Whatever happened to Necromancer Games?

[ggroy]

but things like the Advanced Player's Guide from about a year ago? It can't be used with the CB so I'll never use it.

I offered my players the option of using classes from the Advanced Player's Guide and other similar titles like Goodman's "Forgotten Heroes". There were no takers.

Even back then, the players in my 4E games preferred to use the DDI character builder.

 

[darjr]

I was considering getting PHB3. Instead I got another wotc book and preordered the Astral Sea.

I will say when there was going to be a 4e Blackmoor living campaign I had plenty of players willing to go back to plain paper character sheets and not use the DDI. They, almost to a person, would have loved for that to be in the character builder, but I had no lack of players willing to forego it.

 

[malraux]

I was considering getting PHB3. Instead I got another wotc book and preordered the Astral Sea.

That's my experience. I'll never buy another crunch book, but I rather like the fluff books. But what I have noticed with my group is that everyone uses DDI, even the people who really don't like buying any extra books. I'd bet that DDI and the CB are a net gain for WotC. Especially at the long end of the edition when buying normally slows down.

 

[darjr]

I hope so.

There are at least 31,000 subscribers. I've done some experimenting as well, that is a minimum, I've let my account expire and I got removed from that group. Also a DDI sub doesn't get put in the group unless they setup a community account as well.

So there are quite a few, seems like a lot to me. I can still find quite a few players that are not DDI subscribers, though that is changing fast.

 

[Wicht]

That's my experience. I'll never buy another crunch book, but I rather like the fluff books. But what I have noticed with my group is that everyone uses DDI, even the people who really don't like buying any extra books. I'd bet that DDI and the CB are a net gain for WotC. Especially at the long end of the edition when buying normally slows down.

Its only a net gain if the subscription pays for all the artwork they pay for in order to put in the books.

 

[renau1g]

I'm guessing they are much more concerned about another unintended side effect of DDI: the strangling of their own book sales. This has become a real problem for WotC.

I'm not sure it's a huge problem when they count the revenue from the DDI coming in each month. I'd imagine the monthly revenue stream is excellent and the ROI pretty high. Personally, I bought the core 3 + the FR books and after the terrible, terrible FR books I decided that the lack of any real depth to those books was enough to turn me off from buying any more. Luckily I have a DDI sub and so have all the crunch. I've heard good things about the PP fluff, but c'est la vie.

Also, in 3e I never got on the splatbook treadmill, stoppng pretty early on. I can say that the revenue WoTC will receive from my group is also much higher as we all shared the few books we purchased but now all have our own subs.

 

[ggroy]

Perhaps this time around, the "yardstick" they'll use for determining when to release a new edition of D&D, may very well be when the DDI revenue starts to decline significantly (ie. too many people letting their subscriptions lapse). In previous editions, significant declines in book sales revenue was probably the "yardstick" they used.

 

[AllisterH]

There is ANOTHER factor which I think might also be forgotten even if you factored DDI.

For non-DM PLAYERS...there's no reason to BUY many of the 4E WOTC books versus the 3e books.

Libris Mortis for example, was both a DM resource but also a source for feats, classes, races and prestige classes. In my group (and I'm assuming others, options could only be used if the person owned said book) The 4e version, Open Grave is strictly a DM resource.

 

[Shemeska]

I'm not sure it's a huge problem when they count the revenue from the DDI coming in each month. I'd imagine the monthly revenue stream is excellent and the ROI pretty high.

One word: Gleemax. Awesome character builder or not, I'd argue that they would need to accrue enough return on investment to cover the costs from development on Gleemax, the VTT, et al before it can be a true success in the long run.

 

[DaveMage]

Does WotC have an official (or unofficial) stance on not adding corrections to subsequent printings of 4E titles?

Other than PHB1, has there even *been* a second printing of any 4E book?

A know the "deluxe" editions of the PHB1/DMG/MM1 came out with some errata fixes included, but I don't think any other title has had a second print run.

Anyone know differently?