Forked Thread: ... with an interesting note about 4th edition

[JDJblatherings]

When the hell did D&D become the game that had to appease every gamer?

Sorry for the rant.

For WoTC D&D is the game that has to appeal to a lot of RPGers, if it doesn't they stop selling their RPG.

Anyone notice Enworld traffic has dropped a whole lot since 4e was released?

I've been wondering lately and sure enough-
enworld.org - Traffic Details from Alexa

 

[delericho]

Oh boy and let's not forget the Players Options line of books totslly crushes your rules-light, narrative-style argument.

1) Those books were entirely optional. Not using them still allowed for that rules-light narrative-style play. In fact, I was running a campaign exactly like that when 3e was released.

2) In the same way that "Tome of Battles" and "Star Wars Saga Edition" served as test-beds for many of the ideas later incorporated into 4e, so too did the "Player's Options" books test several concepts that later appeared in 3e - with Attacks of Opportunity being one of the most notable examples.

Uhm see above, no it wasn't. It just advanced what was already in motion. Yet you were a fan of 2e (probably because you ignored all the stuff I talk about above ... the same thing you could have done with 3e)

The 3e core rules are far more dense than the 2nd Edition equivalents, and despite claims of modularity were in fact far more tightly integrated. Additionally, the page count of the 3e books is significantly higher than their 2nd Edition equivalents (except perhaps the Monster Manual, which was probably shorter than the 2nd Edition Monstrous Manual, and yet contained far more monsters). Furthermore, the 3e DMG actually contains a large amount of useful information, unlike its 2nd Edition equivalent, which was almost worthless apart from the section on magic items.

I vastly prefer 3e to 2nd Edition. It (actually 3.5e) remains my edition of choice, and on reading it it was immediately apparent to me that this was the way the game should always have been. But I'm not blind to its flaws, and rules light it most certainly was not.

 

[Jack99]

For WoTC D&D is the game that has to appeal to a lot of RPGers, if it doesn't they stop selling their RPG.

Anyone notice Enworld traffic has dropped a whole lot since 4e was released?

I've been wondering lately and sure enough-
enworld.org - Traffic Details from Alexa

Been thinking about that. But since this is a news site, I think it profits a lot (in terms of number of hits) from the time before an edition is released, because of all the rumours and speculations. After the game is here, most casuals go away, leaving the core behind.

Or indeed 4e has had an effect on the traffic.. /shrug

 

[davethegame]

Been thinking about that. But since this is a news site, I think it profits a lot (in terms of number of hits) from the time before an edition is released, because of all the rumours and speculations. After the game is here, most casuals go away, leaving the core behind.

Or indeed 4e has had an effect on the traffic.. /shrug

That seems like a reasonable theory. Also on the flipside, sites like mine that switched to focus on 4e coverage have seen traffic rates steadily rising. And the 4e category is the most subscribed to category feed on RPGBloggers.

 

[JDJblatherings]

Been thinking about that. But since this is a news site, I think it profits a lot (in terms of number of hits) from the time before an edition is released, because of all the rumours and speculations. After the game is here, most casuals go away, leaving the core behind.

Or indeed 4e has had an effect on the traffic.. /shrug

I'd think the news nature of enworld would indeed have some impact on enworld traffic but then i looked at Wizards of the coast.

wizards.com - Traffic Details from Alexa

and it's down about the same % overall. With a very similar graph to enworld.

Does summer and the start of the school year impact RPG website traffic?

 

[xechnao]

However, how do you fit this with 4e's first print run being bigger than 3.0 and 3.5's first print run?

I do not. You brought up this argument and still do not know why and how it realtes to what we were talking about.

 

[Mark]

Does summer and the start of the school year impact RPG website traffic?

Let's not discount the likelihood that at-work surfers, seeing so many others get laid off, might curtail a lot of their usual slackertude.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You mean by having a larger initial print run than 3e and 3.5e D&D?

More like by having a deliberately conservative print run so that they could quickly release a statement about a second print run.

"Deliberately conservative" doesn't mean "not enough to meet demand" but it might mean "the bare minimum to meet demand," or it might mean "we have a second print run ready to go the moment we hit 2 million sales."

It's not exactly a revolutionary practice. If you know your product is going to sell over the long term (PH sales keep chuggin' along), then you can drive up demand by making success more public by claiming HUGE success in the short term.

But that's just rampant speculation. It really doesn't matter, as the OP points out. My only reason for even stating that hypothetical was to say that "the core books are in a second printing!" doesn't equal "4e is an unparalleled success, and this has vindicated its decisions because everyone likes it!"

Just a word of caution. It means 4e didn't flop right out of the gate, but there's a lot of room for that "didn't flop" to fluctuate.

 

[darjr]

It happened at rpg.net as well. Not exactly a bastion of D&D.

rpg.net - Traffic Details from Alexa

It is very interesting though.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Anybody want to find a comparison of traffic on websites between today and prior to the announcement of 4E?