Its all about HASBRO. WotC is the face, but the truth is HASBRO is the big bad wolf. Ask Magic the Gathering players about the HASBRoification of their game.It seems to me that the whole Hasbro thing is speculation. Is there any hard and fast evidence that Hasbro has actually influenced the design of 4E.
Ummm... They own them?
Go to any business that's run by a corporation and ask them where most of their ideas come from and I'll bet you dollars to d20s that they say "from corporate". The thought that HASBRO has had zero to marginally no influence on the entire 4E debacle/ad-campaign is, IMNSHO, naiviette at best and outright deluding yourself at worst.
I'll be honest, if someone from WotC came out and said; "Look, we're trying to bring in a younger crowd so we can make more money. We know this is going to honk a lot of older fans off, but we got our marching orders from higher up our parent company...", I'd have more respect and understanding about why they're doing things the way they are. But to say that the way I've ran and played are inferior to something that is as ephemeral and speculative as you can get, I find it insulting and have little interest in trying it, let alone seeing it succeed.
But then again, I'm an a$$hole (my own admittance), so that attitude is par for the course for me...
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Its all about HASBRO. WotC is the face, but the truth is HASBRO is the big bad wolf. Ask Magic the Gathering players about the HASBRoification of their game.It seems to me that the whole Hasbro thing is speculation. Is there any hard and fast evidence that Hasbro has actually influenced the design of 4E.
Ah, but don't forget that Hasbro killed Optimus Prime. Those diabolical bastards!
It seems to me that the whole Hasbro thing is speculation. Is there any hard and fast evidence that Hasbro has actually influenced the design of 4E.
Very true. Just speculation (unless people aren't sharing the secret info at the super secret "We hate hasbro, WotC, 4E and fat free muffins" club meetings).
Ah, but don't forget that Hasbro killed Optimus Prime. Those diabolical bastards!
WHAT!?!?! Did Soundwave survive?
Ah, but don't forget that Hasbro killed Optimus Prime. Those diabolical bastards!
THAT'S A LIE! Optimus gave his life so that Duke wouldn't die in the G.I.Joe animated movie...
[/threadjack]
You know, with this talk of gods killing epic level heroes to cut down on potential threats, I can't help but think of the githyanki...
Also Dark Sun.
If I Psion reached a certain high level he would earn the attention of this epic-level order of psions. If your alignment wasnt True Neutral they bumped you off before you got to powerful.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Ummm... They own them?Go to any business that's run by a corporation and ask them where most of their ideas come from and I'll bet you dollars to d20s that they say "from corporate". The thought that HASBRO has had zero to marginally no influence on the entire 4E debacle/ad-campaign is, IMNSHO, naiviette at best and outright deluding yourself at worst.
Yeah...uh...
I'd say it's naive to think that corporations behave the way you describe.
Which is not to say that it's not possible that someone at Hasbro said "WotC needs to have a better profit margin" and some WotC exec said "we need to make a new edition sooner to increase our profit margin" and then Mike Mearls rushed through and produced 4e sooner than it was ready, but there is no way that some Hasbro exec sent an email down to WotC saying "Dude! You know what would be cool! If we launched 4e! I've never played the game myself, but it would be awsome if paladin's had a smite that could heal other people. Also, tell marketing that they should make sure the ad campaign is s!%%ty and insulting. Trust me, this will totally work. I'm off to twirl my evil moustache and figure out how to ruin Monopoly. Later."
There's no point in WotC having executives and management if Hasbro is going to micro-manage to the degree of determining what 4e is actually like. I guarantee you that the only person at Hasbro who gives a damn about D&D is the guy that directly oversees WotC, and he only cares to the extent that the brand makes money for WotC.
WHAT!?!?! Did Soundwave survive?
Ah, but don't forget that Hasbro killed Optimus Prime. Those diabolical bastards!
No unfortunatly.
Cassette tape players are SO 80s. We use CD players now. Soundwave was replaced with Frenzy, who is pretty much a a reject from the movie Gremlins who throws ninja stars.
