Decline Sword Coast Legends Pre-Release Thread

[Telengard]

MtG turns over a suspected $200 million every year in revenue (Forbes), and has regularly posted double digit percentage sales increases. Hasbro actually singles out MtG every year in its sales report for special praise, because it does so well, regularly beating their core games sections. And it does things like beat out Monopoly all the time.

D&D in comparison is a piddly earner, being way, way under 100mil (the Hasbro target number). No one's ever outright said it, but everyone kind of knows that Hasbro bought WotC for MtG, and D&D is just one of the other brands that come along with their purchase.

I don't understand why, when you have access to a franchise (D&D) which is greatly appreciated by PnP players, grognards and bearded middle-age nerds (and their intersection), that you should churn out F2P shit and not serious games. It's an open goal for guaranteed sales and they choose to just make shit - it's inexplicable. I doubt shit like Demon Stone sells better than the BG games did (or the Gold Box games, in their time). Whoever is in charge of the D&D franchise must think they are actually managing "Pokémon".

Hasbro cares nothing about things that aren't high volume, so they will never be a good steward for a pnp RPG brand. JarlFrank is right, a d&d rpg is a guaranteed seller. No question. But its not the kind of investment Hasbro is looking for. They can spend that same money on more MtG crap for a much larger profit. Because card development costs are numbered in the thousands. Game development costs are numbered in the millions. And the cards earn more. That's just how it is - it's the popamole of the pnp scene. Plus, all the hobby stores love the cards, and so they love Hasbro for selling them. That's good press for Hasbro, which Hasbro also loves.

In the end. D&D did this to themselves, though. Ever since they divided the community with Basic and AD&D, they've been dividing and re-dividing their community, digging this hole. Now, there's 6 camps out there, and WotC aren't the people who can bring all of them together. Who knows if there's anyone out there who could do that.

 

[Haba]

He did. He married Catti-brie and got his rocks off before she died. Salvatore has since resurrected her along with everyone else its very likely they are still married.

Really? The wiki summary says that he got a new chick who was "only using his body" and is currently in a love triangle with Entreri and her (LOL).

 

[Rostere]

I don't understand why, when you have access to a franchise (D&D) which is greatly appreciated by PnP players, grognards and bearded middle-age nerds (and their intersection), that you should churn out F2P shit and not serious games. It's an open goal for guaranteed sales and they choose to just make shit - it's inexplicable. I doubt shit like Demon Stone sells better than the BG games did (or the Gold Box games, in their time). Whoever is in charge of the D&D franchise must think they are actually managing "Pokémon".

It sort of makes me think of an interview I listened to with Bill Webb and Matt Finch awhile back (from Frog God Games, who publish Swords & Wizardry and used to be Necromancer Games). They've been able to make it as a small publisher because they realized their target demographic was a bunch of middle aged nerds with lots of disposable income and a deep sense of nostalgia for TSR era D&D. So what do they do? They focus on making signature stitched, bulletproof, hardbound RPG products that sell for $40-100 a piece and they turn a profit. If they were chasing "young money" they'd probably would have declared bankruptcy years ago.

For whatever reason, it feels like Hasbro still thinks they've acquired a toy license.

But it doesn't even need to be that old-school. Sure, if we were the rulers of the world we would want them to, but I believe they can increase their sales by only moving slightly into the old-school sphere.

You know, if I sat at a Machiavellian managerial meeting and wondered about how to best milk money out of D&D: Make a game with combat gameplay roughly like ToEE, maybe just a little bit easier and dumbed-down, with shorter travelling distances to get to the action (so no noobs quit when they get lost in Hommlet). Make a story with cinematic character interactions like in random Bioware game (these guys used to succeed financially with D&D, right?). That should be enough to get both old-school fans to buy it and new players to like it. Something like that would be the optimal way to milk money out of D&D and build their franchise at the same time. If I was only interested in the money, that is how I would do it. Roleplayers in general and also D&D fans specifically are some union of LARPers, Biowarians who want to interact with (and fuck) NPCs, more sophisticated storyfags, and grognards. Those are the people you might want to pander to if you want to milk your role-playing franchise. Eventual complaints about the games would end up in a tug-of-war between these parts of the fanbase, not in an unexpected complete cave-in to casual gamers who don't give a shit about D&D anyway.

