The Nature of Change (or, Understanding Edition Wars)

[Jeff Wilder]

It strikes me personally as wildly unsurprising that someone that happy with the current edition would be unhappy with substantial changes to it.

"Substantial changes"? I'm fairly happy with the way Pathfinder is shaping up. Are those not "substantial" changes?

Assume that I'm okay up to X-1, but not okay at X. Assume that because I buy everything, WotC would like to keep me as a customer. Given those assumptions:

Why would WotC make changes to the tune of not just X, but arguably X+1?

There are answers to that question that make sense. The one that makes the most sense to me involves trying to kill the OGL genie.

BTW, if the second assumption above is false, then WotC did throw me off the train. There are possible explanations for that, too -- such as believing that enough new customers would make up the revenue provided by one completist like me -- but it's still me being thrown off the train, not disembarking voluntarily.

 

[Herschel]

And yet you still have to devote resources, and money... probably the lion's share of both to a new flagship project, so do you think they had their best, most creative and well paid designers on late 3.5 stuff or on 4e stuff? So now which would suffer again, oh yeah 3.5... exactly what I stated earlier, yeah I guess that is kinda funny but I don't see it in any way as cutting off your nose to spite your face, especially when core books are where your game is made or broken.

Isn't everything "limited" beyond the core? I mean those were things that needed support and I certainly would have bough a $35 book that allowed me to get more use out of those particular classes along with other fringe classes that hadn't been explored beyond the basics. In fact I remembver peole clamoring for more support for these types of classes that had been introduced and then forgotten about. I'm curious what sourcebook would be a non-limited one in your opinion, you know the type that everyone would buy?

Your first point is over-simplified and incorrect. It assumes that three years ago numbers didn't really "count". Even going with your assumption: People working on old and new projects are expected to produce for BOTH. Stop producing for the old and you're on the street before the new. In business, it's really that straight forward.

Also, you defeated your own argument. The core books were all done. And even the closer-to-core books would feature settings and more general classes like fighter/mage/rogue/wizard not certain prestige classes.

3E was also an absolute mess from the "core book" standpoint. They tried shoving "core" material in to everything. The DMG had PC prestige classes and info in it. The PH had magic items. It was a hodge-podge to get people to buy more books. And it sort of worked for a time but in the end it was just kind of a mess. 4E is much more streamlined and concise so far.

 

[Lacyon]

"Substantial changes"? I'm fairly happy with the way Pathfinder is shaping up. Are those not "substantial" changes?

I haven't checked out Pathfinder recently, but when I did the first time it looked about as substantial a set of changes as, say, Unearthed Arcana.

Assume that I'm okay up to X-1, but not okay at X. Assume that because I buy everything, WotC would like to keep me as a customer. Given those assumptions:

Why would WotC make changes to the tune of not just X, but arguably X+1?

Because they percieve the market for X+1 to be larger than that of the market for X-1 or even X.

Alternatively, they miscalculated the value of X.

There are answers to that question that make sense. The one that makes the most sense to me involves trying to kill the OGL genie.

The OGL genie's immortality was obvious to anyone paying attention.

The answer that makes the most sense to me is that they decided 4E was a chance to redesign from starting principles (akin to the shift from 2E to 3E) in a way that wasn't appropriate during the 3E->3.5E shift.

BTW, if the second assumption above is false, then WotC did throw me off the train. There are possible explanations for that, too -- such as believing that enough new customers would make up the revenue provided by one completist like me -- but it's still me being thrown off the train, not disembarking voluntarily.

Account for the possibility that they can't know X for every gamer, nor satisfy every gamer's X-1. (It's very likely that for at least one person, X-1 is the game as they already have it).

 

[Herschel]

Sure, we're not the audience "as it turns out," but I find it very hard to believe -- again, as someone who bought every 3.5 product -- that I'm not in the audience that WotC wanted.

Granted. But I'm not sure it was a realistic goal to keep everyone like you and I with new editions/distributions/etc. I know my minis buying habits are changing drastically. A certain amount of attrition was expected, I would think, just because th eolder stuff would remain immensely popular with some, just like I never bought 3E stuff past the PH and stuck with the older material I so enjoyed.

