Dark Sun returns

[Kaelik]

Except you still can't read TD.

"We have sold hundreds of thousands of core books" does not mean hundreds of thousands of each, it means hundreds of thousands total.

[Morzas]

But, seriously, can we go back to people whining about Dark Sun not being compatible with 4th edition, rather than people tarding out and creating their own insane theories about how a company with 60+% market share hasn't sold a million books in a year?

60% market share sounds impressive, but RPGs are not a mainstream product; the market is small. Also, D&D gamers are fragmented right now between 3.5e and 4e (EDIT) and even some still playing 2e, in numbers unknown. In other words, 4e players are a segment of a segment of a segment. 4e very well could be selling as badly as people here think, given that WotC said, in a legal document, where they will try to make their sales sound as big as accurate as possible, that they sold only "hundreds of thousands" of core books.

EDIT: RPG devs are very tight-lipped about sales anyway, so the best thing to do is to go with the most solid evidence. A court statement is quite a solid turd compared to the soggy diarrhea ("White Wolf made this statement which could mean any number of things, so multiply that by three and you've got WotC's sales!") you've been posting as "fact".

EDIT 2: Made my post a little more precise.

[Titanium Dragon]

But, seriously, can we go back to people whining about Dark Sun not being compatible with 4th edition, rather than people tarding out and creating their own insane theories about how a company with 60+% market share hasn't sold a million books in a year?

60% market share sounds impressive, but RPGs are not a mainstream product; the market is small. Also, D&D gamers are fragmented right now between 3.5e and 4e (EDIT) and even some still playing 2e, in numbers unknown. In other words, 4e players are a segment of a segment of a segment. 4e very well could be selling as badly as people here think, given that WotC said, in a legal document, where they will try to make their sales sound as big as possible, that they sold only "hundreds of thousands" of core books.

EDIT: RPG devs are very tight-lipped about sales anyway, so the best thing to do is to go with the most solid evidence. A court statement is quite a solid turd compared to the soggy diarrhea ("White Wolf made this statement which could mean any number of things, so multiply that by three and you've got WotC's sales!") you've been posting as "fact".

Someone cited, earlier in this very thread, that White Wolf was doing poorly and sold 1.5 million over two years. Given their market share is about a third to a quarter that of WotC's, that would indicate over the same time period WotC sold between 4.5 million and 6 million.

And the court statement, as I pointed out, is probably referring to how much of each line they've sold, which makes sense as they're comparing it to how many PHB2s have been sold so they can claim that the piracy resulted in X many lost sales.

[PhoneLobster]

Market share is not an absolute divine right.

WOTC does not automatically have and retain any specific market share.

Market share is determined by comparative sales. If the sales do not meet your market share assumptions the market share changes.

You really can't take someone else, make a guess at their comparative market share, then multiply their numbers by your guess and call it anything other than a guess. You certainly can't use that as a direct counter to, you know, some actual fucking numbers.

[Titanium Dragon]

What actual fucking numbers? As I pointed out, repeatedly, their statement is vague and probably is a reference to hundreds of thousands of sales per line, and does not exclude millions.

You claim otherwise. Why? Because you don't want 4th edition to be successful.

I'm well aware you can lose market share. I've seen no signs of it.

[MGuy]

Hundreds of thousands may not automatically mean it can't be millions but the context holds that it probably isn't in the millions. I know this has been stated earlier in this thread but that's the reality of it. In the court case where it would benefit them to make the numbers seem as large as they reasonably can without outright lying they chose (most likely) deliberately to go with a lesser estimate. This heavily implies that their sales in all did not exceed or indeed get close to 1 million.

[PhoneLobster]

Hundreds of thousands is a number.

It does exclude millions. And dozens, and billions, and googles.

It is a specific term because if it was a larger number range there is another specific term for that. And that other specific term is more accurate. You do not come to the table and discuss a figure like 577 or 1,000,577 by saying "Dozens" that is considered an inaccurate representation.

Your current dishonest inability to grasp both the English language and basic numeracy is so embarrassing that it makes ME feel ashamed for you.

