WotC Seeks Unity with a New Edition

S'mon · Jan 9, 2012

Umbran said:
That really is pretty standard boilerplate, and necessary, from their point of view.

If they didn't have that, how many people would find similarities between things they wrote (however vague or distant the similarity) and things that got published, such that they might want to lay a claim? This boilerplate basically means, "Dude, if you post it, you lose the right to claim we stole it from you."

No, a non-exclusive, non-revokable license would be ""Dude, if you post it, you lose the right to claim we stole it from you."

your comments, suggestions, ideas, and/or creative materials or other information ("Feedback") are non-confidential and shall become the sole property of Wizards means "We own your ideas". :hmm:

Mark CMG · Jan 9, 2012

Shecky said:
Of course guys squee. See Pat Rothfuss. See Pat Rothfuss squee. Squee, Pat Rothfuss, squee.

The ears help sell it a bit.

Mark CMG · Jan 9, 2012

Son of Meepo said:
You misunderstand. I just won't buy the sprinkles. I never said anything about the ice cream.

Ah, no need to tell WotC then as in, "Feel free to have an OGL again WotC, but this is one consumer who won't touch it," since they only sell the main flavor of ice cream.

Son of Meepo · Jan 9, 2012

Umbran said:
There's going to be a strong temptation to use hyperbolic language (like "catastropic"). But I'm not sure it is warranted.

The issue at hand isn't (or at least shouldn't be) about how well 4e has done, to date. The past is the past. You don't set development strategies on the past. You base them on what you think you can do in the future. You compare what you can do with 4e, and what you can do with other things.

Both staying the course and trying a new course have some risk. You weigh the risks against potential gains, and you take an educated gamble.

None of this is predicated on 4e having been a "catastrophic failure".

The issue for me is that I feel there is an expectation that with increasing frequency, this too shall pass. That as soon as 5e is out the door, WotC will be having their project kickoff meetings for 6e and I should only expect a few years before 6e is announced to the world. Is that their business model?

Umbran · Jan 9, 2012

S'mon said:
"We own your ideas".

If you want to be part of the process, yes, you should expect to have to hand over the ideas you put into that process. It is not reasonable to expect to have your cake and eat it too.

Remathilis · Jan 9, 2012

Son of Meepo said:
The issue for me is that I feel there is an expectation that with increasing frequency, this too shall pass. That as soon as 5e is out the door, WotC will be having their project kickoff meetings for 6e and I should only expect a few years before 6e is announced to the world. Is that their business model?

I get the impression 4e got rushed out the door to appease Ha$bro's beancounters. I get the impression 5e got quick-listed to make up for 4e's being rushed. If 5e is successful, they might be able to slow down the treadmill again.

Dragonblade · Jan 9, 2012

Son of Meepo said:
The issue for me is that I feel there is an expectation that with increasing frequency, this too shall pass. That as soon as 5e is out the door, WotC will be having their project kickoff meetings for 6e and I should only expect a few years before 6e is announced to the world. Is that their business model?

Its the model for all game publishers. Even Paizo will release a Pathfinder 2e at some point and they probably already have a confidential internal product road map for the next 2-3 years sketched out and Pathfinder 2e is on it.

They probably already have early drafts and ideas for it even if its too early to admit to it publicly yet.

The interesting thing to see will be how 5e affects their plans if at all, and if they have their own schism with their fans being upset at changes they introduce with their eventual new edition.

Son of Meepo · Jan 9, 2012

Remathilis said:
I get the impression 4e got rushed out the door to appease Ha's beancounters. I get the impression 5e got quick-listed to make up for 4e's being rushed. If 5e is successful, they might be able to slow down the treadmill again.

If you look at Mike Mearls' post, he specifically calls it an "iteration". To me that sounds like someone who expects 5e to be part of a repetitive process rather than an endpoint.

Oh, and the bean counters still work at Hasbro.

Mercurius · Jan 9, 2012

Son of Meepo said:
The issue for me is that I feel there is an expectation that with increasing frequency, this too shall pass. That as soon as 5e is out the door, WotC will be having their project kickoff meetings for 6e and I should only expect a few years before 6e is announced to the world. Is that their business model?

Hold on a second there, Son of Meepo. I think what WotC realized they could do once DDI got rolling is make "One Edition to End Them All" because of the nature of digital technology--you can make micro-changes online, including errata and new rules, with new core books every few years to drive sales and collate all of the changes--but that everything could still be backwards compatible as an evolution of what came before. But I think they quickly realized (I'm totally guessing here) that 4E wouldn't work, it was too complex, too developed, and too tightly interconnected to provide the simple core for a modular game.

To put it another way, "5E" could be the last "new" edition and the first of an ever-changing and evolving "trans-edition" game if the core is simple enough and robust enough to whether storms, add whatever is needed to it (in terms of modular options) and be capable of handling any variation of D&D that we can dream up.

At its heart, I wouldn't be surprised if 5E looked very similar to a stripped down d20/3.x D&D upon which different groups can "dress up" in whatever way they want, even in different campaigns and perhaps even different characters.

We could look at 4E D&D as one way that the core d20 game was expanded upon. Now the trick for WotC with 5E will be if they can design in such a way that 5E could look and feel like Pathfinder or 4E or OD&D or AD&D or any number of other varieties.

Dark Mistress · Jan 9, 2012

When 5e comes out, I am really curious what they are going to do with the DDI and the 4e stuff. Will they leave it up or will it go away like the PDF's of the older games when 4e came out. For me how they handle that will tell me a lot about them as a company going forward. I hope they leave it up complete for the 4e fans that don't want to switch.