D&D 5E D&DNext - Frankenstein or Butterfly?

[RACER_X?HAHAHA]

Oh, well, clearly someone should have thought a lot more carefully about what they were doing a year or so ago. Honestly I think they should have gone outside for a management change and an objective view of the situation. Probably clean outside of the whole industry. I don't think the people at WotC lack cleverness but they're clearly not in a position to make good decisions from where I sit. It may hurt to fix things, but once the pain is over the healing can start.

I'm inclined to agree. I just hope that D&D can actually make it through this. If 5e isn't a big hit, the brand may be shelved for years.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Quite right. I apologize if I was fanning the flames (unintentionally, I assure you). I have nothing against anyone's rules. It seems my extension of the analogy was not as deft as I'd imagined.

All I meant to say, in response to AbdulAlhazred's post, is: if it were financially viable to continue to print 4e product, WotC would still be printing 4e product.

WotC D&D is in a tough spot, and publishing a new edition is really their best (possibly only) option at this point. I don't have the financial data, but it seems clear that they've been losing a great deal of money recently, and it seems equally clear that the best solution is to stop doing the thing that's losing them the money, and try to do something to get the money back. From a business standpoint, developing D&D Next is the only thing that makes sense.

As always, play what you like (We'll always have our old books.)

The way I see it a terrible business strategy is when you abandon the loyal customer base you do have in order to try to capture the customer base of some rival company, while at the same time abandoning all the new features of your product which you just introduced in the last product refresh because you felt that without those new features you couldn't continue to be effective in the market.

All WotC is doing is putting themselves years behind a competition they are currently ahead of. Instead of making the, from here, obvious simple corrections to their business strategy they will now go try to play catchup with a more nimble competitor on that competitor's terms. Meanwhile all of us who were ACTUALLY BUYING PRODUCT are done with this foolishness and will probably either continue to play with our existing product and/or just go on to play other games in other genre for a few years.

As Sun Tzu said, play to your strengths not your weaknesses and never play the other guy's game. IMHO the current strategy is objectively stupid. The people steering that ship clearly are too wrapped up in their various emotional investments in the situation to stand back and make good objective business decisions. Under those conditions the business aspect of D&D will simply continue in the direction of disaster until the most dire predictions of the true pessimists eventually materialize.

In other words I would at the very least get rid of the current management. Promoting from within, while usually a great idea, is not ALWAYS the right move, and this is particularly true when the organization has clearly lost its way.

 

[DEFCON 1]

All WotC is doing is putting themselves years behind a competition they are currently ahead of.

Well, there's your confusion right there. WotC currently ISN'T ahead of their competitors with 4E. And that will certainly not change if they stayed with 4E because they have virtually no books left to print that would actually make any real money. It's been shown time and again that after a certain number of books, you reach a point of diminishing returns because no one is going to drop $30 on the fifth planes book.

And if you really think that $15.00 adventures would be the saving grace of 4E's financial future, I've got a bridge to sell you.

 

[JeffB]

WOTC has never been loyal to any D&D fanbase. And when they dropped 3.x which was incredibly successful overall, they abandoned the largest following the game had since the early 1980s. Theytried to do something different and for all intents and purposes failed, AND now the competitor is kicking their ass, and has been for a couple years. Even as a 4e fan for its first couple of years, I do not see how anyone could think it was a success, and feel they should continue down that road . They have been backpedaling and doing damage control for 4 years plus. Many fans seem to have difficulty separating emotions from reality even when it is staring them in the face.

5e will be the deciding edition about the future of the game/brand. I think the big problem is that they are working towards goals that cannot be achieved wholly,and it is blatantly appqrent from the massive changes from packet to packet to packet. Not to mention the length of development is going to continually dull any sort of excitement from the players they desparately neeed back.

 

[Remathilis]

My FLGS has all 4e books 30% off. Everything else in the store is MSRP. Including the 3.5 "used" section.

4e is at this point abandonware.

 

[OpsKT]

Honestly, for me a big part is less the rules (I'm used to learning new ones every edition) and more the presentation. The three books sacred cow needs to die. If 5th is not a one book game, I'll be passing in favor of all the stuff I already own.

I will still be sad because D&D was the first game, but I put aside the old girlfriend when I met the far superior wife as well. It's even easier with a game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, there's your confusion right there. WotC currently ISN'T ahead of their competitors with 4E. And that will certainly not change if they stayed with 4E because they have virtually no books left to print that would actually make any real money. It's been shown time and again that after a certain number of books, you reach a point of diminishing returns because no one is going to drop $30 on the fifth planes book.

