Quote from: jeff37923;912762I want to see the numbers, otherwise it is just talk.

I'm always skeptical of sales numbers, it depends on your definition of lifetime.  Some are still selling 4e on the shelf, do those sales still count, or is 4e considered past its shelf life, so those aren't lifetime sales, but undead sales.

However, I can totally buy GeekMedia having an effect of bringing in new players that didn't happen with other WotC editions, thus making 5e the first of the WotC editions that even gets in stadium parking lot of TSR numbers.

I'm still pretty sure that WotC has no idea why 4e tanked, or why 5e is doing so well, or where 5e's weak spots are, or how to improve much upon the system.  Outsourcing and crowdsourcing all thier supplemental content seems to be working for them, so I don't know that such understanding is even necessary unless they are working on 6th.

Based on what I am seeing in my neck of the woods, I buy it. I am seeing a lot of younger people adopt 5E and get into RPGs through 5E. I've heard from enough folks that the hobby is having a bit of a boom, that I think that might be part of it too. But this is a solid edition. I haven't started it yet myself, but it is D&D I would play and I think they brought back many of the folks who left over 4E, and won over enough of the 3E people to make a difference. Mearl's recent 'live play' comment makes me a little wary of whether they have a handle on why things have improved (like Krueger said) though.

Honestly if I wasn't running two campaigns of my own game right now, I'd be running 5E Ravenloft. Wouldn't have touched 4E with a ten foot pole and 3E, while I liked it, was missing some of the magic for me. 5E, at least on paper, looks like it gets back at some of the stuff that originally drew me in.

Quote from: Alzrius;912761"Less than two years"? You need to check again, since the 5E PHB says right inside it "First printing: August 2014." That certainly matches up with the article from Mike Mearls on August 11, 2014 saying how the 5E PHB had hit the stores "last Friday."

PHB 5e hit stores Aug 19. Less than 2 years old.  And of course the DMG didn't come out until December.

QuoteIt was meaningful for a lot of publishers, and as for "most" players, that's a very loaded term. It was functioning fairly well as an online thing after the first few months, however, once the SRD went up and replaced the initial "gentleman's agreement."

It was far from the first few months.  It was about 2 years in really.

QuoteYeah, no. The "full retail chain" that was in "most malls in America" consisted of fifty-three stores when WotC bought the chain, and after that they planned to open only one hundred "seasonal" locations. So they didn't have a very large presence to begin with, and even then it seems likely that they sold more Magic and Pokemon than D&D.

This is a meaningless quibble.  They had retail stores, a lot of them.  You can argue with someone else about how many but I think we both agree is was a heck of a lot more than they've had for 5e, right?

QuoteHence why I only used it as an example, since it's the best-known instance of what other sites were doing not just at that time, but up through that point. There were a number of websites that hosted the SRD quite early (often alongside other Open Game Content), but most of them have been abandoned over the years, usually due to not wanting to update after the 3.5 changeover (hence why even most of the longest-lived SRD websites that are around today only date back to early 2004) or were overshadowed by other websites doing the same thing. (This happened even to Open Game Content-repository websites that came later; anyone remember the Grand OGL Wiki?)

My point remains nothing was really fully functional and used until years after publication.

QuoteFor example, SystemReferenceDocuments.org was up in early 2004, and is one of the longer-lasting ones today; the same can be said for d20 Resources, which back then was called d20 Exchange. The Open Gaming Foundation website had been up since April of 2000, several months before 3.0 even came out, and was very quick to host the SRD when it was initially released, which makes it admirable for still being around.

Baloney.  While your dates are accurate your statement of what they hosted on those dates is total bullshit.  Both were not usable to play the game, allowing one to not buy a PHB, at those dates.  It took years before each was really hosting all the information needed.  Both were serving as just supplements for some data for the first couple of years.

