D&D 5E How would you ensure longevity and sustainability for 5th Edition?

[tyrlaan]

Is AOL winning on the dial-up service industry? Would ANYONE describe AOL as a winner right now, even though nobody comes close to them in that industry and there used to be lots of competition in that industry? I don't think "beating everyone else in an industry in serious decline" is necessarily winning. I am not saying WOWs industry is in serious decline - I am saying I am not sure they are winning right now even though they have the most revenue in their industry at the moment. Making the most revenue in your industry might not be the only criteria for "winning".

Fair points. Ultimately they're still top dog and probably not too relevant to the original topic anyway

 

[Jessica]

Fair points. Ultimately they're still top dog and probably not too relevant to the original topic anyway

I mean both WoW and D&D are top dogs in industries that seem to be undergoing some drastic changes and are both doing worse than they were previously.

 

[Celtavian]

What you are proposing is to out-Blizzard Blizzard. Blizzard's specialty is taking a genre that was pioneered by other companies, and creating the most polished, streamlined, expansive, user-friendly iteration of that genre anyone has ever seen. They have massive technical and design expertise to back this up, but more importantly, they have experience. There is no substitute for having done something; observing somebody else doing it is not the same, nor is throwing giant heaps of money at the problem. The company that built World of Warcraft was able to do so because it was the company that built Warcraft III and Diablo II. And the company that built those games was able to do so because of Starcraft and Diablo I.

If you want to challenge WoW on its own turf, you need two things:

1) A big pile of money.
2) A game development studio that's up to the job.

Having a popular IP like D&D is great, but if you have item #1, getting the rights to a popular IP is unlikely to be an issue. It's finding item #2 that poses a problem.

Exactly. D&D hasn't bothered to find this even though they have the best content. No one seems willing to take the risk on it. It's strange to me. The developers of Everquest specifically stated they were trying to bring D&D to life. They wanted to use the original D&D game, they couldn't get a licensing agreement done. D&D has never bothered to hook up with a studio to get this done.

It's unfortunate. I would so love to see the various D&D worlds brought to life. After seeing the Plane of Hate in Everquest or Ulduar, I kept thinking how great it would be to do the same thing with The Abyss, Undermountain, or the Nine Hells. The raid zones you could create with D&D content would be amazing. Could you imagine Demogorgon or Halaster as a raid boss? It would be so amazing. Or seeing a Balor brought to life or a maralith. So fun.

 

[Celtavian]

Is it even "winning" anymore? WOW revenue fell 54% in seven months. It's revenue is now less than half of what it was at the peak. They're now turning to price increases to staunch the bleeding revenue numbers, which seems like a short term fix at the expense of long term customer retention. They started the first quarter of this year with 10 million customers and by the end of the quarter were down to 7 million customers.

People are looking for a new game. It's too bad D&D isn't in place with deep pockets and an amazing game to take the market. Games have a lifecycle. WoW is hitting the end of its. No one has come up with a replacement.

 

[Celtavian]

The world of D&D is barely an advantage. Lots of other games have had just as detailed a world. None have succeeded. The world is the smallest element needed to succeed at making a good MMO. And most other properties with a world (Star Wars for one) have a lot more fan pull and money than D&D.

Are you kidding me? No one has content like D&D. Nobody.

Greyhawk.
Forgotten Realms.
Eberron
Planescape
Spelljammer
Dark Sun
Ravenloft

Thousands of monsters, demon lords, gods, mind flayers, and the like to draw from. A nearly limitless pool of heroes.

Saying the D&D world is barely an advantage is like saying Marvel barely has an advantage in making superhero movies.

D&D's content pool is so deep it would take decades to reach the bottom.

 

[Jessica]

It's probably going to take a lot of mechanical genius to dethrone WoW before their time naturally comes to an end. Trying to make WoW but with a deeper content pool isn't going to attract people away from WoW. The player base inertia is going to hurt you unless you have a SERIOUS hook to bring them in. Chances are that hook is going to be mechanical and it's probably going to involve bringing in the next generation of MMOs. Trying to OutWoW WoW is a recipe for failure.

