future given how it went over for them last time.
So that was it. Okay.
"I think" is an aspiration, not a commitment.
Also, maybe they hadn’t anticipated certain responses to the various UA playtests (Warlocks, Druids, Monks) and had assumed they would have gotten through quicker than they did. Leaving some room to do SRD work.
And I agree, “I think” isn’t a hard deadline. It’s more like “I think it will be this year, but maybe not”
Apparently he thought wrong
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
What Brink says here is "inclined to do so." That is not commitment or a promise.
"We want to" again is not a statement that would be considered an obligation or commitment.
"Intention" to do so.
This is redundant, this is Bob WorldBuilder playing the clip from the same video, unclear from the clip whether he did any outreach back to the WotC's comms apparatus that got him the quote in the first place to do an end of year followup.
"We're looking at it. I think the answer is yes." Honestly this doesn't even take significant experience having conditional conversations in the adult world to parce. This is the sort of hedging parents make to children. Mature perspective realizes this.
"I don't see why not, other than the work involved" followed by a little laugh at the sort of intensive archival type work it would take WotC legal review to create a new SRD.
Read correctly in the document you're citing, this means that as of September the review for consideration of moving prior editions into SRD hasn't even been done. But it's still on the board.
In the end you want to see promises where what was offered was consideration. After all, a review won't result in an SRD it would result in conclusion of the feasibility of an SRD including a calculation of cost to produce an SRD over doing everything else WotC would likely rather be doing (if you were creative, or even corporate or legal at WotC would you be jonesing to work on an SRD for a system that you'll never produce an actual product for?).
I think it's fine to ask for a status of the SRD review, maybe we'll see that in the next community update; but to treat it as a failure to the community is a pretty hollow rallying cry IMHO, especially based on your own "evidence" of the failure.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Why mention it if you don't want the community to expect it?
The SRD stuff is part of the image-rebuilding effort. That's why he mentioned it in all the image-rebuild interviews. He's not just bubbling over with excitement to talk about the cool things he's got happening. It's a strategy. And you can tell it worked because all the YouTubers said something to the effect of, "hey, they didn't have to do that. That suggests they really do care!"
Talk is cheap. And look, when you choose to say it's happening before the end of the year, you choose to have people respond when it doesn't happen by the end of the year. Did he say "I swear on my life"? No, but he didn't have to say anything at all. Every detail that turns out to be false undermines the whole. When your aim is to rebuild trust, you really shouldn't be careless like that, and that's taking the charitable reading.
I think this is a completely fair question to ask and it is the kind of thing Wizards of the Coast should give an update on. Though they did not promise to have everything done by the end of the year, they did set an expectation that the end of the year was a possible target. This is a pretty standard way to communicate--if you are going to do something, you should give an estimated time for completion, even if it is not a hard-and-fast deadline. If it is not a hard-and-fast deadline, you should qualify it by making it clear the date might be missed and, better yet, give reasons why it might be missed (for example, the blaming legal). This is particularly important if the person setting expectations is not fully in control of the deadline--Brink, for example, can talk all he wants, but he cannot promise Legal will get things done on his timeline. This is all pretty basic, and Wizards did exactly what they should have done.
Where they presently are failing is in the next part of basic communication--giving an update either just before the expected date was met or just after. They really should have given a bit of an update on this, even if it is a "Hey, with us gearing up for the revised core books release next year, turns out we were a bit optimistic on our timeframe." That is a pretty important step when you create these kinds of expectations, particularly if you are trying to show you are trying to be more transparent.
The lack of Wizards providing an update is also yet another example of Wizards' PR department displaying a shockingly naive understanding of some components of their player base's lack of literacy and communication skills. They really should know better--the OGL debate was riddled with individuals who apparently forgot the definition of "draft" and spent months (with some even still carrying this torch) perpetuating all manner of new definitions. It should have been expected a similar contingent of their players might equally have forgotten elementary definitions of words like "inclined", "want", "intention", and "think" or that phrases like "review", "work involved", and "have legal look at it" exist to temper expectations as to the expected return date.
Overall, this is certainly something players should ask about--Wizards does owe an update as they failed to meet the expected date. But there is going to be a contingent of the community that tries to paint Wizards as liars, as going back on their word, oathbreakers, or as crooked in some other way. Those are unfair accusations--and trying to paint a set expectation as a hard-and-fast promise is mistaken or misleading at best (and I am sure there will be folks who are actively spreading this misinformation due to malice). At best, this is another misstep by a company whose PR team who consistently makes unforced errors.
The last time Wizards updated this topic was back in September, when "Review Previous SRD Editions for Inclusion in Creative Commons" was still in the Upcoming column, not In Progress, that's a different category. The Community Update board is overdue by a couple of weeks, looks like it should have come out before Christmas. WotC, like many businesses, tends to go a bit dark and delayed around the holidays and turn of the year when it comes to communications. Compound that with not insignificant layoffs in WotC, including their D&D Community, which, I think we all know from cataloging elsewhere on this forum, hit community management as much as any other dept. at WotC, not having an update yet isn't surprising. Disappointing, sure, but mildly. When the board is refreshed, at best you're going to see the review as "in progress" or still "upcoming". Outrage will not be there at OGL levels, because there just isn't the same ecosystem of stakeholders, particularly those with livelihood stakes, on the same scale as those with stakes in 5e and its future.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I would rather them give soft estimates that they don't have to be raked over the coals for missing, than the likely alternative to these kinds of inquisitions, which is for them to say as little to us as possible. Would you prefer that?
That's a false dichotomy; in the other interviews he didn't say end of the year. Could've just stuck to that. No reason he'd have to go radio silent.
Which I think reads pretty clearly in my untrimmed comment. For the record, here's the relevant part to this aside:
Y'know, just don't say specific dates if you're not actually trying to commit to actual dates. You and anybody else can choose to let him off the hook for this goof or not, but it is a goof. Either that or it's a calculated lie. Those are the only options. Now am I trying to say I never make similar mistakes? No, of course not, but I'm also not nearly in the same position. I'm barely making above minimum wage, you feel me? There's a different level of responsibility. And given the year WotC's had, I really just don't think they can afford any goofs at all. But that's just me.