Arthaus reverts rights to Ravenloft and Gamma World back to Wotc

[glass]

Monte was the guy who wrote Vecna Reborn, which was, IIRC, the last Ravenloft adventure.

OK, thanks.


glass.

 

[Turanil]

I'm afraid there are no black helicopters involved, nor illuminati.

(wo)Man! This realy sucks!!!

 

[TiQuinn]

Although if feels like most of us are online enabled, I'd suspect that 80% of gamers are probably not surfing the net, finding out about products, checking out the message boards etc. Out of all the players I know, maybe 1 or 2 in 15 is actually going online for gaming related activities.

I gotta tell ya...I find this harder and harder to believe the longer things go on. I'd flip that around and say that maybe 20% of gamers do not have an internet connection at this point.

As to other sources like Ebay, it's a great option.....if you live in the U.S. If you're in Canada or Britain or Australia or somewhere else, have fun paying the shipping costs, as well as the brokerage fees to get these books over the border.

There's plenty of international sources also. I'm just having a hard time swallowing the notion that people can't find old RPG material except the rarest of the rare. It's not 1995 anymore.

Are new players going to pick up Ravenloft on a whim? No, probably not. Will someone who has already heard of it, and is interested in finding it be able to do so? Absolutely.

 

[francisca]

Given the not-so-excellent work he's done on his own as part of Fast Forward Games, I doubt that would be particularly successful.

There aren't all that many designers whose names I associate with quality stuff - there are plenty of names I recognize, but only a few who make me think "That's probably going to be a good treatment of whatever the book is about." Monte Cook has done good stuff, as has Bruce Cordell and a few others. Jim Ward is on the other end of the spectrum - one of the few authors that make me go "Oh, I'd better stay away from that book."

I played MA with Jim Ward at the end of July up in Lake Geneva. Had a blast. I'd be happy to see his take on GW again, especially if it *wasn't* d20.

 

[philreed]

2. The license was not lucrative enough to keep, ie not enough sales to warrant keeping it?

To me, this seems like the most likely reason.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Are new players going to pick up Ravenloft on a whim? No, probably not. Will someone who has already heard of it, and is interested in finding it be able to do so? Absolutely.

Right, so again, we're stuck with older players are fine, new players will not be. You'll pardon me if I can't get excited about that scenario.

 

[TiQuinn]

Right, so again, we're stuck with older players are fine, new players will not be. You'll pardon me if I can't get excited about that scenario.

So...new players who don't know what they're missing will suffer from not knowing what they don't know?

It still comes down to Ravenloft isn't successful or profitable enough to warrant continuing (at least that seems to be the case), but why lament the demise of a setting that does have a huge amount of material for it already? For those who want to check the setting out, there will always be fan sites, and there will be the secondary market. Not seeing the tragedy here.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So...new players who don't know what they're missing will suffer from not knowing what they don't know?

Let's pretend D&D went out of print the year before you learned it. Would your life be better or worse for not having it available to you?

For those who want to check the setting out, there will always be fan sites, and there will be the secondary market.

And they'll want to check the setting out because they'll hear about it ... how?

Not seeing the tragedy here.

Clearly. But hey, you're taken care of, so whatever.

 

[TiQuinn]

Let's pretend D&D went out of print the year before you learned it. Would your life be better or worse for not having it available to you?

If I wanted to play it, I'd be able to find it online and buy it. If I never, ever heard of D&D and never played it, I don't think my life would be any better or worse. Actually, strike that, I probably would've got more homework done, so I'll say better.

And they'll want to check the setting out because they'll hear about it ... how?

From a friend?

From ENWorld?

From some miscellaneous Horror RPG messageboard?

It just seems that you're lamenting over the idea of someone who's never heard of Ravenloft never getting to play it, which doesn't make much sense to me. Regardless, we're at an impasse on the issue.

 

[Banshee16]

I gotta tell ya...I find this harder and harder to believe the longer things go on. I'd flip that around and say that maybe 20% of gamers do not have an internet connection at this point.



There's plenty of international sources also. I'm just having a hard time swallowing the notion that people can't find old RPG material except the rarest of the rare. It's not 1995 anymore.

Are new players going to pick up Ravenloft on a whim? No, probably not. Will someone who has already heard of it, and is interested in finding it be able to do so? Absolutely.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that they don't have Internet connections. I'm saying that 80% of them (I'm making up a number to represent the idea, not claiming that 80% is the correct stat) are not surfing around reading up about the games etc. Heck, none of the people that I know who work in game stores, and most players I talk to are not going to the message boards and D20 company websites to read about gaming. I could go to EN World, RPG.net, WotC, and several other sites, shout out my name and all the core details of the campaign, all the mysteries the PCs are trying to solve etc. and I'd have 0 concern that any of them would ever see these posts.

I'm pretty sure WotC actually included that as a question on one of their surveys, and only a very small percentage of gamers responded that they regularly go online to read about the game etc. We're the small, vocal minority who are Internet enabled, knowledgeable enough to know where to go to find information, and furthermore, care enough to actually post something about it. So we're a minority of a minority of a minority.

The effect to this is that I still remain pretty sure that the fact that the setting is no longer published will continbute to its demise over time. I'm seeing this happen with Planescape and other settings that have had vibrant fan support.....but even the Planescape mailing list is growing less and less busy. Without a supply of books and published material, new people have too much difficulty finding out about it. If there are 100 gamers, and only 6 of them are looking for settings online, what are the chances that one of those 6 are ones that will be interested in that setting?

For those of us who are big fans, and are involved in the message boards etc. it's not an issue. But for new blood, it is.

Banshee