Somehow they stick to releasing utter popamole shit that only the filthiest of casuals would buy. That completely removes the point with the D&D label. They believe too fervently in racing towards the lowest common denominator for their own good. And that is said from a purely economic point of view.

Bethesda making F3 is a popamolization I can understand, as much as I hate it. They cannibalized the Fallout setting to make a more diverse portfolio, while sticking to the proven formula from Oblivion. Hasbro going forward with F2P shit games and hopeless ARPG failures is something I don't understand at all. What the fuck are they thinking - when was this strategy profitable? They have their established audience. Making shit popamole games with the D&D license makes as much sense as if Ferrari were going to make their own search engine. If they keep going like this, the next "D&D" game is going to be a Tetris clone for Facebook. Now talk about wasting the potential of your franchise.

Hasbro cares nothing about things that aren't high volume, so they will never be a good steward for a pnp RPG brand. JarlFrank is right, a d&d rpg is a guaranteed seller. No question. But its not the kind of investment Hasbro is looking for. They can spend that same money on more MtG crap for a much larger profit. Because card development costs are numbered in the thousands. Game development costs are numbered in the millions. And the cards earn more. That's just how it is - it's the popamole of the pnp scene. Plus, all the hobby stores love the cards, and so they love Hasbro for selling them. That's good press for Hasbro, which Hasbro also loves.

In the end. D&D did this to themselves, though. Ever since they divided the community with Basic and AD&D, they've been dividing and re-dividing their community, digging this hole. Now, there's 6 camps out there, and WotC aren't the people who can bring all of them together. Who knows if there's anyone out there who could do that.

I fear you may be right about them being a bad steward for D&D. But it's still no excuse for being outright stupid. Hasbro has seriously gone too far in their popamolization of their D&D stuff. It's not about them actually appealing to a wider audience (which you can compare to Bioware's decline), but about them disfiguring and wasting their own franchise.

 

[Telengard]

Understanding the corporate mindset probably isn't worth your time. But a short version:

Phone games are the schlock reality shows of the TV world, and f2p are the pay-per-view porn wrestling shows. Sure, filling that time slot with such trash sullies the station brand a bit, and schlock will never make the kind of money (billions) that a hit show will make, doing only thousands or millions. But, they're real cheap to make and they are popular, so it's much easier and quicker to make a profit out of them, and it's not a high hurdle to make double digit profit (which makes the suits real happy, bonuses all around). Sure a lot of them fail. But no need to wait six years to hit big, like a regular show. Nope, cash in each year and get profits on the yearly balance sheet.

So, stupid phone games aren't where D&D needs to be, or even should be. But it's where Hasbro wants its stuff to be - cheap and quick profits to the masses. And if your IP can't make the phone game cut, then tough luck - that's the only video games they're funding this year and in the foreseeable future. (Though do bring the idea back up again if you've got a synergy plan between a phone game, a computer game, and a world book, and an RA Salvatore novel.)

It's, yes, a total waste of the D&D brand, and maybe even bad for the long-term health of D&D. And it's certainly money that could be invested in another potential major D&D game hit, with long-lasting returns beyond just big money, like fame. But a phone game is 1/20th the investment with a quick turn around on that investment, gets on that phone marketplace you keep hearing about in Business Week, and then you can use the remaining 19/20th of the investment money on more MtG shit and guarantee a profit no matter how the phone game does.

