Quote from: S'mon;645702What did they do to push 4e to non-gamers? Genuine question, I really have no idea what if any marketing there was to non-gamers?

Well, really, why wouldn't they? You have a product so completely different from past products, you may as well try to get a whole new userbase.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;647644And if the product wasn't crap, they might have succeeded.

If you push all the crap out of 4E, what's left to it?

JG

I find that an interesting perspective. I find myself being inundated with new Pathfinder games, content and Kickstarter projects. I simply can't keep track of it all. I consider Paizo the big dog in the RPG market at the moment. Obviously that is not  a belief held by everyone. Perhaps this is an act of self-selection.

Quote from: James Gillen;647821If you push all the crap out of 4E, what's left to it?

Very little, IMHO. Some great Dark Sun campaign material, I hear.

And...

Uh...

I...

I got nothin'.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;647986Very little, IMHO. Some great Dark Sun campaign material, I hear.

And...

Uh...

I...

I got nothin'.

There are some excellent source books:  Open Grave, the Plane Above, the Plane Below, Underdark, Demonomicon, and Manual of the Planes. Monster Vault is good, and includes tons of useful markers/chits.  But, IMO, some of these books are the best on the topics for D&D.

Quote from: James Gillen;647821If you push all the crap out of 4E, what's left to it?

JG

An empty sack that was once filled with crap.

Oh, and some boardgames with miniatures.

Quote from: Mistwell;646931It truly stuns me when I see comments like this.  It hasn't come out yet, and yet you have decided you have a handle on the likelihood it will do well, from your own personal echo chamber of experience with an infinitesimally small fraction of the gaming community?

I tell yah, sometimes I question the value of internet message boards for getting an objective survey of views.  It seems to bring out the worst in people way more often than anything else.

You're not gonna start "Mistwelling" the thread, are ya?

Anyone can come to these conclusions after visiting multiple Internet websites, and paying attention to the prevailing mood of gamers out there.

And the current mood towards 5e is....meh.



The pic above says it all. Don't believe me? Google it. Seriously, google either D&D Next or D&D 5e, with the key words, "meh", "apathy", or "I don't care". There are probably lots of other phrases I'm not thinking of. I googled these phrases because people were continuously expressing apathy about 5e, and I wanted to see what was going on. And if it matters, you even have people in this very forum who make it clear that they probably aren't going to pick up 5e sight unseen like they would have with previous games.

That's bad. :pundit:

And as far as prognostication goes, I was mostly on point in regards to predicting how things would evolve for Pathfinder and 4e, and I even touched briefly on the rest of the market. So...yes, I trust my judgement over yours. If you'd like an example of my ability to prognosticate, then read this thread from early 2008, and bask in my brilliance...

[4E predictions]For the record...  http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=9486

What might kill 5e won't be hate, but just plain apathy.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;648000You're not gonna start "Mistwelling" the thread, are ya?

Anyone can come to these conclusions after visiting multiple Internet websites, and paying attention to the prevailing mood of gamers out there.

And the current mood towards 5e is....meh.



The pic above says it all. Don't believe me? Google it. Seriously, google either D&D Next or D&D 5e, with the key words, "meh", "apathy", or "I don't care". There are probably lots of other phrases I'm not thinking of. I googled these phrases because people were continuously expressing apathy about 5e, and I wanted to see what was going on. And if it matters, you even have people in this very forum who make it clear that they probably aren't going to pick up 5e sight unseen like they would have with previous games.

That's bad. :pundit:

And as far as prognostication goes, I was mostly on point in regards to predicting how things would evolve for Pathfinder and 4e, and I even touched briefly on the rest of the market. So...yes, I trust my judgement over yours. If you'd like an example of my ability to prognosticate, then read this thread from early 2008, and bask in my brilliance...

[4E predictions]For the record...  http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=9486

What might kill 5e won't be hate, but just plain apathy.

And if you google it with positive keywords you also find tons of those posts as well.  I mean, come on dude, you intentionally biased it for a word, and then in that vacuum you declared it representative with nothing else.

I've seem many threads where people are thrilled with what they've seen so far.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;648000And the current mood towards 5e is....meh.

People who spend all day posting about D&D on RPG forums tend to be deeply invested in an existing edition. WotC is clearly aiming at the more casual, flexible crowd with Next. If WotC is gambling with Next, it's on whether there's still a casual RPG market out there.

I think there is. I doubt half my players even know WotC publishes D&D, let alone have the sort of intensely emotional reaction to the company that so many regular RPG forum posters have.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;648000The pic above says it all. Don't believe me? Google it. Seriously, google either D&D Next or D&D 5e, with the key words, "meh", "apathy", or "I don't care". There are probably lots of other phrases I'm not thinking of. I googled these phrases because people were continuously expressing apathy about 5e, and I wanted to see what was going on. And if it matters, you even have people in this very forum who make it clear that they probably aren't going to pick up 5e sight unseen like they would have with previous games.

