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Diffan
Great Reader
USA
4438 Posts |
 Posted - 24 Jan 2011 : 17:33:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Knight of the Gate
The aspect of all of this that's(to me, at least) MIND-BLOWING is that Hasbro is essentially now in a neck-and-neck competition with its OWN IP: The Folks at Paizo (many blessings upon them, for I love their work) did not come up with their system from scratch- it's a revamp of Hasbro's own d20 rules. This says to me that Hasbro gaveup on the well while it still had a great deal of water to pump. In business, it's *never* a good sign when you abandon a strong product for a questionable one.
Please note that I'm not saying that 4E doesn't have its merits or its aficionados; it clearly has both. What I'm saying is that this is like Microsoft (long the industry leader in its field) abandoning Windows to go to a totally different interface called 'Doors', and seeing Texas Instruments release 'Windows '11' to huge sales amid thousands of blog posts insisting that any consumer who buys 'Doors' is just falling for a money-grab on Microsoft's part. IMO, it was an ill-considered move, and one which any number of execs at WotC and Hasbro would LOVE to take back, despite its successes. It's as though Coca-Cola went with New Coke while Pepsi started mass-producing Coke Classic to rave reviews. I hope that the new competitiveness is good for the industry, but I worry that Wizbro will just ditch the FR IP, never to be seen again.
Lets say that Wizards didn't put out 4E. Lets say they re-vamped 3.5 and did exactly what Paizo did. Even going so far as to create a new in-house setting just like Golarion. How many people would buy it? Why shift further down the OGL line for a more "simpler" set of rules? I think we would've heard the same old song and dance of it being a money grab (like v3.5 was apparently). I think less people would've bought it or only bought the core role book and converted everything else they own WITHOUT the other supplements. I mean, why bother with v3.75 when the conversion is so simple and much cheaper then shelling out another couple hundred for a few extra "special" feats, PrCs, and Skill usages?
I feel Wizards left d20/OGL/v3.5 behind because it was becoming less of a money maker. Even if they were to put out more supplements detailing a whole, brand new world it woudl've only gained them a few years and further saturation of the market. I mean, if you look at some of the later products such as the Tome of Magic, Tome of Battle, and Spell Compendium many DMs will say they don't allow those products in their games. Is this because the products aren't good? No, they're easily incorpoated into any existing v3.5 D&D game. Is the content over-powered? No, at least not when you compare them to the standard, OGL/PHB classes such as the cleric, druid, sorcerer, or wizard. This is a prime example that futher supplements would've been met with the same criticism and that criticism would've exploded frurther with ANY edition revison or change Wizards published.
Honestly, the reason why Paizo is doing so well is because people hate change and change is exactly what happend. It wasn't the same from previous edition changes where there wasn't really anything else to fall back on. With Paizo maintaining their own form of d20/OGL, people now have that option of stayin (well pretty close) with the previous system rather than being pushed down the 4E path.
If Wizards was smart, they'd open up 4E to 3rd party publishers and actually allow the system to grow rather than being saturated with their own material. This may be bad in the long run but it will reach futher gamers and produce more creativity for a solid system. |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36803 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jan 2011 : 18:18:40
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quote:
Originally posted by Diffan
Honestly, the reason why Paizo is doing so well is because people hate change and change is exactly what happend. It wasn't the same from previous edition changes where there wasn't really anything else to fall back on. With Paizo maintaining their own form of d20/OGL, people now have that option of stayin (well pretty close) with the previous system rather than being pushed down the 4E path.
I don't think it has anything at all to do with hating change. A lot of Pathfinder players rode the system changes from 2 to 3.0 to 3.5 to Pathfinder. That's a lot of changes for people that don't like change.
I myself readily embraced 3.x and now Pathfinder. Why? Because I thought it was a good system, orders of magnitude better than 2E, which I grew up in. I don't embrace 4E because I don't feel the same way about it. Not trying to start an edition war; it's just a simple fact: 4E is not a system that appeals to me. It has nothing to do with change.
Heck, playing new games is change... BattleTech used to be the only minis-based wargame I played. Now I'm loving Warmachine (Cygnar!).
And what made me switch from Dragonlance to the Forgotten Realms was the fact that at the time, I felt that Dragonlance was too stagnant and unchanging. The Realms were not.
People can dislike a particular ruleset for reasons other than disliking change.
quote:
Originally posted by Diffan
If Wizards was smart, they'd open up 4E to 3rd party publishers and actually allow the system to grow rather than being saturated with their own material. This may be bad in the long run but it will reach futher gamers and produce more creativity for a solid system.
They tried to, with the GSL. And a lot of companies balked at signing a license that said things like "yeah, we can pull your license at any time without warning, and it's up to you to check that" or "yeah, if you produce 4E material, you can't produce material for any prior editions".
The OGL did exactly what you said, and it did it in perpetuity -- that's why Paizo can do what they're doing, and do it for the next 100+ years. WotC's lawyers apparently did not want to do that again. |
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Edited by - Wooly Rupert on 24 Jan 2011 18:20:37 |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31772 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jan 2011 : 00:39:11
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
And what made me switch from Dragonlance to the Forgotten Realms was the fact that at the time, I felt that Dragonlance was too stagnant and unchanging. The Realms were not.
Only for a time.
I know Wooly and I have been over this during many prior discussions, but I can't let something like this pass. The notion of DRAGONLANCE as stagnant and unchanging is, at most, a common misconception. Yes, it did run into a period of repetitive story-telling with the same characters over and over again. But that's true of most fictional worlds that have 20+ years of published history behind them. Heck, I've seen and heard this as part of the argument for why the Spellplague was introduced into the Realms. Because the prior Realms was "same-old, same-old."
The fact remains, now, that DL is an entirely vibrant world that has embraced a new dynamic of character development and plot-line evolution. Maybe not to the same extent of the 4e Realms, but it was a successful change that garnered both new and old readers alike.
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Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
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see
Learned Scribe
235 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jan 2011 : 03:19:03
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quote:
Originally posted by Diffan
Lets say that Wizards didn't put out 4E. Lets say they re-vamped 3.5 and did exactly what Paizo did. Even going so far as to create a new in-house setting just like Golarion. How many people would buy it?
Pretty much everybody, if grumbling, just like with the 3-to-3.5 switch.
Now, in the face of WotC issuing a Pathfinder-alike (or Saga SWRPG-alike) as the successor to 3.5, how many people do you think would have bought a 4e-alike launched by Paizo as an alternative? Given the relative success of fantasy heartbreakers in the last 20 years, my bet would be "not enough to put it even in the #3 sales slot."
quote:
Originally posted by Diffan
I feel Wizards left d20/OGL/v3.5 behind because it was becoming less of a money maker.
I expect that was their calculation, too, back in 2008. However, the current sales figures prove that 4e, backed by the biggest brand name in the RPG industry, is in reality no better a moneymaker than 3.x put out by a virtual nobody. |
Edited by - see on 25 Jan 2011 03:24:05 |
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The future of 4E
