I Want the Old Realms Back

[OpsKT]

With 5th Edition on the horizon, WotC needs to ask themselves some serious questions. Including how they will handle the Forgotten Realms.

Oh, this again, and word for word...

This thread won't end well

It's didn't over at Wizards either, I believe.

Can we just get a separate message board titled "They changed it now it sucks" and transfer like half the threads over there?

I thought that was the 4e General board over at Wizards?

As I said on the WotC forums, your first line with "5th edition on the horizon" that is unfounded and is just forum rumors propagated by forum trolls.

But if they say if often enough THEIR DREAMS WILL COME TRUE!!! You just have to believe in magic!

Seems like an awfully big assumption. Or did I miss an important announcement?

See - "They changed it now it sucks." and "Your fun is wrong."

 

[JoeGKushner]

For what it's worth, this is exactly what happened in the very first 4E campaign I played in. The DM basically said, "I don't like the changes, and we all know the grey box, right?" And that's how we rolled...

I stuck with the timeline in 3rd ed.

 

[ourchair]

despite all the rage over the Spell Prague and whatnot.

Spell Prague must be the most awesome place in all of Eastern Europe.

But if they say if often enough THEIR DREAMS WILL COME TRUE!!! You just have to believe in magic!

If you *dis*believe in magic hard enough, does that eliminate the Spellplague?

 

[DracoSuave]

The best part about 3e... everyone and their god damn dog is a Chosen of Mystra.


Wait... that's not 'best'. That's 'worst'.


Bitch chooses more people than Ash chooses pokemon.

 

[delericho]

To say something is just around the corner is to say it is close, and considering all of the low-brow slavering of oh-so-obvious triumphant rise of 5e to burn away its pale ancestor, its not a bad bet to make that he's in with that crowd. Which means he's painfully and objectively wrong.

Evidence? You put forward an interesting analysis, but it's still just your opinion - your claim of him being "painfully and objectively wrong" fails.

Since you suggest those who "don't like" this idea behave as ignorant children and pretend that we aren't hearing it, a typical image thrown to imply another party is willfully ignoring the truth, I am going to bet your probably with him. I could be wrong of course: a lack of tone and body language changes a lot, but since we are going through a spitefully stupid cultural phase I have long since given up giving people the benefit of the doubt. If I am wrong in this regard, I apologize in advance.

I strongly suspect you're wrong. My guess is that ForeverSlayer wanted to just discuss the fate of the Realms, without getting into the 5e nonsense.

For those of you who think 4th Edition is entering a death spiral (a term slapped onto it not a year after its launch, I might add) and is coming close to being replaced with a new e, I would like to draw your attention to a single fact: 4e was in development for at least 2 years.

Doesn't mean that 5e will be. Also, it doesn't mean that WotC were going "full steam ahead" on 4e for those full years - there were still plenty of 3e books released in those days. Frankly, I suspect several of the key figures at WotC had a folder on their computers containing random 5e thoughts and ideas even before 4e was released.

It was started in early 2005, and released in mid 08, two years of development with a year in between for printing and making a back catalogue. If 5e was close, as in, mid-2012 close, it would mean that it began development sometime in 2009... 2009 being the second year of the edition and being developed right alongside Dark Sun and the PHB3, both widely regarded as peaks of the system so far. It would mean they literally did not wait a full year to start a new edition. If your instead now moving the goal-posts to 2013, think again. This means they began at the start of one of their most critically acclaimed years. This means they where already jumping ship before they had a chance to see how their experiments with Dark Sun and PHB3 paid off. So now you have to think "Well, duh. I always said 2014." Well then, you'd be about as smart as brick, because that means that they began making a new edition the year after everyone went utterly gaga over Dark Sun and PHB3, and the Essentials stuff was just cooling for consumption. This would mean that you believe WotC so stupid that they would sink the ship just after it came into port.

Now this is an interesting analysis. The key mistake you're making, though, is thinking that "critical acclaim" has anything to do with the release of the new edition. It's all down to sales numbers.

So, Dark Sun and PHB3 are irrelevant - by this point we're deep into the edition so sales numbers will automatically be faltering. But that's fine - at that time they were working on Essentials to "plug the gap". So, yes, I don't think they'd be working full-time on 5e while developing Essentials.

However, I do think Essentials, and especially the Red Box, are largely regarded as failures at WotC. These products (especially Red Box) were intended to draw in large numbers of new players, especially lapsed players. I don't believe they've done that - they've got a few, but "large numbers"?

I suspect WotC knew this might happen, and knew fairly quickly that Red Box hadn't solved all their problems, and I suspect they had a backup plan. So I wouldn't be surprised if they had 5e waiting in the wings, and fast-tracked development almost immediately after Essentials hit.

Two years development + one year for printing, counted from 2010 is... 2013. Though as I said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they fast-tracked it for release in 2012.

(I agree that would be a mistake. IMO, they should be trying to find some way to get at least two more years from 4e.)

Everyone spit blood over DDI and the New Builder. Now that the New Builder works fine and Dragon has had a string of good articles, no one has said anything. Other than to bring up tirelessly how the new CB and Dragon slacking justifies their hate.

This is not true. There maybe hasn't been the acclaim you would like to see, but people have commented about it getting better. I can provide references if you like, although my comment to that effect almost counts as damning with faint praise.

Oh, and also: the poor state of the Character and Monster Builders at release almost feel to me like the team there had really taken their eye off the ball, almost as if they're working on something else instead. Now, that could be the VTT, of course, but the Builders are the heart of the DDI, with especially the CB being the key app. It doesn't make sense to de-prioritise that in favour of something that is certainly nice, but very definitely peripheral.

