Game Development Times [Numenera, 13th Age, D&D Next]

[Morrus]

Numenera: Kickstarted in August 2012, released August 2013 - 1 year

13th Age: Announced April 2012, released August 2013 - 16 months

D&D Next: Announced January 2012, no release date yet. Guess? Total 30+ months.

All of these undoubtedly had development long before announcement. The above periods all included playtesting; D&D Next was public, 13th Age was private but not very secretive, Numenera was all tippy toes secretive.

Anything we can read into those timescales? Probably not. Monte seems to me to be the most productive of the three - biggest book, least time. Is D&D more difficult to write, is it bigger? Or is it just that the playtesting is more extensive? 13th Age had 200 playtest groups for about a year.

Anyhoo. Just idle musings. Monte Cook's like a racecar, and D&D Next like a steam train. Where does that put 13th Age in the scale of poor analogies?

How long was Pathfinder's development period? (to get in before anybody else does with the snippy answer: 10+ years of playtesting if you count since D&D 3E was launched!)

 

[jodyjohnson]

I think it's a lot like the develop times between Windows (legacy), Android (hardware), and Mac/iOS (hardware lock)

DDN is about Legacy at this point and it may cripple the game. That and the number of Cooks in the kitchen.

Ba-dum-dum.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

D&D Next also suffers from a lack of clear design focus. I mean, think about how many times they've gone back to reinvent the wheel even in the past few weeks... or look at pretty much any L&L column.

That lack of clarity - being "all things to all men" is not the sort of parameters you want to start with on any project - is no doubt one of the reasons the first professionally-produced fantasy heartbreaker is taking so long to get out the door.

 

[Stormonu]

D&D has 30 years of history to sift through. If they weren't laden down with that history of four previous editions - and fans with pitchforks & torches waiting to descend upon them - the design window would have probably been 10-15 months.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

D&D has 30 years of history to sift through. If they weren't laden down with that history of four previous editions - and fans with pitchforks & torches waiting to descend upon them - the design window would have probably been 10-15 months.

That's why a really clear design focus was needed.

Even more so now that something like 30 months has elapsed and we're looking at a 2.5E-sation of early 3E or a 3E-sation of a late 2.5E.

 

[Ahnehnois]

The time it takes is less important than the quality of the game in the end.

 

[JediSoth]

I suspect Monte had a lot of Numenera developed before the Kickstarter was announced. He also doesn't suffer from corporate bloat like WotC does. It's always more difficult and time consuming to develop something by committee in a relatively large company than it is by oneself.

 

[jodyjohnson]

That lack of clarity ... is no doubt one of the reasons the first professionally-produced fantasy heartbreaker is taking so long to get out the door.

Still trying to wrap my head around this.

By the Forge definition, 1e and B/X were a fantasy heartbreakers of OD&D, 2e of 1e, 3e of 2e, and the only edition overhauled enough to not be a heartbreaker of 3.5 was rejected in the marketplace for not being a 'House ruled' version of 3.x.

I don't understand what you mean by "professionally-produced fantasy heartbreaker".

The public 'Beta' test of Next is some weird combination of Alpha and systems testing combined with Market research. We're not even close to the bug fixing stage.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Still trying to wrap my head around this.

By the Forge definition, 1e and B/X were a fantasy heartbreakers of OD&D, 2e of 1e, 3e of 2e, and the only edition overhauled enough to not be a heartbreaker of 3.5 was rejected in the marketplace for not being a 'House ruled' version of 3.x.

I don't understand what you mean by "professionally-produced fantasy heartbreaker".

The public 'Beta' test of Next is some weird combination of Alpha and systems testing combined with Market research. We're not even close to the bug fixing stage.

I am unfamiliar with the Forge definition but, for me, a fantasy heartbreaker is a homebrewed version of another game that claims to solve all of that other game's problems... but typically fails to do so, fails to be complete and goes through a tonne of rewrites whenever the writer gets a new idea, whether or not that idea makes sense, is workable etc....

I take it that we probably agree on the "professionally-produced" part of the phrase I used.

From your post I now understand what you mean by the Forge definition but that's not the one I was using.

And, yeah, this playtesting process is rather weird. You're right: it's far more alpha than beta.

 

[Gilbetron]

4E took 3+ years. The development of the next iteration of D&D is at least an order of magnitude more complex and mine-filled than putting out yet another RPG. WotC want to capture hundreds of thousands of gamers, 13th Age and Numenera are trying to capture a few thousand. It's more like designing a production car vs creating a kit car. For better or for worse.

(I'm a back of Numenera, and really like the the game so far, fwiw)