think that order of the stick will change when 4e comes out?

Quote from: beeberthink that order of the stick will change when 4e comes out?

Possibly, but unless Rogues get more skills I think Belkar might be paying a visit to Wizards.

Quote from: RPGPunditWell, remember that the plan is to apparently release new core books every year. I get the feeling this won't be like the 3.5 DMG II or PHB II were like; it'll be brand new "editions" of the existing books with new rules.  This, apparently is Wizards' answer to the whole problem of declining post-corebook sales.

I guess you are reading too much into this. That scenario is not going to happen.

PHB II (III, IV...) will be new classes, skills and options, but not in the haphazard way of putting them all over place (sourcebooks, adventure modules,...). Maybe they'll be collections of stuff that has been published during the year (even third party OGL stuff, edited to fit the balance of official 4e?), plus new material to lure buyers of said sourcebooks and modules.

MM II (et al) is a no brainer, even TSR has been publishing new monster collections periodically.

The DMG II (++) is the big question mark for me. Probably their nature will be clearer when we are seeing DMG I. (A yearly guide full of generic stuff like encounters, or encouter tables, or villages, cities, islands, dungeons, like a box of building blocks for adventure/campaign design? That would float my boat.)

Quote4e is different. Clearly, their goal is to appeal to the kids who are not current gamers, not just in the 3e sense of "let's make it for the existing fans and hope new people will like it too"; but in the sense of "Lets make it specifically FOR the kids, and hope the existing fans will stick to it as well".

This is always risky, but if it succeeds then 4e could VASTLY outsell 3e.

Just like Pokemon VASTLY outsold Magic The Gathering...

...

(one man can dream...)

Quote from: Caesar SlaadWell, as I was just saying in a thread at TBP, the (open, i.e., by the audience, not designers) playtest period, having just started, seems VERY short, and largely confined to a subset of the audience that is not purely representative of the whole. That in itself worries me.

(Emphasis mine)
Yeah, using the RPG as a playtest platform has some advantages (they will be very good at finding and exploiting loopholes to make characters better), but whom do they represent? The hardest of the hardcore, people who are already sold on most design assumptions. But I wonder if WotC is also looking at new gamers, for example? Or people who like 3.X just fine, and don't see an overwhelming need to update? What do you tell them?

There is a potential trap of preaching to the choir, and another one of selecting from playtest input to reinforce your agenda and rejecting contrarian perspectives as irrelevant.

People are overlooking something on the whole playtest issue. WotC have been playtesting elements of 4E for a number of years now; Bo9S and SWSE explicitly contain test material for the new edition. While they won't have feedback on some of the detailed work, they've been looking at the implications of per encounter powers, simplified skills, etc for a while.

All they need to do is ensure that the various parts mesh well together and with the number of playtesters that the RPGA can put together, they should be able to go through two rounds of that, fine tuning as they go, before publication.

Having raised my head above the parapet can I now just invoke social camoflage and say that Hasbro/WotC/Generic-Big-Business are in it for the money, 4E will suck arse, the glass is always half empty and the sky is falling.

Quote from: Trevelyan. . . and say that Hasbro/WotC/Generic-Big-Business are in it for the money, 4E will suck arse, the glass is always half empty and the sky is falling.

to reply in turn (  )
. . . absolutely, maybe, sometimes, HOLY SHIT WHERE'S THAT SILO ENTRANCE?!?

:haw:

Quote from: RPGPunditNo, see, 3e had a LOT of people playtesting. If you were to tell me that there were that many people playtesting 4e (and that they weren't all Wizards employees and their gaming groups), I'd feel far more secure about all this.

The fact is that by any account, the number of people playtesting 4e is miniscule by comparison to the number of people who had input in the playtesting of 3e. And to me that's a huge mistake.

RPGPundit

On one hand, the significantly shorter playtest period has me worried. It sounds to me as if the majority of playtesting is being done only by one or two small groups of people.

On the other hand, third edition had lots of playtesting and they still ended up needing a 3.5 to tweak several things.

I can't get over my intuition that more playtesting is better, and I hope this approach to limited in-house playtesting doesn't end up hurting fourth edition too much.

The worst thing about 4e is the PR "strategy". Not even Abyssal Maw can keep up enthusiasm with this dribble of underwhelming change announcements.
May I point you all to the fuck up that the DI/Gleemax PR is so far?
Still nobody knows what these things will actually be worth.

Please exite us!

