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7 months ago ::
Oct 20, 2012 - 6:42AM
#71
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Given that PF and 4e have sold pretty evenly with each other for several years what does that tell us?
It tells us that WotC basically tanked their 4E production schedule a couple years back. It wasn't until they stopped producing as many new books (i.e. less to buy) that PF's sales caught up to 4E's and it didn't start beating 4E's sales until that production has slowed to an absolute crawl.
The fact is that even though they haven't produced a new product for 4E since late spring the 4E Red Box is STILL the first item on Amazon's best seller's list after the new Pathfinder products and the 4E PHB1 still comes in the top 10 of RPG sales (only beaten by Pathfinder, strategy guides for new CRPG's and the RPG add on to the WarMachine miniatures game) on Amazon's sales list.
That tells me new players are STILL joining the 4E community and people investing in it NOW are presumably planning on playing it for awhile despite Next being on the horizon.
Yes, I know.
Truthfully, though I know it is some kind of big heresy to say it, there's no indication whatsoever that PF has matched, or has been close to matching, total 4e sales. The 4e PHB1 was the highest selling RPG book of all time. Overall 4e may not have sold what was hoped (its sales targets were considerably HIGHER than 3e) and its not unlikely that PF is outselling it NOW (hardly surprising since 4e is basically already out of print). That in no way means it was wrong or a failure. In other words making 4e and making it a more modernized D&D probably wasn't a bad idea. OTOH making a game where you barely supported any settings and produced nothing but a thin gruel of garbage for adventures CLEARLY wasn't a good idea.
If WotC would have stopped being stupid and just spent its time since 2010 producing good adventures, and finishing DDI, instead of spending it on Mike's dreams of glory they'd be in a lot better shape.
Making 3.8 would have been stupid David. They understood that. It would of course have bumped sales slightly, but many people would have just continued to play 3.5 and the sales of the WHOLE LINE had diminished too much. In a year they'd have been right back where they started, and the game meanwhile gets messier and harder to understand and more confusing for new players to buy into. Plus it remains this giant intractible mass of rules that is hard to present electronically. Now they're going to go back to that? It is mind boggling. Of course DDN will have the usual edition bump but the day after it comes out they'll have to start planning 6e to deal with all the problems than 4e solved.
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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7 months ago ::
Oct 20, 2012 - 1:55PM
#72
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Date Joined:
Apr 16, 2009
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Thus in our soccer game, it works very well if you are a point or 2 in the lead, in fact much better than any more aggressive strategy. [You do something aggressive to score more, which also means that when something goes wrong, they can now score, and thus eliminate your lead.]
That's commonly referred to as "running out the clock". It doesn't work as well in competitions in which there is no clock.
Since WOTC had the dominant position, the more aggressive strategy gave more chance to make a mistake and no longer be dominant. Which seems to be just what happened.
Actually, WotC remained dominant for more than two years. They lost dominance when they brought in someone to "rescue" 4E, and that person tried to make it more like 3E/Pathfinder.
(The same person is now in charge of Next.)
In other words, their aggressive strategy to remain dominant *kept* them dominant... until they abandoned it in favor of trying to be retroactively conservative and cautious.
(Why did 4E need "rescuing" when it was dominant? Because it failed to capture 150% of the RPG market, as some corporate executives had effectively been promised.)
"The world does not work the way you have been taught it does. We are not real as such; we exist within The Story. Unfortunately for you, you have inherited a condition from your mother known as Primary Protagonist Syndrome, which means The Story is interested in you. It will find you, and if you are not ready for the narrative strands it will throw at you..." - from Footloose
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7 months ago ::
Oct 20, 2012 - 3:33PM
#73
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Date Joined:
Apr 15, 2001
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Whats a better system is subjective but 4E is effectively dead and has been for some time. Paizo has a differnet coporate structure than WoTC and was actually founded by ex WoTC staff back in 2002. I think Pathfinder also had two things that 4th ed lacked .
1. A living game world. Yes 4th ed has FR, core, Dark Sun and Eberron. Pathfinder has Golarion and it is very well developed. When a good chunk of 4th ed players are quietly saying they're buying Golarion and converting you may be in trouble. Earlier editions had a flagshp wolrd generally FR in 2nd and 3rd ed and which was butchered in 4th ed.
2. Adventures. 4th ed did not have many and the few that there were are mostly awful. Pathfinder Adventure paths often has a adult tint to them with slavery, coutesans, prostitution, sex being mentioned. Hell their pirate themed AP had a lesbian devil worshipping admiral in it. Put simply even if 4th ed was the better system (subjective) its kinda like having the worlds fastest sportscar that runs rare fuel (good pre published adventures).
Trying to attract new customers is always a good idea, just don't alienate your old ones.
Reducing a character to a list of dice rolls and modifiers is not role playing*
*pg 30, AD&D 2nd Ed DMG, 1989.
