How much support are WotC's settings going to get?

[M.L. Martin]

Whoa! Where are you getting this information?

Amazon has The Verdant Passage up as a September 2, 2008 trade paperback release. It may be testing the waters for a revived setting--they did something similar with the Ravenloft novels back in 2006, and we're getting new novels for that line this year. It's probably also taking advantage of authors in their backlist who have taken off--they started the Ravenloft reprints with a release from Laurell K. Hamilton, who's since become a big name, and Denning has become one of the go-to authors for STAR WARS in recent years.

 

[M.L. Martin]

I beg to differ...

Cheers,
Cam

He may have a point--it remains one of the only two settings that TSR/WotC discontinued twice (the other being Greyhawk). I'm sure it did well for SP/MWP, but the economics of scale suggest that it may not be viable for the larger company. Granted, the same might be true for any other setting besides the Realms and Eberron, but DL and GH also may have additional hurdles to overcome (DL's novel dependency and numerous sudden changes, GH's old-guard and splintered fanbase).

I expect they'll do something for the 25th Anniversary, but if they do, I expect it to be a one-shot or short-run project, possibly with the license re-extended to MWP. If you guys weren't doing Dragons of Autumn, Winter and Spring, I'd expect it to be a 4E reimagining of the original modules. They still might do that.

 

[Ranger REG]

I expect they'll do something for the 25th Anniversary, but if they do, I expect it to be a one-shot or short-run project, possibly with the license re-extended to MWP. If you guys weren't doing Dragons of Autumn, Winter and Spring, I'd expect it to be a 4E reimagining of the original modules. They still might do that.

When is the 25th Anniversary? (Sorry, I didn't keep track.)

 

[Glyfair]

When is the 25th Anniversary? (Sorry, I didn't keep track.)

Dragons of Despair came out in 1984, so 2009.

Incidentally, the Forgotten Realms set came out in 1987, so it's 25th is 2012 (unless you count from one of Ed Greenwood's articles in The Dragon, but then you get murk).