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My prediction: October 20th, 2017
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30 Comments
1:59 am on January 23rd, 2008
GenCon 2012
5:09 am on January 23rd, 2008
Mutants and Masterminds is 5th Edition D&D, and it’s out now :)
Oh, ok then: GenCon 2010. Yes, that soon.
10:53 am on January 23rd, 2008
June 4th, 2013
11:32 am on January 23rd, 2008
Publish Date: 2014
October 20th is my B-Day xD
11:55 am on January 23rd, 2008
I’m scared of that 2010 predictions. I didn’t plan on buying the prize before at least 2013!
12:09 pm on January 23rd, 2008
I figure there won’t be a 4.5th edition like we had with 3rd edition. Instead they’ll release a new, improved version with errata, new classes and a few tweaked rules as a whole new version just a few years down the line.
The way I see it, Wizards are treating 4th Edition just like a software release, so………..
5:55 pm on January 23rd, 2008
That’s an interesting opinion. Are softwares more susceptible to bugs than roleplaying games? Are they easier to patch? That would explain the software developer approach of patching and re-releasing.
I personally think patching like 3.5e is annoying - I never switched my game completely. Hopefully, WOTC won’t feel like patching is a good solution, but I’m sure it did bring a lot of extra money to release 3.5.
6:21 pm on January 23rd, 2008
Exactly. 4e D&D is going to be part of a whole internet-based digital initiative (whether we use it or not) and will be subjected to pretty much the same development cycle as a software release. I betchya.
I reckon they’ll skip 4.5e and go straight to 5th in just a few years’ time, promoting it as simply a new edition (which is, after all, what it will be). Here’s my reasoning…..
3rd Edition had to be pushed as an entirely new product to distance it from AD&D 2nd Edition in order to attract back the gamers they’d lost. They had to tread a fine line between saying “It’s still D&D” and saying “It’s not AD&D because it’s better, more streamlined and more constent”. They did a fantastic job of treading that fine line at the time, and it paid dividends.
When 3.5e came out though they then had to say “It’s not a new edition; it’s a bugfix.” for the opposite reasons; they /didn’t/ want to distance it from the success of 3e D&D.
With 4e, there’s some distance again, but less than during the change-over from 2nd to 3rd edition. The gap will narrow.
I reckon when 5e comes they’ll just say “yes, it’s a new edition, but it’s still the same D&D you know and love”. Either that or they’ll call it D&D XP Home Edition or something :)
10:42 am on January 24th, 2008
July 2012. 4 year product cycle, which also gives them four or five settings with the one setting per year policy.
11:51 am on January 24th, 2008
“Either that or they’ll call it D&D XP Home Edition or something :)” ***Shudder*** That prompts a scary ass thought. A vista version of D&D.
Seriously though, it does annoy me the way they are promoting things with D&D 4e. It seems like they are trying to mix DND in too much with the online and extra aspects of it, and that just doesn’t prompt me to want to try it. Mostly because it could lead to the multiple version of the same product. Here is your basic, but if you want this you have to pay extra. It is different when you are being sold a program that is an addon (like campaign mappers and stuff), but when that stuff is made to be integrated, then left out to get people to “upgrade”. That’s not good business. It seems like the first steps that D&D are taking right now might lead to that.
12:34 pm on January 24th, 2008
You know what I think is too bad with the online stuff, it’s that high school kids might not be all able to get it. I know I was regurlarly broke back then. A book was a big investment but at least it was a one time fee.
That being said, I am still very excited about the integrated online content - 2 players in Montreal, 2 more in Vancouver, and DM in Hawaii makes gaming difficult. And the online could help us out.
7:18 pm on January 24th, 2008
I say that it will be published in 2011 on Dec 1, just in time for XMas.
10:30 pm on January 24th, 2008
“That being said, I am still very excited about the integrated online content - 2 players in Montreal, 2 more in Vancouver, and DM in Hawaii makes gaming difficult. And the online could help us out.”
There are several freeware products that can help with that… you don’t need to pay WotC for what you can get for free.
The problems I foresee… different people coming the to the gaming table with different rules/options. For example: The DM only has the core (PHB, DM, MM), Player A has stuff he pulled from DDI (the online component of D&D 4E), and Player B has PHB2, MM2 but no DDI.
This problem already exists in 3.5, but I see 4E only making it worse, not better.
12:23 am on January 25th, 2008
I beg to differ on that last one. All books will come with an online copy too and I would think most gaming groups can share an account to build a common library.
10:11 pm on January 25th, 2008
November of 2013. However, it’s not much of a bet. With the success of D&D Insider pouring buckets o’ cash into WotC’s coffers, the entire company undergoes a reorganization. Seeing so little profit in publishing, the company refocuses its efforts on being a service provider to gamers. By 2010, what’s left of the actual publishing arm is considered a loss leader. The new core books, therefore, are given away free, along with a service code in each offering a free month of D&D Insider. ;)
2:13 am on January 26th, 2008
“Seeing so little profit in publishing, the company refocuses its efforts on being a service provider to gamers. ”
Well, don’t forget about their novel publishing… all the D&D novels and MTG novels they publish. There’s also Magic the Cashcow. MTG and Pokemon were the reasons Hasbro bought Wizards… the RPGs were just icing on the cake.
