What would WotC need to do to win back the disenchanted?

[Kobold Boots]

Kobold Boots, interesting that you mention the bloodied mechanic, which opens up penalties (monsters get special attacks on you) and options. In a way that makes hit points a little more verisimilitudinous than they have been previously.

That works well for 4e, given how quickly wounds heal and that a sergeant shouting at you can cure them.

The problems with this approach (thinking of all editions here) are:
1) Why do paper cuts require so much healing magic to cure? For example in 3e a 100hp PC on 1hp would need more than 10 Cure Light Wounds spells to be fully restored.
2) Why (at least prior to 4e) do they take so long to heal?
3) The player becomes dissociated from the character, to use the Alexandrian's phrase. The player knows that his PC on 1hp is close to death, but the character doesn't. Metagaming is required.

Wounds healing in six hours and being cured by warlords are probably the two major issues people have with verisimilitude in 4e. They suggest hit points that are less physical than they have been in previous editions. Though, paradoxically, due to the bloodied mechanic, hit point loss that stays above zero now has more of an effect.

My response to this (and you're on the money with your take) is that with every edition of D&D, when you choose to play it, you also choose to change your worlds view of how the numbers operate and what the numbers represent.

I've already stated that HP in 4e are abstracted to represent everything that a character is in combat. That includes endurance, tenacity, capability, innate reflexiveness in combat etc. So that does work well in context of the bloodied mechanic. Now to jump off of the whole damage conversation you've gone into healing, which by function is in the damage continuum but by design and effect is magic.

Why does it take so much magic? Because magic changed too.

The inclusion of Rituals slowed magic down in both scope to cast and overall power on the battlefield. Sure, people spent time developing spells that hit stuff, just like our society spent time on nuclear bombs prior to nuclear medicine. As a result you're going to get less bang for your buck.

The Alexandrian's approach is that a wound is partly physical and partly non-physical. Say a 10hp blow means 1hp of real injury and 9hp of 'luck loss'. But how can the warlord cure that 1hp of real injury with his Inspiring Word? Could any real injury completely heal in a day? However I don't see a shift from 90% abstract hp to 100% to be that big of a change.

Well it depends. In a world of factual modern terms, inspiring word can't heal anything except psychological wounds. In a world of magical fantasy there's no saying that the Inspired Word isn't at least partially enhanced by the magicness of the realm as an extension of the Charisma of the Warlord. Could any real injury heal in a day? Ask the gods.

I think that a lot of the "reality" complaints come from people that are so far removed from seeing the magic in the real world (and I mean the wonder of people and awe in nature) that they can't possibly think about magic in a world where it's supposed to exist..

 

[carmachu]

Essentials won't win me back, even if it tries to tweak my nostalgia gland. Third edition suited me very well. I'm unwilling to abandon the significant investment I made in what to my mind were great third edition books that will never run out of mileage.

I don't begrudge WotC anything, including 4e. If they were to bring out more great 3e material in print, PDF or electronic form, I'd happily buy it.

Yeah that. Plus even if I want something shiney thats a bit updated but not readically different, there's patherfinder. 4e's moved in a direction I dont personally care for.

But I've got too much stuff that works, and stuff that can be done still.

 

[carmachu]

Yep, agreed on both PHB1 and MM1. They were very functional at the table, but awful to read. I think the plan was to offload most of the fluff to Dragon and Dungeon, and you can kinda see that in earlier issues. What ended up happening - possibly predictably - was that people preferred the books to have readable fluff, and preferred to use DDI for those bare mechanics. I was just giving you an FYI that, in this respect at least, WotC listened to feedback from players and adjusted their future releases accordingly.

-O

Unfortunately thats bad too. Since no way am I paying for an online service thats unusable to me. Plus I'm still kinda pissed the magazines are canceled.(yes canceled, I dont care if they put them online. I like print versions).

 

[Kobold Boots]

Unfortunately thats bad too. Since no way am I paying for an online service thats unusable to me. Plus I'm still kinda pissed the magazines are canceled.(yes canceled, I dont care if they put them online. I like print versions).

Be ready to be displeased with the entire book printing and magazine printing business then. The only growth area in all of publishing is the ebook and digital media. I predict that by 2025 WoTC won't be publishing books, save as specialty or niche items.

You don't invest in significant digital infrastructure with the intent to expand your print base. Granted the market of grognards (meant in a nice way) may be stubborn and buck the trend.

 

[BryonD]

So hard core gamers would rather the entire rpg hobby wither and die rather than have the gateway system that is D&D be actually playable by all those pesky new and casual gamers.
Brilliant.

Heh

First, if anyone dares to suggest that 4E is geared to "new" and/or "casual" gamers, they immediately get flamed for being insulting.

But if you suggest the game could maybe assume anything more than that out of the player base then you get flamed for not looking out for "new and casual players".

IMO, new and casual players can have a lot of fun playing a game that is built for after they get more experience. I know I certainly was a "new" player for some time and made plenty of mistakes. It would have been a disservice to me to changed the game on the presumption that as a "new" player I needed a "gateway" game.

