D&D 4E 5E as a Rewritten 4E with Flavor Bits from Other Editions?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well, I said it before - Essentials basically has all the material necessary to do that already.

It would totally work for me.
But I don't think it will be just that.

I think there are some aspects they will go beyond that. For example, I think they will take (or already did take) a closer look at combat length, for example. D&D 4 combats tend to range between 45 minutes to 90 minutes, and while a challenging and hard-fought 60 minute combat is just fine with me, a "trash" encounter should just not take that long, and would alienate many players, even if they could ignore all the rest.

 

[BASHMAN]

I'm *almost* a bit suspicious that 4e was an attempted "New Coke" marketing ploy to make 5e (Coca Cola Classic) an enormous hit...

Manufacture outrage over the "new & improved" product to resell the classic one with skyrocketing sales. At least it seems to be working out that way.

As much as I'd like to suspect it was planned like New Coke, I can't help but think that it was more of a Crystal Pepsi thing. Something they really expected to be a huge hit that some people absolutely loved, but most people did not care for, and so they had to take off the market. Of course, that analogy isn't perfect (they kept selling regular Pepsi when Crystal Pepsi was introduced).

In short, I don't think it will be a "re-written 4e" because 4e was not being very successful. Granted, Windows Vista had a bad rap, too, and they had the sense to get on with Windows 7. Some people see 7 as a "tweaked Vista" but 7 definitely is successful where Vista was not. But that plan could have easily backfired on Microsoft. Not sure if Hasbro could tolerate that much risk.

Again, I said almost suspicious.