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1 year ago ::
May 03, 2012 - 6:33PM
#41
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Date Joined:
Apr 24, 2007
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So yeah... how long do you think a company can survive with one edition of a game alone, and nothing ever else? Tell me.
I think, for a company owning the brand of D&D and all its related intellectual properties, 20 years is viable. I've seen 22 (I consider 1e/2e the same more or less), and so far fans are into their twelfth year of supporting 3e with their money, without a sign of dropping off yet. If Paizo had the brand name and IPs like Forgotten Realms in their possession I'd feel very confident that they could continue 3e until 2020, or 2015 at the least, before having to rewrite the rules.
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1 year ago ::
May 03, 2012 - 6:55PM
#42
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I've seen 22 (I consider 1e/2e the same more or less)
So at least one more or less major rules-update and resetting of the release-schedule to bring out the usual supplements yet again.
and so far fans are into their twelfth year of supporting 3e with their money, without a sign of dropping off yet.
This one even contains three resets of rule-set and most importantly splat-content. As can be seen from the early class-supplements of 3E, which were later replaced with newer titles with (sometimes widely) overlapping content.
So yeah, we're stuck with 10 years at best (20 divided by 2, see my first point) for an edition that existed in the (more or less) pre-internet times, when life didn't pass by so quickly as it seems to do today.
The important part that you seem not to notice, is that the 3.5 and PF version of 3E allowed the respective companies to put forward content that has been widely worked on before - class-splats for example. This obviously extends the lifespan a bit.
Still, I think 6 years is pretty much the maximum in the current state of affairs, considering at least one book release a month. Maybe up to 7, but certainly not more, IMO.
If you have questions about 4th Edition - don't hesitate to ask me via PMs. Join the Community Monster Manual Group and help to collect a mass of monsters which will make your life as DM easier, and your life as Player pure hell!  I am a cartographer. You can find some of my maps in my profile, free for non-commercial use. Also, if you happen to like maps or make them yourselves, join into the Cartographers Group!
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1 year ago ::
May 03, 2012 - 7:17PM
#43
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Date Joined:
Apr 24, 2007
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The important part that you seem not to notice, is that the 3.5 and PF version of 3E allowed the respective companies to put forward content that has been widely worked on before - class-splats for example. This obviously extends the lifespan a bit.
Obviously. But that's well within tolerances for me. Minor refreshes like 2e, 3.5e and Pathfinder do not constitute a new edition to me, and in that context I think having an "edition" (or whatever you want to call it, a super-edition or something) of cross-compatible product (Sunless Citadel, the first 3e adventure, is still 90% compatible with Pathfinder) last 20 years is a viable goal.
The very existence of Pathfinder demonstrates that 3e was not ready to be retired, and the ruleset still has years left in it.
If you're more interested in discussing the time gap between minor refreshes like 3.5 or Pathfinder (rather than across "supereditions" like 1e/2e, 3.x), then I'd estimate in the same ballpark -- I might even say 6-7 years is pushing it a little. In the current market I'd say 4-5 years between minor refreshes would be pretty safe.
In short I think 3e needed a "minor refresh", the sort that Pathfinder gave it. An entirely new, incompatible edition, was premature with 4e. I think rather than 3.5>4e>4Ess>5e it would have been a viable business path to do 3.5>3.75>even a 3.9 minor refresh around 2014, before doing an entirely new 4e ruleset as 2020 was approaching.
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1 year ago ::
May 03, 2012 - 8:14PM
#44
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
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Personally I think 4 to 5 years is annoying but I also think stagnation is bleh... so I cant decide.
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1 year ago ::
May 04, 2012 - 12:46AM
#45
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Samy and leich both make some good points.
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1 year ago ::
May 04, 2012 - 3:57AM
#46
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Samy and leich both make some good points.
Thanks.
The very existence of Pathfinder demonstrates that 3e was not ready to be retired, and the ruleset still has years left in it.
That would indicate that 2E was not ready to be retired, 1E was not ready to be retired and no edition ever will be ready to retire. Retroclones and Variants will always exist for any given edition, and a part of the fans will always stay behind. The popularity of PF has to do with the internet being around so that the company could actually advertise itself better, with 4E being very different from 3.5E and similar things, most notably the grave error that the OGL was.
In short I think 3e needed a "minor refresh", the sort that Pathfinder gave it. An entirely new, incompatible edition, was premature with 4e. I think rather than 3.5>4e>4Ess>5e it would have been a viable business path to do 3.5>3.75>even a 3.9 minor refresh around 2014, before doing an entirely new 4e ruleset as 2020 was approaching.
