What would WotC need to do to win back the disenchanted?

[Bluenose]

3E PH: Fireball: The fireball sets fire to combustibles...

PF Core: Fireball: The fireball sets fire to combustibles...

Just fyi

3e PH re Fireball: A fireball spell is an explosion of flame; and I expect PF says something similar.

The funny thing is, apart from the obvious 'flames do not explode', an explosion often puts out fires. They may start up again afterwards, either because the fire is spreading into the area from outside, because something in the affected was already burning and the explosion was insufficient to put it out, or because material superheated by the explosion landed on something flammable, but the explosion shouldn't set fire to anything. Bot actually complicated physics.

 

[Mournblade94]

I really think that 4th edition should have been more like a fantasy version of SW Saga. Sw Saga looks like a great system, but 4E seems to have many areas where the designers dropped the ball, namely excessive hp bloat of monsters and ultra-gamist elements like martial healing and divine challenge.

That is one of the reasons I was so jazzed about 4e. I thought (foolishly perhaps) that it would be a saga BASED game. I know people hate the video game analogy, but it is apparent the designers injected video game conventions into the design. For some people that is not bad. Healing surge being case in point, and marking is the aggromechanic. Roles have always been a part of D&D, but those four roles have been refined in the realm of video game design.

Fighters were not always your TANK for instance, they may have taken the scrapper role. A wizard was not always a controller, they might have taken the artillery role, etc.

Perhaps the market research showed this is what the younger crowd would recognize, I don't know. Point is WOTC is the flag ship of a hobby, and in the hobby market the customers may very well get angry at things that other lay customers would not.

Kind of scary to me: EVERYTHING I loved as a kid is now OWNED by hasbro:

D&D
Transformers (Always were)
STAR WARS toy line
Axis and Allies
Avalon Hill
GI JOE

Geez, I bet if it was still around they would have bought Mattel Electronics, of intellivision fame.

Sometimes I wonder if the big conglomerates are necessary better. When I buy chicken from a Community supported agriculture farm, it sure as hell tastes better than Purdue.

Don't know where any of that came from, I apologize.

 

[El Mahdi]

Who says current customers aren't being enticed to stay? If 4E had held truer to 3E I would probably not have adopted it.

A significant portion of long-term customers are not being enticed to stay. If they were, we wouldn't have this thread.

I'm pretty sure that 4E wasn't designed to be different from 3E so as to purposely entice you to stay. (Perhaps you possess a memo from WotC R&D talking about "designing the new edition in a way to ensure we keep that Vyvyan Basterd guy as a customer"?) However, I am sure that one of the reasons it was designed in the manner they did, was to specifically target a younger crowd...as has already been discussed and argued ad nauseum. The fact that a significant group of long term gamers prefer the system is less about a purposeful marketing focus as it's simply about the fact that they like D&D, in any iteration. In other words, you weren't specifically invited to the party, but they're glad you came.

A sample of one doesn't prove a trend or purpose.

So, if this was more than simply making a subjective statement about yourself, what specifically were you trying to say or prove with your statement?

 

[BryonD]

3e PH re Fireball: A fireball spell is an explosion of flame; and I expect PF says something similar.

The funny thing is, apart from the obvious 'flames do not explode', an explosion often puts out fires. They may start up again afterwards, either because the fire is spreading into the area from outside, because something in the affected was already burning and the explosion was insufficient to put it out, or because material superheated by the explosion landed on something flammable, but the explosion shouldn't set fire to anything. Bot actually complicated physics.

Actually, the pressure wave associated with the explosion is what can put out fires. The book also says: "the explosion creates almost no pressure".

If you want to argue that it isn't an "explosion", then fine. But to consider this a meaningful conversation at that level is silly.

An incorrect statement was made and I corrected it. That's all.


(At least in 3E a fireball is actually a "ball" and not a firecube. )

 

[renau1g]

A springboard tight RAW that requires constant updates, and revisions kind of speaks for itself. A game system that provides good starting guidelines and leaves the common sense adjudication of the small details to the human beings playing the game doesn't require such tireless tweaking and patching. Isn't that amount of fine tuning a bit overboard for a system that is supposed to be run by a human DM?

Meh, I had most of the "errata" as house-rules in my home game anyways. In 3.5e they just left all the broken elements out there, ex. the DMM's and those sticks that recharged them (I forget the name now).

Many DM's are comfortable with running the game and saying "no, that ain't cool what you're doing there", but if a new DM is running it, they may not have that experience.

 

[renau1g]

A significant portion of long-term customers are not being enticed to stay. If they were, we wouldn't have this thread.

Do we have data to support that? Just curious, as I could then just as easily say a not-significant portion.

 

[Mournblade94]

What proof do you have that interoffice playtesting is the only type they performed? I personally know 4E playtesters that don't work for WotC.

I have 2 friends in NJ that were official playtesters for 4e before its release. They were not paid, but still had to a sign a NDA (not saying this is bad, relax).

Because of this I know for sure WOTC playtested well for what they wanted. I was intensely jealous of my friends.

 

[El Mahdi]

Do we have data to support that? Just curious, as I could then just as easily say a not-significant portion.

You're right...and I'm right.

Significant is a relative and subjective term. I view the number of people posting about this, in this thread and others, as significant. If you don't, that's understandable. To me, these threads represent a significant portion of long-term customers that are not being represented in WotC current marketing strategy. So for me, these threads are the data.

 

[El Mahdi]

I have 2 friends in NJ that were official playtesters for 4e before its release. They were not paid, but still had to a sign a NDA (not saying this is bad, relax).

Because of this I know for sure WOTC playtested well for what they wanted. I was intensely jealous of my friends.

Yeah, I remember the releases leading up to 4E. There was a lot of talk from WotC about their playtesting, and not just in-house playtesting. I don't know how many people outside of WotC were involved, but it sounded fairly extensive. I think it's a bit of a spurious argument to say that 4E wasn't properly playtested or tested only in-house.

 

[Mournblade94]

Here's something interesting. Those libraries don't seem to be available on Marvel's own site. Only through Amazon (and, I guess, other retailers). If you go to Marvel itself, they're offering their Digital Unlimited (which includes those libraries, and a whole lot more). The iPad app gives access to... it looks like 10% of the total library.

Interesting business decisions, there...

Incidentally I have been subscribing to that library for 2 years now.

There are LOTS of gaps which frustrated me, and thinks like issues 1 and 2 of 3 issue limited series. I like to think it is not intentional.

Still it is great and I love it. One of the only things I have been into that Hasbro no longer claims rights to... except for toys