I suppose someone has to feel the shame. You know, when there is that fucking much of it. "100s of Thousands" of shames I suppose, good thing it isn't "millions".

[Titanium Dragon]

Grand prix prize purse: $30,000.
Number of grand prix per year: 19 in 2009.
Total prize money: $30,000 x 19 = $570,000

Pro tour: $230,795 per tour x 3 = $692,385
Pro tour rome payout: $245,245 + (1,250 + 1,125 + 1,000)x3 = $255,370

That is $1,517,755 in prize money for professional tournaments for Magic, and does not include prize payouts for nationals (US nationals is $20,000, for reference).

And yet:

Some people play Magic just for fun, coming up with great theme decks or funny combinations of cards to play against their friends. For other players, Magic is a highly competitive game of skill, with hundreds of thousands of dollars up for grabs in professional tournaments. To others still, Magic is all about collecting and trading cards that feature breathtaking original art from some today's premier fantasy artists.

No, it doesn't exclude millions. In fact, the same company uses hundreds of thousands to refer to a total prize purse of over $1.5 million dollars in professional tournaments.

[Zinegata]

TD->

First of all, whether or not some people want 4E to fail or not is irrelevant. There are also people who would do anything to make it seem like a success because they want it to succeed (such as yourself and the 4E Avenger retards). What's important is that a person is able to seperate objective fact with personal prejudices: Something you are completely incapable of.

This isn't like in the WoTC boards where all you have to do is to shout "LOOK! 4E hater!" and the 4E Avenger retards all scream "YOU'RE A LOSER!" without bothering to think. Which is what you tend to do when you're losing an argument to save face.

Again, here, you actually have to make a case. And it's ironic you're accusing the people here of intellectual dishonesty when you're practically the Patron Saint of Intellectually Dishonest Posters.

Secondly, I never claimed that WoTC was lying. I said it should set off alarm bells that they're using the print run figures, because it's very ambiguous compared to simple "sales".

Which demonstrates yet another of your sleazy debating tactics: Taking other people out of context, claiming they're simply projecting their desire for 4E to fail, when all I'm saying is an objective fact:

Sales is a better benchmark of success than print runs. So why not mention sales?

What makes this doubly suspicious is that other WoTC products that do well don't seem to engage in this sort of linguistic gymnastics. For instance, in the case of MTG...

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/14955.html

They cited an extraordinarily precise figure of "over 138,500" members. Yes, there is even a 500 in that figure. Of course, this is an online initiative hence data-gathering is more precise, but the fact that they were willing to publish such precise figures for MTG, when they aren't for D&D, seems a tad bit suspicious.

Maybe they have a good reason other than "4E is failing miserably and we need to cover it up", but so far I haven't really seen any convincing argument from WoTC, although I have seen a lot of frothing rage, hot air, and outright nonsensical claims from you. Which eventually turn to personal attacks because again, your arguments are generally shit and you can't take it when people show you're wrong.

By the way, where are those IM logs again? Afraid to show that you said "sells" rather than "have sold" to them to get them to agree with you and you actually duped them into supporting your asinine argument?

[PhoneLobster]

TD.

You really are both illiterate and innumerate aren't you?

Or a lying idiot relying on everyone else being so.

[Zinegata]

Grand prix prize purse: $30,000.
Number of grand prix per year: 19 in 2009.
Total prize money: $30,000 x 19 = $570,000

Pro tour: $230,795 per tour x 3 = $692,385
Pro tour rome payout: $245,245 + (1,250 + 1,125 + 1,000)x3 = $255,370

That is $1,517,755 in prize money for professional tournaments for Magic, and does not include prize payouts for nationals (US nationals is $20,000, for reference).

And yet:

Some people play Magic just for fun, coming up with great theme decks or funny combinations of cards to play against their friends. For other players, Magic is a highly competitive game of skill, with hundreds of thousands of dollars up for grabs in professional tournaments. To others still, Magic is all about collecting and trading cards that feature breathtaking original art from some today's premier fantasy artists.

No, it doesn't exclude millions. In fact, the same company uses hundreds of thousands to refer to a total prize purse of over $1.5 million dollars in professional tournaments.

