Hasbro must die for buying out Wizards of The Coast

loafergirl · Post by **loafergirl** » Sat Jun 01, 2002 1:55 am

The Chain of events:

TSR- Makers of D&D, which contrary to popular belief does not involve human sacrifice, and really is just a game and happens to be a lot of fun

bought out by Wizards of The Coast- Makers of Magic The Gathering. That was great, TSR had been sitting on its ass far too long just republishing the same crap. 3rd edition is released, awsome revamp on the roleplay system, and all sorts of new fun stuff to play with

bought out by Hasbro- Makers of Pokemon, 'nuff said.

-LG

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Sat Jun 01, 2002 4:06 pm

Did this just happen? Huh. Didn't know that.

There is a Star Wars Action Figure Collector guy who has bopped around Pinback's site. Maybe he has a take on this, I dunno.

Do the characters in 3rd edition get too powerful too quickly? I bought the books but haven't played a game in that system yet. I think that pretty soon, all the D&D games released for the computer will have 3rd edition rules, though.

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Sat Jun 01, 2002 4:43 pm

Well, as a guy from a suburb of Milwaukee, I begrudge WOTC for moving GenCon to Indianapolis (in effect next year), even though I only went to GenCon for the first time last year... I just appreciate the historical significance and what not.
So maybe Hasbro will end up moving it back... Ok, probably not (and who knows, maybe they'll stop it altogether or something). Whatever.

loafergirl · Post by **loafergirl** » Sat Jun 01, 2002 5:28 pm

3rd addition is awsome, say goodbye to that whole THACO calculation, as AC is now a positive # (the higher the better) a lot more skills, specialty classes, CD for character creation, no restrictions on class due to race, so YES you can have a Dwarven Bard, is it an ideal or likely thing? No, but it can happen.
Advancement isn't so easy, and they have all sorts of new rules for flanking in battle, attacks of opportunity, partial cover hit ratios etc... Criticals can be gotten at different ranges (for instance a quarterstaff I think is still a 20, but a longsword is a crit with a 19 or 20). The pictures are great (I'm especially fond of the size chart ranging from halfling to full sized red dragon). And the big nasties are bigger and nastier.
Multi-classing is also MUCH better, you can switch back and forth as apposed to the old system where if you chose at 7th lvl fighter to become a wizard you couldn't raise more levels in fighter. You can also take any classes that you want (provided there's no alignment conflicts). Over all it's a much more deailed sytem but easier to work with once you get used to it.

-LG

loafergirl · Post by **loafergirl** » Sat Jun 01, 2002 5:35 pm

Do you know if Sluggy Freelance attended it last year? I am convinced it is the worlds greatest comic. For those of you who haven't experienced it contains jokes only us true nerds would appreciate, everything from Star Trek to All Your Base, to Windows being the symbol on the forhead of Satans chosen concubine. Highly recommended!

www.sluggy.com

-LG

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Sat Jun 01, 2002 7:18 pm

Well, if it was there, it wasn't in a well advertised booth, because I'm sure I would've caught the reference even if I don't read the strip.

SW ActionFigure Collector · Sat Jun 01, 2002 7:31 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:There is a Star Wars Action Figure Collector guy who has bopped around Pinback's site. Maybe he has a take on this, I dunno.

Hey listen, I've been meaning to stop by. Seriously! I just didn't wanna be tossing around spoilers for the new Star Wars flick. Although really, if you haven't seen it by now, than quite frankly you deserve to have the movie spoiled!!

That and the fact that I can barely afford my already meager internet connection. I'm dying over here, Jonesy! For those of you outside the collecting world, on April 23rd, Hasbro released the AotC merch to us eagerly awaiting collectors. I picked up all of the figures released, 'cept the three Deluxe figures (as I've stated over at Pinback's place, the deluxe figures will eventually wind up on clearance anyway -- its only a matter of time). I ended up spending approximately $286.73. Not bad! Not bad at all, considering I dropped $364.04 of cold, hard scratch on the Episode I toys back in '99. Still, it was nearly three hundred bucks blown on the uber-geeky, socially frowned-upon hobby of action figure collecting.

And it hasn't stopped there!! I've spent about $300.00 on figures (and vehicles) since April 23rd. When it comes to releasing figure, Hasbro is a cold, unrelenting monster. I'm trying my best not to get left in the dust. While on a recent toy hunt, I spotted the latest figure waves at Walmart:

Bespin Darth Vader, Bespin Luke Skywalker, Jango Fett (Final Battle), Mace Windu (Geonosian Rescue), Geonosian (with Massiff), Endor Rebel Soldier, Orn Free Taa.

Also, I found the new TIE Bomber and Snowspeeder (each selling for $29.99).

You're killing me Hasbro... Absolutely killing me...

Heh. But we're here to discuss Hasbro's recent acquisition of Wizard of the Coast, not my personal victories and pitfalls as a collector...

I gotta tell ya, I didn't shed a single tear when Hasbro gobbled up WOTC. Shitdoggies, I was more concerned back when Hasbro ruthlessly swiped up Kenner (previous makers of SW toys) and Galoob (mini Star Wars toys) like a greedy, desperate child. Besides, since WOTC swallowed up the Star Wars Fan Club, we haven't had a single Fan Club figure release! And the Star Wars Insider, run by the Fan Club (now WOTC), hasn't been half the magazine it has been in the past. Even worse, once WOTC had it hands securely on the Fan Club, it managed to snatch the rights for the role-playing game away from WestEnd Games as well as the card game from Decipher -- effectively rendering every single cent and second invested in each useless!!! I have thousands of SW:CCG cards which are now utterly worthless!! Good riddance to WOTC, if you ask me! I can't seem to use enough exclamation points when talking about them. Seriously!