Honestly, from my point of view D&D was bleeding customers. Staying with the 3E ruleset until 2014 would have been strictly economical suicide. You read lots of people getting sick and tired of 3E and searching for alternatives. What 4E did was reinvirogate fans that liked the system and felt betrayed or just didn't like it and still wanted to play something related to D&D. The consumer-base is still there. Just not as big as it once was. At the same time 4E lost potential customers (although I still argue mostly by ways of presentation, not actual mechanics), but was still profitable and going good.
20 years for the edition of a game is, in todays market, a ridiculous assumption. Unless you go the Classic BattleTech way or the Exalted way you will end up with a heavily stagnated system, with no refresh in sight. As for the references... the last major rules book for BattleTech, Interstellar Operations, is one I still await. After at least four or five years of waiting it is not yet out. Not even in sight. Five Years. And I am pretty sick of waiting and have switched to another game by now, Warmachine.
20 years means you have to do multiple ".5" thingies and essentially *bleep* over your customer by re-printing and re-visiting stuff you've already done. Publish the main rules, then all the class splats, then alternative things like Incarnum and Psionics. Release the next ".5" update, and then release all the class splats but updated, as well as updated Incarnum and Psionics to "bring them in line".
Essentially this is worse than a new edition. Way worse. And things like this will lead to people leaving in droves. I stand by my words - if they publish one book per month (major titles, similar to the 4E schedule, just a little bit less) they will last a maximum of 6, maybe 7 years. Anything more is absurd and comes closer and closer to economical oblivion.
Remember, WotC is a company. They not only want to make money, they must, since their Hasbro Overlords have taken notice and demand great amounts of money. Either WotC buckles up and bleeds it's fans dry or it goes down in a last blaze of glory.
If you have questions about 4th Edition - don't hesitate to ask me via PMs. Join the Community Monster Manual Group and help to collect a mass of monsters which will make your life as DM easier, and your life as Player pure hell! I am a cartographer. You can find some of my maps in my profile, free for non-commercial use. Also, if you happen to like maps or make them yourselves, join into the Cartographers Group!
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1 year ago ::
May 04, 2012 - 5:19AM
#47
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Date Joined:
Apr 22, 2001
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I think thats pretty accurate Leichenreiter. I mean 3rd edition was a great system, but it was a decade old. It was effectively complete. I mean I love my 3rd edition and Im glad Paizo picked it up and updated it and keeps it going, but the timing I think for a new edition was right.
The problem when it comes right down to it, a large portion of their audiance just didn't think it was any good and so they went with the continuation which was Pathfinder rather than the remake. Im not sure what they could have done to change that, to some degree that was bound to happen, but personally I just don't think 4th edition was good enough. I think if they can create a better system with 5th edition, there is hope of re-capturing that audiance they lost to pathfinder. Im just not sure what a version that pleases both of these large camps would actually look like and if WOTC should even really try. Perhaps it is better just to accept that this market share is lost and focus on the market share they do have, I mean, as much as I personally didnt care for 4th edition there is no denying that it was successful, it is the number one selling RPG to my knowledge. Perhaps they really should just focus on this audiance that is here, present and accounted for.
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1 year ago ::
May 04, 2012 - 6:11AM
#48
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Date Joined:
Apr 24, 2007
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The very existence of Pathfinder demonstrates that 3e was not ready to be retired, and the ruleset still has years left in it.
That would indicate that 2E was not ready to be retired, 1E was not ready to be retired and no edition ever will be ready to retire. Retroclones and Variants will always exist for any given edition
Retroclones and variants for other editions haven't become the best-selling RPG in the business. The difference between AD&D retroclones and Pathfinder is orders of magnitude. Sure, there will always be *some* part of the fans staying behind in any edition, but when enough fans stay behind to outsell the newer product -- THAT DOES SAY SOMETHING.
the grave error that the OGL was.
OGL was the best thing that's ever happened to the community. Before, if Wizards/Hasbro wanted to take the brand to the grave with them, it would have been possible. Nobody would have been able to keep D&D in publication against their say-so. But now D&D is more or less public property. If Wizards wanted to keep D&D out of publication out of spite, then thanks to OGL, any other company can now pick up the ball. Without OGL, I would not be able to still buy new 3e product. With it, I am still able to buy new supplements and adventures for the game I like. That's a MASSIVE plus.
Honestly, from my point of view D&D was bleeding customers. Staying with the 3E ruleset until 2014 would have been strictly economical suicide.