Where in that article specifically states that the "hundreds of thousands dollars" figure refers to the total prize money, rather than referring to the prize of individual tournaments (i.e. ProTours with 230K each)?

All it says is "up for grabs in professional tournaments". Meaning the statement can mean a total, individual tournaments, or whatever combination of tournaments you wish.

In short, this isn't proof that WoTC supports the idiocy that $1.5M = hundreds of thousands. It's merely your interpretation of an ambiguous statement. Because you again CANNOT accept your argument is STUPID.

This is again extremely ironic and hypocritical given your statement that "the only reason people disagree with me in this argument is they hate 4E".

Hey, fucktard, you just twisted WoTC's own statements around just because you can't admit you're a fucking moron who can't admit he made a mistake. Go home to your 4E Avenger retard buddies and stay there.

[Titanium Dragon]

Where in that article specifically states that the "hundreds of thousands dollars" figure refers to the total prize money, rather than referring to the prize of individual tournaments (i.e. ProTours with 230K each)?

Where in that article specifically states that the "hundreds of thousands copies" figure refers to the total prize money, rather than referring to the production of individual product lines (i.e. core books with hundreds of thousands each)?

You claimed this very argument was me making up bullshit to justify my stance, and then you used the exact same argument... in a non-ironic fashion?

You really are retarded, Zinegata.

[Threat and suggestion to commit suicide by a poster who bitched at us for being negative a few weeks ago removed - fbmf]

[Zinegata]

TD->

What you're saying is not what I said. I said you're a fucking moron for claiming that Wizards uses "hundreds of thousands" to represent million based on the Magic statement, for reasons already outlined (it's an ambiguous statement. It's not Wizards saying "millions can be represented by hundreds of thousands").

Your exact words:

In fact, the same company uses hundreds of thousands to refer to a total prize purse of over $1.5 million dollars in professional tournaments.

Make up whatever stories you want, but you're still a liar, you're still an idiot, and you're still very wrong. Your ninja tricks don't work here.

Oh, and I should kill myself? That's very, very gratifying. That only means you've completely run out of any intellectual basis to try and discredit me. Can't win an argument? Shoot him.

Again, this ain't the WoTC boards. There are no fucking 4E Avengers and to save you or back you up. You're a fucking idiot. Time to man up to the fact or get the fuck out of here and stay in the WoTC boards where you have fellow fucktards to soothe your ego.

Also, how many times have you evaded the IM question? Oh yes, four times. Safe to assume you made all that up then and you're a fucking liar in that regard.

(Whoops fixed)

[PhoneLobster]

Oh, and I should kill myself? That's very, very gratifying. That only means you've completely run out of any intellectual basis to try and discredit me. Can't win an argument? Shoot him.

And remember this is the guy complaining about people using naughty words on another thread at the same time.

There, I did you a favor. Now fix your quote tags.

[Starmaker]

Tags in question:

[.quote.]In fact, the same company uses hundreds of thousands to refer to a total prize purse of over $1.5 million dollars in professional tournaments.[./quote.][./quote.]

[Absentminded_Wizard]

So which is it? Is the hellishness of Dark Sun caused by intelligent creatures or is it by nature?

I've been hearing two contradictory things. But if the hellishness is being caused by the environment, how is Dark Sun different from any other points-of-light campaign setting with the trees swapped for sand?

I think it was both. Basically, the only civilized refuges from the desert were ruled by evil dictators who happened to have 20+ levels in both wizard and psion. Furthermore, there was no escape from the trouble at high levels, because if you ever got past 20th level, you automatically made powerful enemies who wanted to hunt you down and convert you to their cause or kill you.

[Red_Rob]

Having read the court document in question (at http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rp ... -case.html) it does talk earlier in the paragraph about "the three core 4th edition rulebooks". It then later uses the phrase "The core 4th edition rulebooks have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and are now in their third printing".

