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<blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 2557749" data-attributes="member: 19857">Its the cycle.&nbsp; Wizards is now in the &quot;mature&quot; part of the product cycle and they're looking for stuff to keep the game fresh.&nbsp; When the game was &quot;new&quot; and fresh, they could publish the &quot;core&quot; stuff - like class books, race books, and reworkings of classic 1st edition stuff (Manual of the Planes, Oriental Adventures, etc.)Now, though, they have to come up with new stuff to sell books.&nbsp; That's just how it goes.&nbsp; They're branching into new areas (for them) and its going to be much more likely that there will be misses with products than there were in the earlier days - they're feeling their way around and trying to guess what the public will like.&nbsp; Even with polling and focus groups there's no real way to &quot;know&quot; what's going to sell until you make it and get it on the shelves and see who bites.When TSR hit the &quot;maturity&quot; problem with 2nd edition, their answer was to start pumping out new campaign worlds.&nbsp; A mature 2nd edition saw the introduction of Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Birthright and Planescape.&nbsp; Because WotC has the view that TSR split their own market by making so many campaign settings, Wizards has decided to not go the multiple campaign worlds option - choosing to focus on two worlds instead and to try to make most of their products useful for &quot;generic&quot; campaigns.&nbsp; As Wizards makes new supplements now, I imagine they will be more &quot;hit and miss&quot; than prior supplements were for most people.&nbsp; They're going to be less &quot;core&quot; and more &quot;niche&quot; so they're going to be perceived as less useful overall.&nbsp; On the other hand, there's a better chance that we can get the next revolutionary idea out of something like this than the core material revamps that they've spent much of the last 5+ years doing.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jer, post: 2557749, member: 19857"] Its the cycle. Wizards is now in the "mature" part of the product cycle and they're looking for stuff to keep the game fresh. When the game was "new" and fresh, they could publish the "core" stuff - like class books, race books, and reworkings of classic 1st edition stuff (Manual of the Planes, Oriental Adventures, etc.) Now, though, they have to come up with new stuff to sell books. That's just how it goes. They're branching into new areas (for them) and its going to be much more likely that there will be misses with products than there were in the earlier days - they're feeling their way around and trying to guess what the public will like. Even with polling and focus groups there's no real way to "know" what's going to sell until you make it and get it on the shelves and see who bites. When TSR hit the "maturity" problem with 2nd edition, their answer was to start pumping out new campaign worlds. A mature 2nd edition saw the introduction of Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Birthright and Planescape. Because WotC has the view that TSR split their own market by making so many campaign settings, Wizards has decided to not go the multiple campaign worlds option - choosing to focus on two worlds instead and to try to make most of their products useful for "generic" campaigns. As Wizards makes new supplements now, I imagine they will be more "hit and miss" than prior supplements were for most people. They're going to be less "core" and more "niche" so they're going to be perceived as less useful overall. On the other hand, there's a better chance that we can get the next revolutionary idea out of something like this than the core material revamps that they've spent much of the last 5+ years doing. [/QUOTE]

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