Dancey v. Mearls?

[AngryMojo]

So if it's Dancey v. Mearls, which one is Mel Gibson and which is Master Blaster?

 

[Wayside]

While he was a little premature, it is interesting that White Wolf is moving to a pretty slim paper-publishing model.

Premature how? He's an executive at CCP. CCP owns White Wolf. His comments were a plan of action, not a prediction.

edit: I'm aware he hadn't been hired yet at the time he posted, but Dancey has a history of behind-the-scenes involvement before making business moves. The GAMA board debacle was one instance of this, but I'm thinking more of his role in brokering the D&D and FRPG sales to WotC. I have no doubt that he was involved with CCP in one way or another.

 

[Kzach]

I think that in the first round Dancey would come out strong, utilising Power Attack in combination with Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialisation. His Armour Class would be high because of Dodge so that would probably frustrate Mearls in his attempts to counter-attack.

30-27, going to Dancey.

The second round, however, would be much closer. Mearls would've found his range with his At-Wills, and would now wisely utilise an Encounter Power to even the odds. Dancey would still be strong because of a solid strategy but he would be repeating the same attacks and defences from the previous round. This round, however, I see Dancey getting a critical blow against Mearls because of his higher threat range.

29-28, going to Dancey again for almost winning the bout with a telling blow.

This is where things take a turn for the worse for Dancey. Using a Healing Surge for his Second Wind, Mearls recovers quickly. Looking to finish the fight, Mearls is going to set Dancey up, being able to easily predict Dancey's moves since they're the same as the first and second round. Utilising an Action Point, Mearls would position Dancey using an Effect that dazes so that he can get Combat Advantage on his follow-up Daily Attack.

Mearls wins by submission, rear naked choke.

 

[Wayside]

(Psst. Round are worth 10 points each.)

 

[Wicht]

Premature how? He's an executive at CCP. CCP owns White Wolf. His comments were a plan of action, not a prediction.
.

I'm sorry. I failed to put 2 and 2 together and missed the point of your first post. My bad. I guess it hadn't sunk in who he is currently working for.

 

[Treebore]

4E never sold as well as WOTC would have liked, that was made clear back when this board was discussing the legal documents released for the PDF lawsuit.

Is it in a death spiral? That depends on the Hasbro suits and the decisions they make based on how much the D&D brand makes for Hasbro.

In comparison to other RPG's I have no doubt that WOTC's D&D brand sells more than any other RPG, so from that perspective it is in no more of a "death spiral" than the RPG industry as a whole is.

My perspective is I don't care. I will go on gaming and finding people to game with just like I have for the last 25 years, no matter what happens to WOTC and D&D and the RPG industry as a whole.

I would like for the industry as a whole to grow and become massively popular, because it would make it easier for me to find people to game with, but if it doesn't those of us who wish to continue to play RPG's will find a way to do it, whether face to face or online using things like Maptools and SKYPE.

So Dancy may be right, but if so he is only right about companies and their "brands" dying, only we, the fans, can truly kill it by losing interest in doing it.

 

[Obryn]

I don't put much stock in the Escapist interview at all. It's 70% the interviewer giving his perspective, and 30% actual stuff from Mearls.

-O

 

[Jhaelen]

4E never sold as well as WOTC would have liked, that was made clear back when this board was discussing the legal documents released for the PDF lawsuit.

Really? Could you provide a link to that info? One of the posters at the Escapist provided links showing that more copies of the 4e PHB were sold than for any edition before. I'm having trouble to conciliate that with your statement.

 

[Shemeska]

Really? Could you provide a link to that info? One of the posters at the Escapist provided links showing that more copies of the 4e PHB were sold than for any edition before. I'm having trouble to conciliate that with your statement.

I've heard that the first print run for the 4e PHB was larger than the 3e PHB (Mearls made that claim), but that's all that I'd heard, and I'd be very surprised if anyone out there could show solid evidence of anything more one way or the other without posting internal financial documents.

Edit: I think the link over on the Escapist that you're talking about was an icv2 post that was essentially a press release by WotC talking about the size of the 4e PHB print run being larger than that of the 3.5 PHB and distributor pre-orders being larger than expected. That however doesn't say anything about the total sales of the 4e PHB versus the PHBs of any other edition in total over all print runs, which is the meaty data that's conspicuously missing from all of this.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Edit: I think the link over on the Escapist that you're talking about was an icv2 post that was essentially a press release by WotC talking about the size of the 4e PHB print run being larger than that of the 3.5 PHB and distributor pre-orders being larger than expected. That however doesn't say anything about the total sales of the 4e PHB versus the PHBs of any other edition in total over all print runs, which is the meaty data that's conspicuously missing from all of this.

Exactly. I tell my comic book friends the same thing. Just because Marvel and DC say a book has sold out that doesn't mean that people are buying the book it means that at he distributor level they're sold out. You can probably still find the book on the shelves somewhere.

I think a good indicator of how something is selling (Not the end all be all of indicators mind you) is when you have a venue that sells directly to a customer like at GenCon. Or more specifically Gen Con about a year ago with the release of the Pathfinder Core rule book. Stacks and stacks of core rulebooks disappeared before the end of the weekend. The same with the APG. I think Erik Mona said there was only one box of books that they had to ship back and it was mostly damaged books? I dont think that Paizo will release actual sales numbers but the sales were pretty much there for everyone to see.