Holy sheepdip - wotc to republish old editions

[Agamon]

This just doesn't appeal to me. I dont like being locked into a monthly fee if I want access to the books. Online fees in general I don't go for.

Understandable. Just stating my own opinion, while still allowing you yours. I know this is the internet, and should have gotten all snarky and said you are wrong. My apologies.

 

[Guest 85555]

Understandable. Just stating my own opinion, while still allowing you yours. I know this is the internet, and should have gotten all snarky and said you are wrong. My apologies.

Yes, Your politeness and lack of snark is not just a dissapointment for me personally but for all posters on EN world. 

 

[OnlineDM]

Hmmm...Council of Wyrms, perhaps?

That's my guess, too, after reading this post from Greyhawkery. I didn't know anything about Council of Wyrms before reading that post and NewbieDM's write-up of the original product (I'm still pretty new to RPGs), but the description fits.

 

[Umbran]

This has turned out looking very much like a "business practices" thread, so I'm moving it to the RPG Industry forum.

 

[Sonny]

THAT is the big news from that seminar. We'll see what comes of it. Oh, and maybe the "open playtest" model they are thinking of adopting.

From the context of the seminar, I'm pretty sure they were talking about their backlog of novels being sold on kindle, nook, etc... and not actual RPG products.

 

[OnlineDM]

To be clear, there were two different electronic book things discussed at the seminar, and one more possibly hinted at.

First, they are releasing their back catalog of novels in e-book format (Kindle, Nook, etc.).

Second, James Wyatt started talking about an "electronic bookshelf" of all of their Eberron content in which customers would pay a subscription fee and get access to everything for a year. That's as far as he got before the other WotC people said, "Um, James, we haven't actually announced that yet." That's as much as we know right now. Is it e-book? PDF? Something else entirely? No clue.

Third, because they said that they're thinking about what they want to do with older edition content, there's speculation (including from me) that this Eberron thing might be a trial balloon for other older edition releases in some kind of subscription format. Details are obviously completely unknown, and I wouldn't expect timing to be any time in the next nine months, either. Just my own speculation based on sitting through the seminar.

 

[Mournblade94]

That boat has sailed - I don't think they'll ever regain those customers.

I agree - this isn't what the community wants - but again - part of that is probably tied to the fact that they alienated a bunch of people who are now happily playing Pathfinder or previous editions of D&D.

Mike Mearls said something else interesting in the panel...

He said something to effect of--- If you are a fan of D&D you SHOULD be a fan of Wizards. If there are people that are fans and do not like WOTC we are doing something wrong---

I agree with this. I was a very big fan of WOTC. Then I lost trust in them. However, I would like to trust them AGAIN. I would not stop playing PATHFINDER at this point, but I would willingly give WOTC another shot at getting a portion of my gaming budget (PAizo gets about $200 a month on average at this point).

I occasionally play in 4e games with friends from my game store, but I don't buy DDI or any of the books. I just use other peoples' books. If WOTC regained trust, than maybe I would be willing to subscribe to DDI, or buy the new book with character information I want.

The ship has sailed on full blown 'I must have all the books to cover everything so I can run a game," but if they regained trust I would be willing to at least purchase something I would use for my character that I play.

 

[renau1g]

Does Paizo put out $200 in material/month?

I'm thinking they'll probably be available maybe as part of DDI, perhaps as a sweetener to get people who haven't adopted 4e to sign-up and they can say to Hasbro, look, we increased membership X%.

 

[Mournblade94]

Does Paizo put out $200 in material/month?

I'm thinking they'll probably be available maybe as part of DDI, perhaps as a sweetener to get people who haven't adopted 4e to sign-up and they can say to Hasbro, look, we increased membership X%.

That's me catching up on old paizo stuff over the course of this year. If you count the various gamemastery stuff I buy plus their source material, that is a pretty honest average.

When I am caught up on the older AP's and the Campaign supplements that number will slow down. To be fair I am also counting the traveller supplements I buy from their online store. Most of my purchases happen in the game store.

 

[Umbran]

Could somebody please clarify how the subscription to older books thing is supposed to work?

I don't think anyone outside of WotC knows that yet. And perhaps nobody within WotC either - they could well still be researching options.