[SCOOP] Psionics 3.5, The New Setting, and Dark Sun!!

[Trance]

In response to the original post

Hmmmm, so you have had a person tell you this. Hmmmm kind of makes me wonder. There is a leak out there.

1) Maybe

2) I doubt it.

 

[Conaill]

Didn't WotC state months ago that they would be putting out a new setting on a fairly regular basis? Every one or two years, I believe.

Originally posted by Voneth
Wotc said the main problem with what TSR did was to set up so many settings and then try support them all. [...] I also remember hearing that WotC has a new policy, if someone buys a licence from them, WotC gets to publish the core setting book and the licencee get the supplements and adventures.

Note that this fits entirely with WotC's strategy regarding d20 and the OGL: get thrid party publishers to supply the support, meanwhile they get to profit from the increased interest and user community by selling the core books.

In terms of new settings, that would mean they'll be publishing the "core" setting book, but leave further supplements and adventures to d20. If anything, I'm somewhat surprised they deviated from that with FR: they could easily have left the "Magic of" and "Races of" books to the d20 publishers, and just reaped the rewards from the best-selling FR book: the FRCS itself.

 

[Left-handed Hummingbird]

WotC just thinking about bringing back Dark Sun is enough to get me excited. I hope they keep Brom's artwork... Oh Mama!

And I hope they use the non-revised original box setting as their starting point. Whatever they do, somebody is bound to be upset with the changes, but I do hope they stay as close to the original feel and idea of the first box set.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Let me add that I'm pretty certain I know who The Dragon is, and if that is the case, his/her/its credibility is quite high in my book. Although I don't know the source, so don't try to get it out of me!

It might interest people to know that I have a source that told me that Morrus, Kid Chalemagne and the Dragon are all the same person. I could reveal my source but then I'd have to kill you.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

1. new setting, psionics is a plus to me I'll udge the rest when I see it.

2. revised psionics well it needs a revision so good.

3. darksun: setting wise I like the original darksun before it got all sisyfied and the good guys pretty much won the revolution in almost every city state. Don't know if the fan seting people have fixed that or not, but by the time dark sun came out the second time I felt the setting was much worse than the original.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

YAHOO!

Revised Psionics, here I come.

PS I would buy the book for the revised psionics, even if I didn't care for the setting. The setting isn't the selling point - it's the psionics.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Mark, I think there is a very fine, but very important point raised by your initial post in this thread. I don't think this potential setting is something that the fans were necessarily clamoring for, but rather is what WotC hopes that fans will be clamoring for. I don't know how much of a factor market research was in the selection process, but I think that WotC might have "gone with its gut" on this, rather than choosing it as a response to what they know the fans want. If this is so, it may be they realize that trying to catch lightning in a bottle again involves more than hedging one's bets by checking polls and past sales figures.

I'm more or less neutral, by the way, about psionics, so this scoop doesn't really get much of a response from me one way or the other.

And I'm surprised nobody ever registered The Dragon before now...

 

[tleilaxu]

if they are revising psionics i wonder what role the improvements cordell made in "if thoughts could kill" will play. i assume there will be some sort of copyright issue between SSS/Malhavoc and WOTC if they want to use the changes there. Cordell is also coming out with mindscapes in the next few months, which for me is 3.5 psionics anyway. So unless I hear more about what form 3.5 psionics take and whether Cordell will be working on it, I'm more interested in the malhavoc stuff anyway.

 

[Henry]

I'd love to see some numbers. Can you tell me more about the survey? Are we talking about the online survey that they ran half a year ago, or so?

It'd be interesting if one of the expatriated WotC people could drop a print run number on us for the PsiHB...

This is anecdotal evidence, from a Wotc Employee sometime on Eric Noah's boards about the middle of 2001, (I want to say Anthony Valterra, but I couldbe wrong), so take it for what it's worth...

I do remember in a thread talking about higher-level WotC executives and print-run numbers, someone from WotC mentioned that the Psionics Handbook received 50,000 pre-orders, and an executive who knew nothing about the PRG industry asked why they were going ahead with the book in the face of such low pre-order numbers...

So, if this is accurate, and the book had at least 50,000 sales, then the demand for that hardback was pretty large by PRG sales. If it were ANYONE but WotC, a number like that would have them jumping for joy. Kenzer's Hackmaster Player's Handbook has sold at least 25,000 copies, according to a Kenzerco Rep on their boards (David, I believe), and that was considered a good sell-through...

 

[Duganson]

Psi handbook 3.5 seems prudent, but I am of the mind that it should be cheaper than the original.

DARK SUN IS RAD!

...ok, I'm good.