|
Improbable Lobster posted:It's not like executives are known to use stuff like subscription metrics to make decisions to the detriment of all else or that multiple different numbers going down could influence them. Nope The Q1 2023 call to unsubscribe is extremely unlikely to have influenced Q4 2022 earnings results, though? Unless WotC has implemented time travel in the dumbest way possible, at any rate.
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2023 22:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 22:23 |
|
|
Kalman posted:The Q1 2023 call to unsubscribe is extremely unlikely to have influenced Q4 2022 earnings results, though? Unless WotC has implemented time travel in the dumbest way possible, at any rate. No one is claiming otherwise. What it did influence is the executives eating poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2023 22:26
|
|
|
What it does influence though is the stockholders seeing the awful Q4 and then seeing everything since and going ‘THAT is your response to this!?’
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2023 22:30
|
|
|
Kalman posted:The Q1 2023 call to unsubscribe is extremely unlikely to have influenced Q4 2022 earnings results, though? Unless WotC has implemented time travel in the dumbest way possible, at any rate. I did not claim that it did that
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2023 23:01
|
|
|
Considering the same exec's are there, I have full confidence in Hasbro's ability to continue to make mistakes, damage the brand and not take responsibility for it. I'm still not sure if the D&D brand is going to survive it...but who else would want to buy it? Apple or Amazon looking for content?
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2023 23:57
|
|
|
Comstar posted:Considering the same exec's are there, I have full confidence in Hasbro's ability to continue to make mistakes, damage the brand and not take responsibility for it. D&D would be instantly snapped up by a video game company in a moment if it ever came to market. It's got a ton of cache, flexibility and marketability - it's like if Warcraft or Genshin Legends suddenly became available.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2023 00:19
|
|
|
Arivia posted:D&D would be instantly snapped up by a video game company in a moment if it ever came to market. It's got a ton of cache, flexibility and marketability - it's like if Warcraft or Genshin Legends suddenly became available. Paradox bought White Wolf, presumably with similar ambitions. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying shitposting about Wizards' incompetence as much as the next fool who refuses to log off, but I feel any thoughts that the D&D brand will suffer permanent damage are likely overblown. The D&D brand is why people care, but the blame for this controversy was always squarely on Wizards. If someone else bought D&D, people would probably be prepared to forgive so long as the new owners said the right things. Now, this doesn't mean that driving people to their competitors does not damage the brand's overall value, but it's not going to be rendered unsalvagable, particularly in the modern landscape where IP is everything. I would be extremely surprised if it ended up like Atari or Intellevision where the brand name is just being used by alleged hucksters elevating themselves on ancient clout. It will be worth something to someone.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2023 00:39
|
|
|
Magnetic North posted:Paradox bought White Wolf, presumably with similar ambitions. No, the White Wolf story is more complicated. Paradox bought it from CCP, and the brand had already greatly diminished because of CCP's inability to do anything with it (if I remember what Rulebook Heavily said back in the day correctly, there was some weird Icelandic business law that turned out to force CCP to not be able to actually commercially do anything with WoD or CCP would take a huge penalty on their real cash cow, EVE). Then when Paradox bought it, it got handed over to Swedracula and they tried to push for an MMO just as MMOs pretty much gave their last death rattle off. That's why we haven't seen any big WoD games in all that time. What we have seen, with varying levels of success, are visual novels and smaller games (Shadows of New York, that goofy Werewolf stealth killer). If D&D got turned over to a video game company, Wizards, to their credit, has many of these plates already in the air, big and small - have you seen how many updates Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms gets? There's BG3 coming down the pipe of course, and other poo poo too. The point is that D&D has a proven pedigree in video games, a much stronger one than WoD's "hey we did Bloodlines once and it was great and seven people played it and it's mostly notable for being the first game running on Source engine released ever" and that a video game company buying an RPG to use for video games is not inherently gonna kill the RPG or result in no/bad games.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2023 00:47
