Support for that setting is like nil. Why is that?
So aside from a few novels, any news on Eberron products being developed/released in the near future?
Support for that setting is like nil. Why is that?
Because all settings only recieve 3 books (with the exception of Forgotten Realms, which has its 4th book being released 2011).
If you want more Eberron support you should check out some of the older Eberron splat books from the 3e erra. A lot of them are almost entirely fluff, and fluff that is very useful to the setting.
Not that I would complain if they announced a new Eberron splat book! It is one of my top 4 favorite settings. I would definitely buy a new Eberron book!
It makes sense that if they're not releasing a true campaign setting in 2011, that they would have time to release splat books for the previously released campaigns. Personally, I never liked the whole "3 books is it" format, so I would be cool with more books coming out for Eberron and DS.
Agreed. You can't cover everything possible in just 3 books, and if you don't publish later, the world can become stagnant. Sure, DMs can expand upon it, but isn't the whole idea of a setting guide to give the DM something to work with?
I asked about a book that would detail Sharn at the semenar and he said that it was "on the list." I think it could be coming in 2012.
Really? Cool. Obviously this is no guarantee, but it's nice to know they're at least still thinking about Eberron. It's been kind of the red-headed step-child in 4e. Sure, it got the same number of books as FR and DS, but those other two settings have seen far more material in Dragon and Dungeon magazines than Eberron, and Dark Sun hasn't even been released yet.
A Sharn sourcebook would be awesome. Honestly, I'll take anything since I have no 3.5 Eberron material and no desire to buy any since it wouldn't be mechanically useful to me.
Same goes for Dragonmarked and Faiths of Eberron.
Oh, also, Dragons of Eberron and City of Stormreach have had their NPC statblocks updated to 4e, and are also mostly fluffy goodness, so I'd push those two books into "95% usable" in 4e.
I still want more 4E material written for Eberron though!
If I were to guess what would be in the new book, I'd say it would be a book like City of Stormreach or Sharn: City of Towers. A very detailed look at a specific locale and it's surrounding areas (What I assume the Neverwinter book for FR is going to be like.)
If I had to pick a city to be detailed, I wouldn't want to go back to Sharn, since really, the first book was fantastic and still holds true. Same with Stormreach. So what would be the third most famous city in Eberron to make a book about? Thronehold? Stormhome? Wroat? Festering Holt? I dunno.
Whatever locale the book may or may not be focused on, all I know is I wanna see some Eberron Themes in it.
I asked about a book that would detail Sharn at the semenar and he said that it was "on the list." I think it could be coming in 2012.
Really? Cool. Obviously this is no guarantee, but it's nice to know they're at least still thinking about Eberron. It's been kind of the red-headed step-child in 4e. Sure, it got the same number of books as FR and DS, but those other two settings have seen far more material in Dragon and Dungeon magazines than Eberron, and Dark Sun hasn't even been released yet.
A Sharn sourcebook would be awesome. Honestly, I'll take anything since I have no 3.5 Eberron material and no desire to buy any since it wouldn't be mechanically useful to me.
Dark Sun's had all of one article in Dragon and none that I know of in Dungeon. I know Eberron's gotten a lot more than that.
Oh, no arguement here!
If I were to guess what would be in the new book, I'd say it would be a book like City of Stormreach or Sharn: City of Towers. A very detailed look at a specific locale and it's surrounding areas (What I assume the Neverwinter book for FR is going to be like.)
If I had to pick a city to be detailed, I wouldn't want to go back to Sharn, since really, the first book was fantastic and still holds true. Same with Stormreach. So what would be the third most famous city in Eberron to make a book about? Thronehold? Stormhome? Wroat? Festering Holt? I dunno.
Whatever locale the book may or may not be focused on, all I know is I wanna see some Eberron Themes in it.
I'd say the Mournland would be a sensible locale to detail. And I always would've loved to have more on Droamm.
I asked about a book that would detail Sharn at the semenar and he said that it was "on the list." I think it could be coming in 2012.
