Changeover poll

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Couldn't answer the poll since I'm not playing 4e or earlier editions.

A game, a game, my kingdom for a game.

You have a kingdom? I suppose you only want to turn it in for a game because you fear a rebellion or something coming, eh? You won't trick me...

 

[Hussar]

There certainly would have been a few individual votes that way. I find it inconceivable that the proportions would have been anywhere near the same.

Yeah, once the new shiny wears off, its all down hill from here.

As Mustrum Rid asks, why? Is it so hard to believe that 3e outside of people who were following the development online didn't even register to a lot of people? Considering how much smaller the online community was back then, and readership of Dragon was at an all time low, there were loads of people who hadn't even heard of 3e when it released.

And, even after release, there were also quite a few people who were perfectly content with their 2e or 1e games.

Sure, you could be right. A year from now, there could be this stark gulf where everyone goes back to 3e, or perhaps to Paizo in droves. Time will tell.

((Goes off to bookmark this thread for threadomancy in a year's time.))

 

[BryonD]

As Mustrum Rid asks, why? Is it so hard to believe that 3e outside of people who were following the development online didn't even register to a lot of people? Considering how much smaller the online community was back then, and readership of Dragon was at an all time low, there were loads of people who hadn't even heard of 3e when it released.

My personal experience, along with the experiences related to me by a vast number of people. Seriously, it goes way beyond anecdote. I don't doubt for a second that there were people that stayed. But I would have been hard pressed to find 1 in 30 that wanted to stay, far far less 1 in 3.

Heck, I thought it was simply an accepted fact that part of the reason 3E generated such a boom in interest was how the market as a whole was done with 2E. Does that mean that there were no exceptions? Of course not.

And, even after release, there were also quite a few people who were perfectly content with their 2e or 1e games.

Agreed. Lots. Just not 1 in 3.

Sure, you could be right. A year from now, there could be this stark gulf where everyone goes back to 3e, or perhaps to Paizo in droves. Time will tell.

((Goes off to bookmark this thread for threadomancy in a year's time.))

Didn't make either of those claims. You implied that the current numbers are due to people who will switch simply have not done so yet. I disputed that view. As I said, the new shiny will only wear off. That doesn't mean there will be stark gulfs or droves of PF converts. I just suspect the numbers won't improve.

I'll also note that it is funny how the goal posts move. Three months ago we were still getting all this "You can't judge the game, you haven't seen enough of it yet." Then, when it comes out and is exactly what was expected, that turns into "You have to give it a year." I guess soon we will be told that it really isn't fair to make judgments until PH3 is released.

 

[Phlebas]

I can't help thinking that in a years time the most common response will be "playing some 4e, some 3.x and some other games"

 

[primarchone]

Hi!

I'm somewhat amused by internet polls regarding D&D and the conclusion some would like to derive from them.

The reality is that such polls are statistically meaningless. Why?

People whom play D&D AND post thier opinions about it are a VERY small minority of the player base.

How to know this?

I tried an interesting exercise where I went to all the main sites and looked up the number of members.

Enworld has around 71,812 members. WOTC boards have 362,643 and rpgnet has 53,318. This totals around 487773. Let double than number to include every single D&D forum on the net (a gross overestimation since, besides the three sites mentions all others have orders of magnitud less members), and round it to an even one million.

According to what I have seen posted here by and mentioned by the media there are around 20 million D&D players worldwide.

That means that even with my overestimated 1 million that is a paultry 5% of the consumer base.

Now, if we took just ACTIVE members (which after all will be the ones expressing an opinion and voting on polls) that number is even lower, since the WOTC boards places that number around 48,000 (About 1/6 the total membership). If we were to apply this to the total overestimated number then we'd have 166,666.

Also, we know that many active posters not only have an account on one site by probably all three of the main sites (3), but lets split the difference and say some only have to 1 or 2 and divide the 166,666 by 2. Thats 83,333 active posters for D&D. Thats a whopping 0.4% (approximately) of the total player base.

Given that most polls here show about 60% for 4e and 40% against that would mean 0.24% pro 4E and 0.16% against of the player base.

While we all like and enjoy posting our opinions on the net (it is a fun after all), but we must keep in mind that it is a TINY fraction of all those whom play D&D and no position (for or against) may be representative of the base at large.

Personally, the only objective paramter I use for how any game is doing is sales. IF sales are good and continue to be good then the game is doing well.

As of today 4E is doing well in this department (very well according to WOTC), if time passes and continues to do well, then that answers the overall question of the lines success.

