Quote from: FrankTrollman;402777That's pretty much the bottom line. Let's use WotC's own numbers for a minute. A few years back, they claimed to have six million players. As of this year, they reported that the number of "lapsed players" (whatever that means) is 24 million, and the number of current players is one and a half million.

The people who played D&D but don't play 4e outnumber the people who do by sixteen to one. The 4e tenure of stewarding the title of "Dungeons & Dragons" has witnessed a player base contraction of seventy five percent. And that's their numbers. The ones which are presumably done up in as rosy a manner as possible. For all I know, they could be counting each DMG as corresponding to six actual players (since the suggested table size is one DM and five other players). It's entirely possible that the "real" numbers are uglier even than that. But they don't have to be. WotC's own report presents a hobby is serious "sky-is-falling-this-time-for-real" crisis. And somebody had better do something about it.

And now they are bringing out a bunch of changes and a whole new set of core books. The question is really whether it will be enough to stop the incredible freefall in the number of players that WotC reports that they have. So to me, the thing they should be getting across to people is that they are doing "enough".

But then we got supposed fans like Abyssal Maw ranting about how they aren't doing anything at all. About how nothing has "Really" changed. And that's supposed to make things OK? The player base is a quarter the size it was in the heyday of 3e. That's not OK. Change is necessary. I don't understand why the 4venger crowd thinks they are doing anything other than hurting the franchise by claiming that major changes aren't happening. Even if major changes are not happening, they should still be claiming that they are. Because if Essentials doesn't turn things around you can bet money that Hasbro will ask for something drastic to be done in the near future.

The number of people who aren't buying 4e materials outnumber the people who are by sixteen to one. People who are satisfied with 4e as-is are therefore polling at 5.9%. That's lower than the approval rating of Congress. The question on everyone's mind is "are the changes for Essentials big enough? Are they even changes in the right direction?" And honestly: only time can tell. But if people like AM convince prospective buyers that there are no meaningful changes, then we'll keep staggering on as-is. And the status quo is: D&D is smaller right now than it has been since before most of the people on this board were born. And that's bad.

-Frank

Quote from: FrankTrollman;402777That's pretty much the bottom line. Let's use WotC's own numbers for a minute. A few years back, they claimed to have six million players. As of this year, they reported that the number of "lapsed players" (whatever that means) is 24 million, and the number of current players is one and a half million.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;402795I think I understand the issue now.

You are an insane person.

Quote from: Captain Rufus;402627Is it for grognards and people like me who consider 4e a cancer on RPGs?

Quote from: FrankTrollman;402777As of this year, they reported that the number of "lapsed players" (whatever that means) is 24 million, and the number of current players is one and a half million.

Quote from: Spinachcat;402810As I've said before, the only hope for D&D's future is an online game table with worldwide 24/7 gameplay that is user friendly and merges quality graphics with the power of a live DM and small group live player interaction.

I have no doubt that would shock the MMO world.   It wouldn't takeover WoW, but it would easily get a 1M+ online players and probably more.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;402795You are an insane person.

Quote from: Benoist;402805Where does that last number come from?

Quote from: Captain Rufus;402627(Water tiles in the Dark Sun tile set?  REALLY?)

Quote from: Benoist;402812If done properly (i.e. NOT as an in-house WotC job), that could be seriously cool.

Quote from: Seanchai;402814Where do any of them come from? There's the survey which has a number and a blurb on at least one of the For Dummies books. Those are the only numbers WotC has released that I've seen.

Seanchai

Quote from: Shazbot79;402822People have already done this...they're called MUD's.

Quote from: Benoist;402823Yeah, if you will. But a universal, modern, updated MUD official for D&D, that you can modify at will, etc, search gamer for, join games, create friends list and have all the PMs, voice chat etc functions as well. The XBOX Live of D&D. You know, the virtual game table that never happened for DDI? That was a MAJOR botch in the way WotC managed its marketing for the new game right there.

Thing is? That's THE thing I would have been interested in in DDI. But nooo... they had to botch that one like you know, they botched pretty much everything electronic before.

Quote from: Shazbot79;402822He actually got that from WotC's panel from the 2009 GAMA trade show.

Quote from: Seanchai;402825What are the numbers again?

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;402825What are the numbers again?

Seanchai