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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cergorach" data-source="post: 5471424" data-attributes="member: 725">I read the column and the first thought that popped into my mind was "Blatant damage control!", it looks to me that WotC is feeling the hurt of PF and all the other (far) smaller competitors.Previously D&D was like the main road through the RPG world, there were many other roads, but D&D was the biggest and most well paved. New editions always led to a small part of the community sticking with the older editions. 3E made of D&D a super highway, the OGL made many smaller roads, some larger then others. Eventually 4E came and for the first time a lot of folks didn't migrate to the new road, some dipped their feet in it and hastily retreated. The reason was that 4E was a lot different from 3E, Paizo promised that PF would be compatible with 3E and that kept a lot of folks away from 4E, eventually it became clear that PF wasn't as compatible as first thought but still a lot of folks stuck around for it. Now we have two big roads, neither is a super highway, but they are big enough, and the other RPGs/roads are bigger then they ever where.It looks like 4E is loosing ground to it's competition (both PF and other RPG manufacturers), they first flood their own market, then they go (for lack of a better word) Schizo (Essentials line), they go collectible, they cancel the miniatures products, and the product pipeline pretty much dries up. It almost seems like WotC (and Mike in this case) are now scrambling to save what's left of their game's community by tauting the D&D brand as an eternal flame in the night.Personally I think 4E is mechanically far stronger then 3E ever was, but the mechanics do not make the game, it requires sources inspiration. I found the presentation extremely lacking, and some of the filling was imho poorly chosen. As a player I would not mind playing 4E at all, as a GM I dislike it. As a GM PF inspires me far more. I would love to see more overlap between PF and D&D (and others like Fantasy Craft, etc.), but WotC threw in their own windows with that, forcing publishers to choose between 4E and OGL products. I would have loved to see Paizo doing 4E stats for their PF adventure paths, or even ENworld doing their new adventure paths dual stated. If WotC is indeed committed to healing the fractures between the communities, that particular restriction should go asap, otherwise they'll keep fracturing their player base more and more. And to be honest, they are loosing the edition war if their recent actions and future products are any indication.As a side note, I have virtually all the D&D 4E products and only a single adventure path and four PF core books.A different thought occurs to me, WotC seems to be moving to a digital subscription format. And while I like my digital RPG tools as much as the next RPG Nerd, they begin and end with the current edition. WotC seems to be positioning themselves to 'force' more folks to new editions when they publish them, simply by enforcing the digital subscription model.Anyway, for each their own, but there indeed doesn't need to be so much hostility between the different edition groups.</blockquote>

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