|
|
|
Magnetic North posted:Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying shitposting about Wizards' incompetence as much as the next fool who refuses to log off, but I feel any thoughts that the D&D brand will suffer permanent damage are likely overblown. The D&D brand is why people care, but the blame for this controversy was always squarely on Wizards. If someone else bought D&D, people would probably be prepared to forgive so long as the new owners said the right things. Now, this doesn't mean that driving people to their competitors does not damage the brand's overall value, but it's not going to be rendered unsalvagable, particularly in the modern landscape where IP is everything. I would be extremely surprised if it ended up like Atari or Intellevision where the brand name is just being used by alleged hucksters elevating themselves on ancient clout. It will be worth something to someone. There are levels to brand damage, no one is saying its just going to completely destroy the brand.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2023 00:52
|
|
|
King of Solomon posted:There are levels to brand damage, no one is saying its just going to completely destroy the brand. A person in this thread was musing about the brand as though it were possible it would somehow go unsold, wondering who would buy it. Which would be essentially the same. Comstar posted:I'm still not sure if the D&D brand is going to survive it...but who else would want to buy it? Apple or Amazon looking for content? I disagree with the premise but it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask if it came to it. Maybe Bezos wants to make a Elminster / Gandalf fanfiction hanging out with with Jeffoz the handsome bald elf.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2023 01:04
|
|
|
Embracer Group is probably looking to add more to its collection of properties under its umbrella and it already has a ton of the infrastructure thanks to its possession of Asmodee.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2023 19:25
|
|
|
Dicebreaker.com: Project Black Flag’s first crack at a D&D replacement is more retread than reinventionquote:Tabletop RPG publisher Kobold Press released the first playtest document for Project Black Flag, its attempt to replace Dungeons & Dragons’ currently tainted presence from 5th Edition-derived material. The preliminary effort cleaves a hair’s breadth from D&D, squandering the creative freedom to imagine a progressive future for the popular tabletop RPG. emphasis mine this is an opinion piece, of course, but one that I find myself agreeing with. I guess the one thing I will say is that the... rhetorical naiveté expressed in the piece is pretty easily answered: Project Black Flag isn't going to be any kind of big innovation over D&D 5e because the goal is to have something for all on-going projects to land on with a minimum of mechanical rejiggering, even if you set aside the subjective question of what would result in a healthier fanbase for Kobold Press
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 10:10
|
|
|
I don't think anyone was expecting anything too far off from standard D&D stuff but the degree to which it just looks like 5E reheated in a microwave is just disappointing. Black flag as in they just pirated the 5E PHB I guess. Were they wrong to do it? No, they have a very good business reason to do it. But drat was it a lot of fanfare for something that's just some copyright placeholder ashcan copy thing. BattleMaster fucked around with this message at 10:35 on Feb 20, 2023 |
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 10:28
|
|
|
I dunno, people whose business depends on holding up D&D as the end-all-be-all system are probably not the people to evolve it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 10:40
|
|
|
I've been extremely pessimistic about this whole "WotC hosed up RPG REVOLUTION!!!" rhetoric fur exactly this reason. The more clones/near-clones that come out the more it will result in solidifying D&D's regressive sacred cows as the perceived default of RPGs. And yes that ship long sailed but it's still a shame to see people building a fleet. e: something something black flag -> nautical reference
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 11:14
|
|
|
Eh, nobody downloads libreoffice for a new and revolutionary word processing experience. They download libreoffice to do word processing without giving Microsoft money. Black Flag so far is both roughly what it said it was going to be, and roughly what Kobold Press need it to be: a core system for basing "5e" books on. This isn't to say there's no expectations management issue here.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 11:54
|
|
|