Isn´t "awesome!" an American word?

Here we are now. Entertain us!

My speculation is pretty much this: by releasing the OGL, Wizards did themselves a huge favor, but created a particular kind of issue. They were able to populate the field with hundreds (if not thousands) of core-book-requiring options and issue plenty of splats, not to mention an issuing of 3.5, but that also cuts into the lifespan of printable 3.5 books.

Now, 3.5 is still selling, and it's still popular. I think Wizards has done a good job on the quality of their recent releases, too. (My next paycheck is investing in some of their wonderful looking adventure hard-backs.) But, OTOH, they're starting to issue books that alter core mechanics, and I think a lot of their field-testing was done with books like Tome of Magic and Tome of Battle - pictures of new magic and fighting systems.

Now they're releasing 4e. It caters to a different gaming and management system that sounds like a love-it-or-hate-it issue. Not that their won't be people who are just lukewarm, but it's really driving chatter. People who are turned off 3.5's hard-core resource management system are apt to buy the 4e books. Some people will buy both. But 3.5 is still covered under the OGL, which means I think we'll continue to see 3.5 purchases.

Perhaps even continued 3.5 releases, if not by Wizards, then by 3rd parties. But if that's the case, Wizards might continue to print 3.5 manuals in small quantities just to take advantage of the long-term benifits of the OGL.

Someone commented about how the 'new edition' model is simply 'how things are' in gaming, and the only successful model.


I counter that point by showing you Palladium Games, which has never, to my knowledged, released a 'new edition' that really earned the name, and yet happily stays profitable by simply continuing to keep all their books in print and in circulation.  There is very little, or no, market for out of print palladium books for their core lines.


Obviously this is a slight exaggeration: Macross and the old TMNT books, for example, are Oop, sort of... I suspect liscensing issues more than a desire not to reprint them, and I do believe Palladium Fantasy IS on its second edition, though I also believe it is almost 100% compatable with 1st edition supplements.... thus not actually a true 'new edition'....

Quote from: RPGPunditClearly, their goal is to appeal to the kids who are not current gamers, not just in the 3e sense of "let's make it for the existing fans and hope new people will like it too"; but in the sense of "Lets make it specifically FOR the kids, and hope the existing fans will stick to it as well".

"Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" pops into my head about now.....  

Quote from: SpikeObviously this is a slight exaggeration: Macross and the old TMNT books, for example, are Oop, sort of...

How about their original mechanoids trilogy? That was classic stuff. Wish I had that again.

Quote from: SpikeSomeone commented about how the 'new edition' model is simply 'how things are' in gaming, and the only successful model.


I counter that point by showing you Palladium Games, which has never, to my knowledged, released a 'new edition' that really earned the name, and yet happily stays profitable by simply continuing to keep all their books in print and in circulation.  There is very little, or no, market for out of print palladium books for their core lines.


Obviously this is a slight exaggeration: Macross and the old TMNT books, for example, are Oop, sort of... I suspect liscensing issues more than a desire not to reprint them, and I do believe Palladium Fantasy IS on its second edition, though I also believe it is almost 100% compatable with 1st edition supplements.... thus not actually a true 'new edition'....

I'm actually only in the Market for Palladium OOP stuff. I LOATHE Rifts. But I really like my newly purchased TMNT.

Quote from: SpikeSomeone commented about how the 'new edition' model is simply 'how things are' in gaming, and the only successful model.


I counter that point by showing you Palladium Games, which has never, to my knowledged, released a 'new edition' that really earned the name, and yet happily stays profitable by simply continuing to keep all their books in print and in circulation.

Palladium "happily" beg for money every so often. I wouldn't know how successful they are but they sure claim to be in deep shit. They might be profitable but that's not the impression they want to make.

Even if they are, it's a safe bet that they are the exception that confirms the rule. And at this point, it isn't clear whether they refuse to overhaul the line by choice or by default. They simply don't have the ressources to pull it off, seeing as they cancel and delay products constantly.

But this is still missing the point anyway. Of course, WotC could sit on their asses and live off 3.x for another 3, 6, perhaps 9 years. It still wouldn't make any sense because that would be flushing money away. All the 3.x books one might want are out there already. Not making a new edition is simply looking at an opportunity and not ceasing it. Much like Palladium.

Especially with the d20 license and the OGL (which Palladium doesn't have), the sweet spot to release a new edition is probably somewhere between 4 and 6 years.