When did WotC D&D "Jump the Shark"?

[TheAuldGrump]

Your rejection of that assessment is also reasonable. Skepticism is rational.

Up to the point that it becomes denial - you would think that Skully would be a little more flexible the seventh or eighth time her nose is rubbed in the supernatural....

This is not, by the way, the same as saying that you are wrong in this particular case. It has more to do with having watched way too much X-Files last week....

The Auld Grump, X-Files and Gargoyles... I am so not complaining about being forced to watch Gargoyles.

 

[TheUltramark]

instead of starting a new thread, I will ask this question here.

Q: What if Hasbro cut coastwizards tomorrow, simply announced that the entire line would be scrapped. How would that affect your gaming?

my answer: not one bit. There is plenty of 4E material out to keep me n my group busy for a very long time. Then if we do get bored, there are 3 other versions of d&d we could go back to and play for years until boredom set in.

 

[pemerton]

You seem to be implying that trying to make the game appealing to potential fans they have lost is a bad thing. Is that a fair assessment of your point?

My point is mostly that WotC seem to be changing the game in a way that takes it away from my preferences. (Aspects of Essentials, plus some other recent trends, are further examples of this - as I think I mentioned on one of the Roads to Rome or related threads a month or two ago.)

Good luck to them it it increases their sales. It reduces the likelihood of me buying things from them, but my tastes may be in a minority. After all, many of the things I like most about 4e - metagame mechanics, the points-of-light "atmosphere and vibe" (to borrow a phrase from Mercurius) in place of a detailed setting, the encounter build/scaling guidelines, etc - seem to be among the most frequently-criticised elements of the game.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

Black Diamonds piece of the pie does NOT tell us what is going on. Hussar keeps comparing it to blind men and elephants. And if you take it out of context, trying to use Black Diamond alone is one blind guy saying the elephant is shaped like a snake. It is wrong and foolish.

But, the funny thing is, all the blind guys are feeling different parts of the elephant and instead of saying "a snake", "a tree", etc....

They are all saying: "an elephant", "yep, elephant here too", "I got elephant".

There appears to be an elephant in the room.

How many blind guys are we talking about though? I mean, in that thread that you are referencing, there was another blind guy who owns this site arguing that 4e has been very, very good to him.

Again, why is Blackdiamond getting those particular results? What is the context? Is he the only gaming store in his location? Is there another gaming store that 4e gamers regularly go to? Is his store a bastion of WOTC hate? Or, is it that 4e just isn't that strong in his area and Pathfinder is doing great?

None of these questions got answered. No context beyond, "I like Game X and Game X is doing well in my area" was given.

There's an elephant in the room all right, and it smells to high heaven.

Again, you claim that there is a deep split in the fan base. It's the DEEP part that I dispute, not the existence of a split. Disputing the existence of a split would be pretty stupid all things considered. Some people didn't like 4e and went to Pathfinder.

Yup, I agree with that. That's pretty much obviously true.

How many?

Until you can answer that with anything more than gut reaction, then your characterization of "deep" is nothing more than you claiming the tail is a snake. Getting ten random people on the Internet to agree with you doesn't exactly entail anything close to fact. Particularly when it's been pretty clearly shown that the anecdotes are almost universally self-selecting.

Hey, you can believe whatever you like. That's most certainly your right. But, I really cannot see how you can claim anything resembling facts in that belief.

Me? Personally? I have no idea. Could be true. Might not be. I'll sit up here on my fence, where I've pretty much parked my keister for the past year or so.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's nice.

We disagree.

I'd look at your evidence and assess it as well. That is if you had any.

That is just plain wrong.

When Black Diamond say that PF is selling as well as 4E, that is NOT a "point of view". If someone says that they now know the answer because Black Diamond made a statement about their slice of the pie, they would be very wrong. But that is simply one example.

Yeah, there is information out that which is completely open to being called subjective.

But trying to hide the rest of the information behind that just sounds like trying to find a preconceived conclusion.

Black Diamonds piece of the pie does NOT tell us what is going on. Hussar keeps comparing it to blind men and elephants. And if you take it out of context, trying to use Black Diamond alone is one blind guy saying the elephant is shaped like a snake. It is wrong and foolish.

But, the funny thing is, all the blind guys are feeling different parts of the elephant and instead of saying "a snake", "a tree", etc....

They are all saying: "an elephant", "yep, elephant here too", "I got elephant".

There appears to be an elephant in the room.

I think the problem is nobody here is saying PF doesn't sell as well as 4e. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but the little we can gather from any or all sources of evidence is just that they're both top selling RPGs. We don't know what whatever Black Diamond says means. We don't know how many people prefer which game or both games or for that matter neither.

