WotC Question

[AeroDm]

First let me say that for the most part I don't know enough about the 'corporate actions' of WotC to make any decisions about them, but I do know that they produce a very quality game. This is not intended to flame Wizards or anything even similar, I just wanted to find out about this rumor I pulled up at 3rdedition.org.

Oh, anyone notice how many of the open d20 games aren't on shelves anymore? Rumor has it the new 3.5 open license agreement requires that any non-3.5 compliant d20 games be pulled and replaced with updated books. Most of the smaller publishers can not afford to replace the stock. This is something I have been told but have not yet been able to verify. Anyone out there have any info that would prove/disprove this rumor?

So- can anyone verify or discredit this? Thanks.

 

[MerricB]

Very definitely not true.

Can you post a link to the 3rdedition.org discussion where you picked this up? I'll go and berate them a bit. (So says the "Killer DM" on those boards ).

Cheers!

 

[Darrin Drader]

So- can anyone verify or discredit this? Thanks.

This is easily discredited. I am a WotC employee and I've done a bit of design work for both WotC and a couple 3rd party publishers.

If the question is whether or not 3.0 materials are still on the shelves - they are. Some places that only carry what they think they can sell in 90 days will probably not have many 3.0 products on their shelves anymore because they have presumable sold. I've recently visited a couple gaming stores in this area that still sell some of the first open d20 releases.

If the question is whether or not 3rd party publishers were forced to switch to 3.5, they did not. The majority of them chose to do so in order to make their new products comaptible with the current version of the game. Once the 3.0 SRD was released, it remains released and anyone can go back and use it if they wish to do so. Also, nowhere in the OGL does it state that you must use the most recently released version of the SRD.

If the question is whether licensed products, like Ravenloft, Dragonlance, or Kalamar were forced to switch or even revise their own existing products, I honestly don't know the answer to that, but I don't think that's the question at hand. I know Sovereign Press didn't start releasing their licensed Dragonlance products until 3.5 was released, so that really only leaves Kalamar and Ravenloft. I would suggest posting this question to their boards to see what kind of information they can divulge.

I hope that sheds some light on your question.

 

[AeroDm]

Thanks for the hasty replies. Merric, berate them like they are players!

http://pub175.ezboard.com/f3ebb85430frm6.showMessage?topicID=3096.topic

 

[Nightfall]

Or just berate them for being stupid. That has to top one of the stupidest rumors I ever heard. And I thought Ben Affleck and J-Lo getting hitched was silly.

 

[vrykyl]

At Sovereign Press we have both pre- and post-3.5 choices. Sovereign Stone was created using the 3.0 SRD and still supports the original d20 System rules, while the new incarnation of Dragonlance was one of the first product lines completely designed for using the updated 3.5 rules.

We might update Sovereign Stone to 3.5 at some point, but that's on the horizon.

Cheers!

Jamie Chambers
Vice President
Sovereign Press, Inc.
www.sovpress.com