Reports and News from D&D XP

[MerricB]

But is that really helping getting new people into the setting?

Err? Why should it?

Cheers!

 

[Pants]

Err? Why should it?

Cheers!

Why not?

More fans = good!

 

[Steel_Wind]

I don't think Dungeon magazine is "dealing with it" very well.

Given the support that Greyhawk is getting in the pages of Dungeon (and to a lesser degree, Dragon) and the Living Greyhawk campaign, Greyhawk fans get more support for their setting than anybody else.

And I'm happy about that too.

Really, between SCAP, AoW and Savage Tide, Greyhawk fans aren't taking a back seat to anybody. The same people who write for WotC write for Paizo. And it's 100% official content.

This is a tempest in a teapot.

 

[grodog]

Great... now I have to buy multiple copies of it in the hope that I can convince WotC to publish some more GH stuff...

I'm not sure anymore: given the official attitude, I may not buy the book at all now. The GH fans have been fending for themselves for decades now (with off and on support, of course [nods at Paizo folks approvingly! ]), so I'm not sure that WotC throwing a bone our way and saying [sarcasm mode ON]"suck the marrow out, dog, and we may throw you another bone, in another 6 years or so" (timeframe reference for LGG to Expedition to Ruins of Greyhawk) [sarcasm mode OFF]. Sheesh. Show a little respect for your customers....

 

[mattcolville]

Wizards makes sure they have the horse pulling the cart when they believe in something and want it to do well. When they're not super-interested in something, they wait for the cart to pull the horse and then throw their hands up when it doesn't work, and blame the cart.

WotC's market research didn't indicate people wanted Eberron. Or, indeed, any new setting. I know, I was at WotC at the time and my coworkers and I poured over that report with great interest.

But WotC wanted to engineer a big success a la FR and Dragonlance. So they pushed Eberron on everyone.

 

[Glyfair]

Why not?

More fans = good!

Look at it from the WotC POV. Why should they spend effort getting new people into their presumed 3rd place setting? If their market research is accurate they could spend their effort getting new fans into Eberron and Forgotten Realms and not have to divert major resources to the 3rd place setting.

Now, I'm sure there are people questioning the market research. Some of them feel that Greyhawk is much more popular than that. I think that it might be, but not for WotC's purposes. They are concerned with selling products. I think a significant percentage of Greyhawk's fan base are not going to be interested in buying a 3rd edition product. They are playing with other versions of D&D (or maybe some of the D&D variations floating around now). They aren't realistically potential customers for future WotC Greyhawk products (at least long term).

In fact, there is historical precedence for this. How many times were there attempts to resurrect Greyhawk that failed to generate long term success? I know that both TSR & WotC made at least one attempt. The Living Greyhawk Journal failed to last much more than a year and might count (although there are many side issues in this case).

Still, it's obvious that WotC hasn't given up and is still periodically putting feelers out.

 

[Heathansson]

WotC's market research didn't indicate people wanted Eberron. Or, indeed, any new setting. I know, I was at WotC at the time and my coworkers and I poured over that report with great interest.

But WotC wanted to engineer a big success a la FR and Dragonlance. So they pushed Eberron on everyone.

That's kinda the feeling I got when Eberron came out. Dragonlance evolved out of those 12 modules; whatever you think of it (it's not my personal favorite) it earned its bones. Same with FR; Ed Greenwood was doing articles for Dragon for ages before it came to fruition.
Eberron just showed up one day.
I think the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk will be the first of many such things. I have no marketing research, other than this time I was in the FLGS. These older fellows (of which I am also one) were in there to get back into D&D. They got the Core Rulebooks, and they wanted the new 3 ed. Greyhawk campaign book like the FR book with regional feats and PrC's, but they couldn't get it because it didn't exactly exist. They had the Gazzetteer, but they wanted something like the FR book. They looked perplexed. So...these guys are gonna get into Eberron? I don't know. Who knows?

 

[Shadowslayer]

Ok, this is a little off the topic, but a question for Merric. What exactly was said about the Fantastic Locations style of maps? I heard they didn't do so well, and I heard reference to threads about the subject on the Wizard's site...but I can't find any of it. (feel free to point me there if you like...posting a link to a Wizard's thread is kosher here I think, isn't it?)

DO they have a future in some sort of format aside from what they've tried already?

Its a bummer, really. I'm a big fan of the line.

 

[Greg K]

WotC's market research didn't indicate people wanted Eberron. Or, indeed, any new setting. I know, I was at WotC at the time and my coworkers and I poured over that report with great interest.

Based on the majority of WOTC DND feedback forms and online marketing surveys that I have seen, I do not put much stock in claims about how much research they do for DND nor do I put much stock into the quality of such feedback forms and online surveys. , I'll take the marketing research department seriously when they
a) begin asking for feedback on specific elements of a given DND supplement and
b) provides either a response section or specific questions to determine why a customer might have disliked a particular element.

 

[Umbran]

Why not?

More fans = good!

More fans for the game in general might be a goodness. But I don't see any broad goodness that comes from pushing one setting over another.

There seems to be a careful balance to be kept between offering some support for specific ettings and keeping things general so people who are not fans of particular settings are not discouraged by setting material they aren't interested in.