QuoteThe character generator was the "repository of rules" that I was referring to; that's what made buying the PHB (and myriad supplemental materials) superfluous for a lot of the 4E players that I knew. They much preferred that to having to buy, haul, and reference a large number of books.

The character generator was not a "repository of rules".  It had a "repository of rules" which came three years in.  The initial character generator was not really very functional, had tons of errors ad missinf stuff and a LOT of people constantly complaining about it.  To claim people were forgoing buying the 4e PHB in those first two years because of that POS is laughable.  Eventually it got to that point, but not in those first two years.

QuoteExcept that we can see that this isn't the case. In the first two years, those editions had all of those things, which help to explain why the 5E PHB is selling at the level that it is.

No, they did not, you were fibbing greatly for all of them (or forgetting what content was really there early on).

Quote from: Justin Alexander;912772Sure. But let's keep in mind what "lifetime" means here: 3.0 sales plummeted in 2002 when 3.5 was announced, so it had a meaningful sales lifetime of 3 years. 3.5 had 4 years. 4th Edition had only 2 years before Essentials was announced (and only 4 years in total before 5E was announced).

So 5E's performance is impressive, but let's not pretend that 2 years isn't, in fact, a substantial fraction of D&D edition's lifetime.



5th Edition PHB had an official release date of August 19th, 2014. I'm not really convinced that 5 days counts as 0.25 years.

The "1.75" comment was more about the core books as a set, which didn't finish until December.

Quote from: Mistwell;912800The "1.75" comment was more about the core books as a set, which didn't finish until December.

Yes, but the comparison is PHB to PHB. I wonder if sales of the 4E PHB as part of the gift set are being included. I doubt it would make a difference.

But my response to this news remains my default response to 5E news: "Good for WotC; glad they're doing well; still not sold on the need to buy a revision of a game I own in five previous editions and two variants, and that I've found acceptable but not distinctive in actual play."

Quote from: Vile;912759Maybe people are buying new ones to replace the ones that have fallen apart?

WOTC will replace for free if you send it in. The first printing PHB had some binding issues fir some. One of the later printing MMs had to be recalled.

I really couldn't care less if WotC and by extension Hasbro are doing well or if the corporations evaporate overnight.

If 5e is selling like hotcakes, and bringing new people in, then that is the good news.  If D&D is actually working as a gateway, that's awesome.  It brings people in, and then they move beyond it.

Im curious how well the Starter Set went.

Quote from: Mistwell;912799PHB 5e hit stores Aug 19. Less than 2 years old.  And of course the DMG didn't come out until December.

So now you're claiming that less than a week's difference is "1.75 years"? And how is the DMG relevant when comparing PHB sales across editions? That's leaving aside that a direct quote from Mike Mearls on August 11, 2014 said that the PHB hit the Wizards Play Network stores "last Friday."

QuoteIt was far from the first few months.  It was about 2 years in really.

Are you even bothering to check the links I posted? How was it "2 years" to get the SRD posted when I've already linked to an archived page of the Open Gaming Foundation - that has the dates for when each part of its local hosting went up - showing that most of it was posted by the end of 2000, with the last few bits being there by the following March?

QuoteThis is a meaningless quibble.  They had retail stores, a lot of them.

I do admire how you're answering my citations with baseless assertions here. Damn good presentation of evidence.

QuoteYou can argue with someone else about how many but I think we both agree is was a heck of a lot more than they've had for 5e, right?

Sure, but you have to take that into context against contemporary things like the aforementioned Wizards Play Network, which is a program whereby WotC helps retail outlets that carry their products with promotions to move said products. So the idea that retail sales of 5E PHBs are at some kind of disadvantage compared to when WotC had their direct retail chain selling 3E PHBs is...iffy.

QuoteMy point remains nothing was really fully functional and used until years after publication.

And that point remains wrong.

