D&D 4E Would you still play 4e?

[Rampant]

Unless 5e is as much of an improvement over 4e as 4e was over 3.x, I doubt I'll stop playing 4e.

 

[underfoot007ct]

5e is at least 18 months away so you guys finishing campaigns is pretty likely. I'm talking about when the 4e versions of DDI goes offline; would you still play beyond that point?

What makes you think DDI will go off-line when D&D next comes out? Maybe maybe not. If people are still subscribing, will WOTC turn down that income, I'm not so sure. Maybe when they will or maybe they will keep 4e support until demand diminishes.

Regardless, I will have my 4e books and can play 4e as long as like minded people are still willing to play.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

What makes you think DDI will go off-line when D&D next comes out? (snip)

For two reasons:

1. The powers-that-be in WotC will determine that having the 4E tools still on the site is encouraging people to continue to play 4E instead of embracing D&DNext.

2. The folks who made the promise that WotC will continue supporting the 4E tools will lose their jobs in the next couple of years as part of the usual WotC retrenchments so there will be nobody around to argue that they already promised to keep the tools. (That's not cynicism; that's simply the way WotC works.)

DDi is still going to be there but it won't be focussed on 4E.

 

[Saagael]

If DDI goes offline, the biggest hit will be the compendium, specifically the list of all published monsters. However, my next campaign will be heavily modified and house ruled with all custom items. I already make most of my own monsters anyway. Players have books they can use, and I've got a library of ebooks I can use for reference anyway.

I'll stick with 4e with what 5e looks like right now. I'm not too worried.

 

[Blue]

Back when the errata was heavy, I made the choice that I'd rather pay an ongoing subscription than buy new books, since the books would quickly get swiss-cheesed with errata. So while I have many of the early 4e book, I have none of th later and instead access that material via my DDI account. So if DDI for 4e went away, I wouldn't be able to play like I do now with all the material.

Basically, at that point there was so much errata that books only made little sense, DDI only was very doable, and books + DDI didn't bring enough over just DDI. Maybe a while after 5e comes out I'll finish collecting 4e books when people start to dump them cheap, they have gotten a cap on the errata.

(Note: I think the errata was good for the game, and all the subsystem and re-balancing changes advanced it to at least 4.2e. It just made the books out-of-date quickly.)

 

[Incenjucar]

I'll continue running 4E so long as I have people who want to play and a place to play in, or until something appears that learns the lessons of 4E and takes them to the next level, complete with a competing range of options.

4E has its share of flaws, but it's much closer to my ideal fantasy game than any other version of D&D I've played, and while I am now starting to explore outside of D&D in a meaningful way for the first time since the 90s, I haven't seen anything that can compete with it.

 

[AeroDm]

If Wizards stop supporting 4e at all, I imagine someone will eventually produce a superior digital tool to what currently exists. As soon as additional content stops being produced, collecting and presenting it all will be eminently doable. Hence I think lack of DDI support will be a short lived problem. The reason I'd jump to 5e is that it is fun to have new toys and the new edition is the best source to supply that. Admittedly, not a great reason.

 

[Balesir]

Absolutely I will continue running 4e! Having seen the "Wizards' way" with 3.X and earlier, I have made sure I kept the offline tools and suitable customisation software, so my contingency plans are all in place to keep me sailing with 4e whatever WotC decide. The way 5e is shaping up now - especially the philosophy Mike Mearls is outlining for DMing - it's very likely that 4e will continue to be my game of choice for D&D gamist fun.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Depends on whether I move to Next or not. If not, then I'll probably try to make it work with the old monster and character builder I still have and work very hard to ensure that I don't lose it. Failing that, I'll do it the old-fashioned* way.

*) I don't mean old-fashined as in stone tablets or pencil and paper. I mean Word documents, with nicely formated tables for the powers.

 

[Dragonblade]

What makes you think DDI will go off-line when D&D next comes out? Maybe maybe not. If people are still subscribing, will WOTC turn down that income, I'm not so sure. Maybe when they will or maybe they will keep 4e support until demand diminishes.

Regardless, I will have my 4e books and can play 4e as long as like minded people are still willing to play.

I don't see any need for WotC to discontinue 4e DDI support. It would be one thing if the tools were free, then you could make a financial argument that its acting as a barrier preventing players from upgrading to 5e.

But as long as they continue to generate revenue for WotC, hell they would be crazy to turn it off! Especially, if DDI subs start offering functionality for both 4e and then 5e. Why not have your cake and eat it too?

Especially, once the 4e tools go into maintenance, there aren't even really dev costs anymore beyond the occasional errata update and keeping the servers on. Thats almost pure profit!

If I was WotC I would obviously focus on 5e as the actively supported edition, but I would seriously develop a digital strategy around prior edition support. With 4e its all online already. They just need PDF sales and some way of making the other prior editions available online, I think it could really turn it into something big.

It could be a huge central hub for D&D players of any edition, and if its all sub based, it could actually allow them to get to the kind of crazy profit numbers that Hasbro wants to see.