Sorry, that laugh was a result of clumsy fingers on my phone.
The lamentations are just as valid as the cheerleading. Segregating them serves no purpose except to close the mind to variety and different views.
Disagreements are just as excellent as agreements. Seeing a flood of super fun happy comments can be just as exhausting and tiresome as ultra poop gloomy ones. The mix keeps it lively.
Just my take of course.
Don't get me wrong. Multiple threads interjected with posts saying "Ohmigosh, WotC is so very, very terrific!" would be just as bad. But if that's a problem, it's not nearly on the same scale...
And a conservative release schedule being *wise* is entirely the point. There is a LOT of time to release books, as we haven't even reached the end of Year One yet.
Here was the release schedule for 4E:
In June '08 they released Player's Handbook 1, Dungeon Master's Guide 1, and Monster Manual 1. Nine months later they released Player's Handbook 2. Two months after that, they release Monster Manual 2. So at the end of Year One for 4th edition... they had already blown through the release of 5 core books. DMG 2 was released in September '09. Player's Handbook 3 was released in March '10. And Monster Manual 3 was released in June of '10.
So in two years time in the life cycle of 4E... they had already blown through EIGHT different core rule books. In TWO YEARS. And this doesn't even include the five Powers books published in and around them all. You want to know why 4E's life cycle was so short? THAT'S the reason right there. There was nothing worthwhile left to publish except a soft reboot with Essentials.
Right now, we have no idea if 5E will see this same amount of support. My guess is when we look back on 5E from a decade or so in the future, it might end up getting up there. The only difference being those eight core books (or publications on par with those kinds of books) are going to be spread out over Years One through Five, rather than entirely crammed into Years One and Two. And yeah... that's annoying players who like a fast publication cycle because they now have nothing to read and instead are just stuck playing the game instead... but from everything we've heard from the Powers That Be... that's the new paradigm for this newest edition and we all just gotta accept it.
But I do find it funny hearing the myriad of people who keep spouting here on the boards that if WotC doesn't publish faster that the game is going to die on the vine... cause I think it was proven quite conclusively that doing it the other way during 4E didn't work either. And I would suspect that the men and women in the D&D department of Wizards also know this.
Risk, Scrabble, Trouble, Life, Candy Land, CLUE. Are you saying this is bad company?
Those games are pretty much rites of passage in the US.
He mentioned Ouija too.
I find it interesting then that they went with the slow release schedule experiment (probably not 1e era slow) with limited splat. It is a strategy they don't have sales data on.
Or perhaps with 6th edition they may find the one plan to rule them all.
Chop out every hardcover book outside the Core and Bestiary, and I'm with you. As it is, the PFSRD is a complete glut of content printed just because.I'm also influenced by Paizo and Pathfinder. In my view, THAT'S how you support a game
Then why did they come out with so many 3rd Edition books? It seemed like they were doing one book a month, (and towards the end, most of the books felt like they weren't even play-tested.) 4th Edition failed because it didn't have the support Hasbro/WotC were looking for. Some players/DM's really like 4th, and many players/DM's didn't. THAT is why it failed, not because of the release of content. Personally, I would like to see them go somewhat in the middle. Not have as many releases as 3rd or 4th, but maybe at least ONE book that isn't a story. Something like a MM2, an Oriental Adventures, Manual of the Planes, a campaign setting, etc., on top of the story books they are so fully behind. I personally am not saying I want 15 books released a year .... but something beyond just these bad storylines would be nice.
Risk, Scrabble, Trouble, Life, Candy Land, CLUE. Are you saying this is bad company?
Those games are pretty much rites of passage in the US.