WotC Hasbro selling D&D IP?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Only if it is pay-to-win in installments

The only thing you can pay for in WoW is cosmetics, unless you're handing over money to folks who are probably thinking seriously about hacking your account.

Now, Diablo Immortal, on the other hand ...

 

[Staffan]

What if everyone has really big shoulder armor, though?

I was going to get snarky here and put in a link to Modiphius and Mutant Chronicles, but their license apparently ended in 2022.

 

[mamba]

What if everyone has really big shoulder armor, though?

sounds an awful lot like Warhammer CRPGs

 

[Oofta]

We do not know why 5E was successful. It is unlikely we ever will.

I call BS. We may not know the exact percentages, because you never really do. But we know that main factors. Cultural changes and acceptance of geek culture. People want ways to connect on a more personal level. Streaming and blogs have helped.

But supporting it all? A solid set of rules and an enjoyable game.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

sounds an awful lot like Warhammer CRPGs

Blizzard Entertainment has left the chat

 

[MGibster]

What if everyone has really big shoulder armor, though?

Then it would be a Games Workshop production.

 

[Incenjucar]

I call BS. We may not know the exact percentages, because you never really do. But we know that main factors. Cultural changes and acceptance of geek culture. People want ways to connect on a more personal level. Streaming and blogs have helped.

But supporting it all? A solid set of rules and an enjoyable game.

That's the environment it happened in, in which other things existed. Unless you can reliably repeat it it's hard to claim we know anything directly causative. There are obviously a lot of things that helped, but it's not easy to repeat the experiment to make a hypothesis into a theory.

 

[SteveC]

4E was never "WoW-ified" that's typically something people who don't understand either 4E or WoW like say largely because they both have roles in them (the sole similarity, and ironically roles were inspired by D&D in the first place, but that's a long story). The actual "WoW-ification" they intended never happened because they never managed to get the DDI/3D VTT out of beta (or really alpha), and didn't manage to convert people to subscribing to D&D and playing it online. It was certainly made into a more tactical combat-oriented game, but that's more like it was "Final Fantasy Tactics-ified" or "X-Com-ified" than "WoW-ified".

I had a laugh because I know I said this at the time and I think I may have even had this conversation with you back then. I remember that I was looking for the MMO that did what 4E did, since I wanted to play it. Sadly it was much more of a Final Fantasy Tactics feel, as you said.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

External factors have certainly helped D&D sales. But it wouldn't have taken off without a solid set of rules that appeals to a broad audience.

Well I obviously agree with that! There's no question 5E has "a solid set of rules". Almost certainly the most solid of any official AD&D-style edition of D&D. What makes me a bit sad about 2024 is that with a few changes and literally a couple of additions I think it could really be suitable for the long-term version of D&D, but 2024 is more interested in making (in many cases unnecessary imo) tweaks to classes and spells.

I had a laugh because I know I said this at the time and I think I may have even had this conversation with you back then. I remember that I was looking for the MMO that did what 4E did, since I wanted to play it. Sadly it was much more of a Final Fantasy Tactics feel, as you said.

Yeah seriously if there'd been an MMO which played like 4E, that would have been pretty amazing.

Classes were designed role-first.

This is absolutely true, but deeply ironically re: WoW and "WoW-ified", it was NOT true in WoW! WoW was designed only a Holy Trinity basis, but not of tank, healer and DPS, rather of Warrior, Priest, and "everyone else who is DPS and/or support and/or maybe a bit of tank or healer". The only real tanks in WoW, at release, were Warriors. The only class intended to be the primary healers was Priest. Paladins, Shamans, and Druids were there to help the Priests with healing and buff the group. Druids and Paladins were given limited tanking abilities so groups weren't entirely stuffed if a Warrior wasn't available.

Indeed even at the time that WotC were designing 4E, WoW still hadn't changed to a role-based approach. They did shortly thereafter - in later Burning Crusade, WoW had a major revision which made all healing classes capable of being the "main" healer, and all three classes which could tank, pretty good tanks (in fact they accidentally made Paladins wildly OP at it!). It also sadly (imo) took the first steps in removing "support" as a concept (recently reintroduced in the current expansion) and instead made all the other classes/specs focus on DPS and only DPS (this changed in the most recent expansion when they brought in a specific "support" spec for one new class).

 

[The Soloist]

Tempest in a teapot. Good thing I don't drink tea.