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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 6073807" data-attributes="member: 87792">2012 was almost ineitable from the production model of 4e.  Basically they ran out of stuff to publish for it; WotC publish mostly crunch and there's very little to do under the 4e paradigm that the crunch isn't out there for either in a book or in Dragon.  (It's my view that 4e needs precisely four more books; the Birthright setting, the Spelljammer setting, a Spelljammer Monster Manual, and an Epic Level handbook.  All four products are ... niche.  There's also an Unearthed Arcana, Maths, and Hacks book).  Now they could have tried TSR-style shovelware, but one of the attractive things about 4e books is that almost without exception they are high quality and add significantly to the game.This would be a definition of all I am unfamilliar with.  It doesn't include either [MENTION=55066]Dice4Hire[/MENTION] or [MENTION=8900]Tony[/MENTION]Vargas for instance.  And you aren't a 4e fan - the reception to Essentials was ... about as mixed as the reception to the book of Weaboo Fitan Majik.And to use an analogy, 3.5 had the brilliant and contraversial Tome of Battle: The Book of 9 Swords.  This works with the rest of 3.5 - but what do you think that the reaction of the fanbase would have been to the idea that every single subsequent book should be in the style of the Tome of Battle?  Having something there as an option is completely different from making it the dominant paradigm.I'm pretty sure you don't need the RC for anything.  It's just a useful reference guide.Given that the Bo9S was not a trial balloon for 4e, this logic doesn't hold.  What the Bo9S was was the salvageable parts of Orcus - a planned 4e they worked on for 10 months before deciding it was horrible and starting almost entirely from scratch, meaning 4e was developed in 14 months rather than the 24 it was allocated.  The Bo9S was put out rather than let Orcus go entirely to waste.From a sales point, DDI is worth a lot making the whole thing profitable by taking in a lot of money for very low overheads.  Hell, the DDI subscribers now are bankrolling the DDN development team.  Because 4e has DDI it has a guaranteed and predictable income meaning we don't have the TSR or 3.X problem of warehouses full of books that take up space and have sunk costs but don't sell.  It (and the comparable Pathfinder subscription model) is much healthier for a company than anything either 3.X or Lorraine Williams' TSR managed.  Gleemax?  A murder/suicide by the lead developer will cause problems.  Although that's no excuse for the VTT never appearing.</blockquote>

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