And since you choose the word "gateway", it seems obvious to conclude that you think players who are neither "new" nor "casual" should move through the gateway to games with higher expectations.

So the questions become:
Why would WotC make a gateway and not have the gateway lead anywhere?
Why doesn't WotC want to make money from both the gateway players as well as the "hard core gamers" as you describe them?
What prevents WotC from making both games? Certainly the evidence is present that the market is there to support both.

All that aside, answering the question: "what would make you come back?" is not the same as saying they "must do this, to hell with the newbies".

 

[Elf Witch]

I have been thinking about this question as I read the posts and I really can't think of a way for WOTC to win me back as a customer.

I never thought there would come a day when I would not be buying the latest official DnD product considering I have books going all the way back to 1E.

Even if they brought out PDFs for the older editions I am not sure I would buy them. I was really turned off with the way the presented the new edition it really came across as if they were saying that the way we had been playing was an unfun way to play.

I also think what they did with the Realms was horrible and it upset so many Realms fans. It seemed to me that didn't care what their customers wanted.

I am very happy with Pazio and Pathfinder they have excellent customer service and a fantastic product. I enjoy the fact that if I buy a dead tree book I get a PDF for free. So I see no need to give my money to WOTC they don't seem to want it any ways.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Compiling and adding to what Jeff_Wilder and Jasperak said:

• Customer goodwill and public relations boost - something they could definitely use and is a commodity unable to be monetarily quantified, but yet extremely valuable.
• A group of consumers you are currently gaining no revenue from.
  • DDI content - For a minimal outlay (I didn't say cheap, but minimal due to existing page structures), you gain a consistent, renewing (monthly) revenue source from people who are currently spending none of their money on your products.
  • Content in Dungeon and Dragon can be from fan submissions - further decreasing financial outlay and use of resources (specifically WotC employees) - almost a situation of WotC gaining something for nothing.
  • Impulse or occasional puchases of current products that very likely will not occur without exposure to those products through DDI.
  • Sale of older edition products in electronic format - the products are already scanned and the sales infrastructure is already in place. Those that prefer a pirated copy already have one. The only people buying these products are the ones who really want them. That's real money sitting around doing nothing, and not in WotC's pocket, that for almost no initial outlay would immediately start going to them. Damn near money for nothing also. (I understand WotC logic for removing pdf's of current products...I don't agree, but I do understand...but their logic doesn't hold up when applied to older edition products...the pirated copies are already out there...they've closed the barn door after the horses got out, and are ignoring the sounds of hooves outside of the horses who have returned...)
• You've added extra customers to your "captured" customer base for when you do release such apps (possibly for extra subscription price) as the Virtual Table Top and Character Visualizer. Both of which would probably be fairly universal (read: editionless) apps that all customers could find a value in. It's a lot easier to sell to a customer you already have, than try to "win" them back. Right now, after numerous threads like this, WotC has a pretty good idea what it would take to get these customers back. The longer they wait, the harder it is to reverse as those customers drift further and further away (to other games).

But perhaps what would be more interesting, is reasons why WotC shouldn't spend some time or resources on older products? Perhaps you can provide your take on why it's a bad idea? Because I honestly can't see a good reason not to go after these other customers...

I, too, mentioned goodwill as something WotC could gain. A basic fact of sales is that if you manage to get someone in your store, you're already part of the way towards getting them to buy something, and the longer you have someone in your store, the more likely they are to buy something on impulse.

In WotC & DDI terms, that means that if you put your old IP on the site for customers to get, you'll:

1. gain additional revenue from costs that are largely sunk.
2. keep shoppers engaged with your site longer, meaning they're more likely to buy another one of your products- possibly one they hadn't considered buying before.
3. end the reason many cited as the reason they don't buy from WotC.
4. return to the forefront of marketing RPGs.

Lets face it, there are flavors of D&D out there to appeal to a wide variety of players, not all of whom have access to all the books they'd like to.

I'm not one for using electronic versions of game books for a variety of reasons (stated elsewhere), but I guarantee you this: if I had lost my collection in a natural disaster (Katrina, a house fire, silverfish & termites) or if I were living somewhere I had only limited space (on an oil rig in the North Sea, in a tent in Afghanistan, in a submarine in the Bering Straits), or certain other reasons, I'd download a whole bunch of stuff to use.

Ditto if I were someone whose work involved travel more than 25% of the year. If I'm living out of suitcases & hotels, I don't need to be carting around a wall of books.

Or lets say I introduced one of my international buddies to AD&D, and he had to move back home to Outinthebooniestan where he couldn't buy the books, but still wanted to play AD&D with his buddies back home. Digital versions of the game books would be the way to go.

Some might even want the downloads to have digital backup to their RPGs, in the eventuality that something (see above) might happen to them.

And realistically, the only way WotC can learn the size of those market niches is to try to serve them.

 

[WheresMyD20]

Why would you expect WotC guys spend their time in the section for games that they do no longer support and/or make?

