Eric Noah's Info

[painandgreed]

I still say that an announcement next week at GenCon for an '07 release wouldn't surprise me at all.

Funny enough, the people I played games with last Tues, who used to work at WotC and are still in the gaming industry, said the same thing. Although they thought it might be announced in '07 for a '08 realease as the quick release of 3.5 messed up the timetable they were familiar with while working at WotC.

 

[Jdvn1]

Five pages in two and a half hours.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Times change. In 1999, the RPG community was a lot more fragmented. I think a lot of people had gotten out of the hobby, TSR was on the rocks, and there was a pervasive feeling of pessimism over the future of the RPGs.

Now, there are a lot more ways for RPGs to congregate and bitch and moan and pimp and what have you. A lot of people rediscovered a hobby that they loved. And there is a general consensus that 3rd Ed. sparked a renaissance in the RPG world.

When you are at the bottom looking up, the possibility of any change looks attractive. When you feel like you're in the best of all possible worlds, change is scary.

Nevertheless, a lot of comments in this very thread sound a lot like what people were spreading in newsgroups and mailing lists back then: 'I'll never, ever change to 3e!', 'WotC will face a serious drop in sales', etc. pp.

Roleplayers tend to see the end of the world coming whenever a change is announced. As an ex-publisher I'm of the firm oppinion that any change that brings new blood into the hobby is good. It doesn't matter what the old geezers are telling you: overhaul the game to make it palatable to the teens, whatever it takes. If something like HeroQuest is the way to do it, go this way! If you can sell an extremly simple Barbie RPG to the girls of the world, do it!

The industry leaders are the ones who can attract new folks to the hobby. And new folks in the hobby is good news. Look at it this way:

Hasbro sells 4e to 10 Million people, worldwide.

Two years later, 10% of those people still play D&d4e.

Two years later 10% of those people are looking for other RPGs.

And 1% of those people buy a game from [insert your favourite publisher here].

This means 1.000 additional sales from your favourite other publisher! I think baiting a second or third tier publisher with 1.000 additional sales will turn her into a drooling fanboy of 4e.

My numbers may be off as they are based on my experiences here in Germany, but the idea remains the same: we should wish Hasbro all the best with their new edition, wether it suits our fancy or not, because they are the people responsible for keeping our hobby alive.

Huldvoll

Jan van Leyden

 

[Geoffrey]

-4E already in the works? Check.
-Even more miniatures-centric? Check.
-Much smaller bundles of game info, packaged and sold separately? Check.
-A plan to possibly sell off RPGs entirely? Check. (Apparently only miniatures and Magic are making any money for WotC).

I wouldn't be surprised if WotC simply renamed "D&D Miniatures" to "Dungeons & Dragons". Done. D&D would be even more miniature-centric, it would be sold in much smaller bundles, and it wouldn't even be a RPG. This would fit all the above points to a T.

And if you wanted to play a RPG, you'd have to either play an out-of-print game or a game with a name other than Dungeons & Dragons.

 

[helium3]

D&D miniatures quality is on the decline. Heavily so. There have been problems with sculpts, paintjobs, illegaly leaked information and photos, packaging, randomness issues, typos on cards, typos on posters, torn maps, maps with erros, and so on, and so fourth.

Most of that has to do with problems with the overseas production facility not following specification or WOTC employees putting out poorly written specifications, I'd imagine.

 

[Evilusion]

Ok I do not post much but this topic I have to post on.

4e will more than likely be complete miniature game(IMHO). I can not see them doing otherwise. All stats on a card, everything is nice and balance. Plus you could buy extra cards(ala M:TG). I personally have been telling my group that is what 4e is going to be. It is my firm belief that 3.x is the last we will see of a true DnD rpg(were all you need was pencil and paper).

I do believe most of the stuff said on this board does make perfect sense to WOTC. That being.
1. Change the rules in 4e so people have to repurchase.
2. More minis. Once again you need the new mini since the old one are not compatible.
3. Sell of the RPG line(this is a big maybe) I see them sitting on it myself.
4. Make cards for the minis like M:TG for more options. Once again more money.

I'm just highlighting the points that I took off the board. Personally I hope none of this come to past. But as one great person said "I have a bad feeling about this"

Evilusion

 

[Belen]

I had not heard of a price change with the minis. What will the new price be?

 

[Henrix]

Of course they are planning a 4e, and that it is getting near the time to do that ought not to be any big surprise.


But if they tie it too tightly with the miniatures I think they'll be doing themselves a disservice. Collectible games tend to have have a fairly distinct rise and fall curve, which isn't really true for RPGs.

And I predict the D&D Minis are going to start going down soon. A lot of people have a lot of minis already, and will buy less with each new expansion. (There's a diminishing return when you have minis that'll do fine as proxies - the large red, blue or green dragon will do rather nicely for a large black for instance.)

And it makes sense for Hasbro/Wotc to license D&D out. RPG books are generally more expensive to produce (take more time to write, edit, check for errors, etc.) than fiction, and don't sell enough to make it up.
They can probably make more money by producing other things.

 

[Erik Mona]

Agreed. It would be consonant with the prior sale of Dragon and Dungeon to Paizo. It's also consistent with Hasbro's company practice. If it does go up for sale, it would be great to see a company with enough capitol to nurture RPGs for the future.

Someone else has probably posted this downthread, but Wizards of the Coast did not sell Dragon and Dungeon to Paizo. Paizo licenses the right to publish the magazines from Wizards of the Coast, who retains ownership of the trademarks (and of everything we publish).

I now return you to your regularly scheduled meltdown.

--Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing, LLC

 

[Sammael]

Most of that has to do with problems with the overseas production facility not following specification or WOTC employees putting out poorly written specifications, I'd imagine.

Whatever the reason (and I know you are right about at least one of the listed problems), it shows an overall lower level of quality control, and a decline in the miniatures' line quality. There didn't use to be problems of that magnitude with previous sets.