Dear Wizards, I no longer have a clue what you're doing

[Abstruse]

"People are talking about everything we're doing, so we must be on the right track!" Is this:

1) George Lucas on the prequels
2) Agents for a teen starlet
3) Advertising consultants after creating a commercial where the car decapitates a cat
4) Wizards of the Coast after ditching half of their release schedule and killing the miniatures line in favor of token sets and Dungeon Tiles

 

[Neonchameleon]

So after 3-4 years of 4e being out on the market WOTC reprinted the original classes with all new ways/concepts of building the characters to hopefully get new players? Thats what your saying WOTC has said and/or is saying? Why not just issue updated reprints of the core products again and slap the word "Revised" in front of the titles? Would that have not been easier? Heck, I would actually buy those books.

I wouldn't. And I'd hardly call the Knight, the Slayer, the Cavalier, both Rangers, and the new Druid nothing of value. That's six new and useful classes. Including in descending order of importance:
1: A class for people who want to Just Hit Stuff in combat.
2: Two types of defender who don't spew marks everywhere and thus take a lot less tracking and hence brainpower.
3: A Martial Controller - and trickshooting archer (bard of all things was closest before).
4: A simple two weapon fighter that makes sense. And doesn't bother with annoying things like Quarries.
5: A pet-class leader.

Once you get beyond that, school-based wizardry is an improvement over implement-based wizardry. Wis-clerics finally get melee powers. Hexblades are cool even if I have no wish to play one. And there are apparently people who massively prefer thieves to rogues - and for that matter I'm using one as an NPC companion character because they are so much easier to run than normal PCs. If you think of the two Heroes books as generalised splatbooks they aren't bad.

Monster Vault is IMO the best monster manual ever written for D&D. And the Rules Compendium is useful and can be treated as a revision.

At this point then they have wasted time and money getting nothing of value to their existing player base.

As a member of the existing player base, I have found Monster Vault, both Heroes books, and the Rules Compendium all extremely useful.

 

[Reigan]

Previously, new player material largely contained new classes and builds, but also a few new options for existing builds. Essentials doesn't do that, it only supplies new characters to play. If, like me you don't get to play many new characters, the current policy does not supply enough new, usable material to make it worth buying. For example, I play a paragon tier bard, I didn't find any of the existing paragon paths particularly interesting and there are far fewer powers to choose from than in heroic. If and when new bard material appears it will be an Essentials build, I won't be able to get any benefit out of it unless I scrap my existing character and reroll the new one.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Previously, new player material largely contained new classes and builds, but also a few new options for existing builds. Essentials doesn't do that, it only supplies new characters to play. If, like me you don't get to play many new characters, the current policy does not supply enough new, usable material to make it worth buying. For example, I play a paragon tier bard, I didn't find any of the existing paragon paths particularly interesting and there are far fewer powers to choose from than in heroic. If and when new bard material appears it will be an Essentials build, I won't be able to get any benefit out of it unless I scrap my existing character and reroll the new one.

Unless, of course the Essentials Bard (if we ever see one) uses the same (or similar) power structure as it did before. See also Mage and Warpriest.

And then there are the multiclassing and power swap options that were supposed to be published in one of the books that got cancelled. That would have made lots of things compatible. We might see it on DDI as a Dragon article or series of articles. Not guaranteed, but I'm hopeful. The waiting part kind of sucks though.

I empathize about the lack of PP options. I've had that issue with characters before. If you have an accommodating DM, you could always see if they will allow you to just make one up.

And I have to disagree that Essentials 'only' supplies new characters to play. There are a plethora of Feats in those books that are fantastic options, in many cases improvements of existing ones. If you play a Wizard or Cleric, there are TONS of powers to cherry pick. Laser Clerics finally get some half-decent melee options. All builds presented give a pile of Utility powers that any other member of that class can take, all the way up.

There are also a bunch of racial options. You play a Human or Half-elf? Each has a new racial power option. The others all get a choice of secondary stat boost. Those are not insignificant options.

 

[Osgood]

Old people also have less income and they'd rather have a younger demographic.

Perhaps I am an exception, but I make a heck of a lot more money now than when I started playing 25 years ago. Sure I have a lot more expenses and responsibilities, but I easily spend ten times what I spent on game products alone in 1986... even with inflation that is a huge jump.