 

[GarfunkeL]

These reviews of WotC are gold:

R&D designs great paper Magic, but is not poised with the talent to design in the digital world.
Magic brand team leadership lacks transformative vision and are generally novice managers who are more interested in ego and empire building than anything else.
The Web Publishing team is a complete disaster, failing to deliver anything of significance technologically and the latest project was a colossal failure by any measure.
The marketing team's culture, established by its leader, is based on masoginistic narcissism and ego-based decision making. Everyone works to satisfy the leadership's constantly changing emotional whims.
Ideas are torn down and constantly refactored so that "proper credit" can be accepted upward.
Everything is blamed on either the Sales team or the Technology team.
HR is powerless because executive bullying is allowed, especially in Marketing and Sales, where Marketing in particular believes they are over-qualified in every discipline.
Magic Online Business team leadership is unqualified
Executive team has only four qualified executives in positions to take the company forward; HR, Finance, Technology, and CEO.

Wizards is great for young go getters. They come in, get to work on cool technology that’s mostly less than 10 years old, build up some nice resume bullet points. Then they leave since pay is better everywhere else in this area.

But what about the rest of us? The real people. I’ve been here a few years now. I checked out years ago. How’s Wizards for the majority of us?

It’s FANTASTIC. My manager checked out years ago too. Beyond that? No one cares!

You never meet your skip level manager. Never. You never meet your director, or VP, or anyone above your direct, every day manager. And there’s about 10 layers between me and the local CEO. I’m closer to Kevin Bacon than him!

What about the skip level manager - worried that he’ll catch my manager being checked out? There’s no worries there. Just recently had a group meeting with him. He has four reports, and manages four products. He messed up the name of one of his direct reports and one of his products! And when called on it he responded “Everyone calls him [incorrect pronunciation]”!! Is there any clearer way he can say “I don’t care about you or your product”? This is a 100% true example of every day life at Wizards.

There is no better place for the 15 minute a week workers. There’s so many of us I don’t worry about losing my job, even if the managers cared. But they so obviously don’t care that it’s one less thing to worry about.

Very low chance to advance, you will be told you can, but what you need to do changes all the time so you will not succeed at it.

Marketing is a joke, they have no idea what they are trying to sell and won't learn. IT is old and out of date.

2 trick pony. Magic and D&D. If it isn't named that it's not going to fly. Don't get your hopes up about a new game you made. Even if they like it, and say they want to do it, it won't get published. But they will own your idea from then on. So many layers of managers, it's hard to know who someone has to talk to.

Now I really do want to see them crash and burn :D

 

[btbgfel]

He did. He married Catti-brie and got his rocks off before she died. Salvatore has since resurrected her along with everyone else its very likely they are still married.

Really? The wiki summary says that he got a new chick who was "only using his body" and is currently in a love triangle with Entreri and her (LOL).

I have some even better news to light you up : that chick(a surface elf) now is the matron mother of House Do'Urden which is found to ruin Drizzt's reputation.

 

[Cyberarmy]

He did. He married Catti-brie and got his rocks off before she died. Salvatore has since resurrected her along with everyone else its very likely they are still married.

Really? The wiki summary says that he got a new chick who was "only using his body" and is currently in a love triangle with Entreri and her (LOL).

I have some even better news to light you up : that chick(a surface elf) now is the matron mother of House Do'Urden which is found to ruin Drizzt's reputation.

I don't really know why I keep reading this series, probably addicted to it and need some rehab.
I blame Entreri and Jarlaxle...

 

[Echo Mirage]

He did. He married Catti-brie and got his rocks off before she died. Salvatore has since resurrected her along with everyone else its very likely they are still married.

Really? The wiki summary says that he got a new chick who was "only using his body" and is currently in a love triangle with Entreri and her (LOL).

I don't know about any new chick since I never read beyond a sneak peak of the intro to the 4th edition stuff with Drizzt protecting Orcs in some mountain pass from racist elf's and crap like that.

But I do know that all of the companions of the hall were resurrected in their original forms.