D&D Next "meh" got 1,760,000 hits

D&D Next "apathy" got 5,950,000 hits

D&D Next "I Don't Care" got 2,840,000 results

D&D Next "I hate it" got 2,570,000 hits

BUT!

D&D Next "yay" got 7,640,000 hits

D&D Next "I am Excited" got 1,670,000 hits

D&D Next "eager" got 13,100,000 hits

D&D Next "About time" got 9,900,000 hits

D&D Next "can't wait" got 1,810,000 results


....proving that this may be a terrible way to prove anything unless you're in to data mining.

There's no "casual, flexible crowd" that will be interested in D&D. Those people simply go to video games for their fantasy gaming fix.

D&D-anything is aimed at a 40 and over crowd who want to relive their youth, buying anything with the D&D name attached because, well, D&D.

Any time I encounter gaming with a teen involved, they're interested in this weird, anachronistic hobby only because their dad or uncle got them involved; it used to be 'older brother' but that's over. Older brothers nowadays pass on their older generation video games, they don't pass on a legacy of playing D&D.

Ask most teens about D&D and I suspect that either they'll know it from pop culture references only (via Big Bang Theory, etc.) and any rep it has is simply some kind a dorky game that an older generation played in the 1980s before there were cool video games.

Quote from: Ian Noble;648098There's no "casual, flexible crowd" that will be interested in D&D. Those people simply go to video games for their fantasy gaming fix.

D&D-anything is aimed at a 40 and over crowd who want to relive their youth, buying anything with the D&D name attached because, well, D&D.

Any time I encounter gaming with a teen involved, they're interested in this weird, anachronistic hobby only because their dad or uncle got them involved; it used to be 'older brother' but that's over. Older brothers nowadays pass on their older generation video games, they don't pass on a legacy of playing D&D.

Ask most teens about D&D and I suspect that either they'll know it from pop culture references only (via Big Bang Theory, etc.) and any rep it has is simply some kind a dorky game that an older generation played in the 1980s before there were cool video games.

Not in my town. There's a thriving local crowd for games, and most of the teen gamers into D&D arrive by way of playing Magic or talking to other friends their own age. Most of these players don't even begin to crossover into the older groups like mine until they've gone off to college. There is literally two entirely separate worlds locally for gaming, delineated by age and experience.

People like to hang around with other people, drinking and eating while doing fun stuff. RPGs provide that gateway, for people of all ages.

Quote from: Ian Noble;648098There's no "casual, flexible crowd" that will be interested in D&D. Those people simply go to video games for their fantasy gaming fix.

D&D-anything is aimed at a 40 and over crowd who want to relive their youth, buying anything with the D&D name attached because, well, D&D.

Any time I encounter gaming with a teen involved, they're interested in this weird, anachronistic hobby only because their dad or uncle got them involved; it used to be 'older brother' but that's over. Older brothers nowadays pass on their older generation video games, they don't pass on a legacy of playing D&D.

Ask most teens about D&D and I suspect that either they'll know it from pop culture references only (via Big Bang Theory, etc.) and any rep it has is simply some kind a dorky game that an older generation played in the 1980s before there were cool video games.

The casual crowd doesn't have to be teenagers. A lot of 40-something gamers don't have the time or inclination to master 300 pages of rules and play RPGs where a combat with five orcs takes over an hour. But they may very well get back into the game with a version that plays quickly, with moderate rules overhead, and modern presentation and game mechanics.

And retro-clones simply aren't on the radar of anyone outside the fraction of RPGers who hang out on forums. Most people like handsomely designed and printed books with professional layout and artwork. And yeah, the D&D name still matters to a lot of people.

Quote from: Haffrung;648103And retro-clones simply aren't on the radar of anyone outside the fraction of RPGers who hang out on forums.

AND the people they play with, who never bothered with forums or the RPG "scene" or whatever else like this. People who then might play games with other people like themselves without ever bothering with message boards, people and groups who will never register on the radar of the hardcore RPG gamer on the internet.

Lest we forget, RPGs have always been mostly propagated by people, not game companies, by people playing the games with other people who didn't know them. And that's still going on. Though it seems nobody gives a flying fuck about them on internet forums these days, the sentiment is reciprocal: they don't give a shit about internet forums either, and play the games they like with the people they like.

OR people who never stopped playing the game of their choice, whatever that is, and likewise never bothered with RPG forums in the first place. This is the case of the vast majority of gamers I know both in France or Canada, people who are still playing TSR D&D, AH RuneQuest, Nephilim 2e, Vampire the Masquerade, James Bond 007 or whatever suits their fancy. These too are people most hardcore forumers would call "casuals" who in fact, still play a game every month or three or six, and are very happy not to be digging into the new RPG.net/ENWorld/whatever darling of the moment.

The hardcore RPG gamer/designer new shiny and "RPG as technology" bullshit completely flies over the heads of these people. With good reason.