 

[Raven Crowking]

And having fans charge out into the streets committing vandalism, burning sofas and trashing people's cars after a Big 10 football game (after their team won, even!) isn't about the football, either.

I gotta agree here.


RC

 

[vic20]

LoL, wow

Your posts are nearly impossible to read with the all the color utilization. I can't focus on your ideas, or tell which ones are even yours.

 

[Herschel]

Your posts are nearly impossible to read with the all the color utilization. I can't focus on your ideas, or tell which ones are even yours.

I'm sorry. I was attempting to match color to color when addressing separate points while keeping the original quote more or less in-tact and complete in flow. Apparently the idea failed large.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Account for the possibility that they can't know X for every gamer, nor satisfy every gamer's X-1. (It's very likely that for at least one person, X-1 is the game as they already have it).

I account for the possibility; I think that this lack of knowledge is what I'm talking about as a possibility.

You can believe WotC's continuing line about record-breaking sales, or you can believe the polls here on EN World, or you can -- like me -- believe the answer is somewhere in the middle. If that's the case, WotC badly miscalculated X-1, not just for me, but for lots and lots of gamers. And I believe that the effects of miscalculation -- if that's what happened -- could have been substantially lessened.

BTW, you're right. I shouldn't have said "kill" in reference to the OGL. It cannot be killed, but it can be -- and it has been -- weakened by its abandonment by WotC, and I think that weakening is another possibility for the design to X+1. (And I'm not talking about the actual license, but the player- and designer-base that uses it.)

 

[billd91]

But again, what my original point was, that the "new coke" analogy is still innapropriate.

With new coke, once the supply of old coke was out, I couldn't experience it even if I wanted to. It no longer existed.

Actually, that's not true. Original Coke still existed and was still being bottled. You just had to go outside of the country to get it. In other words, it was harder to get.

Again, not necessarily unlike the environment we may see trying to find players and materials for earlier editions...
EDIT: Not that I mean you would have to leave the country... but you might have to leave your regular group or gaming grounds to do it.

 

[Spatula]

Yes. It took me substantially longer to come to that conclusion. I even started a thread about it, asking why I -- as someone who owns every single 3.5 product released, and thus (I'd assumed) a member of WotC's core audience -- was left behind by WotC and 4E.

And the response I got from the pro-4E folks was, "WotC didn't leave you, you left WotC," or "You're not WotC's core audience." I still find both responses very confusing, but c'est la vie.

"Perhaps it is you who have moved away - by standing still." - Inherit the Wind

"Substantial changes"? I'm fairly happy with the way Pathfinder is shaping up. Are those not "substantial" changes?

No, not really. It's all well and good to slap on a new coat of paint, but it's not really addressing the fundamental flaws, anymore than 2e did with AD&D.

You can't blame some of use for our suspicions. The fact that Darrin worked there, and he still has these suspicions, says a lot I think.

Yes. It says that Darrin is a very suspicious person. (edit: that was meant to be tongue-in-cheek) I've seen enough rants here by Darrin that say to me, he seems to have a chip on his shoulder regarding WotC/Hasbro specifically or large businesses in general. Which is fine, but he's not an impartial observer - his past statements show an inclination to view any move by WotC as having sinister motives.

All the turtle talk is pretty silly. The 4e design team listened to the players, who said that they didn't like X, Y, and Z and wanted more A, B, and C. There was a list I saw posted by Mearls back in the day of changes people wanted to the game that the designers wanted to address, and it was very non-controversial. So those elements were fixed... In the end, this resulted in a package that differed a lot from how 3e worked, because that's the logical consequence of fixing those issues. Mearls et al simply made the "mistake" of taking the audience at its word instead of delivering a safe patch-up ala 2e.

I would also say the early presentation of 4e was rather flawed - instead of focusing on "you didn't like this and we fixed it" most of the early press was about the silly implied setting - but that ship has long sailed.