WotC Seeks Unity with a New Edition

Kzach · Jan 9, 2012

talok55 said:
Well apparently just making games with little thought to if your customers will enjoy playing them or if they capture the D&D feel didn't work out so hot for them. 4E must have been a commercial failure or they wouldn't be announcing 5E so quickly. Pathfinder sought out input from it's customers, and it's been increasing in popularity and stealing players from 4E since it's inception.

All of your statements are based on what, exactly? Because I've seen no evidence to support anything you claim; rabid fanboism is not a substitute for facts.

Uder · Jan 9, 2012

Scott_Rouse said:
To be fair, considering how well Pathfinder is doing, the DID NOT kill 3.x (thanks to the OGL).

TSR/WotC have never supported past editions when a new version came out. Most (if not all) publishers stop supporting old editions when new versions come out.

Eh?

TSR continued publishing AD&D 1E articles in Dragon magazine for at least a year, printing 1E PHBs for several years and including "how to use this with 1st edition" notes in many early 2nd edition products.

WotC still provides FAQs, errata, adventures and hundreds of other web articles for 3.x., and provides downloads of a large amount of AD&D material.

When you say most publishers stop supporting old versions of their games? Which publishers? Games Workshop, sure, but I'm at a loss to think of another publisher that turned the hose on the fanbase the way you guys did during the runup to 4E. Now it turns out you knew it was old and busted you ever parachuted out of there.

Arrgh. Urge to flame rising. I'm out.

Roland55 · Jan 9, 2012

Kravell said:
From the Wizards new D&D blog:

Mike Mearls, Team Lead
Greg Bilsland, Team Producer
Monte Cook, Design Team Lead
Bruce Cordell, Designer
Robert J. Schwalb, Designer
Jeremy Crawford, Development Team Lead
Tom LaPille, Developer
Rodney Thompson, Developer
Miranda Horner, Editor

Cook ... Cordell ... Thompson ... Schwalb. That sounds just fine to me.

Wulf Ratbane · Jan 9, 2012

DaveMage said:
To regain trust, the cycle of terminations of WotC employees has to stop. Otherwise there is no accountability and what's said today is meaningless.

Terminating the right folks would actually go a long way towards demonstrating some accountability.

Scott_Rouse · Jan 9, 2012

Uder said:
Eh?

TSR continued publishing AD&D 1E articles in Dragon magazine for at least a year, printing 1E PHBs for several years and including "how to use this with 1st edition" notes in many early 2nd edition products.

WotC still provides FAQs, errata, adventures and hundreds of other web articles for 3.x., and provides downloads of a large amount of AD&D material.

When you say most publishers stop supporting old versions of their games? Which publishers? Games Workshop, sure, but I'm at a loss to think of another publisher that turned the hose on the fanbase the way you guys did during the runup to 4E. Now it turns out you knew it was old and busted you ever parachuted out of there.

Arrgh. Urge to flame rising. I'm out.

By support I meant making a business out of old edition.

Haha, yeah I "parachuted out".

If 4e was working (as a game/business) we would still be talking about 5e rumors and not 5e reality right now.

drothgery · Jan 9, 2012

Scott_Rouse said:
Yes I did say that and at that point in time anyone on the D&D team would have said the same thing. The publishing goal was (and should be) to have the edition last 8-10 years and we truly believed that would be the case with 4e.

You'd obviously know this a lot better than I would, but what the heck do you expect to be selling in years 4-8 (or 10!!) of an edition's life cycle? The evidence of 3 editions of WotC D&D (3e, 3.5, and 4e) -- and three of WotC Star Wars RPGs, for that matter -- say that after you do splatbooks for all the core classes, psionics, and the core setting books for a few major settings, further expansion material is really scraping the bottom of the barrel -- and that gets done within three years or so unless you're publishing things really slowly (which slows the uptake of a new edition, so you don't want to do that). And WotC has been pretty adamant that adventures don't really sell well enough to try and build a business model around them. So even if WotC wanted to go 8 years between editions of D&D (which they never have done, or even come close to doing), how could they?

TerraDave · Jan 9, 2012

Scott_Rouse said:
Since you're quoting me I'll chime in. I don"t have a horse in this race and I have largely moved on (professionally and personally).

Yes I did say that and at that point in time anyone on the D&D team would have said the same thing. The publishing goal was (and should be) to have the edition last 8-10 years and we truly believed that would be the case with 4e.

There are a lot of things that happened with 4e that violated the communities trust (failure to have DDi tools at launch, the GSL vs OGL) but after all that has happened with 4e is a shorter edition life-cycle really going to be the thing that turns you away from the opportunity of a better game that 5e offers? 4e was broken as a game and business and it's needs to go away. The "they broke their promise" argument sounds vaguely familiar of the "they are killing my 3.x game" that was all over the boards when 4e was announced.