This leads me to believe that they are only talking about the PHB, DMG and MM. However, it is also abundantly clear that they are trying to sound impressive here, and if they were using the phrase as Titanium Dragon is suggesting, they would have said "The core 4th edition rulebooks have each sold hundreds of thousands of copies and are now in their third printing". To claim otherwise is ridiculous. So this suggests that they have sold at most 300,000 of each core book. Does anyone know how that compares to the first year of 3rd ed sales?

[Zinegata]

I think it was both. Basically, the only civilized refuges from the desert were ruled by evil dictators who happened to have 20+ levels in both wizard and psion. Furthermore, there was no escape from the trouble at high levels, because if you ever got past 20th level, you automatically made powerful enemies who wanted to hunt you down and convert you to their cause or kill you.

Fairly sure it was both as well. Defilers were already mucking up the place before the Sun went "almost Nova".

One thing's fairly clear about Dark Sun though - the damage to the environment can't be reversed without really powerful magic, and even then it can only support tiny city states as opposed to the vast expanses of desert. This indicates that either it's easier to defile than to re-create stuff, and/or the damage of the sun going almost nova is big enough to prevent even high-level magic from turning the clock back.

[Kobajagrande]

You could easily just reflavor them as normal weapons, and have magical weapons be the stuff which isn't made out of junk. You thus keep the flavor of them being weaker than other weapons without screwing up the system.

Congratulations. You have just failed to do one of the things which would make setting's gameplay different than vanilla 4E. Lets just put that as a vote for "4E isn't able to emulate Dark Sun"

[Josh_Kablack]

Wow this thread is a train wreck.

I haven't touched Dark Sun in 17.67 years, and I was not paying it a whole lot of attention even back then,


but I kinda thought the flavor boiled down to:

2. Brom artwork.
3. Inverting or discarding many of the tropes of fantasy that had become entrenched since Gygax. Examples.
   2. Meddling gods
   3. Healing magic
   4. Heavy Armor
   5. The ability to "win" by defeating the great dark lord
   6. The static AD&D ruleset (Athas stat rolls were abnormal, psionics became mandatory, the environmental danger rules became really important)

Since Brom is still alive and producing, there's no reason that the first and most important part of the setting could not be reproduced for 4e.

And since there have been a number of alternative fantasy worlds and concepts that have become common since 1991 (Such as Harry Potter, Ebberon and the mainstreaming of Anime) the second point is not such a big deal, but still easy to acheive

If you want to dwell on the specific tropes changed, then 4e is not perfect - but is better suited to several of those concepts than 2e ever was.

• While the categorization of "power sources" is rather random in 4e, the simple removal of all classes with a "divine" power source removes most of the need for meddling gods in a setting
• While the execution falls down in many specific powers (especially post-Divine Power), the concept of limited healing surges and each character being able to use them slowly (via second wind) on their own means that healing magic and potions are no longer absolutely essential to the game.
• Class-based defense bonuses and the use of various stats to derive AC, means that heavy armor can go without either changing the game entirely nor being as kludgey (and powegamer friendly in other settings) as Armor Maximization was.
• As has been ranted about extensively elsewhere on this board, 4e's default assumption is a "points-of-light" world where individual victories are unlikely to greatly alter the setting.
• 4e's static ruleset could damn sure use some tweaking. Alternate stat generation methods would help. Making latent psionics available as a power list that everyone gets to pick from would do wonders to help differentiate individual characters within the same class, and well as Frank pointed out much earlier, the environmental rules need rewritten. Although the "does not recover healing surges" mechanic provides a way to enforce scarcity and desperation while leaving the PC's still roughly in the same place for any single fight.

Edit: lookie, nested lists

4e is not a perfect fit, and some work would need to be done, but overall, it's probably able to match the setting better than 2e was.


Now please feel free to return to arguing about what 2+2 equals and how badly WotC lies in court.

[Lago PARANOIA]

There are obviously some sticking points in Josh's list. For example, some classes just flat-out have to have an alternative for heavy armor. Also since only one class in 4E (the Invoker) is forced to deal with gods anymore, there's no reason why the game can't have cleric/paladin/avenger now. Yes, there is some support for these classes gaining spoon when sucking the Raven Queen's cock, but the basic class writeup doesn't require it.

