When did WotC D&D "Jump the Shark"?

[Mercurius]

Is there any denying that WotC D&D is in shambles, or borderline shambles? The DDI debacle, the cancellation of numerous products, the shoddy quality of Heroes of Shadow (from what I've heard), the lack of communication about the present state of affairs and the future, the lingering wound of the PDFiasco, and so on.

But I'm wondering is this: at what point did things really begin to go down hill? OK, I'm going to pre-empt the predictable snarky comments like "When 4E was announced" or "When the core rulebooks came out." Kinda funny, but leave it be.

So what do you think? When did WotC D&D jump the shark? Has it jumped the shark at all, in your view? While we're at it, is there any turning the ship around or is a new edition in the near future inevitable? What say you?

My feeling is that it jumped the shark with Essentials. The quality of the rule books had been strong, especially from PHB 2 onward, but with recent excellent works like the Dark Sun books, the Planes books, etc. But the whole gesture of Essentials seemed...desperate, and also seemed to stall 4E perhaps permanently. But, most of all, it wasn't a movement forward - it was a re-packaging of old material with very little innovation. A few bright spots but more than the actual material itself, it seemed to derail the line, so to speak.

I would couple that with the online version of Character Builder, which if I remember correctly was around the same time. WotC taking away the offline versions of Character Builder and Monster Builder was a travesty - and yet another bad PR move in a long line of bad PR moves.

In other words, the Fall of 2010 was the Fall of WotC D&D.

note: I am specifically saying "WotC D&D" to differentiate it from the game of 4E itself, which I think is still a very good game and evolving in a positive direction. But the whole presentation, publication, and "carrying" of the game--the line, if you will--is what I'm talking about.

 

[shamsael]

No.

DDi is better than it's ever been, we're finally getting progress on the VTT, and Heroes of Shadow is at least as good as Martial Power 2 (though neither are as good as MP1, DP, PrP, AP, PsP). I can't believe more people aren't talking about the Paladin Striker build, and if anyone still thinks Essentials is supposed to be an easier, dumbed down D&D, then they really need to read the Assassin Executioner.

As far as cancelled products, I'm in favour of this, since the content of these products is simply being moved either to DDi or to other new products. Examples: the Vampire was going to be in Ravenloft but we got it in Heroes of Shadow instead, Class Compendium's erratad PHB1 classes are being posted free online.

The essentials books were probably the most important thing that's happened to 4e. PHB2 showed us that roles were not set in stone, and PHB3 showed us an alternative to the daily/encounter/at-will scheme. Essentials brought both of these concepts to the next level while leaving the original material relevant and compatible.

The online character builder is a much better choice for a lot of reasons. While I understand some people are upset because they can no longer gain full access to the character builder and all of the new powers by occasionally renewing their DDi subscription and downloading a patch, I think these people should feel greatful that they got to steal D&D for as long as they did without consequence.

Anyway, No.

And, just to point out, Fonzy jumped the shark in Season 5, yet Happy Days stayed on the air for 6 whole seasons after that.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I don´t have the feeling they did actually jump the shark...

but they would have been better off, if they just made a cleaner cut, really revising more with essentials... leave 4e of old for those who liked it, and make a new, improved version for all others...

 

[Fifth Element]

No. C'mon.

The OP's note at the end also has me puzzled. 4E is great and evolving in a good way, but WotC D&D might have jumped the shark? The game's what matters, not how it's presented.

 

[malraux]

Wikipedia says:

The usage of "jump the shark" has subsequently broadened beyond television, indicating the moment in its evolution, characterized by absurdity, when a brand, design, or creative effort moves beyond the essential qualities that initially defined its success, beyond relevance or recovery.

I don't think that WotC's 4e products have quite hit this yet. Certainly not the beyond relevance or recovery bit. A slow schedule and a few bad books really don't put the entire line beyond the pale for me. The closest I think its come is the silverlight transition of DDI. But even that isn't recoverable; a useable online monster builder would fix much of that.

Certainly essentials didn't jump the shark, as it challenged certain key ideas of 4e design without overthrowing them.

