Ryan Dancey speaks - the Most Successful Year for Fantasy RPGaming ever. However...

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My theory is that there isn't as much crossover of TRPG and MMORPG players as people think. Of the massive numbers of people playing WoW (excluding multiple accounts, gold farmers, etc) I'm betting that the vast majority of them have no interest in playing D&D and probably never will.

My casual survey of others playing WoW says you're wrong. I doubt we could get a good idea of how the WoW RPG books are selling, but there's a lot of interest in them in the playing community, and everyone I run into either has played D&D or is open to it. Admittedly, it's just on one server (and a roleplaying one at that), but I don't think they're greatly out of step with the rest of the players.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They make different things, appeal to different audiences, require a different infrastructure, and are used in different ways.

Many posters here have gone over the differences between RPG's and CRPG's, so I won't bother listing them here.

All I want to know, is what's with all the "THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!" posts and other crap we're seeing?

Redefining the two media so that they no longer have any relationship to each other is just another form of a "Sky is Falling" post, it just involves putting one's head in the sand instead of running around, losing it.

MMORPGs and RPGs have a huge crossover audience. The mere fact that there can be threads on ENWorld with "WoW" in the title and almost everyone knows what it means attests to that. Likewise, in five years of MMORPG play, I've found one (1) person who didn't know what Armor Class was. They weren't all D&D players, just as not everyone here isn't an MMORPG player, but there's a massive, massive crossover between the two audiences. White Wolf wouldn't have gone into a second edition of one of their three MMORPG license lines if there wasn't -- heck, they wouldn't have licensed three MMORPG games to begin with.

 

[tetsujin28]

I believe that this:

Ryan Dancey speaks

was where the trouble all began

I will now make a very heretical argument.

Blizzard should cut Wizards of the Coast a giant "thank you" check, because I believe that D&D3E is the exact reason that WoW is doing so well.

Ah, yes. And I remember a little thing about WHFRP being a 'clever derivative' of D&D

 

[DaveMage]

You know, honestly, I don't think that that would be all that bad from my point of view. It wold be a great help to my RPG budget, and would allow me to catch up on products I missed earlier.

I certainly have enough rpg product now to play for a long time.

If this did happen, I'm confident that several years down the line production would start again, perhaps with 4e.

I agree, although just when I think I have all that I'd ever need, someone releases something amazingly cool that I'll probably never get to play, but I want to have!

(I believe that this is one of the definitions of "addiction". )

 

[eyebeams]

You missed the storyhour from the game with The Bare Naked Ladies?

I grew up in Toronto. I'm sick of the Barenaked Ladies.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I'm sick of the Barenaked Ladies.

I knew there was a reason I didn't trust eyebeams ...

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

D&D desperately needs a booster-pack model if it is going to stay a viable game in the face of technological increases. Not necessarily a Collectable RPG, but something that will entice people into paying LOTS AND LOTS MORE, but over a larger period of time.

Which is where the short-PDF model comes into play, at least in theory. Not sure how it would work in a physical store setting, but at least for online sales it seems to be working quite fine, I would say.

Personally, I like the single book approach, but as a publisher, if the piecemeal-delivery method is what will promote sales in the future, then so be it.

 

[William Ronald]

Redefining the two media so that they no longer have any relationship to each other is just another form of a "Sky is Falling" post, it just involves putting one's head in the sand instead of running around, losing it.

MMORPGs and RPGs have a huge crossover audience. The mere fact that there can be threads on ENWorld with "WoW" in the title and almost everyone knows what it means attests to that. Likewise, in five years of MMORPG play, I've found one (1) person who didn't know what Armor Class was. They weren't all D&D players, just as not everyone here isn't an MMORPG player, but there's a massive, massive crossover between the two audiences. White Wolf wouldn't have gone into a second edition of one of their three MMORPG license lines if there wasn't -- heck, they wouldn't have licensed three MMORPG games to begin with.

Assuming that you are correct, Whizbang Dustyboots, the question arises as to how to get more of a crossover audience. I think that Hasbro, if it wished, could do a lot with promoting the game to MMORPGs and to a larger audience. Mind you, I do not see much advertising of the D&D game beyond publications that appeal to existing gamers. (Although I do understand there were some ads on the SciFi Channel.)

 

[rvalle]

There is defiantly quite a bit of cross-over. All my dnd friends jumped on and played on-line games together. In fact, Dark Age of Camelot killed our campaign as the dm was playing too much to run games for us.

What I'd like/hope the future holds...

Is more of a combination of tabletop/on-line games. I really wanted to play dnd but, as our dm was out of commission and my free time very limited (work, 3 kids, occasional class), I was stuck with on-line games or nothing. Fantasy Grounds has filled that niche nicely. I can play table top dnd from home. Using voice over ip software its close to being around a table with friends. Now... I've said it before and I'll say it again: Its NOT as good as being around a table with friends. But it sure beats the heck out of not playing at all. We've gone from not playing at all to playing once a week in a WLD game.

As a side benefit we can now play with one of our friends that moved out of state. I'm hoping one day to play a game with a guy in Sweden (if we can ever work out the time diff).

I think this sort of software has a lot of room to grow but it has the potential to combine some of the best of both table top games and on-line games.

rv

 

[diaglo]

Hell, one could draw the same comparisons between the internet and real life. Yes, the internet is great, but I like to go outside once in a while.

i've got your washcloth stick in the back seat of my truck. you left it outside and my neighbors started to complain.


the guys at Blizzard were former/current D&D players. they said as much in a GQ article back when Warcraft II took off.

they knew what guys like them (and us) wanted.