D&D is dying by the hour

[Firevalkyrie]

And you are a book retailer? Aha. Interesting.

Cheers,

I always find it interesting when somebody who is spouting off complete opinion (and ill-formed opinion at that) suddenly claims to have direct, personal access to sales information for a major product. Especially when they speak in such sweeping generalities.

 

[Hathorym]

I think fandoms on the Internet are, in general, whiny, demanding, unforgiving, and have unreasonable expectations as to the level of communication they should receive. And while daily communication may be appropriate for an MMO where the world and characters are held hostage for the monthly fee and are dependent on the company remaining viable, there needs to be no such expectation for a published game.

There is no possible way I could agree more with this. When reading the OPs statements, my first thought was that I was on a MMO board, where every patch would bring the same dire prediction of a horrific and eminent death of said MMO. This sort of doom and gloom scenario never takes into account the apathy of the majority of players of either the MMO or D&D. The interesting thing is, that when said patch is finally released, and there has been no cease in activity or, indeed, cash flow - said former prophets often find they have the will to go on, and continue to play.

D&D will go on. People across the multiverse will continue on, unaware of the notion that a death knell had been rung. Players will somehow find the strength to gather with their friends to create and play a game of their choosing whether it be 1e, 2e, 3e, or indeed 4e. I would go further to postulate that the only 'death by the hour' that is actually taking place, would be the continued pessimism about the game - for the very moment new information is put forth - all will be forgiven and the alleged corpse will have been discovered to simply be sleeping off all the merriment of the last release of information.

My .02.

 

[Glyfair]

You are even more wrong than the OP - quite a feat, Sir, I congratulate you!

While inaccurate, he still has a point. We often forget here on ENWorld (and possibly in our own groups who have similar tastes to our own) that only a small percentage of D&D players are interested in 3rd party products. Indeed, many of that group aren't even aware of them.

4th edition will stand or fall based on its own merits and how WotC deals with the product. 3rd parties might help or hurt, but not in any significant way. Not unless someone finds the magic combination to eventually lure people to the "perfect" version of D&D for masses of people. I don't know what that edition would be, but it certainly wouldn't be a near iteration of 3.5 (indeed, not any version that exists now).

 

[Jack99]

4th edition will stand or fall based on its own merits and how WotC deals with the product. 3rd parties might help or hurt, but not in any significant way. Not unless someone finds the magic combination to eventually lure people to the "perfect" version of D&D for masses of people. I don't know what that edition would be, but it certainly wouldn't be a near iteration of 3.5 (indeed, not any version that exists now).

Indeed. Since WoW is so popular, maybe a DND version that is more like WoW would be the perfect version...

/ducks and runs for cover.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

WoC and Paizo do NOT play in the same league when it comes to sales.
So while WoC has to sell a lot of their stuff to make 4th edtion (and the continuation) of the D&D bran worthwhile, Paizo can live with much much smaller sales figures.

That said, the Pathfinder RPG at the moment is an open alpha test. It does not look, read and play like a finished product. It is far from finished!
August this year will see the Beta Version. This Beta verion will be availabl as a FREE download or a Softcover Book.
The final Pathfinder RPG Hardcover will only be available in AUGUST 2009!
Therefore all download figures of the alpha version can in no way indicate the posible sales of the final product. The can only show the enthusiasm of the Gamers who want a 3.5 compatible version and want to help make it the best game possible with the open playtesting.
I for my part enjoy it immensly.

And please do not start to rant and flame on 3.5 or 3.75 rules an all that. You love 4th? Great! I love my 3.5 and Pathfinder RPG!

 

[Hussar]

Was just listening to and interview with Erik Mona over at Fear the Boot and he talked a bit about this sort of thing too. Interesting stuff.

We know for a fact that the market leader in RPG's is WOTC. WAYYYY behind in second place is White Wolf. WAYYYYY behind that, in third place are about a bazillion companies that produce a variety of stuff. Unless Paizo suddenly overtook White Wolf when I wasn't looking, we're not even talking the same ball parks here.

 

[M.L. Martin]

I think a big part of the perception of the difference between 3e's rollout and 4e's rollout is that while 3e had larger fundamental changes to the system, a huge section of the book (spells) was pretty much the same from previous editions. The fact that one big complaint I see about 4e is the change to iconic spells (fireball, magic missile, etc), usually phrased as "these spells have been the same from 1e to 3e," tells me that we "knew more" about 3e because so much of it was the same as the previous edition we were familiar with.

Would you please stop it with the telepathy already?

I was thinking the same thing after I logged off last night--since 3E preserved so many sacred cows in the areas of spells & monsters, which made up so much of the rules set outside of the character generation and combat mechanics stuff that was previewed so freely, it did give the impression of fewer surprises.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

First of all, Paizo is far from being "the" third party publisher... They are one of many (maybe one of the largest, but by no means the only important one).

Second, we cannot compare videogame development to book publishing. Both have their own unique challenges and processes.

Third, it is not true that developer communication with fans has stopped. Rouse, Mearls, and several other WotC employees post here on a regular basis (and they give as much scoop as possible).

The only possible point I can grant you is that the delay of the GSL has been very frustrating. Most likely there is still heated discussion inside WotC about what the license should allow third parties to do.

As other posters have mentioned, "pulling the plug on D&D" is, at this point, simply incompatible with business common sense.

That, coupled with the low post count of the original poster, leads me to think that this is a Troll thread.

 

[PoeticJustice]

So what do you guys think? Is my analysis that Wizards is killing off D&D by not communicating at all correct?

I think that the idea of a company killing off a game is laughable when the people who play already possess the tools to keep it alive. In three years, I've never had to wait more than a week to reconstitute a group.

People want to play D&D, so whatever Wotc wants to do is fine by me because in the end, it doesn't affect me or my D&D.

 

[ascendance]

What he said.

I game with three friends who have never heard of ENWorld, I introduced them to Paizo (which after initially liking, they're rapidly going off) and they are mad keen as anything for 4E. They haven't played since 4E.

It would have been some trick for them to play 4e, as the game hasn't been released yet. That being said, if they stopped playing 4e, they're shirking their sacred playtester duties!