My reasoning behind picking 2012, is that Hasbro is gonna being seeing declining sales and will push for yet another edition (preferably every 2-3 years). WotC will try to push that back as long as possible, aiming for about 5-6 years. What will happen is that they’ll split the difference, 4 years, which will be 2012.
11:19 am on February 3rd, 2008
May 2010. 4.0 has to many moving parts to be perfect the first time out….. Besides I think the sales of 4.0 will be lower then they expect and that will cause WOTC to want to launch a new money maker idea in the realm of D&D.
8:26 pm on February 3rd, 2008
4.5 (or its equivalent major “patch”) sometime in2011
5e Gencon 2015
6:26 am on March 9th, 2008
Gencon 2011
8:40 am on March 9th, 2008
Yax made a comment above that I wholly agree with–about being broke in high school. My friends and I would each buy a different book every other month or so and add it to the collective so we could all share it. There was absolutely NO way we could have each bought a copy of the book to play (which will be necessary for 4.0)
My prediction is April 1, 2014
3:12 am on April 1st, 2008
i’m going to guess May 7th, 2012
(no logic behind that, by the way)
4:00 pm on May 24th, 2008
My prediction:
June 11, 2014 - Yax’s 35th bday :)
3:21 am on June 6th, 2008
I believe they are treating it like one big giant computer software…
In 2 years tops we will see the next best final version of D&D that will super seed all previous versions.
And, just like Microsoft they already released so many versions with 3.x/4.x name they are going to be smooth about it and call it “Dungeon & Dragons: Vista” But, it wont just come as one version it will now have several you can buy from. D&D: Shortsword (for the budget friendly), D&D: Longsword (For those with Familiars, IE Sorcerers and such), and D&D Holy Avenger (Nothing more than Longsword, but it will cost twice as much and have two covers to choose from)
But seriously, they will announce it at GenCon 2010 and then tease us with it until they officially release it just before GenCon 2011, while still trying to weed out there stock of 4E products.
Edit: My apologizes John A, already stated the whole Xp/Vista version of D&D but I at least thought I had an original answer.
4:50 pm on June 29th, 2008
ADND IS STILL THE BEST
10:16 pm on June 30th, 2008
Who let the troll out from under his rock?
8:02 am on August 4th, 2008
If they hold true to there word..then we won’t see another version of D&D until 2018. Yet with the fact that they already annouced books like PHBII and DMGII. It stands the reason that those books will probably read like version 4.1 and 4.2 and so on as they continue to release the updated core books.
Been playing this game for more than 30 yrs now and this new marketing direction just ain cool. A monthly fee for what should be free is just insane. I mean when I was in High School I had a job and could afford a 20 dollar book. The other thing was there wereonly few books so you could work it out. Now with the advent of a book a month, its kinda steep even for working man. On top of the fact you have very little time to absorb the book before you’re buying another.
What would be nice would be to see WOTC set forth a little more user friendly standard (but we know that won’t happen with Hasbro at the helm) A new book every three months. Rotate said books between various realms and make the online tools available for a one time fee.
11:49 am on August 6th, 2008
Once I was asked to predict when the 4th edition would come out.
It was 2006 and I said 2008. Everybody derided me, said it was too soon, and other such crap.
So here is my new prediction, June 2012.
Why?
Simply because the 4th edition will not be as successful as predicted, and surely will lose a lot of old timers (like myself). The Magic is completely broken (and many old timers don’t like that, losing options is not cool), and there are quite a few things that need fine tuning. DDI will prove to hold little interest for people in the long run, and internet piracy will result in loads of losses for Dragon & Dungeon magazines.
5:09 pm on August 8th, 2008
Funny how the RPG industry is now only business oriented.
With the small attention span children spawned by the corporate illuminati mindset that corrupted everything everywhere; D&D is the McDonald of RPG, new flavor of the month anybody…
Ok my prediction even if I dont care :
in 2 years so in 2010
why? because they know the sheeps are gonna buy it anyway … softwares updates, flavor of the month for short span attention kiddies brought up on videogames that have more fun buying new shitty stuff than actualy play with it…
DGM II was the funniest jokeof RPG history…only major corps can do such thing those that dont care at all for their fans.
Of course most kids don’t have the money to renew their 100$ Core rules base each 2 or 4 years…
Chaosium have spawned only 6 editions of Call of Cthulhu in 27 years and by the way you can still play 1st edition stuff with 6th WITHOUT ANY ADAPTATION …try doing that with any T$R or Magic of the Coa$t in the A$$bros stuff…
10:43 pm on August 14th, 2008
My prediction is May 23rd 2013
10:07 am on September 7th, 2008
I’m going GenCon 2018. If it turns out to be earlier, I figure that WotC owes me some books.