-Star Wars Action Figure Collector

loafergirl · Post by **loafergirl** » Sat Jun 01, 2002 11:58 pm

So you ran into the problem with WOTC that I do with Hasbro. They have gone out of their way to grab all rights to your hobby and then do NOTHING with those rights.

-LG

Lex · Post by **Lex** » Sun Jun 02, 2002 2:32 pm

loafergirl wrote:3rd addition is awsome, say goodbye to that whole THACO calculation, as AC is now a positive # (the higher the better) a lot more skills, specialty classes, CD for character creation, no restrictions on class due to race, so YES you can have a Dwarven Bard, is it an ideal or likely thing? No, but it can happen.
Advancement isn't so easy, and they have all sorts of new rules for flanking in battle, attacks of opportunity, partial cover hit ratios etc... Criticals can be gotten at different ranges (for instance a quarterstaff I think is still a 20, but a longsword is a crit with a 19 or 20). The pictures are great (I'm especially fond of the size chart ranging from halfling to full sized red dragon). And the big nasties are bigger and nastier.
Multi-classing is also MUCH better, you can switch back and forth as apposed to the old system where if you chose at 7th lvl fighter to become a wizard you couldn't raise more levels in fighter. You can also take any classes that you want (provided there's no alignment conflicts). Over all it's a much more deailed sytem but easier to work with once you get used to it.

-LG

I'm in love.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Jun 02, 2002 8:21 pm

Lex wrote: I'm in love.

er was that directed at the new gaming sytem or me?

-LG

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Jun 02, 2002 8:31 pm

I'm also looking forward to the release of Neverwinter Nights....

-LG

loafergirl · Post by **loafergirl** » Sun Jun 02, 2002 8:32 pm

er ah yeah, those were me.

Lex · Post by **Lex** » Mon Jun 03, 2002 6:35 am

Oh, erm <cough>, the new system, of course. I've always wanted Dwarf Archer. Get them right in the ankle.

loafergirl · Post by **loafergirl** » Mon Jun 03, 2002 8:19 am

Wait, how about a halfling ranger? Short enough that they should get some kind of tracking check bonus, but intimidate animals should be more difficult since they're all of 3 feet tall... =)

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Mon Jun 03, 2002 10:22 am

Looks like there is a closed beta to the Neverwinter Nights game that just opened. (Closed as in, "you had to register for it," but open as in otherwise open to the public.)

Presuming it's as bug free as the Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gates games that it will be compared to, the thing will probably be worth buying for the toolset alone. You can essentially be a DM over the net and place things in real-time for people. It's one thing, when someone is bugging the crap out of you in the pen-and-paper version to drop down a beholder on someone to teach them a lesson, but you still have to compute the battles along with the players. Well, no longer -- if someone is acting up you'd presumably be able to drop 1,000 of them on the players and it requires you, as the DM, to do no additional work... except for CHORTLING.

3rd edition rules allow dwarven archers and half-orc magicians or whatever, right? I guess I always liked race/class restrictions for balance purposes. (Although seeing Gandalf run around with a sword in the LOTR movie, when D&D is quite influenced by it was kinda funny.) If a character can have all the advantages of a paladin *plus* the long life and special abilities of an elf, then how did humans become the dominant life-form on the planet? I know that attempting to use too much logic in D&D will only bring you tears, but still, that was more of a consistent game-type logic that I, at least, agreed with in the 2nd edition of the rules.

loafergirl · Post by **loafergirl** » Mon Jun 03, 2002 9:56 pm

Yeah, but at least it's no longer like in the 2 to 3 hundred years an eld lives he can never go back to a fighter if he changes classes to a wizard either. And their are still penalties for certain races taking up certain classes. If you want to get into insane detail you could also ask why when a character has all of 1 hit point left they can still fight as well as when at full... but it would just be too damned hard to keep track of all that crap, thus, hooray for fantasy.

-LG

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Jun 07, 2002 2:39 pm

Anybody else ever played "Paranoia"? I'm longing to play that again, impossible to get a serious or long campaign in it, but perfect for half drunken sleep deprived nights of roleplay.

-LG

Jacob Crutch · Post by **Jacob Crutch** » Fri Jun 07, 2002 4:36 pm

Now now, LG, if its really only Pokemon that's souring you to Hasbro...well...

Wizards of the Coast has been the makers of the Pokemon card game for quite some time now. So, please, don't hate Hasbro for churning out a few measely Pokemon toys. Contrary to popular belief, you do *not* have to catch'm all.

loafergirl · Post by **loafergirl** » Fri Jun 07, 2002 9:40 pm

No, it's that they're sitting on their asses about AD&D that's pissing me off, I could care less about rabid transforming chinchillas that turn into testicles or whatever the hell Pokemons are. What I'm saying is they aren't being loyal to a loyal customer base, instead they invest in flash in the pan, fad bullshit, and put the third edition stuff on the back burner.

-LG

loafergirl · Post by **loafergirl** » Fri Jun 07, 2002 9:53 pm

On the Pokemon topic though, what the hell is with the phrase "gotta catch 'em all" ?? All I can picture is little kids out trading diseases or something.
"Tommy I have Influenzamon, I'll trade you for your Bubonic Plagueachu"
"NO WAY Timmy, Bubonic Plagueachu is the coolest card ever!"

-LG