Quote from: HalfjackAzeroth as a setting is well tuned for a video game.  It's tiny.  It has clear simplistic factions.  It has great evil bosses that threaten the world that can be beaten by low level characters and then some more later.  It has a colourful, cartoon feel that translates extremely well to a computer monitor.

None of these tuning decisions are particularly well suited to a good pencil and paper game.  The setting also carries the burden of canon, which cuts down on potential purchases from those who just don't like to get into that quagmire -- people who like to play inside canonically defined settings seem to be a minority, however enthusiastic.  L5R, for example, is played exclusively by zealots, not fans.

I doubt it matters how good the game itself is -- the problem isn't that WoW players buy it and don't play it but rather that they aren't even tempted to buy it.  That tells me the setting is broken.

Huh.  You've apparently read entirely different setting backgrounds than I have.

Here I always found I appreciated Warcraft's universe so much because there's so little black and white when it comes to the key factions and races.  Nobody comes up smelling like roses, neither Alliance or Horde.  Every faction's done it's good or bad, and the reasons for the conflicts between the races are as varied as one finds behind conflicts in reality.  

The closest to clear evil among the main races are the Undead, but really the majority of the freed Sylvanas' faction just want to be left alone.  It's mainly Sylvanas herself, and the nutjobs at the Royal Apothecary Society who're into the "Destroy all life" thing . . .

Quote from: J ArcaneMan, you got lured in by the tinker too?  

I was so fucking pissed when I went through all that effort to make a character, but saved my gold so I could make up new inventions as the game went on, only to find out that for actual time tables, the game still uses the standard D&D craft skill rules, meaning that, with the massive prices of the engineering stuff, it would take literal years to build anything.  

I was PISSED.

Yup.  My breaking point was when I found out just how much gold was involved in building the simplest of mecha-armor frames (see: stuff like goblin Shredders).  It literally takes hundreds of thousands of gp to make them, and after I did the calculations I figured out it would take a minimum investment of 3 years of labor to build a simple wooden frame.  And there's a bloody prestige class for riding them.  *sigh*  When I brought up these concerns on the official board at WW, I was told that this was because mecha-armor was too powerful (!!!  Then why have it be an option?) and alternately that the designer was considering cutting back the design costs...  but hadn't yet, and it'd been years since any official errata.

Of course that was just the straw.  It was hopelessly retarded trying to make anything that wasn't a direct-damage weapon with the Tinker rules.  I tried making a glue gun that would simulate the effects of an entangle spell, only with a smaller radius of effect.  Should be fairly simple, right?  Only there's absolutely no rules or guidelines for doing something so "esoteric."

The books are gorgeous, of course, Clearly a cut above most licensed game products.  I have a few, but the only game I ever sat down to play was being run by a GM more interested in recreating the MMORPG, complete with quests taken straight from the beginning maps, than actually being a Tabletop GM.

Now I'm thinking I need to take another look at the various rules and see all this bad shit for myself.  I do have to agree that the spell casting classes were a headscratcher for me when I read them...


Of course, for mecha and guns in a magically fueled steampunk fantasy setting I still have Iron Kingdoms...

Not just the WoW rpg; any potential WoW rpg should be the best selling rpg. If this industry can't get that right or can't sell that enough to justify there being an industry then really what's the point?

I'm really not all that jazzed about Azeroth, but think that much of the material that they made for it kicks ass. For example, I really dig how they took AU/AE race level mechanics and applied them to the warcraft setting... which are more immediately portable to D&D.

I had my own "smarter, smaller minotaur" variant in my D&D campaign, using D&D ECL mechanics. As soon as I saw the WoW tauren, I dropped my minotaur and dropped in the tauren.

Magic & Mayhem is also a seriously kick-ass magic supplement, and the rune mage in More Magic & Mayhem is my favorite take on a rune mage under d20, after several lame attempts by various other d20 authors.

Quote from: signoftheserpentNot just the WoW rpg; any potential WoW rpg should be the best selling rpg. If this industry can't get that right or can't sell that enough to justify there being an industry then really what's the point?

Rubbish. WoW has about as much in common with RPG as Lost or CSI have. Both are very popular TV shows. Both aren't the leading RPGs. Popularity in one area doesn't transform to popularity in a different area.

The misleading argument is that WoW is closely related to a tabletop role-playing game. It isn't, by any means. The resemblance is purely superficial. We all know how popular the D20 Diablo was, and WoW basically is Diablo 3.

Quote from: signoftheserpentThis game has over 8 million players apparently. Aside from being a license to print money, it's success i woudl imagine most game designers - of all stripes - drool over. So shouldn't it be the best and best selling rpg ever? Also why wouldn't WotC pickit up and use it for D&D as an actual D&D game?

 Simple answer:
 It doesn't transfer that well.

