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One new setting a year?

Gundark

Explorer
To be honest I think I've heard this one before (sorry if this is an old discussion topic), but according to the d20 licese news WotC is planning on releasing a campaign setting every year starting with the Forgotten Realms.

What would you like to see? What do you think we'll see? I wonder if this is were we'll see the other 2 finalists from the setting competition?
 

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Gundark said:
To be honest I think I've heard this one before (sorry if this is an old discussion topic), but according to the d20 licese news WotC is planning on releasing a campaign setting every year starting with the Forgotten Realms.

What would you like to see? What do you think we'll see? I wonder if this is were we'll see the other 2 finalists from the setting competition?

I sincerely hope they *don't* release a new setting every year. It will significantly dilute the brand and split the market.

This is one of many things that killed 2e.
 

Gundark said:
What would you like to see? What do you think we'll see? I wonder if this is were we'll see the other 2 finalists from the setting competition?

You mean after Eberron in 2009? Something new that takes advantage of 4E's design would probably be the best bet. The search for a new setting could really galvanize customers as it did last time. In the meantime other "classic" settings that fit 4E flavor (Ravensloft maybe?) might find some support in the e-zines or the DDI.
 

Shortman McLeod said:
I sincerely hope they *don't* release a new setting every year. It will significantly dilute the brand and split the market.

This is one of many things that killed 2e.

Please, show me one iota of actual proof that this is true...

I think 3rd edition showed that numerous settings don't dilute the market or cause companies to loose money...unless they suck. Let's see...we've had Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Scarred Lands, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Iron Kingdoms, Wilderlands, Midnight, Oathbound, Kalamar, etc....and this isn't even counting all the succesful D&D settings or those produced as OGL games (Conan, etc.) that have been succesful.

If anything I think WotC realized they made an error in judgement as far as campaign settings go, I further think this was aggravated by Eberron not being everything (sales wise) they thought it would be (NOTE: This is just my opinion). Good and inventive settings can be succesful, especially when planned for longterm (over the course of years). WotC wants a piece of that market now.

Personally I would like to see WotC do an african based setting in the vein of Nyambe or Svimohzia from KoK. This could really vibe with their core points of light motto. This is probably unlikely, but I can hope.
 

Shortman McLeod said:
I sincerely hope they *don't* release a new setting every year. It will significantly dilute the brand and split the market.

This is one of many things that killed 2e.

Depends. A setting where they get the campaign setting book and possibly a limitted run of expansions (and then that's it until 5th edition) and online support probably wouldn't do that, and might be a good thing to do with the 'classic' settings. Heck, I'd guess that's what they will do with everything but FR, Eberron, and possibly one all-new setting.
 

Gundark said:
To be honest I think I've heard this one before (sorry if this is an old discussion topic), but according to the d20 licese news WotC is planning on releasing a campaign setting every year starting with the Forgotten Realms.

What would you like to see? What do you think we'll see? I wonder if this is were we'll see the other 2 finalists from the setting competition?
Well, there's a good chance there'll be some Dragonlance in there. There are still new books after all.

I for one think it would be refreshing to acquire some licenses of popular fiction settings and model it with D&D, rather than the other way around. Feist's Midkemia, for example, was originally a D&D home brew (that was later published). I'm sure there's some legal reason why this example would never work, but maybe there's one out there that would.
 

Shortman McLeod said:
I sincerely hope they *don't* release a new setting every year. It will significantly dilute the brand and split the market.

This is one of many things that killed 2e.

Actually this is true, it is one of the things that hurt 2e. It didn't kill 2e, however. That's a whole other ball of wax.

As for proof, you can go and look up any old designers and their notes on the demise of 2e. They mention all of their lines and how they were not sustainable. A friend of mine who is a consultant explained on splitting the market hurts the product. You produce, say, Birthright and you produce Planescape. Now, every month, you are producing twice as much product because you need to produce stuff for both settings. But your core base has not expanded. So 50% of the consumers are buying Birthright and 50% are buying Planescape. So you are producing twice as much product and getting half of the returns on both.

In any event, I am not concerned that this will happen to 4e at all. I'm sure they've learned their lesson. The impression that I've gotten is that they will release a single book for each setting a year. For example, just one book for, say, Birthright. One book for Eberron. One book for Ravenloft.

My money is a book on Ravenloft, since they are coming out with new novels for that setting.
 

Beyond FR, Greyhawk, and Mystara, I'm not really interested.

I can see how they could put out a setting book a year and be OK, but I don't see them continuing to support those settings without running into the 2E problems. So I'd expect we might see soem one-shot setting books, like the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer or Ghostwalk.
 

2008: Forgotten Realms
2009: Eberron
2010: "4E is unfun an fundamentally flawed. We're releasing 5E in a few months" :D
 

I remember WotC saying that they have plans for the upcoming anniversary for DragonLance. They said it in the press release for the "extension" of MWP's licence to put out dragonlance material.
 

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