Is WoTC even relevant to you anymore?

[Raven Crowking]

We've had a couple years of constant naysayers, and folks who have said they left D&D because 4e is non-OGL miniatures and due Right Now.

I've missed those, obviously.

Links?

 

[Fifth Element]

You actually can't say that. You don't know if that's true. They may figure that D&D is a bit of a prestige niche market and it's worth it to lose money to keep the line afloat as long as they're recovering it somewhere else. They may decide they want to prime it to put it on the market and sell it to someone else, so they better keep it running. They may simply decide that no matter how much money they lose they can't afford to drop it for some other marketing or customer goodwill reason.

Yes, I didn't word that very well, did I? I didn't necessarily mean that they had to make money on the actual physical D&D books. Indirect profit is perfectly valid as well. I tend to forget that most people don't have the same definition of profitable as I do - I'm a Chartered Accountant with a degree in business, so when I say profit, I mean all kinds of profit, be it direct or indirect, even the extra sales generated on other product lines from company goodwill, as you say.

That being said, once again Wizards must "profit" from D&D (wide definition of profit) in order to keep publishing it. If certain changes upset some group of fans, Wizards is not concerned, so long as they keep a larger group of fans happy enough to maintain profitability.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I've missed those, obviously.

Links?

Links to what, the folks saying 4e is due soon, starting in... what, 04? 05?

The folks saying they were done with D&D because 4e would be non-OGL?

The ones that say 4e will be minis based and WotC sucks for it?

Every couple months another 4e thread pops up, and usually at least one of the statements is there.

I decided not to pay for functionality on this site, but simply to leech off those who do, so I lack search feature though. I'm sure a search for 4e would find plenty of examples, if you could stomach the Reading Of The Billion Threads.

 

[Maggan]

I've missed those, obviously.

Wow. I never thought someone who is as active on these forums as you are could have missed the endless flood of 4e speculations threads, and the prophecies of its impending arrival and the dread consequences that would bring.

There was even a temporary ban on 4e speculation a while back, since the mod crew got fed up with the constant bickering.

Count yourself fortunate that you didn't partake in all those threads!

/M

 

[Raven Crowking]

Wow. I never thought someone who is as active on these forums as you are could have missed the endless flood of 4e speculations threads, and the prophecies of its impending arrival and the dread consequences that would bring.

I missed the posts where people said that 4e will be like this or will be like that.

I've said that I have no interest in a non-OGL 4e; that is not the same as saying that 4e will not be OGL. Stating what you want is one thing, speculating is another, and fortelling the future is a third thing altogether.

And, if someone on this board can accurately fortell the future, I want lottery numbers now dammit!

RC

 

[Vocenoctum]

I missed the posts where people said that 4e will be like this or will be like that.

RC

Remember, there are no opinions on the internet. Almost everyone states the facts, even if there is no evidence.

That's sort of why I'd like the 4e tracker, so we can ridicule folks when they're proved wrong.

I'm not saying WotC doesn't have some blame, since 3.5 started a lot of these things, but it seemed more of a spiteful backlash that has simply kept going, long after 4e talk should have died.

 

[Dragon Snack]

It's a lot of books, but compared to 2nd edition, it's gonna take WotC about 12 years to catch up to the amount of books released at the rate their going now.

And they just passed 1st edition a year ago.

So while there's plenty of books coming out, it's not near as many as for 2nd, and it took WotC six years to catch up with AD&D1st.

/M

Hmm, note that I said I liked supplements, but you're not actually helping change my thoughts about it - I skipped 2nd edition (well, I played 2 sessions and quit) and I was out of 1st edition before they started to release a lot of the later books (or at least I believe I was, I didn't live very close to the FLGS). The fact that WotC hasn't put out as many books as T$R did doesn't sway me one bit...

I probably am NOT relevant to WotC, but the $1,000+ of books, 1,000's of minis, and a willingness to spend money on my games not directly related to rules (I give out plastic coins and glass beads to represent treasure) - maybe I should be. At least I should be more relevant than the average casual gamer...

 

[Raven Crowking]

Remember, there are no opinions on the internet. Almost everyone states the facts, even if there is no evidence.

You mean, like that statement?

I run into opinions on the internet all the time.

Just because someone fails to write IMHO YMMV YDMB after each sentence of each post doesn't mean that they are stating "facts" (even in their own minds).

And, yes, I know that people state the "facts" as they know them frequently, I tend to think we should give posters saying "the fact is...." as much leeway as we do speakers saying the same thing. More, because we don't have body language and tone of voice to guage how much they actually believe something is a "fact".

Most of the time, I mentally translate "the fact is...." to "I strongly believe......"

And, the fact is, that translation is often correct.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The fact that WotC hasn't put out as many books as T$R did doesn't sway me one bit...

I'd want to see the list of books for each company before I'd accept that as a "fact".

RC

 

[DM_Jeff]

>>Is WoTC even relevant to you anymore?

Sorry for the boring post...the answer is "yes".

They make the game books we all actively use in our D&D games. We play the new adventures they came out with and build stories around their sourcebooks. Many of my players continue to look forward to new releases.

-DM Jeff