Why not just license the old material to a 3rd party? Give them a 5-year license to reprint the old books under a new trademark, like "Classic Dungeons & Dragons". Maybe even let them create some new adventure modules. If the experiment goes well, WotC has a new revenue stream. If not, then they don't renew the license after the 5 years. Other than spending some time setting up the contract, it wouldn't take a whole lot of their time.

 

[Obryn]

Heh

First, if anyone dares to suggest that 4E is geared to "new" and/or "casual" gamers, they immediately get flamed for being insulting.

But if you suggest the game could maybe assume anything more than that out of the player base then you get flamed for not looking out for "new and casual players".

If you say, "4e is geared towards making it easy for new players to get up to speed," that's a fair statement, I think.

If you say, "4e is geared towards new and casual players, but it is unsuitable for deep campaigns," you have an issue. You're back at tee-ball, or scuffed cards, or whatever analogy of the week you've chosen.

Ease of getting into a game has little bearing at all on the game's eventual depth... I don't think Mythus is a superior long-term game for deep campaigns, despite being intensely unfriendly to new players. There's no reason why a game can't be both approachable and easy to learn, and deep enough to provide experienced players with engrossing and enriching play.

-O

 

[Jack99]

I would expect them to be concerned when they have pushed away a significant portion of their paying customers. Understanding one's market and why so many did not follow along with the new edition is one of the primary functions of business. I'm not saying 4e isn't profitable, but there is what should be an easily tapped market sitting right here--Existing RPG gamers.

They should absolutely research why people play other games than their own. If they could put something in theirs that would bring people back without watering down their vision for the game, the game is enriched for it. Now granted there will be things that some want that are just incompatible which their existing design, but that should not stop them from innovating.

afaik, those hired at WotC have to show/have an understanding of how many games work, not just be ha d&d work. It has alreday been mentioned how 4e was inspirec by a lot of other games, instead of doing what several of the previous editions did. Copy the previous edition.

Goodwill has value. (Seriously, actual monetary value.)

It does. But I think you are blowing out of proportion the amount of goodwill they get from being here. Scott was here all the time, and it didn't the people who have posted against WotC in this thread from being against them.

Consider that we have heard that part of the reason the OGL went to GSL, becuase there were some that saw that dollars going to 3rd party folks were dollars not going into their coffers, and there is a rise of Pathfinder(and others) that pretty much takes many of those disgruntled players.....it seems like a no brainer.

And this info is only available on ENworld?

Compiling and adding to what Jeff_Wilder and Jasperak said:

• Customer goodwill and public relations boost - something they could definitely use and is a commodity unable to be monetarily quantified, but yet extremely valuable.
• A group of consumers you are currently gaining no revenue from.
  • DDI content - For a minimal outlay (I didn't say cheap, but minimal due to existing page structures), you gain a consistent, renewing (monthly) revenue source from people who are currently spending none of their money on your products.
  • Content in Dungeon and Dragon can be from fan submissions - further decreasing financial outlay and use of resources (specifically WotC employees) - almost a situation of WotC gaining something for nothing.
  • Impulse or occasional puchases of current products that very likely will not occur without exposure to those products through DDI.
  • Sale of older edition products in electronic format - the products are already scanned and the sales infrastructure is already in place. Those that prefer a pirated copy already have one. The only people buying these products are the ones who really want them. That's real money sitting around doing nothing, and not in WotC's pocket, that for almost no initial outlay would immediately start going to them. Damn near money for nothing also. (I understand WotC logic for removing pdf's of current products...I don't agree, but I do understand...but their logic doesn't hold up when applied to older edition products...the pirated copies are already out there...they've closed the barn door after the horses got out, and are ignoring the sounds of hooves outside of the horses who have returned...)
• You've added extra customers to your "captured" customer base for when you do release such apps (possibly for extra subscription price) as the Virtual Table Top and Character Visualizer. Both of which would probably be fairly universal (read: editionless) apps that all customers could find a value in. It's a lot easier to sell to a customer you already have, than try to "win" them back. Right now, after numerous threads like this, WotC has a pretty good idea what it would take to get these customers back. The longer they wait, the harder it is to reverse as those customers drift further and further away (to other games).

But perhaps what would be more interesting, is reasons why WotC shouldn't spend some time or resources on older products? Perhaps you can provide your take on why it's a bad idea? Because I honestly can't see a good reason not to go after these other customers...

I think you are missing the point. None of the things you are listing above will happen because Mearls or whoever is hanging out taking crap at ENworld. They are at WotC more than aware of your ideas, or rather theories.. Maybe they have been considered an rejected because they would be too expensive or a thousand other reasons.

Last but not least. I am certain they are still reading General (I am sure that if they felt they needed info on PF, they could either go to the Paizo boards or say, ask their friends at Paizo). I just think they refrain from posting in such threads, because no matter what they say, they will be some of you guys who attack them to some degree. There always is. Among certain people there has long been some twisted false sense of entitlement vis-a-vis d&d and how they treat the people who work for WotC.

Seriously, nothing is worth how some of you are treating them. I am often ashamed. Sure the mods do some to protect them, but not enough by far, IMO.