And if you really think that $15.00 adventures would be the saving grace of 4E's financial future, I've got a bridge to sell you.

Its working for Paizo. Guess they have a bridge to sell YOU...

I don't think 4e was at all played out, and I think furthermore that it could have been and deserved to be developed further. Again, the problem is there were good reasons for making a game like 4e. It is FAR more amenable to creating things like the Compendium, which is hard to imagine being anywhere near as useful applied to a less structured system.

Which of course brings us to the 2nd point. DDI is a great thing, but again there are vast advances which could be made. Yet again WotC has thrown its own future under the bus. 5e appears far less easy to handle in this way, and will at the very least require a total rewrite of all the tools. In fact given that they've sold off the VTT it is hard to see any sign that they have even the meanest digital aspirations for 5e.

It isn't even so much that DDN is 'bad' in some sense, it is just irrelevant. It is a distraction from the real issues and a retreat from the direction RPGs need to go in if they're going to remain viable. All this will simply have to be done ALL OVER AGAIN for "6e" or whatever. In the meantime the competition gets a free leg up. DDI was really the only material way in which WotC had an advantage and while they may or may not continue with it in some form they've certainly created a big delay in its evolution which the competition will not hesitate to exploit. Even as we speak Paizo has been solidifying its own response to DDI. Instead of making the next move and staying ahead WotC is moving sideways. It is very foolish.

 

[Steely_Dan]

It isn't even so much that DDN is 'bad' in some sense, it is just irrelevant.

Is is totally relevant: 4th Ed.

 

[Pour]

Its working for Paizo. Guess they have a bridge to sell YOU...

I don't think 4e was at all played out, and I think furthermore that it could have been and deserved to be developed further. Again, the problem is there were good reasons for making a game like 4e. It is FAR more amenable to creating things like the Compendium, which is hard to imagine being anywhere near as useful applied to a less structured system.

Which of course brings us to the 2nd point. DDI is a great thing, but again there are vast advances which could be made. Yet again WotC has thrown its own future under the bus. 5e appears far less easy to handle in this way, and will at the very least require a total rewrite of all the tools. In fact given that they've sold off the VTT it is hard to see any sign that they have even the meanest digital aspirations for 5e.

It isn't even so much that DDN is 'bad' in some sense, it is just irrelevant. It is a distraction from the real issues and a retreat from the direction RPGs need to go in if they're going to remain viable. All this will simply have to be done ALL OVER AGAIN for "6e" or whatever. In the meantime the competition gets a free leg up. DDI was really the only material way in which WotC had an advantage and while they may or may not continue with it in some form they've certainly created a big delay in its evolution which the competition will not hesitate to exploit. Even as we speak Paizo has been solidifying its own response to DDI. Instead of making the next move and staying ahead WotC is moving sideways. It is very foolish.

Yeah, it's a pretty big shame. And I'm really mad at them. I thought I'd something more to say...

 

[RACER_X?HAHAHA]

Its working for Paizo. Guess they have a bridge to sell YOU...

I don't think 4e was at all played out, and I think furthermore that it could have been and deserved to be developed further. Again, the problem is there were good reasons for making a game like 4e. It is FAR more amenable to creating things like the Compendium, which is hard to imagine being anywhere near as useful applied to a less structured system.

Which of course brings us to the 2nd point. DDI is a great thing, but again there are vast advances which could be made. Yet again WotC has thrown its own future under the bus. 5e appears far less easy to handle in this way, and will at the very least require a total rewrite of all the tools. In fact given that they've sold off the VTT it is hard to see any sign that they have even the meanest digital aspirations for 5e.

It isn't even so much that DDN is 'bad' in some sense, it is just irrelevant. It is a distraction from the real issues and a retreat from the direction RPGs need to go in if they're going to remain viable. All this will simply have to be done ALL OVER AGAIN for "6e" or whatever. In the meantime the competition gets a free leg up. DDI was really the only material way in which WotC had an advantage and while they may or may not continue with it in some form they've certainly created a big delay in its evolution which the competition will not hesitate to exploit. Even as we speak Paizo has been solidifying its own response to DDI. Instead of making the next move and staying ahead WotC is moving sideways. It is very foolish.

But it's the only move they have. DDI was the problem. 4e was designed around DDI and not the other way around, and when DDI came up short not only in its promised adventure tools but also the online Dragon & Dungeon they were hoisted upon their own petard.

So now they're trying to keep the brand from going the way of the dodo. They're trying to gin up the players with a new edition and an open playtest. If they were to try to keep 4e going on adventures they may get one or two published before the Hasbro Corporate Overlords shelved the whole brand. No books, no adventures, no DDI, nothing for years.