One major thing I sure miss...

[ProfessorCirno]

And, quite honestly, it's virtually impossible for 4e stuff to be as anticipated as 3e stuff for us, since 3e heralded our return to the D&D brand (and regular gaming). When we started 3e, we hadn't played a D&D game in years. When we got 4e, we'd been playing weekly for 8 years....so it's naturally a different vibe.

I think this is one of the big reasons for this. When 3e came in, it was, for a lot of people, the "return to Dungeons and Dragons," so each new book WAS something completely new.

Along those lines, I think this is also why 4e is getting a "meh" from a lot of people. We already know how every single one of the new classes and new races will work. There's nothing actually new in the mechanics. There's the powers system rearing its ugly head again, killing all excitement. Oh hey, new at wills that are completely similar to the old ones. Oh wait, this one pushes the enemy back and does damage, instead of just doing damage. And this one is an at will for a swordmage instead of just a regular mage. Huh.

Tome of Battle is STILL hotly talked about and contested between people who love it and people who hate it, and that's because it did something entirely new. That's something that can't happen under the powers system.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

Maybe there isnt alot of excitement because 3.5 was a huge leap and 4e was three steps forward and two steps back.
I think there were too many who were getting 4e because it had th D&D brand name, and arent as thrilled as they would like us to think.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Maybe there isnt alot of excitement because 3.5 was a huge leap and 4e was three steps forward and two steps back.
I think there were too many who were getting 4e because it had th D&D brand name, and arent as thrilled as they would like us to think.

Well, from my last poll on the matter, I could conclude that 22% of the EN Worlders that bothered to post in the poll and own the 4E books did not like the game (after reading or playing). On the other hand, I heard that 4E is in its 3rd print run and has already achieved its projections for 2008, with still 3 years to go. (I am not sure where that source was, I remember having read something along that lines in an ampersand or something like that, but there might be more recent information.)

Well, using self-selecting EN World polls to prove or conclude anything is frowned upon and probably a bad idea, but assuming these information came together to provide us a "worst-case" scenario and the fact that 22 % of the buyers might not like it was somehow not accounted for in original projections for 4E (and so they would assume their letter retainment rates on 100 % of the core book owners buyers - which is already unlikely), 4E still seems to go well. Maybe more people then should have bought the game, but even removing them from the buylist will give WotC the profits they hoped for originally.

Of course, EN World could just present a best case scenario and I should make the poll on rpgnet and the Paizo forums... But well, there is only so much I am going to do...

 

[Shemeska]

My Call of Cthulhu budget has certainly ballooned in the past year!

-The Gneech

My nWoD budget is at about the same level, and my Shadowrun budget would be very similar except that Catalyst hasn't put out as many books as I'd like to buy (I still hunger for Shadows of Latin America...). My Paizo/Pathfinder budget would eclipse both of them admittedly, but they've been happily feeding me PDFs for a while now, so I'm not as poor as I should be.

4e's release might in a rather twisted way, and much to the chagrin of WotC's marketing department, end up helping the rest of the industry more than WotC itself. The next year or two should be interesting to see how it impacts both OGL and non-D20 systems. WotC lives in interesting times.

 

[hexgrid]

We already know how every single one of the new classes and new races will work. There's nothing actually new in the mechanics. There's the powers system rearing its ugly head again, killing all excitement.

I've actually seen a lot of excitement expressed for the swordmage, both online and off.

 

[Scribble]

Have tio wait until after my wedding in October until my discretionary funds are freed up again but:

DM's Screen- YES!
Adventurer's Vault- YES!
Manual of The Planes- YES!
Martial Powers Splat- Maybe.
Forgotton Realms Stuff- Maybe.
Dragon/Dungeon- YES!

Third Party Wise:

Scarred Lands Stuff- YES! (Most Likely at least)
Advanced player's Guide- Maybe.

I think we're seeing a large amount of talk/clamoring for new products. Moreeso then we saw for the last few years before 4e was released.

One big difference I think is that the OGL and the idea of the OGL was so radically different, the very idea of non-WoTC D&D material was exciting., so that made the material itself a bit more exciting.

8 or so years later it's old hat. The products might be exciting, but they don't receive the OMG ITS FOR D&D BUT NOT MADE BY WOTC AND WOTC IS COOL WITH IT!!!! boost of excitement...

 

[Stalker0]

To me, I think its definately a change in the boards then it is a change in the excitement for products. Heck, even the posting rate seems to have dropped down to me.

I'll look at the general page, and then look back at it half a day later, and some threads haven't even moved. Outrageous I say!! It used to be I would have to read a thread every half an hour just not to get blown away by posts that have added 3 pages to the thread.

I don't know how much of that is 4e, or the recent server issues that made looking and posting a painful process.

As for myself, I am very much looking forward to adventurer's vault and the FG player's guide. Mainly, these books will show me where 4e is going. To me, 4e is not complete yet. It doesn't have quite enough feats, powers, paragon paths, and items to give me enough variety to make the characters I want to make. I sincerely believe one round of splatbooks will fix that.

I look back to 3e now and I realize that most of my favorite characters took something critical from splatbooks, they were concepts I could not have modeled well with the core 3. So I hope for the same thing with 4e, and I wait eagerly to find out.

 

[OchreJelly]

People tend to forget that there was a gap between the release of 3e and any supplements, as well. The 3e books didn't come out all at once, and the first real expansion was the martial splatbook, Sword and Fist, which came out nearly six months after the PHB. The 3E psionic handbook came out in the following year, 2002. I personally think it's a little early to be disappointed by the lack of updated supplements. I mean, the 4e Manual of the Planes is due out soon, and the 4e FRCS just came out (and the 4e FR PHB is due shortly, iirc). Certainly, at Gencon, players were running to the WotC booth each day to try and score the new FRCS and were asking throughout the day....so some folks clearly were excited or at least eager.

This. There was actually quite a long period of time before the last 3E core book was released (MM) and the first splat book appeared. It was a full year for FR Campaign setting to come out. True there was more third party stuff back then, but still not a glut of it so close after launch. Right now we have all the core books, 3 adventures, DM Screen, and a line-up of books that I'm excited for: FRPG, AV, Martial Powers, Manual of the Planes. My memory may be fuzzy on this but I don't even think Sunless Citadel was out when the 3E Core books released.

 

[GlassJaw]

The release of 4th edition has really invigorated the excitement over RPGs - RPGs other than D&D. I see all kinds of folks taking this opportunity to expore other systems. People are playing all kinds of other things now. The release of 4th edition has probably been the best thing to happen to (non-D&D) RPGs in a long, long time.

4E has me incredibly impressed with Savage Worlds. It's my new addiction.

 

[wedgeski]

I'll look at the general page, and then look back at it half a day later, and some threads haven't even moved. Outrageous I say!! It used to be I would have to read a thread every half an hour just not to get blown away by posts that have added 3 pages to the thread.

This is absolutely true! Things sure are different around here... thankfully the board seems to be behaving itself a lot more at the moment, so hopefully things will pick back up.