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Why no new DnD video games? (no MMO)


Arkan

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Huh?

 

Last one I played was NWN2.

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I thought D&D was dead? :unsure:

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I thought D&D was dead? :unsure:

Is it?

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

 

- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

 

"I have also been slowly coming to the realisation that knowledge and happiness are not necessarily coincident, and quite often mutually exclusive" - meta

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I thought D&D was dead? :unsure:

Is it?

 

 

Maybe it's just in a medically induced coma? :)

 

On a more serious note, it does seem to have faded from general awareness. Either they are keeping very low profile or it has just been forgotten by the "masses". Not sure who their target audience is these days, but other than the Neverwinter Online MMO, I haven't noticed anything video game related for a long while.

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.” - Albert Einstein

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I would assume that the bigger companies don't think it will be worth it anymore, considering the short period of time that they would get to sell their multi-million dollar game for before the contract would run out and revert back to Hasboro. I could be wrong.

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Ironically at a time the PnP is said to be more videogamey than ever. Can't say I miss it because it's just a set of behind-the-scene numbers - I imagine the various settings would be somewhat hard to recognise given the changes in the meantime anyway. What would be modern FR game look like? Probably half the cities destroyed, a majority of the gods dead, stuff like that?

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Maybe because developers and publishers have caught on to the fact that the D&D name isn't as glamorous as it used to be and that establishing their own IP is a potentially far more lucrative endeavor. 

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Likely issues:

 

1) The big publishers have more control over their own IP and don't have to pay royalties for their own IP, so they're more likely to do their own IP or a safe/ lucrative licensed one (Star Wars)

2) The mid range publisher of the type that has traditionally published D&D games are an endangered species

3) Hasbro has been litigious with its previous two rights holders. They also managed to grant two exclusive licenses that weren't exclusive.

3a) There were issues with content control too

4) 4e was, it's fair to say, not received to universal acclaim

5) It's questionable whether the D&D name would be a net benefit at this point

6) Scale. AAA/ Console? Smaller scale?

6a) Who would fund it, would Hasbro accept a kickstarter?

7) Who would make it? In terms of established CRPG makers there aren't exactly a surfeit.

 

I doubt there's a huge queue of people waiting at Hasbro's door. When it comes right down to it they haven't managed D&D well at either the computer game or P&P level the last few years.

Edited by Zoraptor
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I'd say it all comes down to mismanagement of the D&D trademark/franchise in the last couple of years. Then some larger publishers decided to try out new own IPs in RPG department and they worked out well, bringing more money to the IP owners.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a D&D based game because there is so many opportunities given the lore of that setting, but then again, who would try to touch it now?

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I was always thinking, it was more fault of how Atari was handling the license, than Hasbro being sue-happy.

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Honestly I'd rather play a fantasy RPG that is an original IP rather than something that has been forced to conform to a specific (and old and stale) canon. Unless of course the Planescape setting could be revived. I'd sell body parts for a well done, modern Planescape game on the scale of the Elder Scrolls games. 

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As I've said here a few times; Dark Sun is my favorite setting and I would love another one of those games done in the style of Shattered Lands/Wake of the Ravager. Planescape too (but at least in that regards, we have the next Torment game.)

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Zor pretty much covered it.  To the extent that the big publishers want to do a non-MMO RPG, they want a "rules-light" RPG like Skyrim or Mass Effect that plays well on consoles and has some potential to tap the CoD-Madden-FIFA audience.  Ages ago, it made sense for a game like this to license the D&D nameplate (Dark Alliance), but the market for vidyagames has changed-- most of the people they want to be buying the game might not view a D&D logo as a selling point. 

Edited by Enoch
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TDE is the new DnD.

It really kind of is.  Just in the last 5 years or so: Drakensang, Drakensang: River of Time, Drakensang Online (Browser MMO), Chains of Satinav (PnC), Memoria (PnC), Demonicon, and Blackguards.

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I thought D&D was dead? :unsure:

Is it?

 

 

Maybe it's just in a medically induced coma? :)

 

On a more serious note, it does seem to have faded from general awareness. Either they are keeping very low profile or it has just been forgotten by the "masses". Not sure who their target audience is these days, but other than the Neverwinter Online MMO, I haven't noticed anything video game related for a long while.

 

 

Well as I threw out on the Weird News thread, DnD just had it's 40th Anniversary.

 

The trouble is they did the big push with 4th Edition a couple of years ago, and kind of turned it into Tabletop WoW. Pathfinder swept in and pretty much gathered up the hordes of fans who disliked that, and now the new "DnD Next" edition is about to come out to see if they can get the fans back.

 

So I'm guessing while they're struggling with that, they aren't going to get too hooked into computer licensing.

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On a more serious note, it does seem to have faded from general awareness. Either they are keeping very low profile or it has just been forgotten by the "masses".

No, you've got it backwards. You're vastly overestimating the reach and popularity of D&D and tabletop RPGs in general. D&D is the only one known to "the masses," and it's only known to "the masses" as a bar by which nerdiness is measured or as a verbal prop in a joke about nerds.

 

The vast majority of the so-called masses to which you are referring have never played D&D in their lives, and almost certainly do not know anyone who has.

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