Evidence? You put forward an interesting analysis, but it's still just your opinion - your claim of him being "painfully and objectively wrong" fails.
I'm going to get to the rest of your post in a second, but I want to address something. I have gone to college, and whenever that phrase, "just your opinion" rears its ugly head, its usually from the mouth of a petulant third year English student who is losing an arguement. Opinion has two very different meanings these days, and people will often use them interchangably to try and end arguements with a Hail mary of subjectivity. One defenition is essentailly a judgement call, as expressed in the phrase "in my professional opinion." It denotes an evaluation of facts. The other defenition is an idea which is a purely subjective choice, such as "in my opinion, grapes are better than oranges." By reminding everyone that my post was "just my opinion" you can only accomplish one of three things. That the statement was my personal judgement, which would be utterly redundant. That the statement was just my subjective flights of fancy, which means that there is no reason to really take the arguements I make and the facts I bring up seriously. Finally you could just be out an out conflating the two, meaning all personal judgements are subjective flights of fancy, and that debating them is pointless. The last two more or less are a singularly insidious attempt to shut down an arguement.
At this point I've more or less stopped giving you the benefit of the doubt. As stated, anyone who begins a counter-point with that is usually looking to avoid losing an arguement. If it was so obvious my points are wrong you wouldn't need the subjectivism nuke to stifle debate before proceeding. Also, your attempts to sound high minded and polite don't ring well with me either, as I am more than used to watching people on the internet adopt a high-minded-tolerant-yet-offended-but-too-polite-to-do-more-than-insinuate it tone to basically make their opponents look like frothing emotionalists who should just be ignored as stupid and rude.
This entire rant is based on years of watching people argue in a variety of venues, studying them carefully, on top of years of professional and amature study of history, philosophy, and literature. In my rational judgement I am fairly convinced that your being more than a little dishonest here with this statement, and that regardless of the facts I bring to bear it won't change your mind. I am only really continueing to argue with you for the sake of those interested a debate with things like reason and facts about the state of the game. Now, I could be making a mistake, and my anger and cynicism are getting the better of me, but I am somewhat doubtful. I have explained my reasons why. Maybe you'll prove me wrong. Maybe I'm misreading you. Maybe you have a silver bullet factoid which will stifle my arguements out and out. But, as I said, I am doubtful.
I strongly suspect you're wrong. My guess is that ForeverSlayer wanted to just discuss the fate of the Realms, without getting into the 5e nonsense.
Which is why he's posted a locked troll thread and started out this debate with a highly inflamitory and obviously controversial statement that reeks of edition war trolling tactics. Gotcha.
Doesn't mean that 5e will be. Also, it doesn't mean that WotC were going "full steam ahead" on 4e for those full years - there were still plenty of 3e books released in those days. Frankly, I suspect several of the key figures at WotC had a folder on their computers containing random 5e thoughts and ideas even before 4e was released.
The first part of this statement ignores two tiny facts. One: WotC was able to support development for 4e and 3e at once because they had a hiring boom right before they began in order to do so. Two: WotC has hemoragged employees sinc 4e was released. Its RPG staff at this point is way smaller and is amde of total newbies, often cited as the reason for flagging quality. If WotC or Hasbro wanted to make an edition to fix all of 4e's "flaws," running their company with a skeleton crew filled with inexperienced developers while supporting the biggest projects 4e has had (Dark Sun and Essentials) and new edition is about the most brick stupid way to do it. Of course, you basically say the same conclusion in the following paragraph so I really don't know WHY you bring this point up at all.
Also, the final bit about there being already ideas for 5e is both arbitrary and pointless. Arbitrary because you are essentially making up facts to support the arguement, and pointless because even if they had 5e ideas it would matter: 4th edition went through several radically different stages of development, meaning that even if they all came to the table sporting an idea, it would be largely pointless as it would STILL no doubt go through years of tweaking and playtesting. You also seem to be ignoring the very real fact that 4e no doubt started with an few ideas in mind, so even if there were 5e ideas around (which, once again, you never proved, just stated) it means nil to the total development time.
Now this is an interesting analysis. The key mistake you're making, though, is thinking that "critical acclaim" has anything to do with the release of the new edition. It's all down to sales numbers.
So, Dark Sun and PHB3 are irrelevant - by this point we're deep into the edition so sales numbers will automatically be faltering. But that's fine - at that time they were working on Essentials to "plug the gap". So, yes, I don't think they'd be working full-time on 5e while developing Essentials.