Really? Cool. Obviously this is no guarantee, but it's nice to know they're at least still thinking about Eberron. It's been kind of the red-headed step-child in 4e. Sure, it got the same number of books as FR and DS, but those other two settings have seen far more material in Dragon and Dungeon magazines than Eberron, and Dark Sun hasn't even been released yet.
A Sharn sourcebook would be awesome. Honestly, I'll take anything since I have no 3.5 Eberron material and no desire to buy any since it wouldn't be mechanically useful to me.
Dark Sun's had all of one article in Dragon and none that I know of in Dungeon. I know Eberron's gotten a lot more than that.
I let my subscription lapse but I'm certain there's been more than one article. There was an "Eye On" type of article. The coverage dedicated to Dark Sun has been comprehensive and far more than either other setting before they were released.
For instance, the recent article on mid-air ship battles has the air pirates be.... githyanki? Doesn't githyanki pirates attacking a magical flying vessel sound a lot more like a generic Astral Sea encounter? The Gith were never a major part of Eberron, not even in discussions about the Mind Flayers.
A more fitting, flavorful, Eberronish antagonist would've been Lhazzarite sky pirates (There is a principality made up of a bloodline of Storm Marked half-elf pirates that are essentially a family descended from excoriates or foundlings that never accepted a place in the House) or even Sulataar Drow (who in the novels had craft capable of flight, because after all, the elemental binding of airships was an idea stolen from them.)
It seems like there's been a large effort to "core-ize" Eberron, where a lot of the Eberron articles strive and strain to make themselves usable in core or FR. Obstensibly, this is a good thing, because you want to make sure as many people can use the article as possible. But when 1) This damages the articles relevance to its actual intended setting and 2) other settings are given carte` blanch to ignore Core Principles (I'm lookin at you "no clerics" Dark Sun) you start missing the point entirely.
I would, however, be interested in another 4e Eberron book, simply because I love the setting.
I'd say the most valuable ones of a past edition for the 4e DM/Player would be:
Sharn: CoT
Dragonmarked
Faiths of Eberron
Dragons of Eberron
Sarlona (I think it's called Land of Intrigue)
Xendrik (I believe it's Land of Mystery)
Races of Eberron (almost the whole book is fluff)
Five Nations
Obviously, these books are all dependent on the kind of campaign you want to run. If you're not taking your players near Sarlona, the book is of no use to you. Player's Guide, Adventurer's Handbook, Magic of Eberron...these books would be less useful to a 4e player/DM. Though there is fluff in them, the books are more crunch-centric.
Having those books is one of the reasons I may have overlooked what may have been lacking in the 4e books...I already had the information to fill in the gaps in my head and on my bookshelf.
I let my subscription lapse but I'm certain there's been more than one article. There was an "Eye On" type of article. The coverage dedicated to Dark Sun has been comprehensive and far more than either other setting before they were released.
I'm sorry, but you are flat out wrong. There has been a total one single article so far. There is a second one scheduled next week. That is all there has been.
What you may be thinking of are the previews, which are completely independent of Dragon and Dungeon, and are not collected in the compiled issues. These are free previews for everyone, independent of DDi membership.
I'm willing to say that there's been more articles labeled as Eberron than Dark Sun, but I question exactly how Eberron they are.
For instance, the recent article on mid-air ship battles has the air pirates be.... githyanki? Doesn't githyanki pirates attacking a magical flying vessel sound a lot more like a generic Astral Sea encounter? The Gith were never a major part of Eberron, not even in discussions about the Mind Flayers.
A more fitting, flavorful, Eberronish antagonist would've been Lhazzarite sky pirates (There is a principality made up of a bloodline of Storm Marked half-elf pirates that are essentially a family descended from excoriates or foundlings that never accepted a place in the House) or even Sulataar Drow (who in the novels had craft capable of flight, because after all, the elemental binding of airships was an idea stolen from them.)
