Well. I had my phone call with WotC president Greg Leeds. Greg was very polite one the phone given the fact that my initial email to Hasbro was kind of 'heated'.
To put it short, here are the main points as far as I can remember them. Note that these are my own words, as I could not record the phone call
* My (and your) voice was heard.
* Wizards is happy with the 4E sales. Wizards is even fine with the fact that a fraction of the gamers went to Paizo. As long as everybody plays D&D that's fine.
* The negative voices on the message boards don't reflect the sales numbers of 4E which is going strong
* Wizards can't make anybody happy.
* Wizards tries to evolve the game every ten years or so. Greg compared it to bands that change their style over the years, and thus loose old fans and get some new fans. But in the end Wizards hope to get everyone back.
* Wizards will not resume pdf sales in the same way they did before. Obviously Wizards believes that there are possibilities to sale electronic content that is mostly pirate-proof.
* Wizards will not support 3E parallel to 4E.
* But (and now for the big news) Wizards is looking for ways to publish old (i.e. pre 4E Realms) contents in form of electronic media.
Of course there are not many surprises. It was a nice gesture from Greg Leeds to respond to a single disappointed fan this. However he said, that they will look into the suggestions that were given to them by us.
As a Forgotten Realms fan I'm of course very happy, that they seriously consider to publish old Realms material. Count me in for that one. If you are a FR fan, too please make sure to remind them to do it.
My main suggestion was to put out regional books about a certain area (with light or no rules) much like Paizo does it.
Otherwise I stay with Paizo and use their upcoming PRPG stuff.
To put it short, here are the main points as far as I can remember them. Note that these are my own words, as I could not record the phone call
* My (and your) voice was heard.
* Wizards is happy with the 4E sales. Wizards is even fine with the fact that a fraction of the gamers went to Paizo. As long as everybody plays D&D that's fine.
* The negative voices on the message boards don't reflect the sales numbers of 4E which is going strong
* Wizards can't make anybody happy.
* Wizards tries to evolve the game every ten years or so. Greg compared it to bands that change their style over the years, and thus loose old fans and get some new fans. But in the end Wizards hope to get everyone back.
* Wizards will not resume pdf sales in the same way they did before. Obviously Wizards believes that there are possibilities to sale electronic content that is mostly pirate-proof.
* Wizards will not support 3E parallel to 4E.
* But (and now for the big news) Wizards is looking for ways to publish old (i.e. pre 4E Realms) contents in form of electronic media.
Of course there are not many surprises. It was a nice gesture from Greg Leeds to respond to a single disappointed fan this. However he said, that they will look into the suggestions that were given to them by us.
As a Forgotten Realms fan I'm of course very happy, that they seriously consider to publish old Realms material. Count me in for that one. If you are a FR fan, too please make sure to remind them to do it.
My main suggestion was to put out regional books about a certain area (with light or no rules) much like Paizo does it.
Otherwise I stay with Paizo and use their upcoming PRPG stuff.