When did I stop being WotC's target audience?

[ExploderWizard]

I don't love or hate 4E. It looks interesting and I will try it when I have the chance. At this point it's at best a 50/50 chance that I will switch to it full-time from 3.5.

But you'll have to read my user title as well. It's not any edition of the game I'm defending. I just hate invalid arguments, made about any edition.

Ok I gotta bite. If you have never played 4E how exactly are you in a position to state that someone who HAS played 4E and finds the experience less than thrilling to be making an invalid argument?

I AM playing 4E now and enjoying the good gaming time with my friends. The rules are not enhancing that in any way though. We could have as much fun playing TWERPS.

 

[Hussar]

Here's my personal little conspiracy theory that I've been toying with for a long time.

4e is the RPGA edition.

Look at many of the changes made in late 3e. Many of them were a direct result of RPGA play - polymorph being a prime example. Then look at the changes for 4e - no cohorts, much more precise class definitions, no accidental suckitude - and apply that to RPGA play.

I can really see, once the DDI finally gets going, WOTC catering 4e almost exclusively to the RPGA audience. Driving the game through online and convention play with Living campaigns. A sort of really slow version of a MMO.

RPGA players, by their very nature, are very invested in the current edition. If you manage to increase their numbers (currently at around 150K IIRC) or even simply manage to maintain those numbers and sell to that group, you've got a pretty winning economic model.

Jeff, were you fired as a fan? Nope, but, I'll bet dollars to donuts you weren't an RPGA member.

In my mind, that's the main reason for the cuts to be made and the driving motive behind the new design philosophy.

Do I have any proof for this? Nope. Not a shred of evidence, just some interesting coincidences. Complete conspiracy theory. But, again, I'll bet dollars to donuts that after next Winter Experience we're going to see some massive drives for RPGA memberships.

 

[joethelawyer]

I can just see it now, all the people who were saying they were trying to switch D&D to a purely online model....proven right with the justification by a WotC rep that the books "Just aren't profitable anymore"

I kid...I kid...



Or do I?

i think this touches upon an area i don't see addressed in this whole long-assed thread. illegal downloading of copyrighted materials. there will never be exact numbers, of course, as to how many people download and use the stuff they downloaded, who would have bought it had they not downloaded it. but i don't think you can underestimate the impact of illegal downloading on the bottom line over at wotc. please, dont let this get into a "i download and then buy" or "i download as a backup" tangent. frankly, no one cares, and no one has any reason to believe anything someone here says about whether or not they illegally download.

it is enuf to state as a fact that illegal downloading hurts the bottom line of wotc in more than a minor way. hence tying the new products to the whole ddi thing. it ensures a constant revenue stream. i believe the 4e game in its present and future incarnations were designed with a ddi revenue stream in mind.

i'd bet anyone here 10000 xp that ddi doesn't produce anywhere near the revenue stream budgeted, and i think that lack of revenue will determine 4e's future more than anything else (including most every comment in this whole thread dealing with differences between 3e and 4e, and user base attrition, style of play, roleplay v rollplay, and every other issue related to content difference between 3e and 4e).

4e print content will not drive 4e's future. ddi will. and i believe ddi will not get wotc the revenue wotc needs to justify the 4e product line currently envisioned. mostly because wotc's failure to get a working product.

 

[Allister]

Hey, Allister, I know you are getting caught up in TLR's little crusade, but let me re-emphasize:

Er, but you're the one that stated that the reason why dragonborn are in is because of WoW.

I think both TLR and myself showed that if anything, dragonborn are in D&D BECAUSE of 3e.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Ryan Dancey I think said that TSR fragmented the market, but given the way things play out on the forums it seems obvious to me that it is the nature of the RPG market itself to fragment, and there's not much a company can do to prevent that.

RPGing is such a personal thing. Sure a new shiney can pull things together for a while but eventually that inner "perfect game" drives the urge to either rewrite or switch games.