Would be odd to jump through that many hoops to bring them all back and have them pick up where they all left off and not to have them still in a relationship of some sort.

 

[FuriousGamer87]

Here hoping that they make a lot of noise so I can capitalize a bit on the rage and anger.

 

[Rostere]

Understanding the corporate mindset probably isn't worth your time. But a short version:

Phone games are the schlock reality shows of the TV world, and f2p are the pay-per-view porn wrestling shows. Sure, filling that time slot with such trash sullies the station brand a bit, and schlock will never make the kind of money (billions) that a hit show will make, doing only thousands or millions. But, they're real cheap to make and they are popular, so it's much easier and quicker to make a profit out of them, and it's not a high hurdle to make double digit profit (which makes the suits real happy, bonuses all around). Sure a lot of them fail. But no need to wait six years to hit big, like a regular show. Nope, cash in each year and get profits on the yearly balance sheet.

So, stupid phone games aren't where D&D needs to be, or even should be. But it's where Hasbro wants its stuff to be - cheap and quick profits to the masses. And if your IP can't make the phone game cut, then tough luck - that's the only video games they're funding this year and in the foreseeable future. (Though do bring the idea back up again if you've got a synergy plan between a phone game, a computer game, and a world book, and an RA Salvatore novel.)

I'm still of the mind that they could increase their profits if they give role-players the D&D games they actually want. Just look at the Gold Box games. Milking 10 sequels off one successful game (PoR), all based on the same engine. It's a bit similar with the Baldur's Gate/Neverwinter Night brands around 2000. That evidently sells. The NWN games from the 2000s have sold over 3 million units IIRC (old estimate). The fact that Beamdog can even make money off of making EEs of 90s games says something of the success of the Baldur's Gate games.

But I think I might better understand their line of thought now. They don't start with "how can we intelligently develop the D&D franchise based on previous successes", they start with "what are the recent fads and how can we try to make money from them". So they decide to make a mobile game and then later choose to stick the D&D label on it, because that might sell better than MtG. The same line of thought that was behind colossal failures like Blood & Magic (trying to latch on to RTS fad), AD&D:Slayer (Doom fad), yeah, the list goes on. We all know what games people remember and still pay for today.

IMO they have the wrong business attitude, both mid-term financially and long-term for the D&D brand. Shit games might require a lower investment and thus look more tempting because of the low risk. That might be it.

BTW, here is what Feargus had to say about this yesterday: http://www.polygon.com/2015/2/9/800...video-game-devs-thinks-that-tabletop-game-has

It's, yes, a total waste of the D&D brand, and maybe even bad for the long-term health of D&D. And it's certainly money that could be invested in another potential major D&D game hit, with long-lasting returns beyond just big money, like fame. But a phone game is 1/20th the investment with a quick turn around on that investment, gets on that phone marketplace you keep hearing about in Business Week, and then you can use the remaining 19/20th of the investment money on more MtG shit and guarantee a profit no matter how the phone game does.

Yes. Clearly they are looking at what seems to be in the news recently, they are not looking at what are actual past successes and what games role-players (their audience) actually buy.

 

[Dorateen]

WotC is ripe for a coup, and install TSR back in power. Give a whole new meaning to the term hostile takeover.

 

[Axe Father]

But I think I might better understand their line of thought now. They don't start with "how can we intelligently develop the D&D franchise based on previous successes", they start with "what are the recent fads and how can we try to make money from them". So they decide to make a mobile game and then later choose to stick the D&D label on it, because that might sell better than MtG. The same line of thought that was behind colossal failures like Blood & Magic (trying to latch on to RTS fad), AD&D:Slayer (Doom fad), yeah, the list goes on. We all know what games people remember and still pay for today.