It seems like there's been a large effort to "core-ize" Eberron, where a lot of the Eberron articles strive and strain to make themselves usable in core or FR. Obstensibly, this is a good thing, because you want to make sure as many people can use the article as possible. But when 1) This damages the articles relevance to its actual intended setting and 2) other settings are given carte` blanch to ignore Core Principles (I'm lookin at you "no clerics" Dark Sun) you start missing the point entirely.
I'll admit that this might be why I perceive the the situation the way I do. Also, there's no way Eberron got nearly as much "hype" before release that Dark Sun has.
I'm sorry, but you are flat out wrong. There has been a total one single article so far. There is a second one scheduled next week. That is all there has been.
What you may be thinking of are the previews, which are completely independent of Dragon and Dungeon, and are not collected in the compiled issues. These are free previews for everyone, independent of DDi membership.
Actually, that's wrong too. While I'm not arguing that there are more Dark Sun articles than Eberron ones, I will point out that there are at least 2 Dark Sun articles on DDI. One is the first Eye on Dark Sun, and another is Hazards of Athas, way back in the first year of 4e digital Dragon. This is right off the top of my head, and I imagine that there have been articles sprinkled here and there in the time between way back during the first few 4e Dragon issues and now.
Also, with Eye on Dark Sun, it seems that DDi is geared up to have more regular support for Dark Sun. Eberron's equivalent of "Eye on..." articles, Expeditionary Dispatches, is infrequent, and unfortunately usually of dubious use to actual Eberron games. (See githyanki air pirates)
EDIT: For the record, I've found 3 Dungeon Feature articles that are about Athas, and 2 Dragon Features. So far that's 7 Dark Sun articles, and I haven't even finished looking through Dragon yet.
Trains -- one article
Fairhaven -- Capital of Aundair -- three articles
Taer Liash (sp?) -- will be three articles, currently only two published
Those were just off of the top of my head, I know there are more but I just can't seem to recall right now.
Besides I don't really consider support for the races and classes of Eberron to really be Eberron-specific articles unless the majority of the article is about how they fit into Eberron. Like the Familiars of Artifice article, now that was a good Eberron article. It definately had some pretty Eberron-specific familiars (like a living dragonmark). The article on Alchemical Warforged? Not really all that Eberron-relevant (I don't think I even saw the word "Cannith" in there at all). Changeling psycology can be a part of any setting, why didn't they mention the Cabinet of Faces? THAT's Eberron-specific.
Also, as I look through the dates of these articles, it definately seems like Eberron support started strong and then trickled off into an occasional drip. If you look at Expeditionary Dispatches, we had 7 of them when Dragon was in preview mode alone. Last last we saw of that series was in 2009, and we only had two of them the whole year.
I think another factor has to do with this breaking up of larger features into several parts. For instance, the Explore Fairhaven series. I'm not that interested in Aundaire. Plus each part came out several months apart. So for half a year, September 2009 to February 2010, I was stuck with the only major Eberron support being for a city I didn't especially care for. Now, the Feyspire of Fading Dreams is something I'm interested in, so I'm alright with the current articles, but what about everyone else who doesn't particularly care for Dal Quor+Eladrin shenanigans?
The Explore:... articles are nice, but I'd rather they be released in one chunk. Sure they switched the shorter articles to make sure that there'd be something for everyone in each issue, but with the current set up, if I don't like what they have planned for the next who-knows-how-many issues, I'm **** out of luck. It'll be at least a quarter until I have a chance to be excited about Eberron again.
I'd much rather they return to the Backdrop format. Keith Baker's Greywall article was perfect. It gave me just enough info about the city to get my brain churning out ideas. I would trade in 3 Backdrop articles on 3 different Eberron locales any time, any day, for one Explore:... series consisting of 3 parts stretched over so many months.
As for Dungeon Adventures, Eberron only has two, and then the "Aerial Battles" article which might as well have been "Pirates of the Astral Sea". They probabl just slapped "Eberron" on it for marketing reasons, to keep up appearances of well-rounded support.