 We have the books at work - and they just sit there on the shelf.
The customers we have that play WoW online .....tend to just make up their own version of it with D20 rules (without buying the official book) or use HERO, GURPS or BESM rules to simulate Wow as best they can.

 Its a frickin beautiful book - but kind of expensive.

 Heck the second-to-lost copy we sold may have been to "ME"  - I was buying it as a Christmas gift for one of my players.

- Ed C.

Quote from: signoftheserpentThis game has over 8 million players apparently. Aside from being a license to print money, it's success i woudl imagine most game designers - of all stripes - drool over. So shouldn't it be the best and best selling rpg ever? Also why wouldn't WotC pickit up and use it for D&D as an actual D&D game?

Because WOW players are already playing WOW. Why the hell do they need to play an RPG to do what they already do online?

This is, incidentally, the reason why it makes no sense at all to try to make RPGs that appeal to hobbyists of any other kind... There's no point in "making RPGs more like fan-fiction writing", or "making RPGs more like competitive crochet", or "making RPGs more like theatresports" or whatever, because any of those people ALREADY HAVE those hobbies to practice.

RPGPundit

Quote from: SosthenesThe misleading argument is that WoW is closely related to a tabletop role-playing game. It isn't, by any means. The resemblance is purely superficial. We all know how popular the D20 Diablo was, and WoW basically is Diablo 3.

100% correct.

(But what I really want to know is, since the hubble telescope has peered into the deepest reaches of space, why don't people wear hubble telescope eyeglasses? If it can see a billion billion billion lightyears into the deepest reaches of space, why can't it help grandma see Mattlock?)

Quote from: malleus arianorum(But what I really want to know is, since the hubble telescope has peered into the deepest reaches of space, why don't people wear hubble telescope eyeglasses? If it can see a billion billion billion lightyears into the deepest reaches of space, why can't it help grandma see Mattlock?)

Because only Bill Gates could afford a pair?

i'm not talking about the mechanics of the video game. I'm talking about the setting. PLenty of gamers play WoW; not every WoW player is a shutin saddo (though they design these games to be played that way, which is unfortuante). By that token there should be a wow rpg on the top of the sales charts constantly.

Quote from: DrewBecause only Bill Gates could afford a pair?

Puh-lease! Bill doesn't have that kind of money, the only one who can afford Hubble eyeglasses is taxpayers like me.

Please note that Hubble eyeglasses may require corrective lenses (not included, some assembly and space travel required.)

Quote from: signoftheserpenti'm not talking about the mechanics of the video game. I'm talking about the setting. PLenty of gamers play WoW; not every WoW player is a shutin saddo (though they design these games to be played that way, which is unfortuante). By that token there should be a wow rpg on the top of the sales charts constantly.

I dunno, if they made a WoW car, would all the roleplayers drive it? If they made a WoW ringtone would all the D&D fans pay $2.99? Would they want to eat WoW flavored cheese snacks? Drink Gnome-tinker favored soda? NO! Obviously not!*

I met some WoW players last week. They were totaly oblivious to D&D. I outright told them, "You guys blow my mind. How can you play a online roleplaying game and not know what a roleplaying game is? For me, I've been playing computer RPGS for decades and it was always about trying to emulate the real thing. For you to not know what D&D is, that's like a Star Trek fan who dresses up like Quark for 8 hours a day but doesn't know about the TV show or the movies or anything Trek.

*but in Korea? YES!

Quote from: signoftheserpenti'm not talking about the mechanics of the video game. I'm talking about the setting. PLenty of gamers play WoW; not every WoW player is a shutin saddo (though they design these games to be played that way, which is unfortuante). By that token there should be a wow rpg on the top of the sales charts constantly.

I don't get the logic behind your statement. Lots of people drive pickups, so a RPG featuring pickups should rule the book stores?

As has been stated many times in this thread, by definition WoW players already play. And most of them don't feel the need to explore stuff missing from the video game experience at the table. And even if they would, it wouldn't be necessary for them to do that in Azeroth. A select few might, and for those the WoW RPG was made. It's rather likely that those already play RPGs, which makes it quite likely that they play D20, from a statistical point of view. So a WoW D20 RPG made perfect sense, as it perfectly captures the  intersection of both sets.

There have been products with much better cross-marketing, i.e. with fans who buy everything with the brand name on it. WoW is rather limited to the online experience: most of the participants wouldn't have much time for anything else.

And, to emulate a famous Roman, I'd like to add once again that Warcraft has been a Warhammer rip-off anyways.

QuoteAnd, to emulate a famous Roman, I'd like to add once again that Warcraft has been a Warhammer rip-off anyways.

Originally yes, but at this stage of development, it's not a useful descriptive statement, aabout on par with "D&D is just a Tolkien rip-off".

It does accurately describe the origin story, but doesn't say much about what it's become since then.