This is extra funny now that WotC hit the emergency brakes and rereleased the 5e SRD. Sixth edition will have to massively re-poo poo the bed to leave a niche for any of the Black Flags in the pipeline right now.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 11:59
|
|
|
I do find their lack of ambition so far disappointing, especially when they keep bigging up non-innovations. They acted like traits were a bold new system, only for them to be feats with a new sign slapped on them. The heritage system that seemed ripe for innovation ended up being the PHB subraces with the names filed off. The first playtest is the chance to wow, and instead they gave a limp, padded copy of the PHB with even worse balance. How distinct was Pathfinder's PHB from 3.5's? I feel like that's the minimum bar Kobold needs to clear, and even then the market circumstances that enabled Pathfinder aren't 1 to 1 with the current situation.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 14:30
|
|
|
The Bee posted:How distinct was Pathfinder's PHB from 3.5's? I feel like that's the minimum bar Kobold needs to clear, and even then the market circumstances that enabled Pathfinder aren't 1 to 1 with the current situation. Not very. They spiced up the classes a bit and condensed some skills, but otherwise they're pretty close. The big Pathfinder innovation was replacing prestige classes with archetypes, and that didn't happen until the Advanced Player's Guide.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 14:35
|
|
|
The Bee posted:How distinct was Pathfinder's PHB from 3.5's? I feel like that's the minimum bar Kobold needs to clear, and even then the market circumstances that enabled Pathfinder aren't 1 to 1 with the current situation. Pathfinder was 3.75. Almost identical, with slight changes on the combat non-attack actions system and general power up to classes and races.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 14:38
|
|
|
Yeah, what everyone was saying when Kobold Press announced their game was that this was their opportunity to do what Paizo did with 3.5, and well, that's what they did. There's nothing to lament here, this was exactly the thing they were expected to do and the correct thing for them to do from a business standpoint. Maybe someone will do something interesting with the battered corpse of 5e, but it was never going to be Kobold Press.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 14:48
|
|
|
Gotcha. So Pathfinder saved its huge innovations for the first year after release. Seems fair to give Kobold the same amount of time, then. Still, I also think the bar's changed since Paizo's first release, and if they've truly been working on this since One was announced this is kind of flaccid first showing. I do agree we're unlikely to see any major changes, though. A new class or two, and a handful of new lineages, would've been a better way to wow while under such a big spotlight. But we're getting a 5.5E, not a reinvention.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 14:57
|
|
|
The big thing Pathfinder did was basically continual content. The first Council of Thieves adventure dropped on the same day as the original core rulebook iirc, and the next one dropped a month later. But even that was deliberately backwards compatible with 3.5.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 15:05
|
|
|
The Bee posted:Gotcha. So Pathfinder saved its huge innovations for the first year after release. Seems fair to give Kobold the same amount of time, then. Still, I also think the bar's changed since Paizo's first release, and if they've truly been working on this since One was announced this is kind of flaccid first showing. Bear in mind also that this is playtest material, way pre-release. I think it's perfectly fair to say that on the basis of this it's going to feel a lot like 5e, but I'm going to reserve in depth judgment until we've seen a bit more.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 15:09
|
|
|
Oh, no doubt. But you also only get one first impression, and blowing that first impression on microwave reheated copies of the first PHB pages was a mistake. This didn't need to be a playtest, and I think they broke off a chunk of audience by striking while the iron was too hot.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 15:11
|
|
|
YggdrasilTM posted:Pathfinder was 3.75. Almost identical, with slight changes on the combat non-attack actions system and general power up to classes and races. I'm asking because I remember getting really excited for PF's improvements on classes and the streamlining of combat maneuvers. When announced, it all felt like appropriate tweaks to a system that almost worked but was bloated and just kind of arcane.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 16:30
|
|
|
Siivola posted:bloated and just kind of arcane. Which is my main problem with 1e pathfinder. That and the whole "it's kinda 3.5 but not really so you end to always second guess yourself about the rules when playing."
