No 5e threads for now, please

[ggroy]

They'd be surrendering to who or what exactly?

The "white flag" wasn't meant to be taken literally.

A "final edition" sounds like defeatism.

 

[Samuel Leming]

It would be interesting to look a bit more closely at the numbers for a while forward. EN World has roughly 83 000 members. TheRPGsite has, let's see ... roughly 2300 members. I can't find numbers for Paizo on their site, which is probably a good idea for them. (EDIT: for competition reasons, Paizo might not want to flaunt their numbers. That's my thinking.)

Paizo has over 50,000 members. They're claiming that there have been over 50,000 downloads of the Pathfinder Beta. Since you have to have a board account to download the beta and they only count the first download it can be extrapolated that their board has over 50,000 members.

 

[ggroy]

Paizo has over 50,000 members. They're claiming that there have been over 50,000 downloads of the Pathfinder Beta. Since you have to have a board account to download the beta and they only count the first download it can be extrapolated that their board has over 50,000 members.

I downloaded the Pathfinder beta, but I've never used it once in any games. I just looked over it a dozen or so times, trying to find obvious deviations from 3.5E D&D.

I don't post on the Paizo boards either. Wonder how many "active" posters they actually really have there.

 

[Samuel Leming]

I don't post on the Paizo boards either. Wonder how many "active" posters they actually really have there.

The data can be scraped. How's your Perl?

 

[ggroy]

The data can be scraped. How's your Perl?

"while(1) fork();"

 

[Samuel Leming]

"while(1) fork();"

Ok, you can write a wabbit, but can you program a scraper?

My point is that the answer to your question is there if you want it.

 

[ggroy]

Ok, you can write a wabbit, but can you program a scraper?

I haven't written such a program recently.

I haven't touched perl in over 10 years. Hopefully it hasn't changed drastically from the camel book days.

 

[Fifth Element]

The "white flag" wasn't meant to be taken literally.

A "final edition" sounds like defeatism.

Is admitting defeat a very different thing from surrendering? In most cases I'd say they're pretty much synonymous.

But moving beyond the semantics, my point remains. Why would it be "defeatism" any more than it would be "moving to a different business model in response to changes in the market?"

If a market or product is no longer viable, then making a change is the only rational thing to do. Responding to changes in a market is not "defeatism". Refusing to respond to such changes is plain stubborness or short-sightedness, and can lead to the downfall of a product line.

 

[ggroy]

But moving beyond the semantics, my point remains. Why would it be "defeatism" any more than it would be "moving to a different business model in response to changes in the market?"

What I'm thinking of is the perception of a "final edition". If I was marketing a product, I would certainly not use a name which may have some negative connotations. Placing a label of "final edition" sounds like the company doesn't have much confidence in their own product. Shareholders may also catch on to this, and dump their stock in the process (ie. by the "cockroach theory" whether real or perceived).

Cockroach Theory

If a product line is going to be changed to something else, such as D&D moving to an online DDI type of model, I would certainly not put the words "final edition" on the cover of the core books. Even if the D&D books are going the way of the dodo anyways, I would just let the books sell until hardly anybody is buying them anymore and adjust print runs accordingly. Putting the words "final edition" on the cover would just look bad.

 

[Fifth Element]

Placing a label of "final edition" sounds like the company doesn't have much confidence in their own product.

Does it? Why doesn't it sound like they have so much confidence in their product that they can't possibly improve on it?

If a product line is going to be changed to something else, such as D&D moving to an online DDI type of model, I would certainly not put the words "final edition" on the cover of the core books. Even if the D&D books are going the way of the dodo anyways, I would just let the books sell until hardly anybody is buying them anymore and adjust print runs accordingly. Putting the words "final edition" on the cover would just look bad.

So don't use the words "final edition". Call it "Ultimate Edition", that's what ultimate means, but it's a much sexier term.