QuoteBaloney.  While your dates are accurate your statement of what they hosted on those dates is total bullshit.  Both were not usable to play the game, allowing one to not buy a PHB, at those dates.  It took years before each was really hosting all the information needed.  Both were serving as just supplements for some data for the first couple of years.

And again, your assertions in this regard are easily disproven by even a casual glance at the link in question, which unambiguously shows that the SRD was available well within a few months of 3E going live.

QuoteThe character generator was not a "repository of rules".  It had a "repository of rules" which came three years in.  The initial character generator was not really very functional, had tons of errors ad missinf stuff and a LOT of people constantly complaining about it.  To claim people were forgoing buying the 4e PHB in those first two years because of that POS is laughable.  Eventually it got to that point, but not in those first two years.

You seem to have this "two year" rule for a lot of what WotC did, without any sort of data to back it up.

The character generator was certainly buggy at first, but that didn't stop people from using it in lieu of the PHB and other character materials once it got rolling, which was fairly early on. It was the big draw of the DDI in the first place. Just look at this February 2009 update - which is about eight months from 4E's launch date - under the "Recap of the Complete Data Set" header (scroll about halfway down the page). There's already a shit-ton of content there, and that's not taking into account the Compendium or the Monster Builder (which were both live by that point, rather than "three years in"; check out the opening paragraph and the menu in the upper-left corner).

The DDI had a lot of character-building content on it, right out of the gate.

QuoteNo, they did not, you were fibbing greatly for all of them (or forgetting what content was really there early on).

Except that I have evidence to support my claims. Do you?

Jesus Christ on a Pogo Stick.  Some of you are so freakin' bitter.  So 5e is doing good.  Let's forget your hatred of WoTC, you know the company that actually saved D&D as a brand from the mismanagement of Lorraine Williams, and can't you all be happy that D&D is still around, so that your little heartbreakers actually get some legitimacy instead of being seen as pathetic attempts at trying to save a dead game?

Wow.

Quote from: Omega;912747If they do drop it for 6e then sure enough they will claim "It didnt sell well" as the excuse.

I don't know if that is necessarily true. We know that there will be a drop off at some point and they could claim that it stopped selling well. They could also claim they made 6e in response to criticisms about 5e's playability or just as a natural evolution of the series. The one thing we should all know for certain is that there will most definitely be a 6th edition. That's how D&D gets its big influx of cash and shows profitability.

Quote from: Harlock;912822I don't know if that is necessarily true. We know that there will be a drop off at some point and they could claim that it stopped selling well. They could also claim they made 6e in response to criticisms about 5e's playability or just as a natural evolution of the series. The one thing we should all know for certain is that there will most definitely be a 6th edition. That's how D&D gets its big influx of cash and shows profitability.

I think after what happened with 4E though, they realize that new editions are also opportunities for other companies to challenge their dominance. I would be very surprised if 6E isn't D&D 5.75

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;912824I think after what happened with 4E though, they realize that new editions are also opportunities for other companies to challenge their dominance. I would be very surprised if 6E isn't D&D 5.75

Now you mention it, I think you might be very right. My biggest complaint with editions 3 to 5 are that they changed the game "too much" (this is obviously a subjective statement) and that they're no longer D&D. As a consequence, I and many others have been left behind by the game (still my subjective opinion here). I, and in the case of others of like mind, we feel that the player base was fractured, and subsequently fractured again, and we have some resentment about that. I do think you are right in that perhaps 5th to 6th may be more akin to the switch from 1st to 2nd editions.

That's nice to hear. It's the only WotC version I'd play, so I guess my tastes are not all that out of sync with the times (if I actually cared, but still, it's nice to hear,). Though it could just be a spike in "nerd culture" (:rolleyes: ) gaining acceptance and this is just lucky circumstance.

If it's bringing fresh blood into the hobby and people are having fun, well, shame on them don't they know there's starving children in the world, you bundle of -ists shitlords!

Sorry, I think I got my Signs of the Times crossed...

Where is that +1 button....