D&D 4E 4E WotC way of saying your fired?

[Raven Crowking]

Just a tangent to your post here, but I think that the comments I was referring to come from ex-WotC employees with no vested interest in the current business.

Which ex-WotC employee has no vested interest in the current business?

 

[Maggan]

Which ex-WotC employee has no vested interest in the current business?

I'm not sure what you're asking?

If you are asking who said what I'm referring to, I think (think, mind you) that it was Charles Ryan. I seem to remember that Monte Cook has said something like that, but I'm not sure.

/M

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'm not sure what you're asking?

If you are asking who said what I'm referring to, I think (think, mind you) that it was Charles Ryan. I seem to remember that Monte Cook has said something like that, but I'm not sure.

Anyone that is now, or may in the future, be part of the industry -- whether with WotC or not -- has a vested interest. Anyone that publicly speaks about previous employers, unless they are in a situation where they may never have to seek employment again, has a vested interest.

Finding someone without a vested interest is difficult. I require a bit more evidence than you do.

RC

 

[Maggan]

Finding someone without a vested interest is difficult. I require a bit more evidence than you do.

Well, I'm just chatting about this on a message board. I don't really feel the need to do thorough research into the individual motivations of people formerly associated with WotC and their degree of attachment to the past and present organisation.

YMMV.

/M

 

[dmccoy1693]

I think the question then is; does WotC need D&D to turn a Hasbro level profit? I think I remember someone from WotC saying that Hasbro don't micromanage on that level, but I might be wrong.

I remember when someone from WotC came here and said that too. But frankly, when was the last time you had to deal with the upper echelons of the company that owned your company? How often do average employees deal with the top gurus of their company? The company I currently work for has about 20 employees. My cube is right across the hall from the company's president, and I don't deal with him on all that often. He's got someone below him to mangage me.

So unless Loren Greenwood (or someone else equally up there) says that Hasbro doesn't micromanage them, I don't believe it. I'd bet they don't have the full picture.

 

[sirwmholder]

I'm honestly suprised it too this long for the "sky is falling" crowd to come out... when D&D switched from 3.0 to 3.5 WotC learned a valuable lesson in "Letting publishers know what you are doing 101". Since most of the WotC staff seems to be loving their jobs right now I can't shake the optimistic feeling that they want to get the material in the hands of those publishers as soon as possible. Look at the good PR they would gain by including 3rd party support right from launch... it just makes good business sense for them to do so.

I have no doubt WotC "could" bull rush 4th through without help... though it would hurt... a lot... but they would be able to limp along for a while but eventually get back on track... probably with a restructuring. On a side note... I highly doubt 3.x or 3.75 would take away a 30% market share even if published by Paizo.

The right move for WotC would be to get those design documents in the hands of the 3rd party publishers well before release. If 4th does indeed fracture the fan base having that 3rd party support will keep the majority playing D&D... despite everything else.

It's still far too early to call for Doom and Gloom. Personally, I'm in favor of 4th... I like what I've seen and as an amatuer game design I'm curious to know how they are resolving various issuses that came up in 3.x.

**NOTE: I only read the first page... it just rubbed me the wrong way.

Good gaming,
William Holder

 

[Scribble]

My guess is it wasn't a dark ritual formulated by Atkinson and several old men in the dark corners of WOTC...

My guess is it was more along the lines of:

The designers et al knew that in order to fix a lot of the "problems" AD&D had, they were going to have to change a lot of D&D's truisms. AC would be a positive number, saves cut down to 3, and so forth... They even have mentioned plenty of times that there were more things they wanted to change, but couldn't because it would be "too different."

I'm thinking some people in the crowd said:

"Screw it. Make the changes. If people don't like it they already have a game don in the old way. If we make the changes and it draws more to D&D then the change was worth it."

But in the end fear won out, and they took some of the things that should have been changed and just bent them into shape with a hammer.

As a result, it kind of works, but could be better. (Like putting tin foil on a broken antenna...)

 

[MerricB]

This is why it is important, I think, that WotC remember to maintain the relatively "generic" feel of D&D in the core books -- something the previews so far are suggesting is not going to happen. Keeping things vaguely medieval european fantasy-ness, as all prior editions have done, enables the really good third party publishers, like those you name, to produce very good D&D material.

Yeah. Funny thing is that the Feywild and Points of Light are possibly more evocative of medieval european fantasy than what was before...

Cheers!

 

[JiffyPopTart]

How do you propose that they support 4.0 when WOTC won't let them see the 4.0 rules until beyond Paizo's publishing deadline?

Ummm....are you really asking this? If Paizo can sell successful products 4 years after the release of 3.5, why couldn't they sell successful products 6 months after the release of 4.0?

DS

 

[rgard]

It's also no secret that GW has had a rocky road with those independent stores that carry their product. They had very strict demands about what must be carried, how much of the store it occupies and how it is displayed. They had such a strong, fanatical player base that they could say "our way or the highway." In the worst case situations their strict demands forced a retailer to invest significant amounts in a GW display, and then GW opened a store in the same town (in one case I heard it was almost across the street).

<SNIP>

It seems that strategy is backfiring in the current climate of the hobby industry. At least in the US, GW wants to start working with the independent retailers because they serve the existing player base.

Hi Glyfair, my experience with GW was as your second paragraph beginning in Feb 2005 through Oct 2006.

I can't say enough good about my experience as an indy retailer selling their stuff in the US. They provided all the display racking, a paint rack and 6 of each paint pot free of charge when I made my initial order with them.

There was no pressure to display or place their stuff in any particular place in my store (though I did have it covering the entire left wall of the store.)

I usually met the minimum $300 per week order needed to get free shipping. When I did miss it, they went ahead and waived the shipping cost.

They were simply a great bunch to work with.

I did witness some pretty sh*tty behavior on their part in the UK when they nailed my Cardiff FLGS, but I had no experience like that in the States.

Thanks,
Rich