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D&D 4E Paizo and 4e - Vive le Revolution!
- Thread starter GVDammerung
- Start date
Orcus
First Post
Well, I can tell you from my personal contact and dealings with WotC, this is NOT TRUE. They arent looking to screw the 3rd party vendors at all. The only real product that got an early jump was the Creature Collection (and then Relics and Rituals soon thereafter). There werent any other high quality products like that at or near launch. And there wouldnt be many now.
Everyone at WotC at the time LOVED IT. Ryan paraded around showing off the CC to people as evidence that open gaming worked.
Your suggestion is false. It is based of incorrect information. It is contrary to all experience from that time and from this current process. It is just flat WRONG.
If you are talking about the 3e community and suggesting 50% wont convert, I dont know where you are getting that from. Internet complaining is evidence of nothing. There was way more complaining for 3e. Just not here on this site.
You can think its fair to say all you want I guess. I dont agree at all and I dont think WotC feels that way nor do I think Mona or other people who are familiar with the "game industry" feel that way. That opinion, in my view, is one that only an outsider with no insider info or experience could hold.
I hope 4e is successful too. But as to the other issue, I disagree. I feel like Mona does that remaining behind 4e--either as 3.5 or 3.75 is not particulalry viable as a long term strategy, though one is perhaps more attractive than the other. I dont agree that there will be a "significant" market for an incremental 3.75 product over the long run. Maybe at first.
Clark
Pramas
Explorer
D20 publishers have discussed this sort of thing for years. When we were debating what to do for Freeport, one idea was do a full on Freeport RPG that made the D&D rules more to our liking. I've also had conversations with several other companies about doing a joint project. For various reasons none of these ideas were implemented. (You can check out the Pirate's Guide to Freeport to see what we did do with the City of Adventure.)
I do agree that it is hard to plan without knowing more about the rules and how WotC will deal with the OGL and the d20STL. I need to get info on our major releases for next summer to the book trade in two weeks. Erik and Paizo are in the same boat. I wish I could make firmer plans right now and solicit some new books, but it just wouldn't be prudent.
I do agree that it is hard to plan without knowing more about the rules and how WotC will deal with the OGL and the d20STL. I need to get info on our major releases for next summer to the book trade in two weeks. Erik and Paizo are in the same boat. I wish I could make firmer plans right now and solicit some new books, but it just wouldn't be prudent.
Matrix Sorcica
Hero
No offense, but you are pulling numbers out of your backside, IMHO.Celebrim said:
catsclaw227
First Post
Pramas said:
What would be the drop-dead date for you to get a prerelease SRD (and accompanying OGL with some assumptions that there might be minor changes), so that you can have a Freeport 4e product at Origins or Gencon?
Orcus
First Post
First, I dont need a full SRD. We didnt need it for 3e. I just need the draft rules with some guidance on what they dont want me to use. That was how 3e worked and it is easy as pie.
Now, lets look at things backwards. If I need a May-June release, I have to have stuff back from printing and in the warehouse by April 1. To get stuff back in the warehouse by April 1, I need to have sent it to the printer by Feb 1. To have it to the printer by Feb 1, I need to have pre-press pdfs ready in final form just before that. So that means final development on the product would have to be done and all art in by Jan 1 to get layout done. These arent the days of 3e anymore where a rushed 32 page saddle stitched module is considered a significant product. Sure, people can bang those out for gencon and make a few bucks. But that isnt what we are talking about here.
So, in my view, that drop dead date may have come and gone. I told WotC I felt the "I really need it now" date was September 30. Obviously, we didnt get it then. I think the new "I need it now" date is next Monday, Oct. 8. I'm not sure that is a drop dead date. But given that the draft rules are due in by Mearls to WotC today, I think next monday is a good day for me to say i need it right away.
I will tell you, when Sept 30 came and went I actively put together a small team to start planning on 3.75. I am working on that now, tenatively, as a backstop measure. It isnt full blows development. I know what I want to change and improve in my version of 3e. It wouldnt be hard to do. The hard part is art.
I have been very clear with WotC on what I think the third party publishers need. I have even volunteered to help them craft the OGL and SRD issues so they dont have to worry about it while they rush to get the new edition finished.
Clark
PaSquall said:
Guild Wars isn't really an MMORPG in the same sense that WoW is. It is more of a team based fnatasy action game with RPG elements. The "towns" are server-like, but the adventureing areas are discreet, for your team only.
BTW, I am not knocking this approach for a D&D CRPG. I think, in fact, it would be really cool. However, I don't want MMO powers bursts, character niches and resource-refresh in my TTRPG.
Celebrim
Legend
Orc: I certainly hope you are right. But I have a hard time understanding the marketing strategy that they are using or the overall secrecy if they intend to be fully open with the third party vendors ahead of launch. I know you can't answer any of these questions, but are they just screwing up? (Everyone does.) Are they just overworked? Is 4e being rushed to market because of flagging 3.5 sales? Why the decision to leak only enough information to create wild speculation, fear of the unknown, and unrealistic expectations? It doesn't make sense.
"If you are talking about the 3e community and suggesting 50% wont convert, I dont know where you are getting that from."
I think almost my very next sentence suggests that that is not what I'm expecting. I expect that most of the 50% which is ambivalent or hostile initially will be won over over time. Only a fraction of that will stay with what they have.
However, I don't understand how you think the up coming edition isn't grognard hostile. I can fully understand if they have decided that they need to avoid grognard capture in order to capture a younger, hipper, larger market. That's just business. But its pretty hard to convince me that decided to throw out 30 years of flavor because they thought the gamers steeped in the lore of the game would be exicted about it. As a setting supplement, sure, it's cool. But as core? It might be the smart move, but its certainly not grognard friendly. Outsider though I may be, I think I'm entitled to that opinion.
