I would imagine a new edition will always spur the market on, even if only briefly (otherwise why would we have had 3E/3.5E/4E in what seems like 5 minutes when OD&D/D&D/AD&D/2E seemed to take 100 years, and even then were never really a linear , organised change/progresion

Obviously the US is a different market, but here in the Uk for all intents and purposed the FLGS is dead in the water - bricks an mortar stores just do not exist in numbers anymore (excepting GW but that's obviously a different story...). Some in the UK will obviously point to the likes of Leisure Games,Archeron,Travelling Man, Orcs Nest etc, but gone are the days of a games shop in every County, let alone every town. Desperately sad, but I guess it's my fault - I like most others I know, use the internet exclusively to buy games - with no game store in a decent journey of my house, I have no choice, but then it's me, and people like me, who have ensured that there are no games stores - it's desperately sad, yet not really surprising.

No surprise at all.

People are generally more inclined towards new things, and only those which are very solid manage to resist age. 3E was not designed to resist age, it was designed for "big bucks/short time" in a time when the role-playing market was becoming stagnant. While previous editions of the game were quite static, 3E has been designed in such a way that it is naturally evolving, and I guess it's natural to see 4E as the natural evolution of 3E.

What I mean is that there is a definite separation between D&D pre-2000 and post-2000. The pre-2000 game tended to evolve in space (with a lot of different settings coming out), while the post-2000 game evolves in time (the game itself changes). This is what gave older editions their sturdy solidness, and the reason why the "new" game is more fluid.

I think this is also based on a different target for the game. Once, RPG was for a small category of dedicated people, while WotC created 3E to appease a huge new market of youth who had approached this genre with CCGs. Sucha  market is not suitable for staticity.

Ok. I must quit studying philosophy.

Green Ronin and Kenzer already had their selling of anything 3.x for 75+% off..Half Price Books carries WotC books for cheap.  3rd party companies don't seem to be releasing anything 3.5 related, and won't for 4th edition until  August (if they pony over $5 grand) or January 2009 if not.

ShaneG.

I don't think its going to be good at all. Why even distribute when you can do all full price releases online? No money wasted on the printers...

My local store does a pretty good business selling 1e & 2e used materials. Nobody even touches the 3/3.5 stuff and they've got several shelves dedicated to it. That particular store won't be terribly hurt by the 4e switch because they also sell comics, board and wargames, lots of miniatures and have a "we-will-order-anything" policy. They have a very loyal customer base.

I can't imagine the average store having much success just selling rpg material.

Agent Cooper wrote:Killjoy-
See, this is the interesting thing about 4E to me.

If the new system goes up online like it's supposed to, would you set up a virtual gaming table to play with your Acaeum buddies overseas?

You could run a game with them whenever you want, but-- unless the system allows some way around it, you're using 4E rules.

Thoughts?

Doubtful.....the time difference is a bit to difficult to get around to play for any length of time.  When it 6 pm where I live its midnight in the UK.  Its difficult enough to get him to chat with us on Friday nights.  

I havent really looked at the whole Gleemax/4th Edition online experience but how much better can it really be than what Badmike and a few forum members are already doing once a week on the chat?  They dont have to pay for it and they can use whatever rules they want.

Bottom line....no kind of online experience is going to even come close to replacing the enjoyment people get from sitting around a table with the modules, books, dice, miniatures, pizza, and whatever else you use in your games.

Kingofpain89 wrote:I havent really looked at the whole Gleemax/4th Edition online experience but how much better can it really be than what Badmike and a few forum members are already doing once a week on the chat?  They dont have to pay for it and they can use whatever rules they want.

Exactly.  Any chimp (even a lemur) with a text chat and an imagination can run an online D&D game.  The really fancy chimps use Skype for voice, and sometimes a whiteboarding or videoconference app for maps, etc.  There's quite a few options out there, and they're usually free.