Isn't that pretty much written in the stones of RPG video game history? Design philosophies like RTwP and the dawn of spin-offs such as Dark Alliance and Champions of Norrath were examples of chasing fads like RTS games and Diablo. The Infinity Engine even started out as a strictly RTS engine that was re-purposed for Baldur's Gate.

 

[Rostere]

But I think I might better understand their line of thought now. They don't start with "how can we intelligently develop the D&D franchise based on previous successes", they start with "what are the recent fads and how can we try to make money from them". So they decide to make a mobile game and then later choose to stick the D&D label on it, because that might sell better than MtG. The same line of thought that was behind colossal failures like Blood & Magic (trying to latch on to RTS fad), AD&D:Slayer (Doom fad), yeah, the list goes on. We all know what games people remember and still pay for today.

Isn't that pretty much written in the stones of RPG video game history? Design philosophies like RTwP and the dawn of spin-offs such as Dark Alliance and Champions of Norrath were examples of chasing fads like RTS games and Diablo. The Infinity Engine even started out as a strictly RTS engine that was re-purposed for Baldur's Gate.

I don't agree that RTwP must inherently be more popamolized than turn-based, even if that might originally have been the intention. That might have to do with a background as a fanatic HoI 2 player - you get to see the more complicated and realistic scenarios that RTwP allows for.

So BG started out as some horrible RTS-actiony game a la Sole Survivor. But then turned into a decent RPG, selling a lot, when they actually chose to not make stupid shit.

So what has sold best in the end? Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 1 and 2 or Baldur's Gate 1 and 2? I am not saying that some dumbing-down might never give more sales (look at Bioware). I am saying that when you have a *cough* respectable *cough* role-playing brand like D&D, if you waste it on making clickfests like BG:DA, if you bend over backwards to dumb it down, there is no point in using the franchise to begin with, you will only tarnish it and open up for competitors. Pathfinder wouldn't even exist as a commercial product if D&D hadn't made these mistakes.

 

[Xenich]

I'm still of the mind that they could increase their profits if they give role-players the D&D games they actually want. Just look at the Gold Box games. Milking 10 sequels off one successful game (PoR), all based on the same engine. It's a bit similar with the Baldur's Gate/Neverwinter Night brands around 2000. That evidently sells. The NWN games from the 2000s have sold over 3 million units IIRC (old estimate). The fact that Beamdog can even make money off of making EEs of 90s games says something of the success of the Baldur's Gate games.

BINGO!!! You make a good solid engine, then... you churn out content with it, tuning the engine here and there with each iteration of release, but essentially spending most of your development time on the content rather than creating a new base engine.

 

[Axe Father]

I don't agree that RTwP must inherently be more popamolized than turn-based, even if that might originally have been the intention. That might have to do with a background as a fanatic HoI 2 player - you get to see the more complicated and realistic scenarios that RTwP allows for.

So BG started out as some horrible RTS-actiony game a la Sole Survivor. But then turned into a decent RPG, selling a lot, when they actually chose to not make stupid shit.

So what has sold best in the end? Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 1 and 2 or Baldur's Gate 1 and 2? I am not saying that some dumbing-down might never give more sales (look at Bioware). I am saying that when you have a *cough* respectable *cough* role-playing brand like D&D, if you waste it on making clickfests like BG:DA, if you bend over backwards to dumb it down, there is no point in using the franchise to begin with, you will only tarnish it and open up for competitors. Pathfinder wouldn't even exist as a commercial product if D&D hadn't made these mistakes.

I was simply agreeing with you that the intention among big RPG publishers is often to ape something popular rather than come up with an iterative design that builds on past success. I wasn't passing judgement on either Infinity Engine games or Diablo-clones like Dark Alliance.

 

[Xenich]

I was simply agreeing with you that the intention among big RPG publishers is often to ape something popular rather than come up with an iterative design that builds on past success. I wasn't passing judgement on either Infinity Engine games or Diablo-clones like Dark Alliance.

