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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 3468304" data-attributes="member: 20741">1) We will soon see free content at wizards.com decrease to nearly none."Soon" is an inherently slippery word - but I expect when they are ready to go - this will be true.2) In fact, free content may soon only be previews of the digital initiative materials.May is a pretty slippery word too. Still, I expect this will happen as it is logical.3) In addition to subscription, WotC may have some individual pdfs of digital initiative game content available, but only at a very high price relative to how much one would get from just subscribing for, say, a year at a time-- or perhaps no set time, with one only being able to cancel by going through process as difficult as, say, getting rid of AOL.I doubt this. It's a pain in the ass to implement. Yes/No in terms of server authorization is a lot easier.4) Wizards will soon (if they don't already) see third-party publishers as real competitors taking money out of their pockets, and will market and publish accordingly.I think this was the case with Paizo while it published Dragon and  Dungeon over the past few years. In Dungeon's case, what had been previously a one-off magazine written mainly by fans and want-to-be-pros turned into a venue for the best in the business. Ultimately, that was not ok with WotC. Being upstaged by their licensee was not in their game plan. I am sure that Paizo would love to be successful enough with Pathfinder that this sense of things would continue to be true. I doubt it, however. (Which is not to say that I hope it won't - I hope it will and I subscribed already.)I do think it is fair to say that when WotC is in the adventure business,  they see everyone else capable of putting out high quality, full color adventures written by heavy hitting industry pros as "competition"  - assuming that it sells well. 5) While I do not think 4th Edition is imminent-- I believe it will appear summer 2010, maintaining a (rough) 10 year pattern between Editions-- nor am I one of these "sky-is-falling/WotC-is-evil" types, I guarantee you "4E" will not be OGL in any form.I agree with this.  Which is not to say that there will not be licensees - merely that the license will not be "open". This will not necessarily be a bad thing. We will return to the heady days of the 80s when there were other RPGs to go play. Which is not to say that there are not already other RPGs to go play - simply that we will see more of them and some will gain in cachet.I don't think this will have much of an effect on WotC initally. Long term? Well - it might. A lot of gamers came back into the fold with 3rd Ed. A lot of those may end up leaving over 4th ed. We'll see.I do think that White Wolf's days as #2 are numbered - but I also think that they are in the MMO business now and won't much care.6) 4th Edition, while not OGL, will be just different enough from 3rd to make non-WotC products hard to convert to 4E. This will be designed to eliminate third party competition-- and will likely succeed to a great extent.I'm think the real reason will be that Wotc wants to revise, reset and resell their own products. 3rd parties are not the main issue here.7) Whatever version of the RPGA exists for 4th Edition will be subscriber only.Agreed.</blockquote>

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