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7 months ago ::
Oct 20, 2012 - 3:57PM
#74
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Date Joined:
Nov 30, 2010
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The problem is...most 4e players play homebrew settings/campaing. They don't give a crap about campaing settings that isn't crunch they can use for their homebrew (wish is why these edition neutral books are ignored)
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7 months ago ::
Oct 20, 2012 - 4:57PM
#75
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Thus in our soccer game, it works very well if you are a point or 2 in the lead, in fact much better than any more aggressive strategy. [You do something aggressive to score more, which also means that when something goes wrong, they can now score, and thus eliminate your lead.]
That's commonly referred to as "running out the clock". It doesn't work as well in competitions in which there is no clock.
Since WOTC had the dominant position, the more aggressive strategy gave more chance to make a mistake and no longer be dominant. Which seems to be just what happened.
Actually, WotC remained dominant for more than two years. They lost dominance when they brought in someone to "rescue" 4E, and that person tried to make it more like 3E/Pathfinder.
(The same person is now in charge of Next.)
In other words, their aggressive strategy to remain dominant *kept* them dominant... until they abandoned it in favor of trying to be retroactively conservative and cautious.
(Why did 4E need "rescuing" when it was dominant? Because it failed to capture 150% of the RPG market, as some corporate executives had effectively been promised.)
Exactly, you don't WIN anything in the real world by 'running out the clock' or playing defense. At some point you have to act, do or die. The worst thing you can do is try to act and then chicken out. The only possible result of that is you're worse off than before. To the hesitant goes 2nd place.
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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7 months ago ::
Oct 20, 2012 - 6:15PM
#76
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Date Joined:
Apr 15, 2001
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The problem is...most 4e players play homebrew settings/campaing. They don't give a crap about campaing settings that isn't crunch they can use for their homebrew (wish is why these edition neutral books are ignored)
Maybe that is because they don't have much in the way of decent choices for a campaign world. FR was a flagship title in 2nd ed and 3rd ed with popular and large amounts of supporting material and novel lines. Not sure how many 4th ed FR books were made but it was alot less than say 3rd eds lines. When 4th ed dropped down to a book every six months and couldn't support product lines lke 3.5 mini lines I suspected it was in trouble espicially when Paizo started realeasing minis via working with Mage Knight.
Personally wizards used to get thousands of dollars a year from me as I have boxes of RPG books, minis, magic cards, and Dragon and Dungeon magazine. It was almost a perfect storm for me. No more star wars RPG line= lost income for WoTC, no more Dragon/Dungeon lost income, no more FR as I knew it lost income, DDI stinking (CB changes, Dragon/Dungeon changes) lost income, no more minis= lost income. That left MtG and I thought why am I giving this company any of my money any more? I'm only one consumer but it seems a safe bet I wan't alone.
I wasn't a hard core 4th ed player but neither was I a hard core 3.5 loyalist either. I was ready to move on from 3.5 4th ed books were mostly terrible to read compared to my 2nd and 3rd ed books. I didn't even switch to Pathfinder in 2009 when it came out. I did switch when it became apparent WoTC beefed up 4th ed/DDI and I was struggling to get players. We actually took around 2 years (2009-2011) working out among ourselves what to play as the options were Star Wars Saga, 3.5, 4th Ed, Pathfinder and even 2nd ed was considered. Another option discussed was stop playing RPGs altogather and have a gaming group offline and online.
Late 2011/Early 2012 the group voted for Pathfinder based on various reasons a large chunk of which was to give the proverbial birdie to WoTC. Pathfinder isn't drastically better in any signifigant way (mechanically) than 3.5 or 4th ed but its better supported with a great world and it isn't WoTC. Sounds bad but it seemed WoTC was determined to drive away loyal customers of 17-18 years. 4th ed wasn't awful but they hashed it up very badly IMHO. I don't hate wizards they just have nothing left anymore I want to buy.
Reducing a character to a list of dice rolls and modifiers is not role playing*
*pg 30, AD&D 2nd Ed DMG, 1989.
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7 months ago ::
Oct 20, 2012 - 7:08PM
#77
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Date Joined:
Nov 30, 2010
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Actually, the players i started to play on 4e that played older editions (some on AD&D and some on 3.5) always played homebrew settings, even the 3.5 campaing i de-railed in a single session with a sorcerer with a wand of fireball with 50 charges was homebrew. It's more freedom, more fun, less predicteable, more flexible and more mistery/discovery on a homebrew than something that is already written, that's why i only played a single LFR game, because it's a world where there is already writen character, lore, npc, cities, etc...no sense of discovery and no way to mess up with the world and change the status quo.
I wouldn't never DM a campaing that was based closely to a setting, my campaing i DM'd was only loosely based it's cosmology/planes on points of light's, and only loosely, to give some sort of common knowledge the players would have that i don't have to explain
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7 months ago ::
Oct 20, 2012 - 7:45PM
#78
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Date Joined:
Apr 15, 2001
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True but campaign settings are important even if you don't set your games there. ALot of gamers buy the material ad mine the fluff or crunch. I own a heap of FR stuff even though I rarely play FR. I'm not claiming to speak for all gamers but I bet theres enough and campaign settings have tie in novels , adventures etc.
