WotC How new Wizards of the Coast head John Hight turned around World of Warcraft

[Mind of tempest]

Thematically the D&D druid covers both the shaman and the druid from WoW. The WoW shaman is a magic user who wields the elements, which includes both destruction and restoration, and they can summon elementals and other spirits. The WoW druid wields plant magic, and the magic of the sun and the moon, and can shapeshift, and can do some minor elemental magic and beast magic. The D&D druid covers all of it, including elemental magic, plant magic, sun and moon magic (sunbeam, dawn, moonbeam, etc.), shapeshifting and summoning and beast magic, and they do all of it offensively and defensively, including healing.

the dnd druid has the problem of trying to stuff to much into a chassis built on turning into animals.
that and no setting save what ever happened in 4e explains makes the difference between nature cleric and druid clear

 

[overgeeked]

Thematically the D&D druid covers both the shaman and the druid from WoW. The WoW shaman is a magic user who wields the elements, which includes both destruction and restoration, and they can summon elementals and other spirits. The WoW druid wields plant magic, and the magic of the sun and the moon, and can shapeshift, and can do some minor elemental magic and beast magic. The D&D druid covers all of it, including elemental magic, plant magic, sun and moon magic (sunbeam, dawn, moonbeam, etc.), shapeshifting and summoning and beast magic, and they do all of it offensively and defensively, including healing.

Only in the loosest possible sense. If you split the D&D druid into a dedicated shapeshifter and a dedicated nature magician, you get a very rough and very underpowered approximation of the WoW druid and shaman. You’d have to ramp up the D&D class dramatically to approach the versatility of the WoW classes. As one example, the WoW druid has effectively infinite wildshapes within the limitation of its few predefined forms.

 

[Mistwell]

I can see converting some 5e adventures to other editions. And if they don't think there is enough money to be made in that, allowing those adventures to be converted to other editions on the DM's Guild.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Frost DK was so so so fun, but I am a simple man, just give me big crits and I am happy.

My main MoP Remix character is a Frost DK, and it's been a lot of fun. Granted, with today being the last day, she's now, before she gets moved to retail tomorrow, stupidly over-powered.

 

[Mecheon]

the dnd druid has the problem of trying to stuff to much into a chassis built on turning into animals.
that and no setting save what ever happened in 4e explains makes the difference between nature cleric and druid clear

The WoW druid is all about turning into animals. Like, your specs are Feral (turn into a cat, one of the most complicated specs in the game), Guardian (turn into a bear to defend your party), Balance (Balance moonlight and sunlight, as an owlbear) and Restoration (The healing/plant magic focused one, and the only one that doesn't transform). Heck, the WoW druid is probably half of why 'turning into animals' is a druid requirement

Clerics worship gods so nature clerics worship gods. Druids worship nature itself, gods aren't necessarily involved. Also cleric magic tends to be more squeaky-clean and sanitised, compared to the raw and primal druid magic

(also like, the whole aesthetic of clerics just doesn't fit druid at all. There's a reason they were one of the first classes made)

 

[overgeeked]

Restoration (The healing/plant magic focused one, and the only one that doesn't transform).

Resto turns into a treant.

 

[Mecheon]

Resto turns into a treant.

Only sometimes, its a cosmetic glyph these days

let me tell you I don't miss the days of late Wrath when resto druids were impossibly tanky in treant form and it took 3 of us to shove out one particularly geared one

 

[overgeeked]

Only sometimes, its a cosmetic glyph these days

let me tell you I don't miss the days of late Wrath when resto druids were impossibly tanky in treant form and it took 3 of us to shove out one particularly geared one

I think I might have played one of those tanky trees. I loved it.

ETA: Battlegrounds. Carrying the flag with a dozen rolling HOTs. LOL.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It's probably not going to be a one-to-one carryover of lessons, but if Hight applies the same strategy of letting WotC games get more experimental, more creative and not worry about having a singular monolithic success that all customers have to buy into, that sounds like a very good thing to me.

It might be nice, but I think there's a tradeoff.

WoW is a subscription. WotC products are not. With a subscription, you benefit from experimentation, even if it's not super successful - if you get folks to check out the game, talk about the game, and see what all the hubub is about, then you get a month (or a few months) of subscription out of them. Streaming services do the same thing when they make a new season of prestige TV - they get Game of Thrones or Star Wars or Stranger Things in the zeitgeist for a few months, and that's some subscription revenue.

If WotC produced an experimental book of D&D mechanics (like a 5e version of Magic of Incarnum or something), you might get some conversation, but I don't think you'll get corresponding sales. There's a lot of people who just don't need the newest D&D supplement (which is how we keep getting core rulebook remakes - everyone wants those), and the more experimental the supplement, the fewer people are going to be interested in it. It's just not the kind of D&D they're playing.

Things might go a bit differently in the M:tG realm, I guess - the competitive nature of the game means that shakeups have more personal stakes. It's less easy to just ignore the newest expansion if you're big into the competitive scene.

Of course, if they're talking about making D&D (or M:tG) more subscription-based....that could be a wildly different kettle of fish (in a way that is unknown and not at all guaranteed to work).

You've gotta prove value with a standalone supplement in a way that you don't with a subscription model. If I needed to pay $10/month to access D&D, then whatever they make is something to chat about and play with. I'm already there, I'm playing in your playground, show me what you got. If I pay $90 for D&D once, then each thing they make needs to independently convince me that it's worth adding to my personal game. Is what you got worth another $30? Not always!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If WotC produced an experimental book of D&D mechanics (like a 5e version of Magic of Incarnum or something), you might get some conversation, but I don't think you'll get corresponding sales. There's a lot of people who just don't need the newest D&D supplement (which is how we keep getting core rulebook remakes - everyone wants those), and the more experimental the supplement, the fewer people are going to be interested in it. It's just not the kind of D&D they're playing.

That depends. I know we have a lot of people here who buy everything that WotC puts out for 5E, but is that a representative sample?

If the majority of D&D buyers buy all of the stuff and want things that hew toward a Forgotten Realms-ish vibe, then yes, experimentation would probably hurt sales.

On the other hand, if the majority of D&D customers actually don't do that, and WotC is currently mostly catering to a plurality that likes its current offerings, then trying new things to sell to those other people are worthwhile.

I think it's worth noting that the $1 million Kickstarter club has plenty of 5E material on it, and very little of it looks like what WotC produces in-house. The question is how well that would sell compared to, say, "Hey, kids, let's adventure a week's journey away from Waterdeep" campaign #14.