Actually, I think your dead wrong here. Critical acclaim has been the bane of this edition. Critical acclaim (or infamy rather) built Pathfinder. Critical infamy has staggered what real success essentials has had. The fact that they proved they could modify the system and maintain a good deal of balance proves that 4e has a great deal of viability and flexibility many people didn't think it had. This gets drowned out in the hoard of frothing "OMFG 4.5 MONEYGRAEB" shouts, along with, as discussed, the overt tunnel vision focus on its failures (magic item rarity, the inability of EStrikers to keep up to the cutting edge that doesn't involve charging or using feats to get back old abilities, vampires and binders on the whole). In fact, this whole wave of "5e is coming" is based on the accumulation of the rantings of customers disastified with the post-essentials game. Thread after thread detailing over exactly how and why people has hated some aspect of essentials has lead to the contextless impression that essentials as a whole is an utter failure. Add to that thread about how incompetent WotC is as a corporate entity and suddenly "4e is failing, WotC is going to have to make 5e or bust" becomes the meme of the moment.
If you don't think this game is made or broken based on the feelings of its customer base, right or wrong, your not only wrong but ignorant of the basic workings of capitalism. If people don't like the product, they won't buy it. If they do, they will. Pathfinder EXISTS because people hated 4e so much and loved 3e so much that an entire company could be founded on feeding the desire to see more 3.5 products. The fact that they also pander to 4e bashing, at least in the early days, and have sold themselves as the hip customer friendly alternative to stuff and stupid corporate WotC has also helped. Which is why I call them a parasite company: Pathfinder has brought remarkably little new to the table, and, yes, I have read the PSRD and played 3.5 for years. As far as PC material is concerned: Most of it is just basic 3.5 stuff with toys slap-dashedly glued on, and with some of those toys looking suspiciously 4e-ish. If I want to play 3.5, I'll play 3.5, or maybe Traveler since as I understand it they tried to fix the issues with the engine, instead of just throwing on rims and a coat of paint. Now, I admit my ignorance to any improvements on the DM side of things. I never DM'd 3.5 so I'd be at a loss to judge, but I still often hear it widely touted that 4e is the best game for a DM, so make of that what you will.
As for the non-mechanics end, I hear that their setting Golarion is great. Its a great mix of a lot of the best elements of various fantasy genres, including pulp action, cosmic horror, high fantasy, and cinematic epic fantasy ala
The Wheel of Time. Which would be great... if PoLand didn't do much of the same and if I wasn't so filled with ideas that I didn't need another setting to compete with the... 10 or so settings I've either picked up or personally written and developed.
All that's really left is the Adventure Paths, which I hear are really, really good. Good for them. It was always their strong-point. The problem is that the end of the day all we have is a company that only real strong suite is fluff writting making a fortune based on selling other people's ideas repackaged with their own fluff and their own good PR. Their success comes largely from WotC's hard work on 3.5 and I suspect on 4e, and from customer perception. Hence why I call them a parasite.
However, I do think Essentials, and especially the Red Box, are largely regarded as failures at WotC. These products (especially Red Box) were intended to draw in large numbers of new players, especially lapsed players. I don't believe they've done that - they've got a few, but "large numbers"?
I suspect WotC knew this might happen, and knew fairly quickly that Red Box hadn't solved all their problems, and I suspect they had a backup plan. So I wouldn't be surprised if they had 5e waiting in the wings, and fast-tracked development almost immediately after Essentials hit.
You suspect much, and demonstrate little.
What your saying here is that you have assumed that WotC was banking on the Red Box to save a sinking ship (which wasn't sinking), knew instantly that it failed (which would be hard as hell to gauge as quickly as you say), and are about to spring a replcement (which as I've discussed tirelessly they had no time to make).
The only evidence I can see for your second point in thinking the Red Box is a failure is, of course, its critical reception. Many people were apparently unimpressed by it and have said so. Loudly. I of course remember people gushing over it, but now a year later its apparently a flop. Of course, these leads to a curious double standard. People upset over something is seen as valid evidence that the line is failing, yet people being excited over the line is meaningless. You tell us that the peaks are pointless to your thesis, and that the nadirs are damning evidence for your thesis. You can't ahve it both ways. You could of course have some other reason to think that the Red Box has flopped, but you failed to provide more than a string of "believes" and "suspects." Care to enlighten us on the basis for your beliefs? Of course, the very foundation of this whole line of reasoning is wildly suspect as we will get to in a moment.
Two years development + one year for printing, counted from 2010 is... 2013. Though as I said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they fast-tracked it for release in 2012.
(I agree that would be a mistake. IMO, they should be trying to find some way to get at least two more years from 4e.)