That is certainly what they do, but I don't understand why. From a honest game developing aspect, it makes sense to build off what you successfully created to see how far you can push its limits. From a business aspect, it doesn't make sense to keep starting over, putting most of your resources into something that is a gamble and has a chance of limited return. Its like these guys are terrible at knowing what is good game development and terrible at business to boot. I think it is because these big companies are out of touch, they have no clue about the people they are producing for. They look at the public as something to manipulated, herded, etc... I mean, its like they are stuck in the old record label mentality of pushing boy bands and one hit wonders. They won't be able to survive in a truly competitive environment where technology has advanced so far that a guy in his spare time can design, write, and release their own game. It is like someone should just put them out of their misery as we all know where this is heading.

 

[SwiftCrack]

Real talk: BGDA 1/2 were pretty dope with coop play.

 

[GarfunkeL]

From a business aspect, it doesn't make sense to keep starting over, putting most of your resources into something that is a gamble and has a chance of limited return. Its like these guys are terrible at knowing what is good game development and terrible at business to boot.

Hey if all senior managers were actually competent we wouldn't have companies losing dominant market shares or going bankrupt.[/QUOTE]

 

[Ebonsword]

He did. He married Catti-brie and got his rocks off before she died. Salvatore has since resurrected her along with everyone else its very likely they are still married.

Really? The wiki summary says that he got a new chick who was "only using his body" and is currently in a love triangle with Entreri and her (LOL).

I have some even better news to light you up : that chick(a surface elf) now is the matron mother of House Do'Urden which is found to ruin Drizzt's reputation.

I don't really know why I keep reading this series, probably addicted to it and need some rehab.
I blame Entreri and Jarlaxle...

That "Servant of the Shard" book was genuinely good, from what I remember, so I understand your feelings.

 

[TheGreatOne]

"Turn-based" has become a synonym for boring these days in most people's opinions. Hell I couldn't even convince my roommates to at least try out D:OS, when they saw the words "turn-based" in the Steam genre thing.

That's starting to become a thing of the past. We're past the dark age even if there's still a long way to go. South Park RPG was TB, D:OS did very well, WL2/T:ToN (and other CRPG revival games) have gained some mainstream recognition and most importantly nu-XCOM introduced a whole new popamoler generation (Zero punctuation etc) to the concept of seeing turn based combat in a modern Western game. And it was a big success. Sure it's streamlined and dumbed down from the original, but you cant underestimate the importance of it (and Grimrock). For the past decade turn based has been associated with two things, Civilization and JRPGs. I doubt we'll ever see a high caliber AAA WRPG made by Bioware or Bethesda featuring turn based combat, but given the recent CRPG revival which has attracted new fans to the genre (like JRPG fans who were already accustomed to TB combat), I could see a CD Project/Obsidian level multiplatform AA game having turn based combat in the future if this trend continues.

Whoever is in charge of the D&D franchise must think they are actually managing "Pokémon".

Pokémon games are actually turn based and less whored out than the D&D license. Even in the 80s&90s they churned out ARPGs (the Capcom beat em ups, real time blobbers) and straight up trash like the NES games. But surely developing forgettable trash which isn't appealing to any one beats developing a game that could actually sell like a Temple of Elemental Evil sequel, because they would rather have smaller profits than admit that there's a market for non retarded games. That's how all major game publishers are run.

 

[RPGMaster]

So where's the announcement?

 

[MisterStone]

So where's the announcement?

That's Feb 12 in the first world, not potato land time!

 

[Rostere]

Whoever is in charge of the D&D franchise must think they are actually managing "Pokémon".

Pokémon games are actually turn based and less whored out than the D&D license.

Haha yes, I knew someone would reply with this when I wrote my post, kind of underscores the point

 

[Akasen]

It's February 12th now. I am disappointed already.

 

[Cyberarmy]

This is going to be announced when I'll sleeping probably so I'm gonna miss all the drama till tomorrow.
Fucking new world time zones.