Still no SRD for 3rd party companies

[DaveMage]

Regardless, basing your entire business on a release from one other, single company is perhaps not the wisest move ever...

...which is why they should continue to make 3.5 products.

 

[The Little Raven]

Oh really?

Interesting.

Your post failed to convince me.

Throwing money at a project does not speed things up. Adding new people, after a certain point, slows things down because you have more people that need their work verified, more team members to make sure everyone's on the same page, and more chances for someone to mess up. It gets worse when you try to bring someone in near the end of development, and they have to play catch up in order to learn what exactly they're going to be doing.

Larger teams and large resource pools require a lot more work to manage. It's the same in any kind of collaborative project, from P&P game design to software development to staff training.

 

[Odhanan]

...which is why they should continue to make 3.5 products.

Nod. That's a possibility, indeed.

 

[TerraDave]

I should note up-front that what I say below is not what I think WotC are doing. It's just a thought that occurred to my paranoid little brain.



If your intent was to put those companies out of business, it would make sense:

If you release the SRD, they can produce product.

If you tell them there's no SRD coming, they won't wait for the SRD, but go ahead and produce product, either 3.5e compatible or for a new game system entirely.

If you tell them that there's an SRD coming 'soon', though, they're likely to hold out for the SRD, and the more lucrative 4e-compatible business. Of course, all the time they're not producing product they're bleeding money...

Again, maybe I am naive, or maybe you are just paranoid.

But, as noted, I just think they have fallen a little (or a lot) behind.

 

[Wolfspider]

Throwing money at a project does not speed things up. Adding new people, after a certain point, slows things down because you have more people that need their work verified, more team members to make sure everyone's on the same page, and more chances for someone to mess up. It gets worse when you try to bring someone in near the end of development, and they have to play catch up in order to learn what exactly they're going to be doing.

Larger teams and large resource pools require a lot more work to manage. It's the same in any kind of collaborative project, from P&P game design to software development to staff training.

Thank you for the additional information. It makes sense.

It seems to me, uninformed as I am, that they have simply not allowed themselves enough time to get everything done.

 

[Umbran]

It almost seems to me...almost...that the entire process of developing 4e is rather haphazard. Of course, that can't be true...can it?

Except insofar as every major development project is haphazard.

The software industry has made it pretty clear - the idea that you can plan out a major, collaborative, development of new stuff, and have things actually follow the plan to hit a deadline just does not match reality. Human ability to estimate how long large tasks will take to complete is pretty poor, actually. And out ability to predict the unforeseen is nonexistent.

I doubt Agile development and management techniques have reached into RPG design yet...

 

[frankthedm]

Well, if that's what WotC has in mind, maybe they could you know... say so to Third-party publishers instead of telling them "it's coming". Now that said, that's a rather knee-jerk reaction of mine:

Having 3rd parties using recourses to a dry well sounds like a smart business move.

I don't actually believe that's WotC's intent, in the first place. I don't want to, in fact.

Are you sure you don't believe that's WotC's intent? Lets consider, wouldn’t doing just what you don’t to believe they’d do be a very efficient business move?

Now it is not something that a “friendly competition but Buddies all around” niche market would do, but at least to me is sure looks like something a Megacorp WOULD do to said niche market it was in competition with.

Also even if the Tweet, Mearls, Miko and whoever want to send out the SRD, I strongly doubt they can override the Hasborg Suits who want the SRD release delayed.

But hey, I'm a "The glass is half empty and probably has been poisoned." type person, so it is better off if I am wrong.

 

[Voadam]

Good.

Maybe it'll keep 3rd-party companies from jumping the gun and releasing a "we got this 4e book out before WotC's similar core book" book that's full of innacuracies and errors.

**coughcoughCreatureCollectioncoughcough**

In fact, I hope they wait until after 4e is released to the general public to release the SRD m'self.

Wasn't the Creature Collection written with pre-final rules that ended up being incompatible the 3e norms once final revisions were made.

The actual 3e SRD wasn't released until years after the 3e release IIRC. There was a draft srd and a gentleman's agreement from WotC allowing its use until the srd was actually released.

A big reason why early 3rd party products had things like illithids, beholders, etc. in them which were in the draft srd but not included in the final srd and eventually excluded from 3rd party OGL use as WotC PI later.

 

[Stormtower]

More about personal responsibility. They chose to base their company's future on what Wizards is releasing, so they have to deal with the fact that Wizards isn't going to up their timetable just for them.

And if they were told January back in August, then they knew they were SOL back then.

I don't think Paizo released Pathfinder and the Gamemastery modules basing their entire future on what WotC was releasing. I'm no insider, but the OGL 3.5e Pathfinder and Gamemastery stuff will probably stand or fall based entirely on its own merits rather than the shifting tides of D&D editions. Seems like what Paizo chose was the very essence of personal responsibility. Rather than waiting for WotC to feed them their next projects, they went ahead and blazed new business trails in the wake of the Dragon and Dungeon licenses being pulled back.

 

[Grazzt]

How far in advance did the 3e SRD get released? (or the 3.5 for that matter?)

IIRC, the 3e SRD was released well AFTER the 3e books hit. Several publishers had a working copy o' the rules ahead of time (and the gentlemen's agreement [pre-SRD]). But the 'official' SRD didnt come til later.