If I were a Big Game Company...

[Hellcow]

And then we'd tell them "THIS IS THE WINNER!!! RIGHT HERE!!!
The one we prepared earlier.
That's what I would do, if I were a Big Game Company.

Well, lucky for me that you're not a big game company, then.

 

[maddman75]

That's far too clever and malicious an idea for WoTC to conceive of it. I think in actuality it's more like:

"we're out of ideas, so let's solicit free ideas from the masses, and market the best one."

Except they forgot the last part.

 

[Snoweel]

BG, you beat me to the same joke by about 20 minutes.

LOL!!!!!!!!!1!!!1

This statement, in light of your .sig

If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
--Anatole France

just might be irony.

Well, lucky for me that you're not a big game company, then.

LOL!!!!!!!!!1!!...???

Umm...??

Oh I get it, the means it's a private joke, right?

Well mister, 2 can play at that game (though we prefer an audience):

By the way. Miss you you little anger monkey.

Hey baby!

Haven't seen you around bondage.com for a while. Don't be a stranger.

 

[Maggan]

The Private Mister Baker

LOL!!!!!!!!!1!!...???

Umm...??

Oh I get it, the means it's a private joke, right?

Well, I don't know about private. Mister Hellcow once achieved fame by winning just such a competition that you seem to describe. His campagin setting is just hitting the bookshelves at your FLGS.

By many accounts it is quite good. It's called Eberron.

Cheers!

Maggan

 

[Orblivia]

Haven't seen you around bondage.com for a while. Don't be a stranger.

Dude I didnt know your handle, you never shared it! Care to share for Eric's grandmum *LOL*

 

[Ancalagon]

Hey baby!

Haven't seen you around bondage.com for a while. Don't be a stranger.

Dear god!

Just how many Nutkinlanders are over there anyway?!?



Ancalagon

 

[D+1]

Standard conspiracy theory rubbish. I don't buy a word of it. What do they stand to gain by lying about actually examining the work they solicited? Why bother with the whole stupid affair if you can far more easily say, "Hey, we just did 6 months of secret research - you may not have known it but we really did - and we took all those homebrew ideas and made... THIS." It does the same thing without paying the "winners" of the end stages of the "contest" any money. Why go to the SHOCKINGLY stupid ELABORATE lengths of deception and expense necessary to perpetrate the lie?

Do you not understand or accept the idea that homebrewers, by their very definition, could give a rats backside about a published setting regardless of age or origins? They don't WANT someone else's work, they want their own. They run their own settings because they don't CARE about how their ideas stack up against others. They KNOW their own settings are superior; they must believe that or they would RUN the published ones.

 

[Snoweel]

Well, I don't know about private. Mister Hellcow once achieved fame by winning just such a competition that you seem to describe. His campagin setting is just hitting the bookshelves at your FLGS.

By many accounts it is quite good. It's called Eberron.

Eftersom engelska är påtagligen inte ditt första språk ska jag förlåta dig för att du har missat poängen.

I kinda guessed what his post meant; I was just trying to draw him into spelling it out, y'know? Men vilken tur!!! Fanboy har räddat dagen!!!

Dude I didnt know your handle, you never shared it! Care to share for Eric's grandmum *LOL*

'Dork_Goddess_worshipper'

Did you ever doubt me?

Standard conspiracy theory rubbish. I don't buy a word of it.

Ok, firstly you watch your f***ing tone in my thread.

Secondly, I don't expect you to "buy" because I'm not selling - I don't stand to gain anything by sharing this so keep your righteous indignation under your hat.

What do they stand to gain by lying about actually examining the work they solicited? Why bother with the whole stupid affair if you can far more easily say, "Hey, we just did 6 months of secret research - you may not have known it but we really did - and we took all those homebrew ideas and made... THIS." It does the same thing without paying the "winners" of the end stages of the "contest" any money. Why go to the SHOCKINGLY stupid ELABORATE lengths of deception and expense necessary to perpetrate the lie?

Sales.

Want a link to dictionary.com?

Framing their advertising and build-up to look like a competition is a marketing master-stroke.

The fact is that the winning entry was ALWAYS going to be what most closely resembled WotC's vision for 'the New 3rd edition campaign setting' anyway, and it just happened to be Eberron:

"When we look for a winner, we want it to be a nice big generic 21st-century (ie. think Final Fantasy instead of pseudomedieval) fantasy setting that all of the current D&D rulebooks, splatbooks and accessories can be poured straight into. We don't want to make the rules fit this setting, we want a setting that fits the rules."

Do you not understand or accept

Ooh yes, please condescend to me, D+1, and spank me a little harder while you're at it...

the idea that homebrewers, by their very definition, could give a rats backside about a published setting regardless of age or origins? They don't WANT someone else's work, they want their own. They run their own settings because they don't CARE about how their ideas stack up against others. They KNOW their own settings are superior; they must believe that or they would RUN the published ones.

Well, smarty-pants, let me tell you I'm a diehard homebrewer and I've sunk literally thousands of hours into my own homebrew over the past decade, yet the more I read about Eberron the more I think I might have found the first off-the-shelf setting I want to run. And I own the much-vaunted Midnight (FFG) setting, which is too dark (among other things) for my tastes.