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 16:41
|
|
|
The Bee posted:Gotcha. So Pathfinder saved its huge innovations for the first year after release.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 16:44
|
|
|
Siivola posted:I'm completely out of the bigger loop, so does 5E have any low-hanging fruit like this Kobold could even pretend to address? I'm also out of touch with the general 5e fanbase, but this is the real problem with the Black Flag playtest. PF1e didn't change much at all, but it gave people a few good hooks like "sorcerers have bloodlines as a class feature and not cool feats that got added later" and "monks get a pool of power points" that fit with the kinds of things people were wishing were core parts of those classes, and those hooks were enough for people to latch onto and actually get excited. I don't know what the equivalent hooks would be for 5e fans, but judging by the reaction they didn't lead with them.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 16:47
|
|
|
Lol at the idea that pathfinder 1e is an innovative game.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 16:47
|
|
|
Siivola posted:I'm completely out of the bigger loop, so does 5E have any low-hanging fruit like this Kobold could even pretend to address? Maybe making martials more interesting? There was someone from Kobold Press in the ENWorld thread on this who I got the impression might have been hinting at this, but I have no idea why they wouldn't lead off with the cool, exciting thing. Then again, Treantmonk did a deeper dive into comparing feats in the playtest to base 5e, and there was a clear pattern of giving boosts to spellcasters while nerfing more martial leaning options (an...interesting way to address 5e's balance problems), so maybe not.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 16:48
|
|
|
ENWorld’s own Level Up does a ton of stuff for martials.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 16:52
|
|
|
What is annoying to me about black flag is that Dnd 3.0 was played for like 2-3 years before 3.5 came out and fixed some very obvious problems with the system. We have been playing 5.0 for 10 years and this is the first crack at updating it outside of optional rules from Tashas and the like. There is much more room for improvement here and anyone who have been playing 5e for a while knows there are some weaknesses that could be absolutely fixed with out changing any compatibility with older content. They tried to do something like this like changing feats from optional rules but then they keep the ASI or Feat choice instead of giving both. And the feats they did present where badly balanced. I think if they came out and did like a bare minimum to see where they could improve (there is a lot) people would be kinder to it. I personally also hate the drip feed playtest packets instead of how paizo does it giving vertical slices. I think the reason WOTC does it is because they aren't actually interested in hearing specific feedback on balance they just want to know if they are on the right track or not. I mean bonus actions where never even play tested. There really is no reason why Black Flag should emulate that style unless they are just treating this like marketing and not actually a play test.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 16:53
|
|
|
It's almost as if we've already gone through multiple waves of retroclones where actually interesting player-facing mechanics were vanishingly rare.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 16:57
|
|
|
Making martials interesting would require either overhauling the entire combat engine or making a big list of special abilities, and neither hangs particularly low. Edit: And 5E already has martials with special abilities so Kobold would be kind of cornered into doing "battlemaster again but she doesn’t suck pinky swear". Siivola fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Feb 20, 2023 |
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 17:00
|
|
|
Re-introducing the concept of a Free action would also probably open up some design space, since there's so much poo poo competing for your one vaunted "bonus Action" at this point in the game's life cycle.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 17:15
|
|
|
I get what you mean, but I think there's a deeper problem when there are a bunch of action types and everyone is encouraged to game the action economy.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 17:17
|
|
|
Siivola posted:I'm completely out of the bigger loop, so does 5E have any low-hanging fruit like this Kobold could even pretend to address? A lot of people are overthinking this. As far as too many people are concerned, 5e D&D is a perfect game - its only "problem" is that it's associated with WotC. Kobold 'fixing' this by doing nothing is a near 1:1 reenactment of the incredibly successful job Paizo did by migrating 3.5 (another flawless game which cannot be improved upon) to a less-reviled published. For it to work, WotC needs to do their part by alienating vocal nerds.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 17:22
|
|
|
5E at the very least could use a good second pass with the editor's pen, especially if you wanted to keep the natural language style of game mechanics. 'Action', 'Attack', and the difference between checks and saves are all used in a loose way that creates a lot of confusion in the margins. After that, fixing Rangers and Champion Fighters are easy layups - or eliminating them entirely to make room for other material to make core for your new system, if you're ballsy.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 17:25
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 22:23 |
|
|
moths posted:A lot of people are overthinking this. Stupid thing being they did a "Better" job of that given 4e was a complete, and more importantly largely incompatable, shift from 3.5e.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 17:40
|
|