WotC absolutely wants to bring in new customers, but if they are doing it because the youngsters have more cash, they are in for a surprise.

EDIT: I just checked my books to see what I spent on books, minis, Dwarven Forge and terrain last year... It's closer to 30 times what I spent on any given year in the 80's.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Perhaps I am an exception, but I make a heck of a lot more money now than when I started playing 25 years ago. Sure I have a lot more expenses and responsibilities, but I easily spend ten times what I spent on game products alone in 1986... even with inflation that is a huge jump.

WotC absolutely wants to bring in new customers, but if they are doing it because the youngsters have more cash, they are in for a surprise.

EDIT: I just checked my books to see what I spent on books, minis, Dwarven Forge and terrain last year... It's closer to 30 times what I spent on any given year in the 80's.

Sure. I think that's true for most of us. OTOH the people that didn't have the money to spend aren't playing anymore. Mostly I meant though that if the player base is getting up to retirement age one of these days, then things might not look quite so good. Mostly it will be a few years, but you do need to keep renewing your customer base. Plus getting a new customer that is say High School or College age is great, you have them for years to come. Get back some 40-somethings and yeah they'll be around a while, but it is not quite the same thing. Younger people also tend to be good at marketing their interests to their friends. Most of us older players I suspect don't get much outside our existing gamer circles as much. I know I wouldn't even bother to try to get my non-gamer friends playing nowadays, they just aren't interested. So I play with my gamer friends, which are the same ones as they were 20 years ago.

 

[Osgood]

Sure. I think that's true for most of us. OTOH the people that didn't have the money to spend aren't playing anymore. Mostly I meant though that if the player base is getting up to retirement age one of these days, then things might not look quite so good. Mostly it will be a few years, but you do need to keep renewing your customer base. Plus getting a new customer that is say High School or College age is great, you have them for years to come. Get back some 40-somethings and yeah they'll be around a while, but it is not quite the same thing. Younger people also tend to be good at marketing their interests to their friends. Most of us older players I suspect don't get much outside our existing gamer circles as much. I know I wouldn't even bother to try to get my non-gamer friends playing nowadays, they just aren't interested. So I play with my gamer friends, which are the same ones as they were 20 years ago.

I see where you are coming from, but I think that depends on the individual. There are five people that I play with right now, two of us have played since high school, my brother joined us when his group collapsed in the late 90's, but the other two are in the mid-twenties. I'm sure this isn't the norm, but our group has always done a fair amount of recruitment... so much so that there is an entire group of people we used to play with who get together a couple times a month.


Incidentally I am looking forward to retirement as my gold age of gaming. I have this secret dream of a gamer retirement village full of private gaming room stocked with minis and books... who's with me?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Old people also have less income

No...not really. My current salary is more than 100x what I had as a kid starting out in the hobby. And I'm trying to transition into something that pays better because I'm not being paid all that much.

What may be true- and may be what you meant- is that with increasing responsibilities, older people may have less "DISPOSABLE or DISCRETIONARY" income. Still, after paying for housing, transportation and food, I daresay that my absolute $$$ of D&D money is higher than ever before. That's why I can buy $800 gemstones and $3000 guitars*...and STILL buy RPG products.

Perhaps you meant further "as a percentage of their overall income?"

Regardless, one truth you sort of touched on is the "younger demographic." Generation X, prosperous though it is, is rapidly being outspent by Generation Y. Why? Because GenY is nearly as big as the Baby Boom generation. Even though only a portion of GenY is in the job market, they already account for as much- if not more- entertainment spending than GenX, a trend that will only continue.







* I'm also old enough to know how not to pay full price for said items.

 

[Tallifer]

The worst thing for me is the new Character Builder which has half the functionality of the old one. Unbelievable.

The biggest selling point for DDI was the CB: now they are chasing off customers with an inferior and at times useless product.

For example, power cards can no longer be edited to display the appropriate weapon or implement of choice. Even basic and range melee attacks cannot be edited. (My warlord throws javelins, but the CB insists that his range basic attack is an (improvised weapon) using dexterity.)

 

[Keefe the Thief]

What they're doing is aiming at integrating VTT, CB and MB, and that's way easier if you minimize options before that is done. Infuriating yes, and for some (rightly so) a reason to cancel DDI for the time being. Badly communicated, too. But i understand where they are coming from.