Quote from: estar;507302In fact I consider the 4e DMG the second best after AD&D 1st.

I can't agree on this point due to the tyranny of fun.

Quote from: jhkimWas this towards me?  I think the lack of minis sales seems like a symptom of not getting enough new players.  I would note, though, that the new D&D boardgames - Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, and Legend of Drizzt - seem to be doing extremely well.  The latter was for a time selling better than Monopoly on Amazon, though it has since dropped back in ranking to currently the #90 board game.  

That's interesting. I haven't much followed the boardgame side of things.

According to Dancey there was a significant digital initiative, including an online gametable, that was planned as part of the 4E launch.  Hasbro yanked funding/support for it at the last minute.  I'm sure that gimping one of the core elements of the marketing strategy right out of the gate hurt the product.

Oh yeah, moving errata and most other articles online behind a paywall was an incredibly stupid decision. I refuse to pay money for online services like that. I'm betting a lot of other people were the same way.

Quote from: daniel_ream;507316According to Dancey there was a significant digital initiative, including an online gametable, that was planned as part of the 4E launch.  Hasbro yanked funding/support for it at the last minute.  I'm sure that gimping one of the core elements of the marketing strategy right out of the gate hurt the product.

I thought according to Dancey that an important member of the DDI team was the perpetrator of a murder-suicide and that gimped the launch.

Quote from: two_fishes;507320I thought according to Dancey that an important member of the DDI team was the perpetrator of a murder-suicide and that gimped the launch.

Source?

Or am I missing a joke?

Quote from: beejazz;507321Source?

Or am I missing a joke?

http://kotaku.com/5032443/xbox-developer-dead-in-murder+suicide

Both of them were working on the DDI in key ways, IIRC.

I'm clearly confusing it with something else, then.  Regardless of my gap-ridden memory, that surely didn't help.

Something I haven't seen mentioned before: IMO the core of the D&D game since 1978 is the Player's Handbook.  That's what potential new players buy; that's what hooks them or drives them away.

WoTC released the PHB before it was ready.  It's boring, badly presented, and errated to hell.  The Essentials books just mucked things up further by confusing new players - IMO new players are still arriving at my Meetup with PHBs, never "Heroes of...".

So: get the PHB right this time.

Certainly, a flipping off of "old school" gamers hurt (even if this insult wasn't intentional, it was perceived, so it IS a failure on the part of their PR).

Blowing the online component in a huge way hurt. Having messed up rules that required extensive errata hurt. Even though it was D&D in name only, we all still played, doing our best to figure out how to fix a magnificently broken system.

The final nail in the coffin: Essentials. That's when the game ended for my group. Now to bring new players in, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. Sometimes they have Essentials, sometimes Red Box, sometimes the (obsolete) books, and just to 'create a character' is a mess. My higher level campaign players had no idea what to do with it...these were guys that obsessively bought every book, even after I announced a moratorium at PHB3. But after Essentials, that was the end.

Essentials was fine, but the issue of side-by-side rulesets was just too much, in a game where so much of the books were already obsolete.

Quote from: Doom;507336The final nail in the coffin: Essentials. That's when the game ended for my group. Now to bring new players in, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. Sometimes they have Essentials, sometimes Red Box, sometimes the (obsolete) books, and just to 'create a character' is a mess. My higher level campaign players had no idea what to do with it...these were guys that obsessively bought every book, even after I announced a moratorium at PHB3. But after Essentials, that was the end.

Essentials was fine, but the issue of side-by-side rulesets was just too much, in a game where so much of the books were already obsolete.

This is why I really hope 5e doesn't split the line as a way of introducing modularity (as others have suggested). Loss of clarity regarding the intro product is potentially a very bad thing.

Quote from: beejazz;507337This is why I really hope 5e doesn't split the line as a way of introducing modularity (as others have suggested). Loss of clarity regarding the intro product is potentially a very bad thing.

I think the whole multiple rule book thing has been putting them at a disadvantage for a while. Most games have one book our an easy to identify set of core books that you need to play. If it is built with expansion in mind, I think a lot of people will just go with other games.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;507338I think the whole multiple rule book thing has been putting them at a disadvantage for a while. Most games have one book our an easy to identify set of core books that you need to play. If it is built with expansion in mind, I think a lot of people will just go with other games.

while i would love to see a "one volume" d&d, isn't the 3 volume model part of the product identity?  not counting stuff like moldvay basic, the RC, etc.  still, i think a one core book product would be a good modernizing step, easier to bring in new folks.

Quote from: beeber;507341while i would love to see a "one volume" d&d, isn't the 3 volume model part of the product identity?  not counting stuff like moldvay basic, the RC, etc.  still, i think a one core book product would be a good modernizing step, easier to bring in new folks.

The PHB, DMG, MM trio is fine. I am talking about multiple players handbooks and just the general unchecked expansion of the mechanics. I think for new customers it is a bit dizzying.

You know, I think we're overlooking the BIGGEST reason 4e failed:

not enough 4vengers

If only there'd been more people at every turn on open RPG forums telling people who enjoyed 3.5, 3.0, AD&D 2e, AD&D, original and basic of all its various stripes that they were dumb, that their opinions were dumb, that 4e was the pinnacle of game design, questioning the mindset and intelligence of people who didn't want to "evolve" or even worse people who'd go back and non-ironically play those earlier versions, 4e would have lived.

That's what my time here on theRPGsite and reading other forums has taught me.  At least that's what I take away from it.  Those poor guys they were being so screechy and hateful in an attempt to clap to keep Tinkerbell alive as it were.