What you don't need is a WotC-managed online site, where they can dictate what you can and can't do, and what rules you need to use.  Especially if it costs money.

Prufrock wrote:For me - meeting online to game goes against why I game in the first place.  I game to actually be in the same place as my friends.  To meet and talk and see their kids and interact.  Those who believe you can get the same satisfaction from online gaming would seem to me to be isolationists.  The internet is creating space between us.  It is not swrinking the world as some would have you believe.

Fair enough, but in my case, our DM moved halfway across the country.  He's a very good friend and a very good DM, and thanks to Skype, we were able to keep our gaming group together, and include another friend who lives a couple hundred miles away.  We're able to play regularly online, notwithstanding the fact that the closest anyone lives to any other player is about 45-60 minutes.

I don't think that any of us in my group is operating under the illusion that Skype play is preferable to face-to-face gaming, but not everyone has the luxury of that choice.  As such, the online approach shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, although of course you're free to say it holds no appeal for you personally.

Prufrock wrote:For me - meeting online to game goes against why I game in the first place.  I game to actually be in the same place as my friends.  To meet and talk and see their kids and interact.  Those who believe you can get the same satisfaction from online gaming would seem to me to be isolationists.  The internet is creating space between us.  It is not swrinking the world as some would have you believe.

Depends on your preferences and to what you're already accustomed.  I've been chatting with friends that I've met online via text-based chats, forums, etc, for more than 20 years now.  (It's also my preferred method of gaming at the moment, as it fits the dual needs of being nearby my daughter should she wake up in the middle of the night, and not having a bunch of noisy people invading my living room.)  

I don't really think I'm missing much.  I can still eat chips, and drink pop, and spin d4s on their points.  I read and type quickly, and I've got a good imagination, so I don't need voices or visual cues...in fact, they're a distraction.  I do require a DM that can describe things intricately, but then that's a nice to have, anyway.  In some ways, it's an improvement -- I don't miss the olfactory input at all, and I can step away very rapidly to deal with a "real life" issue, and usually nobody's the wiser.

Prufrock wrote:I was lucky enough to paticipate in the "Shrew" Tegel Manor game session that Alan DMed last Gencon.  That experience could not have happened online.  You had to be there to truely understand the halarity of a my dwarf grabbing Badmike's character from behind as he thrashed around trying to get the shrew off him.

Unless you actually tackled Mike, I disagree.  It is certainly possible to have those sorts of "you had to be there" moments online.  It's a matter of how much you immerse yourself into an online game, and that's something that certainly takes practice.  By immersion, I don't mean roleplaying your character well, I mean literally forgetting you're using technology to communicate with someone far away.

Assuming the feed is not too choppy, try watching a group having an animated discussion via videoconference or videophone (or even telephone, but that's a bit less obvious as people are more familiar with telephones.)   Arguments work best for this.  You can actually observe the moment when the participants forget the media exists.  They then begin to react precisely as though the other party were physically present.  They posture in similar ways, they look directly at the image, they shout, etc.  For that brief moment...they are effectively in the same room.  (I've even seen one videoconference participant move his head to avoid something thrown at the far camera.   )

It's important to play RPGs with friends though, I agree.  I wouldn't want to sign up to WotC's site if that meant playing with a randomly selected group of snot-nosed teenagers that have nothing in common with me except that they are all using a computer to connect to the internet.  Regardless of the game rules, that'd be horrible.

Prufrock wrote:I see your point deimos3428.  But I also see your number of post add in the time you spend onling playing the game and any other time spent on the computer and or TV and I'm wondering if you ever see the light of day.

You're right, I am somewhat of a hermit by nature.   Fortunately, I married someone with enough sense to make me go outside now and then, so it's not like I'm completely walled off from society or anything like that.  Still, I'd rather do something like roleplaying online, if I'm just going to be sitting around a table anyway.

Regarding the number of posts, I spend at least 40 hours a week in front of a computer with excellent internet access...what do you expect me to do, work?