Café de Nuit

Blackpaws wrote:Just curious for speculations' sake. Do you think Ravenloft still would have declined if TSR was never bought out by Wizards?

It depends on how we're defining 'declined.'

I guess there's no harm now in revealing that I was told in early 1995 that RL's sales were slipping dangerously. That said, I was informed in mid-1996 that things were looking up... but there was so much lying going on with the staff started around then and moving forward that I can't say if there was any truth to that.

Steve Miller wrote:I guess there's no harm now in revealing that I was told in early 1995 that RL's sales were slipping dangerously. That said, I was informed in mid-1996 that things were looking up... but there was so much lying going on with the staff started around then and moving forward that I can't say if there was any truth to that.

Sales were slipping in early 1995, but they still issued 10 new products that year, including The Nightmare Lands & LitB CD box? That's taking risks that WW/Arthaus doesn't seem able to make!

Don Fernando wrote:

Blackpaws wrote:Just curious for speculations' sake. Do you think Ravenloft still would have declined if TSR was never bought out by Wizards?

I think not. When Wizards took over TSR, the Ravenloft Line was, IMO at its best. Back then you could see, there were many ideas developing, for years to come. Saddly Wizards let the Line go and stopped supporting more products.

Ravenloft was dead before Wizards finished the buy-out. They were only publishing five products in 1999 (production on which would have started well into 1998), two of which were reprints. Not much more than the eight of '98 (five being novels and adventures).
They were working on ending the line like most of the other niche worlds that never really sold as well as one would have hoped because there were simply too many of them.

Strictly nostalgia. Things always looked better in the past: the grass was greener, the products were better, there was no fighting with the dev team or authors and the company was respectful to the fans. In other words total B.S.
The products were often hit-and-miss back then, and all were shorter than the current books. A 96 page book does not have alot of room to make mistakes where ass a 170 page book can make alot of errors and still have room to squeeze in some useful information. Let's face it, if you cut out all the really, really bad things in ANY of the 3E books you would have enough good or decent ideas to make one if not two 2E books. Even something as poor as CoD has enough sheer information to have a good 2E 96 pager tucked away between the Sherrif and Cold War.

Catman Jim wrote:Sales were slipping in early 1995, but they still issued 10 new products that year, including The Nightmare Lands & LitB CD box? That's taking risks that WW/Arthaus doesn't seem able to make!

Well... TSR DID go belly-up.

So TSR was considering ending the line in 95/96? Then it was being considered to end in Wotc? Then probaly by Hasbro's Wotc, and now probaly by WW.

Perhaps all this should give us some hope, our beloved little line has quite the resilience.

Ideas are a manifestation of mental energy and as anyone will tell you energy cannot be destroyed.



Or something to that effect...

Ravenloft is not dead.

It's un-dead


hehehe

It will always keep coming back...

David of the Frat wrote:Ideas are a manifestation of mental energy and as anyone will tell you energy cannot be destroyed.



Or something to that effect...

It can be manipulated and changed, something I do quite frequently

As an undead creature, it has supernatural resilience and an immunity to damage from weapons with less than +1 enchantment...

Orang Santu wrote:As an undead creature, it has supernatural resilience and an immunity to damage from weapons with less than +1 enchantment...

Unfortunately though, most gaming companies' chopping blocks are at least a +3 enchantment...

Bah, Ravenloft has demonstrated multiple times that chopping it does no good. It's obviously got regeneration, or at least fast healing.

Ravenloft has also said time and again that nothing it standardised in the setting. So if some book states that a creature needs a weapon of +3 enchantment to strike it, it must have other weaknesses that can be exploited. Look at the Van Richten Guides for many examples of this method.

Perhaps the alternate weakness of the setting is the publishers Pulishers themselves?

I must say, however, that apart from the silly part, this thread is moot as the developers have said they will never post on these boards again.

Ravenloft has the Mists. Everytime some chopping is done the Mists come and take it some place else.....aaah good old Mists...

Drinnik Shoehorn wrote:I must say, however, that apart from the silly part, this thread is moot as the developers have said they will never post on these boards again.

I tried to follow the *ahem* discussion that took place with the developers a couple of weeks ago... but I don't remember them saying that. Is it a direct quote? They literally said they'd never post here again?