Paizo proves that to be absolute nonsense. Staying with the 3e ruleset is a more successful strategy than 4e. Imagine how much better a Pathfinder style refresh was doing *with* the official D&D brand, *with* IPs like Forgotten Realms, and *without* the community fragmentation that 4e is doing. All of those would *add* sales to what is already the best selling RPG in the business. In short, 4e brough them closer to death than sticking with 3e would have.
20 years for the edition of a game is, in todays market, a ridiculous assumption.
In eight more years we'll know if you were right. Until then, I'm going to be LOVING Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Magic, Advanced Race Guide, Jade Empire, Legacy of Fire, Rise of the Runelords Deluxe Edition...that's a real failing system right there.
20 years means you have to do multiple ".5" thingies and essentially *bleep* over your customer by re-printing and re-visiting stuff you've already done. Essentially this is worse than a new edition.
Far from it, it's FAR better. It leads to a lot of happy customers who don't stop having compatible adventures for their preferred edition. Fragmentation of the market with multiple incompatible editions is economic suicide. It's a vicious circle strategy that automatically leads to less and less consumers for every consecutive edition. It's basically circling the drain, closer and closer.
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1 year ago ::
May 04, 2012 - 7:13AM
#49
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Date Joined:
Mar 22, 2008
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3e's half-edition in 2003 is trickier and it's very debateable whether that should count as a new edition. There was a conversion guide, but that's a bit stronger than mere errata. I'm inclined to agree that was an edition change in that bringing your 2000 PHB to a 3.5 game in 2007 would have been difficult.
1e ran from 1977 to 1989: 12 years.
2e ran from 1989 to 2000: 11 years.
3e ran from 2000 to 2003: 3 years
3.5e ran from 2003 to 2008: 5 years
4e ran from 2008 to 2012: 4 years (Although it is still the current edition, notwithstanding the open playtest, no further releases containing mechanics are scheduled after this month)
That's 35 years, or 7 years per release. None of Wizards' releases have managed to hit that median. It may be more accurate to say that 4e was on schedule, as that schedule has been set by Wizards. But it's not an average for the game.
If 3.5 were an edition change, then it would not have been called 3.5. I would have been called 4e and you would be playing 5e, with us talking about 6e right now. Since it wasn't an edition change, but merely significant errata changes to an edition that remained almost entirely the same, it was called 3.5. That means that prior to 4e, the average length of an edition was about 10 years. 4e's 4 years is exceptionally short.
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1 year ago ::
May 04, 2012 - 7:25AM
#50
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- Forum Guide
- Hero Craftsman Gold Medalist
- Master Dungeon Master
Date Joined:
Jun 23, 2005
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If 3.5 were an edition change, then it would not have been called 3.5.
Since there's neve been a half-edition before, being a term invented for 3.5 so as to avoid the PR problem of issuing a new edition, it's entirely debateable whether 3.5 constitutes a new edition.
I provided my reasons why I personally think 3.5 constitutes a new edition of the game. Your rebuttal seems to be it's an edition change only if the publisher acknowledges it as such, which isn't a helpful defintiion in the context of this discussion.
If the rulebooks initially released (plus any errata) are incompatible with the books currently released, it is, in my opinion, a new edition. The 3.0 books did not receive any errate to allow them to work with 3.5 books. Instead, they received a conversion guide, to help people convert their characters from 3.0 to 3.5. The rules not related to character building (like grapple/grab, etc.), however, did not get an errata. You had to buy the 3.5 books.
For that reason, I see 3.5 as a new edition. It's certainly a very close edition to 3.0. I'd say it was more or less the difference between 1e and 2e, which is very close. It's relatively easy to convert a 1e character to 2e. And it's relatively easy to convert a 3e character to 3.5.
So, notwithstanding the numbers Wizards chose to append to its books, I see 3.5 as a separate edition from 3.0. Clearly, you disagree.'
4e's 4 years is exceptionally short.
Yeah, Max. I'm pretty sure I said that. Even taking 3.0 and 3.5 as separate editions, that's 5 editions in 37 years, or one edition in a litle over 7 years. 3.0 and 4e really drag down the average there.
Another way to look at it is that Wizards really runs through editions very quickly. TSR had a habit of driving themselves into the verge of bankruptcy before issuing a new edition. 1e lasted 1977 to 1989. 2e from 1989 to 2000. In contrast, Wizards has little constancy. 3.0 went from 2000 to 2003, 3.5 from 2003 to 2008, and 4e from 2008 to the present. Wizards averages four years an edition, roughly one-third TSR's rate. Even if you treat 3.0 and 3.5 as one edition, Wizards averages six years an edition, which is roughly half of TSR's average.
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