With the 2010 releases of PHB3 and its "hybrid" multi-classed characters and the new "basic" beginners rules. Would you be willing to try it again? Have you already made your mind up about 4e?
Clearly this is a question for those that were turned off or disappointed by 4e.
In the case of my gaming group, it wasn't a like or dislike of 4E. There were discussions about that and some grumbles and misgivings and some juicy rationalizations...
But let's be honest:
they were excuses as much as they were actual reasons.
The blunt truth is this: WotC killed 3.5 too early from the perspective of a large number of their established and loyal customer base. 3.5 was a product that still had a LARGE value-in-use to gamers who had purchased a vast amount of material for it. We had barely scratched the surface of that vast amount of material even as WotC was running out of topics to exhaustively cover.
I understand that from WotC's point of view, the product was near the end of its life cycle. That they had rushed out such a
vast amount of material in such a short period of time, it was difficult to come up with more rules to sell to the same players. I get that and I understand it.
Problem was, we had barely cracked the spine on two-thirds of the books we had purchased. And that was, by the way, a
helluva lot of books, too.
And those books have not gone away.
They are still sitting on our shelves. And there are STILL a lot of them that have not really been even cracked yet.
So it comes down to this: what was in WotC's interest in terms of maintaining sales and product lines at a monthly sales level they wanted was not an interest that was shared by many of their customer base. 4E was just too soon - and no amount of justifying why "it was time" was going to fly with a significant portion of that installed customer base.
So it wasn't that 4E was good or that 4E was bad. It's that 4E was too early for a good portion of the customer base.
Please understand, most of the guys in my gaming group have 50 or 60, and some more than
100 3.5 hardbacks on their shelves (including 3.xx OGL material).
Back in 2007, it would not be an exaggeration to say that half of those books had not had the spines cracked on them since a day or three after purchase.
You want to revise, reset and resell under those circumstances? Sure. Good marketing when you can get it - but just not a surprise when you can't succeed so soon after selling to those same customers a vast amount of material they have barely even used.
At the current rate that WotC is pooping out material, I imagine by the time that 5E comes along, it might be that the 3.5/Pathfinder fans might be ready at that point to give a new edition a try. Maybe. I expect even then, it might be a tad early, too.
So imo, this isn't about editions, what they had or what they didn't have in terms of rules or features or mechanics. It's about investment of dollars, value-in-use to the customer of existing "installed product lines", and new product timing. At one hardcover a month, the product output of WotC is simply far ahead of what their customer base can integrate, use and become bored with to the point it wants something new.
That is so whether it's 3E, 3.5, 4E, 5th Ed or 13th Ed.
Sorry, but there it is. If WotC is not able to get a better grip on their product release schedule and learn to stretch out their product cycles over a longer period of time -- the same thing is bound to happen a few years from now too. Maybe even to the ruin of the brand. *shrug*
Sometimes, the commercial interests of a hobby game manufacturer do not coincide with the interests of a large percentage of their fan base.
That divergence of interest should not be surprising to anyone.