Primarchone

 

[Turjan]

It’s very strange to me that the results on the ends have gotten the most votes and the ones in the middle the least.

While I’m sure there are some people that might not enjoy it, I heartily recommend mixing it up and playing a lot of different games/editions. That way you get to enjoy the good bits of all the games/editions and get a break from the bad parts of each one.

I like your sentiment, but in my personal experience, I tend to mix up rules of games that are too similar. That's why, for purely practical reasons, I try to avoid playing several editions at the same time. Perhaps, other people have similar problems. Or, even simpler, they don't have more gaming time than for one campaign.

Funnily enough, had you asked me a month after 3e came out, I would have answered EXACTLY the same at now - still playing 2e and haven't tried 3e.

Do this poll a year from now and see what happens.

That's how I see it, too. Many people are still deep in 3.x campaigns and may change over to 4e when they will have wrapped those up. Or not .

 

[Darrin Drader]

I tried an interesting exercise where I went to all the main sites and looked up the number of members.

Enworld has around 71,812 members. WOTC boards have 362,643 and rpgnet has 53,318. This totals around 487773. Let double than number to include every single D&D forum on the net (a gross overestimation since, besides the three sites mentions all others have orders of magnitud less members), and round it to an even one million.

According to what I have seen posted here by and mentioned by the media there are around 20 million D&D players worldwide.

When looking for trends, you don't have to survey a large fraction of the market to find out statistical trends. For instance, when figuring out the Nielson ratings, they make their projections based on a small random sampling of TV watching population. Studies have found that when you do this, results tend to be accurate within a small percentage (1% - 5% if I remember right). So, that means that to obtain a statistically accurate trend on this, you could survey about a thousand people and get some accurate percentages. Obviously this poll hasn't come close to hitting that mark, so the jury is still out.

I do agree with you about one thing, however. People who post to messageboards are not necessarily representative of the gaming public at large. We tend to be better informed about products, more active as players, and more fickle when it comes to products. For that reason alone, this poll might have no bearing whatsoever on the actual reality of the situation.

Now, speaking anecdotally, the trends of this poll do match what I've been seeing locally. Roughly half the people I talk to have or will switch to 4E while the other half want to stick with some form of 3.5. Even my own group is split down the middle, and one of my players likes to run games, so he'll probably end up running an occasional 4th edition game that I will play in while I run the primary Pathfinder game.

Personally, the only objective paramter I use for how any game is doing is sales. IF sales are good and continue to be good then the game is doing well.

As of today 4E is doing well in this department (very well according to WOTC), if time passes and continues to do well, then that answers the overall question of the lines success.

Sales aren't an objective parameter for judging the success of a product unless you happen to work for the company. If you ask any company how their product is doing, they will always tell you that it's performing at or above expectations when the reality might be anything but that. The biggest way to kill your existing line is to either admit that it is performing poorly or to announce that you will end support for it. On the other hand, if you go out there and rave about how well it's doing, you might be able to increase sales through your own hype. It's all marketing. With 4E, we are led to believe that the core books have sold out, but we really have no idea what the actual numbers on the print run were or how that compares to previous editions. Right now it could be the best selling edition of D&D ever, it could be the worst, but most likely it falls somewhere in between.

 

[TheSleepyKing]

I do agree with you about one thing, however. People who post to messageboards are not necessarily representative of the gaming public at large. We tend to be better informed about products, more active as players, and more fickle when it comes to products. For that reason alone, this poll might have no bearing whatsoever on the actual reality of the situation.

... or it might have more bearing.

It's definitely true that ENWorld forum readers probably don't represent the D&D player community at large. However, I would suggest that they are rather important, since D&D is a game that's expanded almost entirely by word of mouth. I suspect that very few people get into D&D, or role-playing in general, by going and buying RPG books on spec. I'd imagine that the vast majority of people got into D&D because they were invited to join an existing gaming group, they enjoyed the experience and decided to keep playing.

ENWorld comprises the kind of people who start gaming groups and actively expand the hobby. Within the gaming realm, I guess they're what would be called "opinion leaders". As such, their opinion is actually pretty important. (And so far, that opinion appears to be split right down the middle.)

 

[thalmin]

Total changeover for now. After playing for a while will reevaluate, but expect change to be permanent.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

It’s very strange to me that the results on the ends have gotten the most votes and the ones in the middle the least.

Naw, not really here. We're all dorks and nerds. What are we gonna do except purposefully be as polarizing as possible to prove OUR edition is better then THEIRS?