I'm pissed off with Wizards of the Coast

[Asmor]

I don't know if I'm just dense and not getting the sarcasm, but Essentials is D&D, and the new builds in the player books are really not much different than new content in PHB N+1.

 

[AngryMojo]

That gives your R&D people a few months to work, without having to release - that slack can be very, very useful, if you know what to do with it.

It's this exact reason that I'm so excited about Heroes of Shadow, or whatever it's being called. If the major developers have more time to work with, it may be an exceptional product.

 

[Stormonu]

If there's a 2-3 month gap in book releases (besides the normal Dungeon & Dragon articles), I'm betting they are adopting a "wait and see" attitude in regards to how Essentials sales turn out, and possibly affect how they advance the line from there.

I'm guessing if Essentials does really well, they'll probably modify the line to heavily incorporate it and a somewhat "lighter" style. The new ideas in Essentials will continue to appear in future products.

If it does not sell up to expectation, they'll likely go back to their old format and you won't see any Essentials follow up. The ideas put forward in Essentials may very well be left to rot and some of the new ideas/rules may be rectified to follow the old rules (such as the fighter Dailies).

 

[Zaukrie]

I share your disappointment. There is no reason they can't release stuff for existing 4E players. Maybe, instead, they'll actually have some content in Dragon and Dungeon.....

 

[Festivus]

I wonder about saturation. There are a bunch of splats out, essentials, adventures, tiles, gamma world, two new board games... tons of stuff that has come out recently or is about to come out. I don't know about anyone else but I don't have enough money to buy ALL that stuff right now, need to purchase stuff a little at a time. Nice thing about the essentials stuff is that it's gift priced.

 

[Erik Mona]

I can't speak for WotC, but I always schedule Paizo's big "Christmas" releases for October, because the fact is it takes a long time for books to make it into stores, and nothing slated for a December release is likely to be in stores when most people are doing their holiday shopping.

I don't think you can read anything (except maybe wisdom) into the lack of products in December.

--Erik

 

[MichaelSomething]

You put out books and people complain. You don't put out books and people complain

 

[fanboy2000]

You put out books and people complain. You don't put out books and people complain

In his defense, he seems to know it's a silly complaint.

And yeah, I've worked retail. Christmas releases need to be scheduled in October if you actually want people to buy the item as a Christmas gift.

 

[AngryMojo]

You put out books and people complain. You don't put out books and people complain

Mike Mearls ruined putting out books.

Mike Mearls also ruined not putting out books.

 

[rgard]

Just means 5E is around the corner. <insert evil laughter here>

Please no. It's already confusing enough in the D&D Legacy Discussion board here.