Paizo for example actually releases very little in the way of dedicated core books a'la WoTC. THeir bread and butter is probably there adventure paths which even though they are not really my thing blow the crap outta WoTC efforts at making a good adventure. The adventure paths are tied to the world of Golarion the default Pathfinder campaign setting. Dragonlamce in the 80's was popular as a setting, adventures, and a novel line with crossover appeal to non RPG gamers via video games and cartoons. Its like the min max boards which used campaign setting materials in both 3rd and 4th ed. If a book has a certain feat, prestige class, class option, or power people want to use they will buy it regardless. By butchering 4th ed in general and FR in particular WoTC alienated alot of gamers it would seem to the extent 4th ed is now the worst edition of D&D in terms of longevity. Technically it will last 4 or 5 years, it was really dead and on life support 2 years in.
My default world as such uses 4th ed cosmology for the most part, secret organisations from Golarion, parts of Forgotten Realms. D&D in the 70's was heavily influenced by Greek legends (same with 4th ed) and Michael Moorcocks Elric books (alignment, chaos/law, elementals etc). Even the bible has influenced D&D. Very little in D&D is actually unique as such the best one can hope for is strange settings like Darksun with cannibalistic halflings. Would Star Wars be as popular as it is without the setting and characters?
Mechanically it doesn't matter which edition is the best as it is subjective. What sells is more important for a company. Pathfinder revitalises 3.5 in ways WoTC couldn't or wouldn't. As a personal ideal Pathfinder could have gone further as I really like Star Wars Saga mechanics (blend of 3.5 and 4th basically) over both 4th ed and PF. To this day I'm not sure who 4th eds targeted audience was at. WoTC assumed 3rd ed players would adopt it regardless. They were wrong it would seem. If 4th ed resembled Saga more I would be playing that instead of Pathfinder which has issues around mechanics. Ideally Paizo would have worked hand in hand with WoTC but the original GSL more than anything lead to the creation of Pathfinder as it basically said "you can't sell OGL stuff, we can pull the plug anytime we won't to and you can't go back to OGL or forward to 5th ed". It was essentially an economic suicde pact for 3rd party publishers with the lure of short term gains based on the assumption 4th ed would recreate 2000 all over again. They revised it but by then it was to late and in the absence of Dragon and Dungeon magazines by default the Pathfinder adventuree paths replaced Dungeon and magazines like Koblad Quarterly became the new Dragon.
Reducing a character to a list of dice rolls and modifiers is not role playing*
*pg 30, AD&D 2nd Ed DMG, 1989.
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7 months ago ::
Oct 20, 2012 - 8:04PM
#79
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Date Joined:
Nov 30, 2010
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4e used to sell more than pathfinder...until Mearls took over and decided to..."let's stop releasing things and change the way we build the game to try to attract the older edition players", wish i won't be surprised he actually did this to suicide 4e so he can be greenlith to make D&DNext by WotC....And while a few good things came from it (i freaking love Hexblade class), it changed how the game was developed and supported for the worst, the only exception of great ideas post essentials were how Themes were implemented outside of Dark Sun (wish was an awesome idea, another layer of character building and customization and reach your character concept, without sacrificing the rest of your character build at all).
We barely have any books with crunch for the last years, and dragon/dungeon magazine have 1/4 of the content they used to have... Because of that, Pathfinder is starting to outsell 4e...because Paizo do support their game, WotC don't anymore since Mearls got in charge.
I don't know how they think it's not obvious that if you don't support your product with new content, it will stop being relevant and continue to attract new players...Maybe it wasn't like that back 20 years ago, but it is like that now, because we live in very saturated world where we are constantly bombarded with so many things from all sources, and you have to continue to keep attracting new players and your current players on the game. That's something videogames company learned to keep a franchise alive, Valve release new hats, weapons, modes, maps all the time for TF2, to keep the game being relevant, Riot games do the same with League of Legends, they make new champions every week to keep the game being relevant (as well as spending millions making LoL events...they have to, because LoL is their only game/property, the moment it's popularity wane...they are DONE, the company will have a huge hit and loose huge amount of money)
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7 months ago ::
Oct 20, 2012 - 8:24PM
#80
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Date Joined:
Apr 15, 2001
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I wouldn't blmae Mearls to much. If essentials was rushed out to appeal to 3.5 hold outs or to compete with PF which was released after 4th ed one would assume it was because 4th ed was tanking. I was never a massive fan of 4th ed but did enjoy DMing it and some parts of it were really good. For me it peaked around Darksun time and right before the offline character builder died. We were running it exclusively via DDI and yeah we weren't massive fans it was fun and reasonably cheap to play. Once DDI sucked via online CB and Dragon and Dungeon magazine being split into articles it was game over 4th ed for me. Even if it wasn't our primary system DDI was cheap enough to actually give WoTC some money unti they beefed it up.
Reducing a character to a list of dice rolls and modifiers is not role playing*
*pg 30, AD&D 2nd Ed DMG, 1989.
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