Progress doesnt always mean better. :(
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Cassette tape players are SO 80s. We use CD players now. Soundwave was replaced with Frenzy, who is pretty much a a reject from the movie Gremlins who throws ninja stars.
CD Players? What are these arcane devices of which you speak? Everyone I know has a digital music device of some sort (iPod, MP3 player, etc.) ;-)
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CD Players? What are these arcane devices of which you speak? Everyone I know has a digital music device of some sort (iPod, MP3 player, etc.) ;-)
Cassette tape players are SO 80s. We use CD players now. Soundwave was replaced with Frenzy, who is pretty much a a reject from the movie Gremlins who throws ninja stars.
Too bad I can't fit my LP player into my pocket. That would be "teh roxxor".
Yeah...uh...
I'd say it's naive to think that corporations behave the way you describe.
Which is not to say that it's not possible that someone at Hasbro said "WotC needs to have a better profit margin" and some WotC exec said "we need to make a new edition sooner to increase our profit margin" and then Mike Mearls rushed through and produced 4e sooner than it was ready, but there is no way that some Hasbro exec sent an email down to WotC saying "Dude! You know what would be cool! If we launched 4e! I've never played the game myself, but it would be awsome if paladin's had a smite that could heal other people. Also, tell marketing that they should make sure the ad campaign is s*%!ty and insulting. Trust me, this will totally work. I'm off to twirl my evil moustache and figure out how to ruin Monopoly. Later."
There's no point in WotC having executives and management if Hasbro is going to micro-manage to the degree of determining what 4e is actually like. I guarantee you that the only person at Hasbro who gives a damn about D&D is the guy that directly oversees WotC, and he only cares to the extent that the brand makes money for WotC.
Sebastian, I'm not saying they outright said "Rush a new edition and then make the marketing suck d3s", but I do think that what we're experiencing falls somewhere in the middle. However, as I said before, until we hear something from an actual WotC employee who has a hand in the matter, it'll all be speculation and heresay. "The old stuff sucks, but the new stuff will be better, promise" is a half-hearted attempt to generate a newer demographic of players and placate those of us who have been playing for some time now. At least, that's my how I see it.
EDIT: And to ruin Monopoly, they should make a movie about it. Wait...
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It seems to me that the whole Hasbro thing is speculation. Is there any hard and fast evidence that Hasbro has actually influenced the design of 4E.Ummm... They own them?
Go to any business that's run by a corporation and ask them where most of their ideas come from and I'll bet you dollars to d20s that they say "from corporate". The thought that HASBRO has had zero to marginally no influence on the entire 4E debacle/ad-campaign is, IMNSHO, naiviette at best and outright deluding yourself at worst.
Uh, ok.
I work for a company of 250+ owned completely by a 90,000 employee corporation. They have little actual influence over our work. We have a budget based on our own cash flow and as long as we are adding to the big company's bottom line then all is right with the world.
Hasbro just wants Wizards to perform and add to the bottom line. If they are influencing the direction of game design then I would need to see more proof than "they own them".
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It's annoying. Yeah, the deities in the 3.5 PHB have been around for a while. I still like them. How old is Bane from FR? He 's been around for a while, too, as far as I can tell. If you want to make a shiny new pantheon, make a shiny new pantheon. But I'm not into the "Greatest Hits" version. It's changeable of course, but it's still really annoying to me.
You'd think that with the rights to Dungeon magazine, they would actually sit down and read a few issues. Maybe the one with the Dungeon Craft article by Wolfgang Baur about making up your own pantheon. Couldn't hurt.
Well in the game as we know it Bane has been around since 1987.
Ed Greenwood has probably used Bane since 1977.
Forth Edition makes me feel like a poor woman in some movie whose children are getting taken away and theres nothing she can do about it but spit in the faces of the evil basts. *sigh*
I've been away from the Internet and D&D related stuff for a while (see what happens when theres no Dragon or Dungeon magazines feeding you a monthly splurt of tasty D&D drugs fix?) -I've come back and it doesn't look good. 'They' seem to have pretty much destroyed everything I like about the game and its worlds. Poor Forgotten Realms is totally nackered now as well. :(
I wonder how this will effect the novels set in D&D worlds etc?