 

[Celtavian]

Maybe you could do this, but I'm unclear what makes you so confident.

D&D's content is what makes me so confident. I see underutilization of world content.

I used to see people oohing and aahing for WoW raid zones or the Plane of Sky in Everquest. I kept thinking how much I would like to see The Abyss brought to life as a raid zone or Myth Drannor or see an entire raid zone and quest line built around Against The Giants or the City of Sigil.

What is in your noggin that was missing from the teams of people that have been working in the gaming industry for years that will make you succeed where they failed?

Lack of access to a pool of content as deep as D&D's pool. It's sitting there...a huge pile of gold...no one has spent the money or time to turn into the most amazing fantasy virtual world ever seen.

Surely you can name many cool fantastical places from D&D lore, but how are any of them fundamentally better than Minas Tirith or Tattooine, and so on; places that come with overflowing buckets of lore-y goodness to capture the hearts and minds of players, yet none of which unseated WoW?

Because D&D is a more magical world. A more fantastical world. It isn't tied to a particular story told a particular way.

D&D is a Massive Multiplayer RPG we've been playing in our imaginations for years. Everquest was started by a group that wanted to bring a game like D&D to life. Warcraft built on Everquest's success. Where do you think fantasy MMORPG's came from? It was a guy that wanted to bring D&D to life, but couldn't get access to the content. So he built a mythology of his own.

Warcraft took all the mythology they had built over the years and turned it into World of Warcraft.

No different than SWtOR or LotR really.

Very different. We spend hours playing a TTRPG that is essentially the precursor of games like Everquest and WoW. We've been doing what those players have been doing years prior to them doing it. Leveling up. Getting magic items. Moving through adventures designed by level. All those games are based on D&D. Yet D&D for some reason I can't fathom hasn't leveraged itself into the Online Virtual World market in a big way.

Boggles my mind why I'm not seeing their worlds brought to life given they have fantasy worlds that make Norrath and Azeroth look like child's imitations of world building.

I'm not big a video game guy. I played Everquest and the very first thought I had was, "This is D&D online." You could tell the game was built by people that were extremely familiar with Dungeons and Dragons.

 

[tom.zunder]

Settings, settings, settings.
Not too often.

 

[Celtavian]

It's probably going to take a lot of mechanical genius to dethrone WoW before their time naturally comes to an end. Trying to make WoW but with a deeper content pool isn't going to attract people away from WoW. The player base inertia is going to hurt you unless you have a SERIOUS hook to bring them in. Chances are that hook is going to be mechanical and it's probably going to involve bringing in the next generation of MMOs. Trying to OutWoW WoW is a recipe for failure.

That's why you need the deep pockets to last until the migration completes. Took a while for Everquest to run down as well, though the market wasn't as crowded. As far as I know the original Everquest is still going. Some people don't want to let their character go.

That's another thing you have to do: ensure the characters feel unique at the end game level. Rifts failed miserably at character differentiation. You leveled one of each base type up, you had access to all the subtypes. No character felt unique because it was too easy to change.

 

[Jester David]

Are you kidding me? No one has content like D&D. Nobody.

Greyhawk.
Forgotten Realms.
Eberron
Planescape
Spelljammer
Dark Sun
Ravenloft

Thousands of monsters, demon lords, gods, mind flayers, and the like to draw from. A nearly limitless pool of heroes.

Saying the D&D world is barely an advantage is like saying Marvel barely has an advantage in making superhero movies.

D&D's content pool is so deep it would take decades to reach the bottom.

I'm not arguing that D&D has a tonne of content. I'm arguing that it's an advantage. Lots of setting and monsters don't mean success, and are largely irrelevant to the success of an MMO. If not detrimental as all those words and unique monsters mean more time and effort is needed to design those for a game.
Making new ideas for places and monsters is the least time consuming part of making an MMO. It's almost more of a liability as the design and game effects are assumed.