If you must know, it all began a few weeks ago, as I was working on my homebrew during its umteenth overhaul, when I realised that I was just spending far too much time tweaking and not enough time gaming.

My fix (detailed in another thread here) was to make the setting fit the rules, which turned out to be just what I needed, however I assumed that Eberron would be pretty-much the same thing.

So I had a look at it and it looks fantastic (though I'm not a fan of the whole If-it's-in-D&D-it's-in-Eberron line). So while I don't know if I'll run it, I'll probably buy it.

And the law of percentages says that there are a lot more people feeling the same way.

Were it not for the setting's birth in a supposed "competition", I'd dismiss Eberron as Greyhawk 3.5 and not care enough to be curious. And therefore not go out and pay for it.

Percentages, D+1. It's all about the money ese.

But this thread is all about WotC's ruse. There was never any 'competition' other than Design-a-Setting-That-Most-Closely-Matches-the-Criteria-Our-Market-Research-Division-Told-Us-Would-Improve-Total-Company-Sales.

They weren't looking for anything new and fresh; they were looking for a sales vehicle that was Vanilla D&D and that would make 100% of every supplement already on the shelves useable (particularly the 3.5 PsiHB).

I mean, look at Hellcow's initial proposal (from this interview):

As for specific inspirations, well, the one-sentence description was "Indiana Jones and The Maltese Falcon meets Lord of the Rings,"

This ambiguous sentence describes pretty much every houserule-free D&D campaign since 3rd edition's release (if not earlier).

Not that I'm surprised it won. WotC knew what they were "searching" for, and that was an empty vessel. It just so happened to be named Eberron. The blurb should go 'Eberron: D&D with action points!'

I mean, look at the interview, for Gawd's sake! How about this:

as Director of RPG R&D, I was looking for something that would allow us to use all of the 3rd edition D&D rules and build those into the setting from the ground up. I looked for something that made me excited, and that I felt would translate into excitement for the majority of our audience. From the beginning, the one that did that for me was Eberron. Not necessarily for what it contained or the way Keith wrote it, but because of the promise I saw there. From the kernel of Keith's idea, I knew we could grow a powerful franchise...

or this from Hellcow himself:

Once it made the jump from the ten-pager to the 125-pager, I got to meet with the people at Wizards to hear what they actually liked and didn't like about the idea, so the world went through some major changes at that point

Gimme a freakin break!

Oh, Bill again:

After our initial design meetings with Keith, I wrote a portrait of the world that served as my director's notes. It brought together Keith's original ideas, the ideas that came out of our subsequent discussions, and my own story and world-building sensibilities to create the pre-design guide we would all work from. James and Keith began design work almost immediately after that. I spent a lot of the initial months making comments, offering suggestions, and throwing in ideas here and there

I mean, really!!! Remind me whose setting it is again?

Here's more:

What makes it different? In some ways, nothing at all.

(snip)

On the other hand, the setting lends itself to a style of play that is different from what I've done in other settings before. For me, that difference is all about tone, feel, and the kinds of stories I feel drawn to create in the world. I find myself turning the action up a notch--something that is mechanically supported with the action point rules

D&D with Action Points...

Note, I'm not denigrating the setting in any way. D&D with Action Points looks cool to me, but did they need to run a competition to find it when they knew what they were "searching" for to start with?

Here's more:

Eberron has come a long way since the one pager. I think the heart of the idea--the tone of the world--remains the same. But some elements have been cast aside, and new ideas--the warforged, the shifters, and even dragonmarks--have been added over time.

These signature elements weren't even a part of Eberron to start with!!! So where'd they come from? WotC's design department?

More from James Wyatt:

Keith was great to work with. He was always willing to step back from his ideas if the rest of us wanted to go in another direction, very willing to make it a group effort.

I wouldn't be surprised if WotC conducted psychological profiling of their finalists. Hey Hellcow, did they require you to submit your proposal in your own handwriting?

But Mr Wyatt (loved Oriental Adventures, btw) summed it up here:

In the end, it was really Bill who pulled the final manuscript together into a coherent whole, tweaking what Keith and I wrote here and there and making sure that a single, unified vision came through.

Of course, 'Bill Slavicsek's Eberron' wouldn't look good, considering the publicity generated by the whole "competition".

Look kids, it wasn't a multinational corporation that designed Eberron, it was another gamer. It was one of you! And here he is with the last word on his continuing involvement with WotC's new cash cow:

I'm going to Disneyland!

 

[Maggan]

Geez Louise!

Eftersom engelska är påtagligen inte ditt första språk ska jag förlåta dig för att du har missat poängen.

I kinda guessed what his post meant; I was just trying to draw him into spelling it out, y'know? Men vilken tur!!! Fanboy har räddat dagen!!!

Jag trodde att du undrade för att du ville veta, och svarade på ett sätt som jag tyckte var lite kul.

Men förlåt så jävla mycket då.

Geez.

Maggan

 

[Snoweel]

No I'm sorry Svenne, I was out of line and I apologise.

I guess I'm just a bit stressed over a little erectile dysfunction episode this morning.

My humblest apologies once again, och jag tyckte om Robin's Laws med. Jag läser det igen just nu faktiskt.