Like I said, I don't doubt Eberron has more articles (There are 10 expeditionary dispatches alone), but I just question their validity as Eberron articles, or even overall quality. Winning Races: Changelings, anyone? Was one of the worst of the series. (And then they also got Becomer changelings confused with Passers. At least get the setting info right if you're going to write an article for it.)
Besides I don't really consider support for the races and classes of Eberron to really be Eberron-specific articles unless the majority of the article is about how they fit into Eberron. Like the Familiars of Artifice article, now that was a good Eberron article. It definately had some pretty Eberron-specific familiars (like a living dragonmark). The article on Alchemical Warforged? Not really all that Eberron-relevant (I don't think I even saw the word "Cannith" in there at all). Changeling psycology can be a part of any setting, why didn't they mention the Cabinet of Faces? THAT's Eberron-specific.
Also, as I look through the dates of these articles, it definately seems like Eberron support started strong and then trickled off into an occasional drip. If you look at Expeditionary Dispatches, we had 7 of them when Dragon was in preview mode alone. Last last we saw of that series was in 2009, and we only had two of them the whole year.
I think another factor has to do with this breaking up of larger features into several parts. For instance, the Explore Fairhaven series. I'm not that interested in Aundaire. Plus each part came out several months apart. So for half a year, September 2009 to February 2010, I was stuck with the only major Eberron support being for a city I didn't especially care for. Now, the Feyspire of Fading Dreams is something I'm interested in, so I'm alright with the current articles, but what about everyone else who doesn't particularly care for Dal Quor+Eladrin shenanigans?
The Explore:... articles are nice, but I'd rather they be released in one chunk. Sure they switched the shorter articles to make sure that there'd be something for everyone in each issue, but with the current set up, if I don't like what they have planned for the next who-knows-how-many issues, I'm **** out of luck. It'll be at least a quarter until I have a chance to be excited about Eberron again.
I'd much rather they return to the Backdrop format. Keith Baker's Greywall article was perfect. It gave me just enough info about the city to get my brain churning out ideas. I would trade in 3 Backdrop articles on 3 different Eberron locales any time, any day, for one Explore:... series consisting of 3 parts stretched over so many months.
As for Dungeon Adventures, Eberron only has two, and then the "Aerial Battles" article which might as well have been "Pirates of the Astral Sea". They probabl just slapped "Eberron" on it for marketing reasons, to keep up appearances of well-rounded support.
Fantastic breakdown.
To find any decent support for Eberron I have had to rummage through the old 3.5 dragonshards articles which were really good. Why aren't we getting support of that caliber anymore? It's 2010 and there hasn't been any mention of what they plan to do with Eberron support. For better or for worse it's not even going to be apart of the Abyssal Plague, whats up with that? This kind of neglect is the reason I canceled my DDI subscription.
If space in Dragon and Dungeon is the main reason Eberron isn't getting solid articles about whats in Eberron then maybe there needs to be a change.
Or they give the rights to someone who will expand and support Eberron. *cough Keith Baker *cough
Not for nothing, I'm actually glad that Eberron isn't included in this meta-even. Eberron has always had it's own enclosed, seperate-from-other-settings cosmology for me. Like when I run Eberron, I don't even pretend that it's "cut off" from other settings, I just run it as if the other settings don't exist at all.
However, whenever I see the promotional blurbs for the Abyssal Plague say it touches "all of DnD's worlds", I get miffed.
So what is it, WotC? Is Eberron not a DnD World anymore? Are you going to stop supporting it? Should I expect to see an "official unofficial" website for it in 5th Edition like Dark Sun had for 3rd with Athas.org?
Or are you leaving Eberron alone because you believe, like I do, that it operates best in a vacuum seperate from other settigns? If so, you need to be careful with your PR of cross-promotional events. Because if Eberron isn't going to be touched by the Abyssal Plague, by process of elimination, you've just declared that Eberron isn't a DnD World.