D&D is dying by the hour

[The Little Raven]

I had the same feeling--which is why I'm not terribly upset about the information flow for 4E. I think the 3E spoilers overdid it, and I don't mind seeing things rolled back a bit.

I think a big part of the perception of the difference between 3e's rollout and 4e's rollout is that while 3e had larger fundamental changes to the system, a huge section of the book (spells) was pretty much the same from previous editions. The fact that one big complaint I see about 4e is the change to iconic spells (fireball, magic missile, etc), usually phrased as "these spells have been the same from 1e to 3e," tells me that we "knew more" about 3e because so much of it was the same as the previous edition we were familiar with.

 

[catsclaw]

In both cases I booed and in both case I was not the only one.

Nice. Did you throw batteries or empty beer bottles at them as well?

 

[Greatwyrm]

I was going to do one of those point-by-point analysis of your post posts, but I won't. I think the only part that really needs to be addressed is right here.

So what do you guys think? Is my analysis that Wizards is killing off D&D by not communicating at all correct?

In a word, no. The foundation for most of the things you brought up is the assumption that WotC is not telling us anything. This is simply not the case.

If you look at the Dragon or Dungeon online content or subscribe to the WotC RSS feeds, there's new stuff every few days. Art galleries. Design & Development articles. Blogs with snippets of info from the designers. Reviews and information gathered from events like WotC's "D&D Experience" con. They're talking.

Now, they may not be telling you as much as you'd like. I'm excited. I'd like to know more. But telling me what they feel like telling me is different than telling me nothing at all.

 

[Jack99]

This led to the third big blow for Wizards: The Paizo annoucement of their own RPG / 3.5 compatible.

Shouldn't this be tagged as Humor?

No seriously, you are not even close to being right.

 

[shadowguidex]

Sometimes I think the 3rd party publishers just plant posts on forums for their own ends. Yet again, it's the third party argument, yet I have never seen anyone who loves third party materials (and I know many gamers) aside from these doomsday posts and 4E naysayers. I will never buy a 3rd party product anyway because they are invariably terrible, so honestly, I encourage Wizards to keep D&D free from third parties.

 

[Jack99]

Sometimes I think the 3rd party publishers just plant posts on forums for their own ends. Yet again, it's the third party argument, yet I have never seen anyone who loves third party materials (and I know many gamers) aside from these doomsday posts and 4E naysayers. I will never buy a 3rd party product anyway because they are invariably terrible, so honestly, I encourage Wizards to keep D&D free from third parties.

You are even more wrong than the OP - quite a feat, Sir, I congratulate you!

 

[Gundark]

Shouldn't this be tagged as Humor?

No seriously, you are not even close to being right.

Yep. Sums up this thread nicely. Some guy with a low post count comes and gets us all worked up

 

[Minicol]

In general, I agree.

I see the PRPG differently. I see it as a way to please D&D players who would otherwise simply exit the game entirely ... and maybe even stop playing RPGs. While it may extend the active lifetime of 3.5E, please remember that it will also keep gamers around who might well choose to move to 4E (or 5E, etc.) at a later date.

Will the existence of the PRPG hurt initial sales? Perhaps, but most likely only in very small way. I think this is a small price to pay for keeping the gamers around ... gamers that might be very hard to replace.

I'd like to see Adventures and even Adventure Paths from as many publishers as possible.

I second this entirely. No matter what anyone might say, I will not ever convert to the "thing", and since I am the DM for two groups, I am taking them with me.

So we have the choice between stopping buying RPGs entirely (and living off my 25 years stock), and buying Pathfinder. In my case pathfinder is not competing with 4e : I would never buy 4e an any event.

So it will not hurt sales : they would never have existed in the first place.

 

[Frawan]

Maybe there have been a few less posts lately, but that's probably also due to large chunks of the D&D team being on the road traveling to major cities to do media interviews. Though I'm not going anywhere, a bunch of our brand, online, and R&D staff has spent the last couple of weeks and the next few weeks traveling to LA, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, etc. to talk to the media about 4th Edition. So, if they're being quieter on the message boards, they're being a LOT louder in real life.

Well - At least I got a partial explanation from Wiz. there. Thank you for that.

As for the many people who keeps saying that Paizo going their own ways is not a "blow" Wizards, I think you are wrong. Wizards might still be the leader when it comes to D&D, but Paizo has surely cut some good chunks off the cake. When you look at various discussion boards Paizo gets almost as much attention as 4th Edition. Their Pathfinder series has been an overwhelming success, with the issues being sold out as we speak.

In 3rd edition we did have various publishers, but none of them really got that much attention from non-hardcore gaming crowd. Since last GenCon and Pathfinder I believe this to have changed. It seems to me that Paizo have continued taking shares from WoTC, and with their announcement of their own RPG they are getting even more, since they will now be an option for the disgruntled 3rd edition players that would have eventually moved to 4th ed.
If you look at the publishing schedule of Paizo and compare it to Wizards, Paizo is not just a "nobody" to WoTC. Heck I bet they have produced more high-quality material in the last year than Wizards. While Wiz puts out a book a month, Paizo have several series of books being published. This wouldn't be possible unless people kept bying their stuff. So I say Paizo is growing, and Wizards should take notice when they don't follow their lead.
Dont get me wrong here: I wouldn't mind Paizo going 4th edition, as I like the idea of being able to play online when I dont have any gaming friends around, however with the GLS not coming out I guess it was simply not an option.

 

[Ximenes088]

As for the many people who keeps saying that Paizo going their own ways is not a "blow" Wizards, I think you are wrong. Wizards might still be the leader when it comes to D&D, but Paizo has surely cut some good chunks off the cake.

Do you know this, or do you think this?

I don't recall Paizo or WotC passing around sales figures for their products. Attempting to extrapolate Paizo's market importance by what you see on hobbyist bulletin boards is a pastime one cut less useful than consulting sheep guts, because the sheep guts won't give you an actively wrong impression.