The multitude of settings for 2e wasn't a cause but the effect of TSR staff pushing out into their own fragmenting vision of what D&D was to them (and then sometimes someone just plops a proposal on your desk and says, 'write this').

 

[Greylock]

Here's my personal little conspiracy theory that I've been toying with for a long time.

4e is the RPGA edition.

Look at many of the changes made in late 3e. Many of them were a direct result of RPGA play - polymorph being a prime example. Then look at the changes for 4e - no cohorts, much more precise class definitions, no accidental suckitude - and apply that to RPGA play.

I can really see, once the DDI finally gets going, WOTC catering 4e almost exclusively to the RPGA audience. Driving the game through online and convention play with Living campaigns. A sort of really slow version of a MMO.

RPGA players, by their very nature, are very invested in the current edition. If you manage to increase their numbers (currently at around 150K IIRC) or even simply manage to maintain those numbers and sell to that group, you've got a pretty winning economic model....

That would explain why 4E has been a non-starter in my city. The RPGA died here as far as I know about three or four years ago. If there's even a local chapter anymore I've missed it.

 

[Rasalom]

No more than the "I like it / I'm invested in it / I'm writing for it, so it's obviously a success" shtick is. Not by any means.

Don't even try to play that card. The fact that I'm a freelancer doesn't prevent me from having my own opinions. (And frankly, I was perfectly prepared to hate the game, learn it purely for professional reasons, but keep playing 3.5. I'm grateful it didn't work out that way, but it could have.) I have never once, on ENWorld, expressed an opinion that I didn't honestly feel. I may choose not to say anything, rather than be negative, but if I claim to like something gaming related, it's because I like it, not because I may or may not do some work for the company. Frankly, I'm not important enough in the scheme of things for WotC to care what I say on a messageboard, as long as I don't violate my NDA. And you've been around long enough to know that.

Whether it’s a true claim or not is irrelevant at this point, because frankly it’s a public perception and reputation that you’ve garnered for yourself here and elsewhere. You’ve been a poster-child 4e fanboy at times, and you’ve lashed out pretty damn harshly against people who have the audacity to impugn 4e or suggest that it might not be the roaring success that you want and you need it to be. The initial sales were good, but beyond that only WotC knows for sure, and unless they’re sharing sales figures with you, you don’t know either. They’ve had a year of horrendous PR, the death of a major investment in Gleemax, and tons of people angry at them for reasons various and sundry regarding the marketing and substance of 4e. All that said, for good or for ill Ari, you’ve hitched your professional star to 4e for a year now. You have a very strongly vested stake in seeing 4e succeed and you’ve come out at times to angrily defend it against anyone that might push more bad PR about 4e in WotC’s direction.



People have come to see you as a biased source of information on all things WotC, with too much at stake to say anything negative, and indeed being glowingly positive about it in the face of any negative news because you’ve gone the route of 4e or poverty given you freelance for a living and I suppose you feel loyalty to WotC, or you just hope that being such an ardent supporter and pimp of 4e will send more work your way.

 

[Thasmodious]

While not familiar enough with Saga to know what you are looking for - what 'unfashionable play style' do you feel 4E is somehow against?

I have found the 4E class building system to have a remarkable level of versatility and customizability. The opening of skill access and former class features via feats allows one to adapt to almost any character concept they might have.

Most complaints I've seens have been built around, honestly, mechanical concepts, like not being able to play a Rogue who Sneak Attacks with a Greataxe. That isn't a character concept, and I don't feel there is any fault in a system that lacks that potential - as long as one can play a stealthy thief who slices people apart with a greataxe, which is an entirely viable concept.

You mention being frustrated that others forced your fighter to act as meat-shield - that is a group problem, not part of 4E. It is no different than 3rd Edition clerics who wanted to fight in melee, but got told to sit in back and heal the group. Each class can generally fit into several roles, even if they have some specific ones they default to.

