I can't speak for anyone else, but I was pretty kindly disposed towards WotC at least through the announcement of 4e. That's around when I felt they really could have handled the transition a bit better--I'm sure none of us want to go into that again, but I just felt like they weren't exactly customer-friendly at that time. After that, I was still ok doing business with them up until they pulled all their pdfs without notice.
 
Now they don't have pdfs of the products I would want, and I don't play 4e. So I guess we don't have a lot to say to one another just now. I've sorta got my direction, and they have theirs, and the two lines have pretty much been heading away from one another for a while.

Quote from: Melan;467118Revisionist history; they had a lot of goodwill until the mid 2000s or so. Ditching much of their staff who had been the human face of that goodwill (and building them up into competition exploiting that former image) must not have helped, though.

Exactly.  They were running with massive good will all through 3e and the goodwill held them up in 3.5; it was all pretty much blown in the way they handled the announcement and early promotion of 4e, however.

RPGPundit

wotc was cool up until hasbro bought them.  It's been all down hill since then.

wotc was cool up until 3.5 came out.  It's been all down hill since then.

Quote from: Melan;467118Revisionist history; they had a lot of goodwill until the mid 2000s or so.

No. Once they purchased TSR and announced they were changing D&D, people went apeshit. There was a thread here not too long ago - after folks started claiming that people welcomed 3e with open arms - that linked to actual posts and messages from the time. I'd recommend checking it out.

Seanchai

Quote from: Halloween Jack;467097Sooner or later, Paizo will release some kind of new edition of Pathfinder. Then a portion of their existing fanbase can freak out and cry that they've been betrayed and Paizo has told them their business isn't wanted.

Possibly. I think it largely depends on what the new edition of Pathfinder looks like. If it looks like:

(1) A new edition of Call of Cthulhu (nothing is changed); or
(2) Similar to the 3.0 -> 3.5 shift.

Then virtually no one is going to give a shit. And even those who decide to stick with Pathfinder 1.0 will continue buying Paizo's support material because conversion will be trivial or nonexistent.

If it's more in the range of a 3.5 -> Pathfinder conversion, it might create a little more friction.

Quote from: Seanchai;467165No. Once they purchased TSR and announced they were changing D&D, people went apeshit. There was a thread here not too long ago - after folks started claiming that people welcomed 3e with open arms - that linked to actual posts and messages from the time. I'd recommend checking it out.

I don't think anyone here claimed that WotC was universally adored.

Quote from: KrakaJak;466975It's probably mostly profit, but it accounts for, at best, half their revenue for the D&D brand. I'm sure the boardgames alone turn over more then 7 Million a year.

Rule of thumb is that publishers see about 40-50% of the cover price of a game. Let's assume 50% for the D&D boardgames (although that's unlikely). To see $7,000,000 in revenue from the boardgames, they'd need to be selling 200,000+ copies per year.

That's not impossible. But if so, then the D&D board games aren't just successful -- they're insanely successful.

Quote from: Seanchai;467165No. Once they purchased TSR and announced they were changing D&D, people went apeshit. There was a thread here not too long ago - after folks started claiming that people welcomed 3e with open arms - that linked to actual posts and messages from the time. I'd recommend checking it out.

I have; I was an avid reader of forums on the subject back then, in fact. It does not compare. 3e was by and large received with an outpouring of enthusiasm and renewed interest after a decade where AD&D had essentially been written off. There were people who did not like it, but a lot fewer; it was significantly less divisive than 4e. I think the most hostile reactions were under The Demise of Dungeons and Dragons on Gamegrene; there were others, but not quite as many. The d20 license and the OGL was much more significant, and it won a lot of friends for WotC.

Actually, the 3.5 transition was also handled surprisingly well (although I personally saw it, and still see it as a step in the wrong direction).

*was okay with 3.5 transition* It's just that step BETWEEN the two, 3.5 and 4th, that kind of killed off stuff. That and them pulling up Dragon and Dungeon mag for online only stuff.

I remember people kvetching about WotC coming out with 3rd Edition, but most of us shrugged and said, "It's a new company. They want to put their spin on it, and re-sell the brand."

OGL & STL made a lot of people very happy, as they saw it as a way to "get into the business!" (i.e. a LOT of fantasy heart-breakers)

3.5 got some flack at my table, cause we had just upgraded from OCR d20 Star Wars to RCR d20 Star Wars, and now we needed new books for D&D too?!? Both also felt very much like incremental changes, like I was paying all over again for a 5% change to my game.
(lol, I would love to spend $60 to get a complete game again, in today's market)

But yeah, 4th Edition just felt like a big blow off.
It wasn't a dumb idea; in fact it's INTENT is something the hobby needs very badly: new players.
The problem is, it didn't feel like they were asking me to help people discover my hobby, so much as to fuck off, we got crack to sell to young kids.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;467167Possibly. I think it largely depends on what the new edition of Pathfinder looks like. If it looks like:

(1) A new edition of Call of Cthulhu (nothing is changed); or
(2) Similar to the 3.0 -> 3.5 shift.

Then virtually no one is going to give a shit.

No one except Seanchai.

3.0 got my group back into D&D for the first time in 10+ years (at the time of release) and we've played it regularly since. Didn't shift to 3.5, I tried 4e but wasn't terribly impressed, and I love Pathfinder but have never played because the fossilized old coots I play with wouldn't want to have to manually make a character, so there's no animosity towards 3.0 or WotC in my group at least.

Quote from: Melan;467169I was an avid reader of forums on the subject back then, in fact.

I was an avid participant - in fact, I think was the moderator of the official D&D mailing list or some such at the time. You claim whatever claims you'd like about how WotC and 3e were received and perceived, but having been there, I recognize revisionism when I see it...

Seanchai

Quote from: 1989;466835D&D has been beat by a clone with a name so retarded as "Pathfinder".

Sigged!:rotfl:

Quote from: Werekoala;467218I love Pathfinder but have never played because the fossilized old coots I play with wouldn't want to have to manually make a character

PCGen has at least partial support for Pathfinder chargen, player side especially. Dunno if that includes post-core rulebook or not, but hey it's free.

The Herolab commercial software should also do Pathfinder.

Quote from: hexgridRight now, it has 56,592 members.

Sounds about right. 100,000 was a high estimate on my end.

Quote from: GrimbokYeah, those GURPS eBooks really fly off the shelves - http://e23.sjgames.com/hot.cgi

Explains why SJ games chooses to focus on Munchkin and Cheap Dice games. I think Gurps 4e is a good game but I don't have clue 1 how they could make it more appealing.


On the topic of D&D 2nd edition growing pains: Between 2e and 3e, there was a lot of bitching and moaning until the new game actually came out. The it mostly died down. That was not the same with D&D 4e, where there was a lot of bitching and moaning and it only got worse with time; To the point the ENWorld and rpg.net message-boards topic banned 3e vs 4e discussion.