Now WotC has taken Dragonlance (merged)

[Cam Banks]

Cam, are you able to tell us whether we'll see Dragons of Spring: War of the Lance Chronicles III released before the line ends

That's still the plan as far as I know!

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Baby Samurai]

I haven't been into Dragonlance (krynn) since all of that War of Souls/Chaos malarkey – totally ruined the lovely flavour it had in the mid-80's through the early 90's, IMO, so I'm not that bothered. I'd rather remember Dragonlance fondly (and still campaign in the world).

No other Dragonlance product ever matched the vibe of the 1st edition hardcover Dragonlance book, IMO.

 

[D.Shaffer]

Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence. If the time for licence renewal is upcoming, they might not have had a choice but to bring it up now due to contractual obligations. Remember that Paizo was granted an extension on theirs just to get out the last few issues of their adventure path.

Let's not jump to conclusions until we get some firm news.

 

[DragonLancer]

I'm very dissapointed by this news. No one does DL better than MW and crew.

I have to say that this coupled with the loss of Dungeon and Dragon has got my more than a little angry. I'm not going to bash WotC because I'm sure that somewhere (Bizarroworld? ) they have a good reason for it, but that doesn't make it any less of a bitter pill.

Over the next year, I think WotC need to do something pretty good to compensate for all this because they have just made one bad PR move after another.

And it better not be 4th edition.

 

[JoeGKushner]

You mean, you let other people develop it, then harvest the goods yourself.

Sure, it's a way to do business, and it's not illegal. People who agreed to such license knew what they were doing.

But ethical? Can you say yes without laughing ?

Joël

So no work for hire is ethical? :\

 

[DaveMage]

What non-digital D&D licenses are left now?

 

[lrsach01]

The OGL can't be withdrawn. once the cat was out of the bag, it was out of the bag.

Sorry I wasn't making myself clear....I didn't mean that WotC could withdraw the OGL. I don't know if they can. To be honest, I've never read the fine print in the license. :\

I meant that WotC would try to make it "irrelevant" by pushing 4th Ed. Don't think its possible? How many people play 3.0/3.5 in relation to 1st or 2nd edition? Or SAGA? Or Project CHUPA for that matter? Or even straight up D20?

I don't know the answers my self. All I can do is go by my own impressions. The majority of stuff I see for sale is 3.5 material. I could have a narrow view, though, since 3.5 is what I play. That's why I ask the question...so people much more knowlegable than myself can help me out.

 

[Odhanan]

I suspect there are many more people playing ADD 1E than we might think.

And the OGL not being withdrawn, the whole thing could backfire at them big time if they decided to not make 4E OGL. I know I would still purchase 3.5 products from third-party publishers under these conditions.

 

[Joël of the FoS]

Originally Posted by Joël of the FoS: That is fan speculation. No data or info from WotC or WW confirms this.

---

Errr, if I recall correctly WW did mention this publicly. Feel free to go digging and prove me wrong, but I am pretty sure that they did announce this.

The RL license was fairly expensive, going up in price with renewal, and WW was disappointed with the sales of all their D20 lines - they also closed the Scarred Lands in the same announcement, and they owned that setting outright. After the changeover to 3.5 a lot of companies were feeling the pinch. So, WW pretty much dropped out of directly producing D20 materials in preparation for their new and improved World of Darkness.... (Which, locally at least, has been a bit of a flop.) They did continue to distribute some companies' D20 material, Malhavoc, etc.

But I will admit that I find the timing of this latest closing of a license disturbing.

The Auld Grump

I don't know where this comes from, other than fan speculations. Really. We've watched closely everything WW has released about RL, since it's our preferred setting.

Once, a while ago, the developpers said the sales of the RL Gazetteers in particular were disappointing.

But when the licence end announcement came, there were no comments of that sort about sales or licence price, as far as I know. WW sent out the same laconic announcement as Dragonlance's (I think not saying anything is part of the licence )

But if you have a link saying otherwise, I'd be very interested to read it.

Joël

 

[Bardsandsages]

I meant that WotC would try to make it "irrelevant" by pushing 4th Ed. Don't think its possible? How many people play 3.0/3.5 in relation to 1st or 2nd edition? Or SAGA? Or Project CHUPA for that matter? Or even straight up D20?

I think the difference between 3.0/3.5 and the older editions is that publishers can't legally create support material for older editions. Whereas the OGL could allow publishers to create support materials for 3.0/3.5 into infinity.

I don't see the OGL dissappearing even with 4e coming. There were several reasons the license was created to begin with. First, to circumvent copyright issues involving whether or not you CAN copyright game rules. Second, to reduce the proliferation of alternate game systems that compete against d20 (if all your competition is working under the same set of rules, gamers still need YOUR products!). Third, to have an unlimited amount of support material to keep gamers gaming (and buying). I mean really, WoTC has the perfect gig. There are hundreds of publishers (myself included) creating support material for their system.