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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Deset Gled" data-source="post: 3592960" data-attributes="member: 7808">While I can certainly see both sides of this part, here are a few reasons why I think WotC would decide to use an adventure as a market test, rather than publishing a limited setting:1.  Isolation.  Greyhawk is a setting that has been around a very long time, with input from many different sources.  If WotC published a "limited" campaign setting, it is pretty much a given that the Grayhawk community would be using their own material to fill in the blanks.  However, some of that may differ from the full scale setting WotC would end up with.  This would lead to problems on multiple levels.  Basically, WotC needs to know if people are interested in WotC's Greyhawk, not Gary Gygax's or their own homebrew stuff.  An adventure is the best way to test this in a vaccuum, since only the parts that they write in will show up.2.  Developement costs.  When you look at the bottom line, I imagine it's going to be cheaper, faster, and easier to develop a one shot adventure than a limited campaign setting.  It just more economical.  Especially in a case like this where fans are probably going to be very critical.  (Anyone with more industry experience than me can feel free to correct me on this if I'm wrong).3.  History.  If my understanding of history is correct, Greyhawk started as just being some adventures in Gary's standard setting.  It did not exist as a formal setting until much later in it's lifetime (at least, not as a published one).  It makes sense to me that WotC would grow it in the same fashion.4.  Backlash.  There are still people that play Greyhawk now, and they're pretty vocal about it.  If WotC released just enough of a Greyhawk campaign setting to get people interested and then cancelled it, I'm pretty sure that vocal minority would never let them hear then end of it (even if it proves to not be economically viable).  If they use an adventure, they won't have this problem to anywhere near the same extent.  And even if it doesn't work out now, they could publish another test adventure in another few years pretty easily, no harm no foul.  If they publish a campaign setting now and it doesn't work out, they'll have an even harder time if they want to try it again in the future.</blockquote>

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