D&D 4E Where was 4e headed before it was canned?

[Parmandur]

I think... nowhere? They had a plan to go to a 5th edition at some point. They ran 4e to the end of its life and then moved on.

No, not really: they abandoned their publishing scheme within two years due to sales troubles, and then abandoned the replacement abruptly when that didn't pan out. There was more conceptual space, including planned products.

 

[Garthanos]

Arguably the fastest released material to date.

 

[Tony Vargas]

They said at one point in the past few years that a Ravenloft project was part of precipitating the Essentials move, IIRC, along with the confusion caused by the sequential core books method.

Yeah, the 'confusion' thing was kinda funny. I mean, I'd seen it in action - someone has just tried the game, likes it, wants the PH, walks up to the counter with a PH2 "no, that doesn't have the rules you need, get a regular PH" "Isn't this one better?" I mean, avoiding labels like PH/2/ would have saved /minutes/ of time and confusion.

But, once Essentials was out, that confusion remained, plus there being /two/ 'essential' player books, neither of which has a title that in any way implies it's for players, that were heavily redundant, and the Rules Compendium that sounds like it should be a complete game but isn't, and a basic set that was /totally/ redundant.... and 3 'essential' sets that were just cardboard tiles (and, ironically, better accessories than half the rest of the essentials line). Or, y'know, you could go in on a DDI subscription.

Well, that sure simplified things.

 

[Mycroft]

Pay no attention to the above edition warring rhetoric.
It is part of a Cold War that has been waged since 2012: vs. 5th Ed; right.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, the 'confusion' thing was kinda funny. I mean, I'd seen it in action - someone has just tried the game, likes it, wants the PH, walks up to the counter with a PH2 "no, that doesn't have the rules you need, get a regular PH" "Isn't this one better?" I mean, avoiding labels like PH/2/ would have saved /minutes/ of time and confusion.

But, once Essentials was out, that confusion remained, plus there being /two/ 'essential' player books, neither of which has a title that in any way implies it's for players, that were heavily redundant, and the Rules Compendium that sounds like it should be a complete game but isn't, and a basic set that was /totally/ redundant.... and 3 'essential' sets that were just cardboard tiles (and, ironically, better accessories than half the rest of the essentials line). Or, y'know, you could go in on a DDI subscription.

Well, that sure simplified things.

When it come to purchases, minutes can be make or break. And there isn't friendly locals in the Amazon check out screen.

It's obviously not going to be a big problem for most people, but in the scales of sales WotC is aiming at, that confusion hurts their customer experience, which in the not very long run equals lost money and inhibited growth.

Essentials probably did make the problem worse: hence the complete end of the line, and going back to the drawing board.

Checked my memory a bit, there was a Ravenloft setting book set for Q4 2011, that never happened: I do recall Mearls talking about working on that product being a turning point, but it seems it was for "we need 5E" rather than for Essentials.

 

[Mycroft]

When it come to purchases, minutes can be make or break. And there isn't friendly locals in the Amazon check out screen.

It's obviously not going to be a big problem for most people, but in the scales of sales WotC is aiming at, that confusion hurts their customer experience, which in the not very long run equals lost money and inhibited growth.

Essentials probably did make the problem worse: hence the complete end of the line, and going back to the drawing board.

Checked my memory a bit, there was a Ravenloft setting book set for Q4 2011, that never happened: I do recall Mearls talking about working on that product being a turning point, but it seems it was for "we need 5E" rather than for Essentials.

Don't bother, man; when you know the deal is crap.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Checked my memory a bit, there was a Ravenloft setting book set for Q4 2011, that never happened: I do recall Mearls talking about working on that product being a turning point, but it seems it was for "we need 5E" rather than for Essentials.

Sounds plausible. They were going through settings about 1/year or so. So add Ravenloft to the 'could have been' list, had 4e kept it's original direction...

 

[Garthanos]

Prior to the Essentials bootlegger reverse, 4e seemed to be to putting out additional PH, MM, DMG, & setting products each about annually, so, from that & the direction implied by the books we'd already gotten, we might have expected:

• A DMG III could thus have been expected, and it would have been consistent with the DMGII's focus on Paragon levels if it had focused on Epic.

Primary expected and missing material for the edition I think - right there.

• An even-later PH IV might presumably have added a full slate of 4 Elemental or Shadow source classes (presumably Shadow, since HoS preceded HotEC), like PHIII added 4 psionic classes and PHII 4 primal classes (the 'no gridfilling' assertion notwithstanding, they filled every grid but Martial). Also, judging on the Psionics trend, you might well have seen new advancement structures beyond AEDU, though still balanced with AEDU through resource parity, like Psionics (which substituted short-rest-recharge Power Points for Encounter Powers).

I think there is some late paragon and epic player facing material is also not there which might have shown up in a subsequent PHB

• There'd likely have been a Shadow Power & an Elemental Power before Arcane/divine/psionic/primal got Power II's - and all that and perhaps more before seeing a Martial Power III.

And I am a roleplayer I can pretend a Martial Power III might have been possible

• 4e MMs did not follow themes, particularly, so a MMIV wouldn't likely have been anything like Threats to Nentir Vale nor the MV.
• They also seemed to be working their way through the world axis, there were books for the Astral Sea & Elemental Chaos, already, we could probably have expected, similar 'secrets of' books for the Shadowfell and Feywild, expanding on material in the Manual of the Planes, and probably including what non-player-facing material was in HoS and HotFw.
• 4e was also working its way through settings, we'd already seen FR, DarkSun, & Eberron - I can't recall any indication what classic setting might've been next, but probably not the development of "Nentir Vale" we saw with Essentials, the original direction was for the 'default' PoL generic setting to remain generic. Edit: Apparently Ravenloft was next on the docket, for 2011, had things not changed direction. After that? Who knows? Maybe Greyhawk? Spelljammer (the Astral Sea evoked a fair bit of that vibe already)?

Darksun & Eberron were both good material

• Finally, The VTT was sorta working by the end, so presumably, development might've continued on that and, maybe, even finally completing the promised DDI tools, putting the CB on an app, etc.

I do like to think something akin to the HotFW would still have happened...

 

[Mycroft]

Non-Grandma friendly terminology removed. You might want to rethink your rhetoric.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think there is some late paragon and epic player facing material is also not there which might have shown up in a subsequent PHB

Entirely possible, had the line continued for a number of years people'd've inevitably been playing Epic (heck, people are, now), and, since those levels actually work, there'd've been some real interest.

And I am a roleplayer I can pretend a Martial Power III might have been possible

In the alternate timeline where 4e's sales goal was less than the size of the total industry, and the lead programmer was well-adjusted & decided to port to android apps, and the VTT was on-time, and nobody much fretted da Math let alone edition-warred, and the economy didn't implode, and an OGL/SRD was released concurrent with the PH, and KotSF didn't suck quite as hard...
… sure, it'd be coming out right about now, OK, maybe it'd've been as early as 2015 ...

...but it still wouldn't have a martial controller. That could only happen in a /perfect/ world...
...and couldn't happen in a perfect world because they wouldn't even have ever invented fighting.

Darksun & Eberron were both good material

...for setting I never cared for... actually, that's not fair... I never much cared for published settings, period...

I do like to think something akin to the HotFW would still have happened...

I'd think so, but probably in a Plane Above/Below format, like "The Otherworld: Secrets of the Feywild" or something.