WOTC news??? (Been out of touch...)

[SamusekTDS]

I have been away from ENworld / the newsboards with a busy life of late (no fun/ no games/ no d&d) and I have recently... erm... "ungotten" a life - so I go back to D&D...

Wondering what's the latest scrum with WOTC of late, since the launch of 3.5e (that's about when I stopped frequenting enworld).

Was 3.5 a success? Any consequences...?

Any shakeups/hirings/firings/future plans/mistakes/success/failures/buyouts, etc...

I'd really appreciate if someone could bring me up to speed. (hard to dig through news archives for the "important bits".)
---
Sam.

 

[JPL]

I assume you've already heard about D&D 4.0 [January 2005]?

 

[Crothian]

3.5 seems to be a success in the eye of the gamer. The transition has been smooth, the third party publishees have embraced it and there has been very few good threads that speak against the revision.

 

[SamusekTDS]

I assume you've already heard about D&D 4.0 [January 2005]?

<pause>

You........... *are* kidding, right?

Well, in any case - thx Crothian - any *corporate* WOTC news tho, anyone?
---
Sam.

(And no fair picking on the guy who's been outta the loop!)

 

[Davelozzi]

Core products released since 3.5 include Book of Exalted Deeds (ok, but kind of blah in my opinion), Draconomicon (great, though definately a luxury item), Complete Warrior (significantly improved over earlier splatbooks), and Expanded Psionics Handbook (looks great so far, but expect some significant changes from 3.0).

There's also been a new 3.5 DM's Screen and a set of character sheets. The DM's screen is the best yet in my opinion, and it comes with a d20 Modern GM screen too. I haven't picked up the character sheets (after all I have internet access).

For Forgotten Realms, there's been Underdark (don't have it) and Player's Guide to Faerun (not bad, but a little underwhelming). I could've missed something here as I don't play FR so it's not high on my radar.

There's also been three sets of minis - Harbringer, Dragoneye, and Archfiends, and a Miniatures Handbook that includes rules for the minis game and regular D&D. I don't have it but it's generally got pretty poor reviews, mostly since half of it is aimed at the minis player, and half at the regular D&D player, so everyone ends up feeling like they got a bunch of stuff they didn't need. The minis themselves have been generally well received. Some people don't like the fact that they're random but those folks have generalyl steered clear of them. I have 31 packs and I love 'em. I now have a huge selection of already painted minis that I don't have to be super-anal about caring for. It's definately been worth it for my games.

Other things coming down the pike include Complete Divine, Complete Arcane, Eberron Campaign Setting and a few related follow up products, a couple of racial splat books, a book on undead, more minis, and at least two FR regional books (The Serpent Kingdoms and The Shining South). Again, I could have missed something, but there should be a listing on the main page.

For d20 Modern, there's been the d20 Menace Manual (very good) and a book on guns (I don't have it but it sounds serviceable if uninteresting).

For Star Wars, there's been a book about the Outer Rim worlds, and there is an NPC book upcoming, as well as a set of plastic minis at the end of this summer.

I guess that's about it. I don't recall any recent news about firings or corporate mergers or anything like that.

 

[MerricB]

The biggest news was from WotC at GAMA - a look at their upcoming strategies for D&D.

I transcribed the slides they displayed into these threads:
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=80863
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=80868
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=80862

Basically, WotC intends to support a larger spectrum of players. They will try to introduce new people to D&D through the miniature game and the D&D Basic set due this September.

For people who basically just use the Core Books, they'll create map folios, miniatures and suchlike to help them play the game.

For the rest of us, there's a bunch of supplements coming out: Hero series, Race series, Environment series, Rules series, etc.

Cheers!

 

[Staffan]

There's also been a new 3.5 DM's Screen and a set of character sheets. The DM's screen is the best yet in my opinion

Better than the Kingdoms of Kalamar screen?

I guess that's about it. I don't recall any recent news about firings or corporate mergers or anything like that.

I saw something a while ago about replacing the CEO. The old CEO came from somewhere else within Hasbro to replace one who was suspected of fiddling with stuff he shouldn't be fiddling with (don't recall the exact circumstances), but the new is from somewhere within the WOTC structure.

 

[Davelozzi]

Better than the Kingdoms of Kalamar screen?

I don't have the KoK screen but I've flipped through the Hackmaster one, and I think both are too much. I have a hard enough time remembering where the useful info is on a regular size screen, if I have to flip panels, I might as well just grab the book, which I'm generally a lot more familiar with ayway. In my opinion, the main purpose of a screen is to look pretty and hide notes. Some useful info on the back is nice, but secondary as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Moulin Rogue]

Anyone want to tackle the "decency clause" for third party products? I forget the details but it was a huge controversy for a few days... and now it seems everyone's either forgotten about it, or doesn't think it's worth mentioning now! ...

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Unearthed Arcana, a big book of cool little rules variations and neat things to tack on to a game, came out. I've only paged through it, but it looks nice.