Well, that depends on what we mean by 'long run'. Over the long run, I don't think there could be said to be a significant market for Basic D&D. I think that was clear to me from the beginning. Yet, AD&D's lighter weight brother managed to be a successful product what, a decade? Longer? Over the long run, I don't think there is ever a significant market for any rules light rules set. The economics of rules light is against it, to say nothing of the mentality of geeks at play. Yet companies still keep trying it, sometimes with marginal success. Over the long run, I don't think there is a market for any nostalgia product like Hackmaster. Eventually, your customer base ages out of the market. I certainly agree that any rules set has a limited life span, and that 4e is likely to run longer than any variant prior edition. Unlike the OP, it's never been my position that any variant rules set would displace 4e or that its even possible for 4e to 'fall on its face' - even 2nd edition didn't do that, and its probably going to go down as the 'Homelands' of D&D (to make another WotC reference).
But I do think that there would a bigger market for a incremental package like '3.75' than there would be for a transformative package had WotC chosen to go the incremental route. One of the reasons I think that is that alternatives to the Vancian system existed before 4e came out. Virtually anything that 4e is going to try got tried by some 3rd party. Some of them were marginally successful, but only marginally. I'm not sure I can think of one that so throughly swept peoples imaginations that everyone agreed this had to be in 4e. And the replacement of Vancian magic is probably the most popular projected change we are looking at. There are alot of people here that are fired up about 4e, but at least for me, its not sweeping my imagination the way 3e did. I've said it before, I'll probably say it again. When I picked up 3e it was like Monte and company had read my mind. Every vibe I'm getting from 4e is like hearing about some other DM's house rules.
Which means I'll probably be house ruling a rules set on my own for another decade until the pendalum of change swings back in my direction. And I doubt I'll be the only one.
"If you are talking about the 3e community and suggesting 50% wont convert, I dont know where you are getting that from."
I think almost my very next sentence suggests that that is not what I'm expecting. I expect that most of the 50% which is ambivalent or hostile initially will be won over over time. Only a fraction of that will stay with what they have.
However, I don't understand how you think the up coming edition isn't grognard hostile. I can fully understand if they have decided that they need to avoid grognard capture in order to capture a younger, hipper, larger market. That's just business. But its pretty hard to convince me that decided to throw out 30 years of flavor because they thought the gamers steeped in the lore of the game would be exicted about it. As a setting supplement, sure, it's cool. But as core? It might be the smart move, but its certainly not grognard friendly. Outsider though I may be, I think I'm entitled to that opinion.
Well, that depends on what we mean by 'long run'. Over the long run, I don't think there could be said to be a significant market for Basic D&D. I think that was clear to me from the beginning. Yet, AD&D's lighter weight brother managed to be a successful product what, a decade? Longer? Over the long run, I don't think there is ever a significant market for any rules light rules set. The economics of rules light is against it, to say nothing of the mentality of geeks at play. Yet companies still keep trying it, sometimes with marginal success. Over the long run, I don't think there is a market for any nostalgia product like Hackmaster. Eventually, your customer base ages out of the market. I certainly agree that any rules set has a limited life span, and that 4e is likely to run longer than any variant prior edition. Unlike the OP, it's never been my position that any variant rules set would displace 4e or that its even possible for 4e to 'fall on its face' - even 2nd edition didn't do that, and its probably going to go down as the 'Homelands' of D&D (to make another WotC reference).
But I do think that there would a bigger market for a incremental package like '3.75' than there would be for a transformative package had WotC chosen to go the incremental route. One of the reasons I think that is that alternatives to the Vancian system existed before 4e came out. Virtually anything that 4e is going to try got tried by some 3rd party. Some of them were marginally successful, but only marginally. I'm not sure I can think of one that so throughly swept peoples imaginations that everyone agreed this had to be in 4e. And the replacement of Vancian magic is probably the most popular projected change we are looking at. There are alot of people here that are fired up about 4e, but at least for me, its not sweeping my imagination the way 3e did. I've said it before, I'll probably say it again. When I picked up 3e it was like Monte and company had read my mind. Every vibe I'm getting from 4e is like hearing about some other DM's house rules.
Which means I'll probably be house ruling a rules set on my own for another decade until the pendalum of change swings back in my direction. And I doubt I'll be the only one.
JVisgaitis
Explorer
This thread is pretty telling of the current situation and I really feel for Erik and Clark. I'm kinda glad that The Inner Circle is such a small company and that our production schedule doesn't demand that we need the rules now.
Granted, I want the rules now so we can have stuff ready for Gencon, but its not affecting our bottom line or anything else as we've been in a standby period for quite some time. Sometimes its good to be the little guy.
While I think a 3.75 is a better choice then staying 3.5, I think its folly in the long term. Problem is, companies like Paizo and Necromancer have production schedules to meet and fans to maintain.
I hope WotC can get the rules out to publishers ASAP. Its not like we need anything to be in a finished state. We just need to know what is going on with the overall ruleset so we can plan our lines accordingly. With us, its not a big deal, but I know this is affecting a lot of the larger companies and I hope they come to realize that and try to get us something soon.
Granted, I want the rules now so we can have stuff ready for Gencon, but its not affecting our bottom line or anything else as we've been in a standby period for quite some time. Sometimes its good to be the little guy.
While I think a 3.75 is a better choice then staying 3.5, I think its folly in the long term. Problem is, companies like Paizo and Necromancer have production schedules to meet and fans to maintain.
I hope WotC can get the rules out to publishers ASAP. Its not like we need anything to be in a finished state. We just need to know what is going on with the overall ruleset so we can plan our lines accordingly. With us, its not a big deal, but I know this is affecting a lot of the larger companies and I hope they come to realize that and try to get us something soon.
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