 

[Ryujin]

Jumped the shark? It hasn't; certainly not if you understand the origin and meaning of the term.

I will say that I rarely even bother to look at Dragon and Dungeon now, though, since the change to separate files for download. I used to wait until the end of the release and then just download the whole thing, to read at leisure.

 

[jbear]

I know what you mean Mercurius even though if the above definition provided by Malraux is what jumping the shark means, then I agree that I don't think they have reached that point yet.

Actually, I think they are going through a pulling things around phase. Which probably will take some time til that becomes fully evident.

But the signs are there. Peoples feedback about recent articles in DDI are largely very positive. And one of those articles was written by someone from Paizo. Am I the only one who thinks that is worthy of raising the eyebrow ?

Here's a thought ...
WotC has a pretty interesting, open minded guy at the helm who wants to capture the wonder he felt when he first began playing D&D but within the framework of 4e.
Paizo initially was prepared to jump on board with 4e if they liked the system. That didn't happen. But the game has expanded, changed and matured over these (nearly 3?) years, I think it's quite a different beast than the one initially released. Maybe there is dialogue going on there at some level... we do know that one of the guys from Paizo is in a 4e gaming group over at WotC ... at least I remember reading mention of that recently... you can see where I'm going with this, right?

 

[TerraDave]

That may not be the perfect analogy, but something has been up.

Lets review (going back about a year, then forward):

*Wave of Updates
*More layoffs (Heinso, Collins...)
*Essentials
*Online CB
*Dropping Products
*New Direction in continuing products (this is still playing out)
*Changes to online content (still playing out)
*Fortune Cards (also still playing out, but not looking good)

4E has been interesting to watch. A rough launch, with a negative tone (at least for 3E fans), end of print Dragon and Dungeon, Gleemax and the 3D VT, a delayed GSL no one likes, seeming lack of play-testing, some out of gate errata/issues (stealth, minions, solo HP), slow death of the minis...

BUT, the game is saved by actually being pretty good, and then you have the compendium and CB and some good follow on products (e.g. PHB II, DMG II, Open Grave...). I think we perceived this as a big recovery and strong period for the game. And one that continues, with last summer feeling like a peak.

I guess this was not strong enough. For whatever reasons WotC has clearly felt pressure to do better and different, and has just been throwing stuff out there, one thing after another, and it seems pretty obvious some of this has been rushed.

I still feel optimistic. The product slowdown was probably warranted, the dumber stuff (ok, fortune cards) will go away, the online stuff will get fixed.

But, Mercurius could be right, terminal decline may be here.

 

[OnlineDM]

First, I have no idea what the original poster means about the difference between 4e D&D and WotC D&D. Aren't these the same thing?

Second, I don't think the game has jumped the shark. Dungeon/Dragon magazine content has had some good stuff lately. The Virtual Table has the potential to be very interesting to me (since I mainly run games online).

The online Character Builder is in a funny spot for me. I've mostly moved over to using it and am pretty much okay with it. My wife was resistant, but she tried it last night for the first time. I was telling her that it's pretty good and has some nice features, but I did come away from the experience feeling less good about it - in comparison to the downloadable Builder.

The good point for the online Builder is that it contains material from the newer books. That's all. The bad points in comparison are:

• No customization of character sheets (can't make a one-page version)
• No customization of which cards print out (waste of paper/ink)
• No support for house rules
• Terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad interface for equipment

The new Builder is generally fine for my purposes, but I'm sad to realize how much worse it still is than the old Builder (except that it has updated material).

I'm still enjoying D&D4e, and I'm encouraged by the increased communication from WotC in their new weekly columns (especially Rule of Three and Mearls's column). I think the game still has lots of good stuff to come.

 

[S'mon]

I like the actual Essentials materials a lot, but I have to agree that things seemed to fall apart in Fall 2010. My February 2010 versions of the downloadable Monster Builder & Character Builder software are IMO superior to what is currently available online. The current online charbuilder is not terrible, but from what I have seen of it IMO is not as good. While there effectively is no online monster builder, and the downloadable monster builder was crippled by the MM3 update, thank goodness I was not a subscriber then.