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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 5927793" data-attributes="member: 22424">I don't know how objective I could be about the history of WotC with D&D, even if I had all of the facts. Without them, it's even harder.In my opinion, the history from 1998 (?) when they purchased the brand up to about 2006 was pretty much glorious - they revitalised the game, they ushered in the OGL, they licensed out the magazines to Paizo (bringing about a new Golden Age, IMO), and they produced some of the best supplements I've seen. (Shame about the generally poor adventures.) Even the 3.5e update was, IMO, a net win - sure, it could have been handled better, but I believe it resulting what was, on balance, a much stronger game. Plus, weeding out some of the lesser players in the d20 market hurt them, but it probably helped the marketplace.Unfortunately, since about 2006 things have been going gradually downhill. With the polymorph revisions, they took what I consider a really bad misstep (where they started treating the game as software to be patched, rather than as books that must be revised periodically). Bringing all the licenses back in-house was absolutely their right... but I don't think the results have been beneficial. The 4e rollout was handled remarkably poorly, as was the GSL. (Again, with the GSL they were absolutely within their rights. I just don't think it was handled at all well.)For me, the great tragedy of the DDI is not what it is, but the missed potential that it represents. The product they described to us was awesome. Unfortunately, it was just beyond their ability to deliver. A real shame, not least because had it been what it could have been, I believe it would have succeeded far beyond its current level... and in succeeding would have secured the future of D&D in the long-term.And now, 5e. Which could, I suppose, be a glorious new dawn. I would like to hope for that.But my deep fear is that D&D is, quite simply, a tens-of-millions brand in the hands of a company that only cares about hundreds-of-millions dollar brands. And Hasbro have a tendency, when things get tough, to cut back to focus only on their "big guns", killing everything else. So, next time there's a financial blip, D&D looks to be for the chop. And they've had their chance to try to join the big leagues (the DDI), and it didn't pay off, so...Sadly, I don't think WotC saved D&D. I think they just gave it a stay of execution.</blockquote>

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