Imperialus
Explorer
I'm trying to keep this as edition neutral as possible. It doesn't matter if you think 4E is a terrible system or the greatest thing since sliced bread I think there are a few basic truths that suggest, regardless of the system itself, periodic new editions are a critical aspect of the hobby. As another aside, this is all personal opinion and conjecture. I've never worked in game development but I've seen enough editions come and go for enough different systems that I feel I can at least make an informed opinion about it.
One of the biggest reasons I feel that new editions are important to the health of the game is it gives developers an opportunity to try and fundamentally change things that either they, or their customers feel isn't working. If they don't do this, things fall apart. Look at Paladium for example, the system hasn't changed since the mid 80's and it shows. It's a laughing stock in the gaming community, especially after that "please give us money so we don't go under" fiasco last year. Rifts has been dated since 2nd edition AD&D was still king and yet they still continue gloming more crap onto it.
Also, it provides gaming companies with periodic influxes of cash. This is essential. Eventually people stop buying the splatbooks, they have enough stuff to put together whatever kind of character they want, and if for some reason they can't do it with what's published after a few years they know the ins and outs of the system well enough they can homebrew something. With declining sourcebook sales, companies need to do something to restart the engine as it were. Otherwise they'd go under.
Last but not least, a new edition trims the fat. Eventually, despite the number of people (myself included) loving the streamlined and straightforward system in 4E it will become bloated and unwieldy. My last 3.X character had stuff taken from no less than 5 different books. No player or DM can keep up with that, and even the best dev team on the planet will never be able to ensure that everything is balanced. When a player (even a non-powergamer) goes to a DM and says "I have a really cool character concept, that I just thought of while I was reading splatbook X, can I roll one up? I think he'd fit into the party ok." The DM (IME) typically says yes. After all the player has gone out, bought a book, seems psyched about something he found in it and wants to give something different a try.
Unfortunatly late in a product cycle that character concept is typically either grossly overpowered or terribly underpowered because the player got caught up in thinking about how cool the character would be to play and either didn't crunch the numbers, or ended up overlooking how feat X would interact with class ability Y and something went wrong. 90% of players don't frequent the Char Op boards and an even smaller percentage actually have the skill or inclination to deconstruct classes themselves and figure out what works and what doesn't.
One of the biggest reasons I feel that new editions are important to the health of the game is it gives developers an opportunity to try and fundamentally change things that either they, or their customers feel isn't working. If they don't do this, things fall apart. Look at Paladium for example, the system hasn't changed since the mid 80's and it shows. It's a laughing stock in the gaming community, especially after that "please give us money so we don't go under" fiasco last year. Rifts has been dated since 2nd edition AD&D was still king and yet they still continue gloming more crap onto it.
Also, it provides gaming companies with periodic influxes of cash. This is essential. Eventually people stop buying the splatbooks, they have enough stuff to put together whatever kind of character they want, and if for some reason they can't do it with what's published after a few years they know the ins and outs of the system well enough they can homebrew something. With declining sourcebook sales, companies need to do something to restart the engine as it were. Otherwise they'd go under.
Last but not least, a new edition trims the fat. Eventually, despite the number of people (myself included) loving the streamlined and straightforward system in 4E it will become bloated and unwieldy. My last 3.X character had stuff taken from no less than 5 different books. No player or DM can keep up with that, and even the best dev team on the planet will never be able to ensure that everything is balanced. When a player (even a non-powergamer) goes to a DM and says "I have a really cool character concept, that I just thought of while I was reading splatbook X, can I roll one up? I think he'd fit into the party ok." The DM (IME) typically says yes. After all the player has gone out, bought a book, seems psyched about something he found in it and wants to give something different a try.
Unfortunatly late in a product cycle that character concept is typically either grossly overpowered or terribly underpowered because the player got caught up in thinking about how cool the character would be to play and either didn't crunch the numbers, or ended up overlooking how feat X would interact with class ability Y and something went wrong. 90% of players don't frequent the Char Op boards and an even smaller percentage actually have the skill or inclination to deconstruct classes themselves and figure out what works and what doesn't.