What we have are a bunch of blind men feeling around, sure. The problem is if one feels a leg and one feels a trunk and one feels a tail then someone might say "aha that has to be an elephant!" but that doesn't mean it IS an elephant. You're LOOKING FOR AN ELEPHANT and finding one. Maybe its a tree, a snake, and a rope.

Finally, it just doesn't matter all that much. 4e is a good game (or the devil's spawn if you prefer) and OBVIOUSLY WotC isn't giving up and abandoning the game. They sure aren't showing any signs of doing that this year, that's for sure. If they were they'd have given a bunch of their staff the boot, eh. Never once has the existence or non-existence of PF made any difference to me. If there's some vast quantity of people that are 'divided' from me and won't play 4e with me you're going to have to come over here and show me those people, because they simply don't exist in my experience. I don't even really care what happens in some other place, but given the obvious popularity of 4e I'm not real concerned that I'd be able to find players anywhere I'm likely to go.

 

[tuxgeo]

(don't really have much of a point aside from agreeing with RC)

< . . . >

Individuals are allowed to set the bar as to what they believe is credible evidence, and how much of said credible evidence is required to make a conclusion credible.

BryonD's assessment is reasonable. Human beings (and other living organisms) can and do make judgement based on inadequate data. The rabbit who waits for proof that there is a fox in the bushes is an ex-rabbit in very short order.

Yes. Conclusions don't need to be logically derived through valid syllogisms in order to turn out to have been correct.

Your rejection of that assessment is also reasonable. Skepticism is rational.

Sometimes, yes.
However, skepticism can also be a result of skeptical habit, and can be applied out of force of that habit without being based on any rational argument at all.

But, if sometimes making a judgement means you end up leaping away from the wind, sometimes also waiting for more data about that rustle in the bushes means that the fox gets you.

Yes. Decisiveness doesn't always need to wait for thorough conviction based on unassailable evidence.

 

[Fifth Element]

I'd look at your evidence and assess it as well. That is if you had any.

I don't believe there is any real evidence, that's my entire point. Or at least that the little evidence there is not nearly sufficient to make a detemination.

I completely agree with Raven Crowking (!) that your interpretation of a split in the market is reasonable to you based on the evidence you've seen. And you are fully entitled to say something like "I suspect there might be a deep split in the market" or something similar.

But your insistence that there is necessarily a deep split, that that is the only reasonable interpretation, is what I object to. The evidence you're basing your inferences on is incomplete and self-selective. It gives hints of what might be going on, but is not nearly sufficient to make a solid determination.

It's when you try to paint your personal interpretation as fact that the trouble starts.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I completely agree with Raven Crowking (!)

Just saying.



RC

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Some people didn't like 4e and went to Pathfinder.

...some stayed with 3.5Ed and don't support either game; some abandoned all of the D20 family and are happily playing some other system.

Just sayin'.
****

From my point of view, inferring that there is a deep split is...problematic.

On the one hand, PF sales as reported by outlets like Amazon and Black Diamond are indicative of a product that latched onto a large and unsatisfied market demographic- you typically wouldn't see those kinds of numbers from a completely new product that didn't have some kind of "in."

But they are also snapshots of the data: the companies with the whole pictures aren't giving up the full 411.

And aditionally, the nature of the products is such that most consumers in the market don't view purchasing them as a binary decision. Just because one buys 4Ed does not mean one may not also be a fan of PF.

Still, though, there are many for whom 4Ed is such a radical departure from their expectations of D&D gaming that, to this day, the game itself makes them angry. To them, it is a betrayal. And THAT, to me, is indicative that the divide is very deep indeed.

IOW, whether the divide is "deep" rather depends on what you mean by that word.

 

[BryonD]

My point is mostly that WotC seem to be changing the game in a way that takes it away from my preferences. (Aspects of Essentials, plus some other recent trends, are further examples of this - as I think I mentioned on one of the Roads to Rome or related threads a month or two ago.)

Good luck to them it it increases their sales. It reduces the likelihood of me buying things from them, but my tastes may be in a minority. After all, many of the things I like most about 4e - metagame mechanics, the points-of-light "atmosphere and vibe" (to borrow a phrase from Mercurius) in place of a detailed setting, the encounter build/scaling guidelines, etc - seem to be among the most frequently-criticised elements of the game.

Fair enough. Obviously I don't share your preference. And I personally think that following that preference was not a great strategy.

But that is not remotely to say that there is anything at all wrong with you are anyone else having that preference or being quite happy that WotC catered to it.

And I do suspect WotC would be better served by staying with you over reacting to complaints of people such as myself.