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Message: <blockquote data-quote="IlluminatedSeraph" data-source="post: 6755071" data-attributes="member: 6803508">So I just wanted to pull out this piece of what you wrote and respond to it, because I think variations on this are behind a lot of the unhappiness I see on this board with the way that WotC is approaching the Realms and D&D in general. What I'm about to say may sound a little harsh, and I apologize because I don't mean it to be, but I feel like this is a basic attitude that is going to make a lot of people really consistently unhappy for a long time and that they'd be happier (even if just resigned) if they accepted a couple of facts.1) WotC has gotten out of the business of trying to keep all of their settings current and reprinting all the source material each time. Smart or not, they've decided there are plenty of products available in the used and PDF market to service all the fluff you could ever want for any of their settings and are going forward with a combination of marketing to new players (which is SCAG's strong suit) and providing a few new hooks and twists for people to play with in their approach to the setting.2) WotC has gotten out of the business of publishing giant rulebooks with tons of new crunch in them, like the PHB 2 and its kin. They've decided - rightly or wrongly - that there just isn't a market for that much material at a time, and that their game will stay fresh and lively longer if they update with a few new options every six months or a year. I do think they'd like to be putting things out faster, given how understaffed they are, but by 'faster' I think they probably have in mind a new "here are a few options" book every six months instead of the 11 they went between DMG and SCAG. Of course, we know for a fact that the Elemental Evil player's book was suppose to have happened in April and wound up crashing and burning - we got the PDF supplement essentially as the salvaged wreckage from that. Under the circumstances, I think it's pretty clear that this is their intended business model and we should expect to see our next mixed-use book sometime in the spring (or possibly they'll do something else, like the second Monster Manual that's rumored to be in the works). Underlying both of those points is this: D&D just isn't being done on the scale of production that you're imagining when you wrote this post. There are not going to be 3-4 huge supplements in a year, around one campaign setting or around several, and there aren't going to be huge campaign books that try to put all the lore into a fresh new light and redo everything that's been done before. This is not what is happening, or what is going to happen, both because WotC doesn't have the resources to do it and because I'm pretty sure they don't think there's a profitable market in doing it even if they did. So can the people who hold this view please stop complaining about each individual supplement as it comes out for not being 3-4 giant books? It just isn't gonna happen. Be critical of WotC's corporate direction and basic plan for their IP if you like, but at least frame the discussion (for yourself and others) in those terms instead of comparing what is to a fantasy.</blockquote>

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