Furthermore to give in and edition jump the instant things look bad would be suicide. Why? There is a veritable hoard of bottom feeders in the so-called fanbase telling everyone just how greedy, stupid, and cowardly WotC and how likely they are to jump ship. To do so would vindicate the hysteric snarling of the bottom feeders that they were just a bunch of talentless hacks trying to dupe sheeple out of money all along, and the fanbase would collapse like the rotted wood its become. The groundless perception of this alone was enough to generate enough momentum to create a parasite company that is apparently outselling WotC at this point.

There's no "veritable horde", there's a very few. And in any case, "bottom feeders" isn't called for.

As for "parasite company", in what way does that apply? Paizo have taken an abandoned IP, streamlined and fixed it, and then taken the risk of literally betting the company on publishing it, using a license that not only allows this, but was specifically designed to allow it.

It's a shame you ruined what was an interesting analysis with this... actually, I can't describe it without incurring a ban, so I won't.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Nobody would ever accuse me of being a genius.

That said, I'd like to see reliable stats on this rather than the rantings of vocal minorities on forums. When people don't like something, they seem to love telling everyone, whereas when people like something, they tend to keep quiet and just go on liking it regardless of all the people who say they shouldn't.

All you have to do is visit the Forgotten Realms forums on the internet you will see how greatly FR was a disappointment. You can even go to the Wizards site and look at the FR threads. Look at how often people post there.

I've even heard that Ed Greenwood doesn't really like the 4th edition Forgotten Realms. Ed has even written for the Pathfinder campaign setting Golarion.

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

All you have to do is visit the Forgotten Realms forums on the internet you will see how greatly FR was a disappointment. You can even go to the Wizards site and look at the FR threads. Look at how often people post there.

That's an incomplete picture. There are FR fans who are not active on forums, and their opinions and numbers aren't known. The sales numbers for 4e FR novels might be an indication, but to my knowledge these aren't publicly available.

Also, it's the internet; people like to complain about everything and everyone. "They changed it, now it sucks" isn't an uncommon reaction IME.

I've even heard that Ed Greenwood doesn't really like the 4th edition Forgotten Realms. Ed has even written for the Pathfinder campaign setting Golarion.

So? Even if that were true, he's still writing articles for the 4e Realms. He's an author; he writes to earn a living.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

That's an incomplete picture. There are FR fans who are not active on forums, and their opinions and numbers aren't known. The sales numbers for 4e FR novels might be an indication, but to my knowledge these aren't publicly available.

Also, it's the internet; people like to complain about everything and everyone. "They changed it, now it sucks" isn't an uncommon reaction IME.


So? Even if that were true, he's still writing articles for the 4e Realms. He's an author; he writes to earn a living.

Thing is, when you have loads and loads of people who were with the Realms on those various sites and then suddenly they are not, well then that's lots of diehard people that we know of that have left the world behind. It doesn't take a lot of evidence to show that the current Realms just isn't popular and people want the old one back.

If you notice Ed Greenwood's name isn't on the front of the Neverwinter Campaign Setting. You would think that Ed would at least write for this setting since it is Forgotten Realms.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I really don't see how the rabid pro 4E realms defenders can claim that each edition had completely different FR campaign settings. From the gray box till the end of 3.5 the realms remained relatively the same with minor changes here and there. It was fleshed out and it evolved. Changes did happen but made sense in the context of what was occrung in the world. It was always recognizable as the Forgotten Realms. The spellplague changed it so completely that it's barely recognizable anymore. It's more like a generic campaign setting now. The interesting lore and "wow" factors of the realms were taken away or made irrelevant.

Agreed! A part of what actually made the Realms a unique has been taken away. I understand that the Realms is an ever changing place but change for the sake of change is just bollocks. It is crazy obvious that the changes were made because of 4th edition.

Another thing I find funny is people talking about how their characters were overshadowed by the various NPC's of the Realms. That would be DM fault, not setting. If NPC's are always jumping in to save the day is not fun, but that isn't campaign setting specific.

From the beginning of 4th it has been about the DM being able to add anything while Wizards gives out the minimum. You also have players who do the same thing, "Just create it and add it to whatever you want, I don't like a lot of fluff". Well if they tell us to just add it then we can say just take it away. If you don't like all the fluff then just take it away.

I like my Realms to be super fluff heavy because that if what defines the Forgotten Realms. If I want a generic campaign setting then I will save myself some money and make up my own.

 

[Estlor]

Not a Forgotten Realms fan so I won't comment on that, but I wanted to pop in and say something about the Character Builder and Monster Builder.

See, in programming - especially WEB programming - there's this philosophy called "First Release." Basically, the idea is get the product out the door. You know it isn't going to be the most feature-rich product and that there's a lot (needs repeating - A LOT) that still needs to be done to make it a quality product. But that's not the point of a first release. It's just to get the product out the door and into the universe.

After first release, then you go back and refine the heck out of it to make it a dynamite product.

The OCB and OMB were released as first release products. They had enough functionality to serve a purpose, but clearly not perfect by any means. And, slowly (less slowly on the OCB), they've improved from first release products to ones that do a better job standing on their own.

So, really, Wizards didn't do anything any other web development company with a new product would do. Yet they got lots of heat over it.

Honestly, the biggest issue was they went from a robust, mature product (the LCB) to a first release meant to replace the other product. And because we had grown accustomed to the mature product, the change was very jarring and very disconcerting.

Then you add all that shift from client side to server side on top and, well, there you go.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled topic already going down in flames.