4E also has a much heavier dependence on magical equipment than any other edition. However, the padded sumo problem of this edition becomes a lot worse if you take away everyone's toys. There will need to be a workaround for this.

After a certain level in 4E, about level 8 or so, diseases and environmental effects stop really being scary. There will need to be an adjustment for that.

Those are probably the major sticking points of a conversion. Now the magical item dependency will require a complete overhaul of the entire system. But honestly it needs an overhaul anyway. I grow so tired of seeing all of the melee characters out in a Bloodclaw Glaive/Bastard Sword and Board/Fullblade + Agile/Blackiron/Dwarven Armor + Cloak of Distortion + Gauntlets of Destruction + Iron Armbands of Power + Boots of Eagerness.

But the basic assumption of Points of Light, an economy made of arbitranium, and a setting where without DM input you can't really have much of an impact no matter how hard you try are still valid.

[Username17]

Having read the court document in question (at http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rp ... -case.html) it does talk earlier in the paragraph about "the three core 4th edition rulebooks". It then later uses the phrase "The core 4th edition rulebooks have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and are now in their third printing".

This leads me to believe that they are only talking about the PHB, DMG and MM. However, it is also abundantly clear that they are trying to sound impressive here, and if they were using the phrase as Titanium Dragon is suggesting, they would have said "The core 4th edition rulebooks have each sold hundreds of thousands of copies and are now in their third printing". To claim otherwise is ridiculous. So this suggests that they have sold at most 300,000 of each core book. Does anyone know how that compares to the first year of 3rd ed sales?

See, this actually strikes me as deliberate slight of hand on their part. In paragraph 16 they give the historical context of the unprecedented sales of the three core rulebooks of 3.5. Then at the beginning of paragraph 17 they note that the 4th edition had the same three core rulebooks as 3rd edition did on release - but they don't use any language to indicate that it was limited to that. Then they have an entirely separate sentence at the end that states that the 4th edition core rulebooks sold hundreds of thousands as of the time of writing the law suit. The thing is of course that between the release of 4th edition and the statement of total sales, they produced ten fucking extra core rulebooks - a point they don't mention but very specifically do not deny.

None of those statements are false if the only number of 4th edition sales quoted actually includes those other 10 rulebooks, so why wouldn't they include those numbers if they made them look better? Why would they use language that included those 10 additional books if they did not intend to use them in their figures?

Now, personally I would suspect that they could get to hundreds of thousands with just the original three core books. But it's real clear that if they could have gotten to a million with Open Grave and Dracomicon I that they totally would have done that. They left themselves specific wiggle room to do so had the entire pile of 13 core rulebooks sold a million copies.

Now we get to the really exciting numbers. Remember Titanium Dragon's linked Shill interview? Greg Leeds says everything is fine at WotC land several times in very specifically vague ways. Selling through of "printings" rather than "units" - that sort of thing. But look at what else he says:

We can conservatively estimate that for every one book downloaded legally, ten were downloaded illicitly.

And the court case:

However, by the time Sribd removed the unauthorized copy of Player's Handbook 2 from Defendant Nolan's Scribd page, approximately 1,010 copies had been downloaded

Really? So conservatively, they sold 101 digital copies of the PHB 2?

Without citing specific numbers, our content is distributed to hundreds of thousands of people, and our PDF business was small in comparison.

No kidding.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Wait, Nolan Scribd? He didn't have copies of the book to download, he just got a copy early and showed a lot of previews of the book, mostly in the feat section.

[Username17]

Note: the 101 (or less) copies of PHB 2 that Greg Leeds implies were sold is not at all unbelievable. A Shadowrun e-book is designed with a break-even point of 50 sales. And some of them seriously have not done that while others made a tidy profit.

It's entirely possible that WotC took down pdf sales because they couldn't figure out how to get people to pay 35 dollars for a slow loading pdf with embedded restrictions.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

That's actually kind of weird if the numbers of pirates for WotC books is in the thousands. I'd expect it to be higher than that, especially if hundreds of thousands of people actually sit down and buy the books.