No, they would need time to gague the reaction to the current products, which means at best they could have begun mid 2011, or in other words RIGHT NOW when the whining has reached a new pitch. This is even more unlikely. Descisions like this take TIME. The Red Box was a late 2010 release. Its not been a full year yet. There must be A) time to gauge the reaction B) gauge its signifigance C) decide if anything must be done about it D) decided what must be done, if anything at all. Each step takes time. Your saying in that in less than 10 months time they knew a product had failed so utterly, so devastatingly, that it would kill their entire line and there was no other way to salvage it save for a reboot and are already underway in doing so. Considering you think a 2012 release is viable, it means that these rather sweeping descisions were crammed into a periord of only 3-4 months. Call me skeptical. You could argue, as you did, that they've always had 5e on the back burner and that could cut time, but as I've argued there is no reason to suggest such a thing.
This is not true. There maybe hasn't been the acclaim you would like to see, but people have commented about it getting better. I can provide references if you like, although my comment to that effect almost counts as damning with faint praise.
Oh, and also: the poor state of the Character and Monster Builders at release almost feel to me like the team there had really taken their eye off the ball, almost as if they're working on something else instead. Now, that could be the VTT, of course, but the Builders are the heart of the DDI, with especially the CB being the key app. It doesn't make sense to de-prioritise that in favour of something that is certainly nice, but very definitely peripheral.
Silence and damning with faint praise and silence is all I have seen. My point still stands. The fact of the matter is that, hyperbole aside, the ludicrously enegetic attacks have far outweighed even meager praise. There was page after page after page of ragequits vitrioli, and very little to no apology or notice when the new builder turned out o.k., when Dragon shored up its content quality, or when they began to support old material like the Strength Cleric or Ossassin. There was some, but the proportion was staggeringly lopsided.
And, of course, your citation of the builder being changed as evidence of a company reasource shift is once again narrow and ignorant. Even if they did shift reasources outside of DDI, they then shipped them RIGHT BACK IN to ratchet up Dragon content again and get the new builder on its legs. Heck, the fact that they built a new builder from scratch means that they dumped and signifigant ammount of reasources into its construction BEFORE it came out. You also more or less ignore the ENTIRE REASON they made the switch in favor of vague insinuations. They FLAT OUT said it was piracy and a bane on dead tree sales. You could literally get 360$ dollars worth of player content, with less space and upkeep, for 10 dollars a year. 20 if you were impatient. To top it off, there were thousands of people just stealing it outright. Even digital content needs capital investment to keep going, and the to-good-to-be-true nature of the OCB made it so they had to compete with themselves, with dead trees losing by the mile.
There's no "veritable horde", there's a very few. And in any case, "bottom feeders" isn't called for.
They are very loud. It may be true that they are a minority, but they congregate like roaches in an abandoned building and are truly awe inspiring in their endevore to write vitrioli and act like a toxic asset to the community in general. The fact is that these folks prey of negativity, rabble rousing any time anything goes wrong in order to vindicate their feelings. They also as a rule of thumb are either bass ackwards ignorant, or trolls, or both. "Bottom feeders" is a good metaphore.
As for "parasite company", in what way does that apply? Paizo have taken an abandoned IP, streamlined and fixed it, and then taken the risk of literally betting the company on publishing it, using a license that not only allows this, but was specifically designed to allow it.
I already addressed these points earlier.
It's a shame you ruined what was an interesting analysis with this... actually, I can't describe it without incurring a ban, so I won't.
You know, if you really feel that strongly about something you should say it. Instead of just insinuating that there is so much wrong with to describe it would be beyond vulgar (cleverly alieviating you of the responsibility of doing so), you should just state loud and clear how bad I am. Also, consider looking up the Red Herring fallacy. My analysis of the time and effort needed to make a new edition were largely independent of my feelings on Piazo. My analysis that an edition switch at this juncture would be suicidal based on the notion that bad edition feelings created Piazo is hardly idiosyncratic, and even then my personal feeling towards the company are largely seperate from the thesis. Piazo could be a paragon of vritue and WotC Satan's hobby horse, and still the fracturing of the customer base they represent would be a threat to the survival of the company. MY feelings towards the company are independant of the analysis. My thesis hinged on the observation that the bad feelings over an edition switch were enough to fracture a fanbase, going so far as creating a buisiness rival, and that doing so, particularly at the height of bad feelings, would make it appear that the were just as bad as the bottom feeders claimed they were and their base would fall apart. It doesn't matter who is right or wrong in the scenario, merely that they think they are.
All in all there is no real evidence to suggest a 5e "just around the corner" and to even try to force one would be the height of stupidity. There has been not enough time to make a new edition, not enough reasources, not enough people, and not even enough time to make that call. I am tired, and angry at the trolls, bottom feeders, and others who are wasting time and bandwidth on spreading this momumentally stupid statements. I'm tired of people on the internet being stupid, using insinuations, and logical falalcies to win arguements.
At this point I'm just tired of being angry, and tired of being tired.
Goodnight Folks.