Morrus said:
Yikes, man! I know you don't work there any more, but wow!

I've missed The Rouse.

(also, took a quick glance at the blog, and glad to see the job there).

Erdrick Dragin · Jan 9, 2012

First off, I like to state that I called this a long time ago and it's actually announced. My predictions with WotC have always been spot on. They're so insanely predictable.

Second, clearly 4E failed. Another thing I called when I heard just one paragraph of the changes coming to D&D with that edition.

Next, this piece of news says one thing to me: "We don't know what the hell we're doing anymore, so we're going to have you do the work for us!"

Is that what WotC has come down to with D&D? Seriously, sell the damn brand already. It's worthless in their hands. Paizo or some other company can do a much better job. Heck, White Wolf could do a much better job! They talk about unity across all editions with the gamers who are split apart from the Edition Wars by --- wait for it --- making ANOTHER edition!? Where is the logic in that?

Were I in control of D&D, I know exactly how to bring this "unity" they speak of while being very profitable. WotC, if you're reading this, please consider this suggestion. I'll also be involved in the playtest, if possible, to repeat this suggestion again.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOW TO FIX D&D in 3 EASY STEPS
[Number One]
Never create a new edition. Ever. Keep the 4 you have. The reason is explained below.

[Number Two]
Redistribute and release PDFs across all editions along with print-to-order hard copies of any D&D product of any edition of the game.

[Number Three]
Spread resources throughout the 4 editions, giving each their share. The newer edition receives the bigger share, and then scale down. Maybe switch it up now and then.

That's pretty much it. Keep the bases you have now and just cater to them. Rely on these 4 Editions to bring in new customers, because they will. Why?! Because they not only have reason to play D&D (because you're now supporting their edition with new material), but they're also spending money on you again in utter ecstasy to see their favorite edition "revived".

Making an edition where the customers give all the input is not going to solve jack. You're going to get too many divisive suggestions and 5E is going to be a horrendous mess. No one is going to like 5E if it doesn't incorporate most of the rules of the edition they play, it's that clear and simple.

So be simplistic and give them what they want. THEIR EDITION OF THE GAME! Clean up the first 3, have separate divisions for each edition, and just craft away, using input from the customers to determine what products you'll need to release for each edition.

That's how I'd handle it. I'd not only gain back many fans that have left, but I'll be getting new ones from 4 different styles of play which means I'll have tons of new gamers coming in.

I sometimes believe gamers really have no business sense at times. And business people seem to have no gaming sense. Mold the two together and you'll be fine.

Sammael · Jan 9, 2012

Wulf Ratbane said:
Terminating the right folks would actually go a long way towards demonstrating some accountability.

Dunno, most of the ones I wanted to see gone are already gone. I'm fine with the above 5e core team, though it could be greatly improved by adding a few more names.

I'm A Banana · Jan 9, 2012

Dice4Hire said:
Then perhaps write your own game or product and keep all the copyrighty goodness for yourself?

I'd go OGL (or at least Creative Commons), but that's neither here nor there. The point is that WotC doesn't need to claim ownership of everything I post in their little sub-forum just to protect themselves from getting sued some day, and that lazy, unenforcable, categorical claims of ownership are bad things. That's true regardless of what business yer in.

But anyway again, not really important to the 5e convo.

Alzurius said:
Based on the tone of their press release, I'm worried that WotC is going to go too far in trying to make a game that appeals to everyone.

I don't think this is a big fear. I think that rather than make "a game for everyone," they will make a loose base, and then several things that jack into that base. Those things that jack into that base will be self-contained, and narrowly defined.

Imagine 4e's policy for settings (1-3 books, then done, except for magazine content), but applied to rules instead. Rather than make one Universal D&D, they'll make a loose base, and then plug in 1-3 books on minis-intensive combat, and 1-3 books on dungeon exploration, and 1-3 books on intrigue-heavy city gaming, and....etc.

So the "core D&D" will be less "a game for everyone," and more "a game for those who want to do their own thing with D&D." And then, on top of that core, they can release other games -- games for those who love minis combat, games for those who love adventure paths, games for those who want postapocalyptic wahoo 80's adventure (like Dark Sun), etc.

And if the core is sufficiently flexible -- broadly defined principles instead of hard and fast rules, forex -- then even those people who want to save vs. paralyzation rather than roll an attack against Fortitude can be happy, since D&D's brand identity won't rest on a particular ruleset.

If they're very clever, they'll make it OGL, since that'll let others fill in niches WotC might not have the budget to pay attention to. And then Pathfinder can even build on whatever base 5e makes, taking it in its own direction.