Fighters are Defenders with a bit of Striker, and can just as easily be heavy-hitting warriors as meat-shields. If you want to play a Fighter as a damage-dealing machine, the system is more than ok with that - the only thing standing in your way, apparently, is the group you play with.

Sure, you could assemble a fighter/rogue/sorcerer/druid/bard/wizard, but... what does that mean? What character concept is that?

Pretty much any genuine concept you could build in 3.5, you can build in 4E.

This.

I was going to respond in much the same way to the gneech. Nicely stated. There was a thread just after the release of 4e in which someone challenged the people who claimed 4e was lacking in character versatility to propose concepts that you couldn't do in 4e that you could do in 3e. Outside of people using mechanical differences between the systems as "concepts" (I want a rogue who can do 12d6 sneak attack damage), there were very few, if any, concepts we couldn't make work even with just the options at release. The notable exceptions were certain wizarding specialists, like enchanters and illusionists, but Dragon addressed the illusion issue fairly early on and others are yet to come.

I think, gneech, you might actually be missing something as you feel 4e is extremely limiting, as you asked. Its not some hidden trick, its just an open mind and a realization that 4e is not 3e and therefore a different approach is required, as with any edition change. 3e was not known as a versatility machine on release, it took a number of supplements and a great expanion in the feat options to begin to really see the multitude of build options. By the end, you could take the same concept and represent it mechanically a dozen ways. This was a bit of overkill really, and several of those ways were often very subpar or very broken. I hope 4e maintains a more cautious approach to expansion and expands versatility, without comprimising the system.

General note:
These edition war threads used to get under my skin as I felt so many people (feel) are just being obtuse on purpose, being opposed to any kind of change just for the sake of opposition. A very kindly blogger (i forget who, perhaps Chatty?) posted an archive of message board posts from 3es release and it was comforting to see the exact same arguments from the exact same type of grognard. Sure, the mechanics and flavor of those arguments were sometimes different (AC counts upwards?! Hasbro has KILLED D&D!) and sometimes not (D&D is a miniatures videogame clone now - was quite common), but the tone and source were the same and it enabled me to chill about the whole thing. I've enjoyed each edition of my beloved D&D from the 1st to the current and been along for the whole ride. I think 4e is the best system to date. I felt the same about 3e, 2e, 1e... I like how the game has evolved and I apparently still remain firmly in the target demographic for WotC.

 

[Fifth Element]

Ok I gotta bite. If you have never played 4E how exactly are you in a position to state that someone who HAS played 4E and finds the experience less than thrilling to be making an invalid argument?

I was not responding to someone's impressions of playing 4E. I was responding to the claim that 4E's designers are somehow insulated from the gaming community - "in a box" was the phrase, I believe.

 

[Thasmodious]

Way to make a new account and post anonymously like a coward rather than give the person your impugning the ability to face his accuser. Courageous stand there "new guy".

Whether it’s a true claim or not is irrelevant at this point, because frankly it’s a public perception and reputation that you’ve garnered for yourself here and elsewhere. You’ve been a poster-child 4e fanboy at times, and you’ve lashed out pretty damn harshly against people who have the audacity to impugn 4e or suggest that it might not be the roaring success that you want and you need it to be. The initial sales were good, but beyond that only WotC knows for sure, and unless they’re sharing sales figures with you, you don’t know either. They’ve had a year of horrendous PR, the death of a major investment in Gleemax, and tons of people angry at them for reasons various and sundry regarding the marketing and substance of 4e. All that said, for good or for ill Ari, you’ve hitched your professional star to 4e for a year now. You have a very strongly vested stake in seeing 4e succeed and you’ve come out at times to angrily defend it against anyone that might push more bad PR about 4e in WotC’s direction.



People have come to see you as a biased source of information on all things WotC, with too much at stake to say anything negative, and indeed being glowingly positive about it in the face of any negative news because you’ve gone the route of 4e or poverty given you freelance for a living and I suppose you feel loyalty to WotC, or you just hope that being such an ardent supporter and pimp of 4e will send more work your way.