Does Wizards want Greyhawk to fail?

[Barendd Nobeard]

If anything, I think they tried hard to revive the setting, taking it back to basics by ditching the Carl Seargeant baggage and making Greyhawk the default 3.0 setting. To me, it simply seemed that the first big Greyhawk push (with the core rule integration and Living Greyhawk) simply failed to rake in the money like FR did.

At the end of the day, WotC is a business -- which means publishing what sells best in order to continue publishing anything at all. While the Greyhawk fan community it undoubtedly loyal, compared to the FR fan community, I think that it is also very small (I think that WotC initially miscalculated its size and, thus, purchasing power).

All of that said, I like all of the 3x Greyhawk material (from LG to the Paizo APs) much better than the body of AD&D2e Greyhawk material.

It's impossible to "rake in the money" when the company doesn't release any setting materials. I have 16 FR 3.x books sitting on my shelf. I have 1 GH 3.x book sitting on my shelf. I quit buying FR books a couple of years ago, so I'm sure there's at least 20 3.x FR books. There is just one GH book for 3.x - the Living Greyhawk Gazateer. (I don't count it's smaller, anemc twin The Greyhawk Gazateer as a book. But if I did, that's be 2 GH books, one of which is just a watered down version of the other.)

So, of course FR sold/sells more books in the 3.x era. WotC actually released a steady slate of FR products.

GH got squat; there's no way it could have "raked in the money."

 

[the black knight]

For months we have been hearing that if the sales for the new Greyhawk Expidition book were good, then they might produce more. Then about 2 weeks after its release, they announce 4E?

Coincidence or conspiracy?

They say stuff like that to get all the grognards out of their parents basements and buying products again.

Which is to say, they'll dangle the promise of anything just to sell books. Greyhawk is only dead until they need to fill a slot, then they drag out the old guard for another product.

 

[thedungeondelver]

IMO, Greyhawk has been dead since Gary left TSR. Post-Gary TSR animated the corpse and it's been slowly shambling along in undead form ever since, somtimes stinking more and sometimes less.

I love Greyhawk (it and the Wilderlands are my two favorite settings), but I won't weep if "official support" ends.

QFT

 

[Thunderfoot]

<SNIP>All of that said, I like all of the 3x Greyhawk material (from LG to the Paizo APs) much better than the body of AD&D2e Greyhawk material.

Yeah, but isn't that kind of like saying, "I like ice cream better than a spike through the foot?"

 

[jdrakeh]

GH got squat; there's no way it could have "raked in the money."

My point was that I believe the two products initially released for GH (which, IIRC, preceded the FR 3x products) were met with a lukewarm consumer reception and, thus, further support for the setting was relegated to the LG campaign. The first FR book, by all accounts and in stark contrast, might as well have been printed on solid gold. As a business it made more sense to dump money into the latter setting. Or at least that is what I would have done, had I wanted to continue generating profit.

 

[jdrakeh]

Yeah, but isn't that kind of like saying, "I like ice cream better than a spike through the foot?"

True enough

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Secondly, FR is hardly new, having been around since the '70s.

As a published AD&D/D&D setting, it has only been around since 1985 (and that's if you're generous and count H1 Bloodstone Pass).

 

[Alaric_Prympax]

My point was that I believe the two products initially released for GH (which, IIRC, preceded the FR 3x products) were met with a lukewarm consumer reception and, thus, further support for the setting was relegated to the LG campaign. The first FR book, by all accounts and in stark contrast, might as well have been printed on solid gold. As a business it made more sense to dump money into the latter setting. Or at least that is what I would have done, had I wanted to continue generating profit.

Well to someone new to game if you had a choice of a softcover black&white "living" gazatteer or a full color hardback champaign sourcebook with maps which one would you buy. A newbie might not have known what "living" meant and stayed away from it. Don't forget that sometimes the way a product is presented can also affect sales of that product. The FRCS had a much better presentation then the LLG.

Just thumbing through both products the FRCS had a lot more details in it. Just to give one example is the demi-human pantheons, alot of those deities were not 'FR' deities in past editions, they were generic but here they were presented a 'FR": why does GH only have 1 dwarven god, 1 elven god, and 1 orc god while in FR I have more choices and options (which by the way was a major theme for 3.x). This is one of the things that turned me off on FR was that it acted like a black hole and sucked up everything around it and made it FR.

Another point that always I didn't understand and irritated me was that since GH was the default world why did the Iconic Novels not take place in GH? I only read a couple and wondered where is this in GH and quickly realized that it was not, it would have made sense. Although there were GH Novels the Iconic Novels still could have been in GH. Just had to get that off my chest after all these years.

 

[Glyfair]

That's an odd thing to say. FR is not the default setting of 4e.
We know for sure Eberron and FR will get campaign settings books. FR is just the first.

Plus, we know that they will be releasing a setting a year. More than likely they will rotate established settings with new settings.

My point was that I believe the two products initially released for GH (which, IIRC, preceded the FR 3x products) were met with a lukewarm consumer reception and, thus, further support for the setting was relegated to the LG campaign.

Were they? Then why was the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer the first 3E product to sell out? IIRC, it was announced to be sold out even before they made a second printing of the PHB (not surprising due to different print runs).

I don't believe at all that they want to "kill Greyhawk." I think it was simply that they made a business decision to only support one (and later two) settings. Between FR and Greyhawk, they decided FR met their needs better. Greyhawk they decided to support through the RPGA, with usable material in the mainline books (prestige classes, etc).

 

[Mouseferatu]

Plus, we know that they will be releasing a setting a year. More than likely they will rotate established settings with new settings.

Hrm, do we know that for sure? I know we're theorizing about it a lot in the 4E forum, but my understanding was not more than one setting being heavily focused on in a given year, not a guaranteed one new setting per year.