Edition War Across the Net or Where Have You Been?

dm4hire · 29th May 2009, 11:21 AM

This isn't about the Edition War itself, outside of the fact that I am amazed at where I am finding it brought up. Besides enWorld, I have participated or seen the Edition War brought up in several places. Whether this speaks to how severe the divide is or just to how many of us frequent the same places isn't really my question.

I personally have found it at AEG, Amazon, Blackmoore, Goodman Games, Green Ronin, Paizo, Ubiquity, White Wolf, WotC, and today at Bioware in the Dragon Age forums.

So where have you found the Edition War debated in your adventures across the web?

Please keep this to discussing where you have found it and not about the actual Edition War. Thanks!

Dice4Hire · 29th May 2009, 11:38 AM

I am pretty exclusively here, but I have sen pieces of it on several PbP forums.

Shemeska · 29th May 2009, 11:46 AM

It was worse over on the WotC boards, but eventually many of the non-4e fans just abandoned the place after the abuse they saw at some of the more extreme fanboys (the 4vengers, etc).

I've also seen it over on the Paizo boards, and even on 4chan and a few other imageboards where the community was just as divided as it was here and other places actually focused on RPGs.

Silversun · 29th May 2009, 12:00 PM

I guess I've been under a rock.

If I hadn't I don't think I'd have taken a stand anyway. I like 3E/Pathfinder AND 4E equally. They're both interesting sytems and I hope I'm going to continue to play them until the day I die.

Charwoman Gene · 29th May 2009, 12:13 PM

Slashdot

Dimitris · 29th May 2009, 12:24 PM

In the RPGforum in Greece.
RPGNet.gr :: Index

Subumloc · 29th May 2009, 02:43 PM

Each and every Italian rpg community.
MTGsalvation (a forum about Magic the Gathering, esp. fluffwise)
Aintitcoolnews and pretty much every other site with a review of 4e.
Even Tvtropes.

jensun · 29th May 2009, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shemeska

It was worse over on the WotC boards, but eventually many of the non-4e fans just abandoned the place after the abuse they saw at some of the more extreme fanboys (the 4vengers, etc).

Your attempt to paint such events as terribly one sided is both obvious and dishonest.

Is_907 · 29th May 2009, 02:58 PM

It was worst for me on Amazon... I try to read product reviews and often the message boards have good product suggestions etc but anything D&D related on those boards is horrible.

Mournblade94 · 29th May 2009, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shemeska

It was worse over on the WotC boards, but eventually many of the non-4e fans just abandoned the place after the abuse they saw at some of the more extreme fanboys (the 4vengers, etc).

I've also seen it over on the Paizo boards, and even on 4chan and a few other imageboards where the community was just as divided as it was here and other places actually focused on RPGs.

That would be my assessment as well. Just making supergroups to attempt to prove how great your favored edition is, is rather juvenile. I am glad I have not been there in a long time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jensun

Your attempt to paint such events as terribly one sided is both obvious and dishonest.

There is nothing dishonest about it, though there were vocal older fans. The ire was definitely on the 'supergroup' side.

I saw it on a movie forum as well. Someone called the new STAR TREK the 4e of Star Trek.

I however liked the new STAR TREK.

**Umbran** · 29th May 2009, 03:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jensun

Your attempt to paint such events as terribly one sided is both obvious and dishonest.

Okay, given the subject of this thread, we are going to have zero tolerance for some stuff - including calling each other liars.

For purposes of this thread, please assume that two people can view or partake in the same events, and come away with different perceptions of what happened.

And, be on your absolute best behavior, folks. Don't get personal.

avin · 29th May 2009, 03:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shemeska

It was worse over on the WotC boards, but eventually many of the non-4e fans just abandoned the place after the abuse they saw at some of the more extreme fanboys (the 4vengers, etc).

Come on, Shemmie, 4E fanboys are as bad as 3E fanboys.

I have seen people jumping to defend the weakest of the arguments just because it's 4E as much I have seen people saying things such as "friends don't let friends play 4E".

Both sides are wrong when think their favorite edition is perfect and the "Other" edition is "epic fail".

On a side note, some miniatures forums have their own edition war between DDM 1.0 and 2.0

malkav666 · 29th May 2009, 03:11 PM

I have seen it all over the place, from my local game shop to various gaming portals on the web. Usually its so much what I would call a war, but would probably describe it as a couple of groups of folks differing opinions on a thing that both feel strongly about it.

There are a couple of places I have seen it worse than others. WotC's own boards probably being the worst of it. There are posters on that site (4vengers mostly) that just trash anyone who has anything to say about 4e that they don't particularly like or agree with. And the moderation there pretty much lets these posters have free reign of the boards there, so its not a community that I bother with anymore.

But all in all most of the edition "war" I am seeing is just people with differing tastes defending their favorite flavor. It's kind of like groups of trekkies who have a preference over which series or captain was/is the best; they may argue it for long periods of time, but in the end they are all still trekkies. I feel the same about avid D&D nerds.

love,

malkav

dm4hire · 29th May 2009, 03:16 PM

Thanks Umbran.

As I stated in my initial post, I'm more interested in knowing where everyone has found the debate than who's winning it or how bad it actually is going on.

As mentioned I found it at Bioware's Dragon Age forum which was the last place I expected to find an edition war debate. It was right in the middle of discussing Chris Pramas' podcast interview, talking about what the table top version was going to be about.

jdrakeh · 29th May 2009, 03:28 PM

Online, it's been perpetually brewing at Dragonsfoot ever since that site was founded. TheRPGSite seems to have a special bunch of folks dedicated to fighting the Edition War. 4chan is ground zero, I think. I've seen it other places, too, (frex, Paizo) but those three sites stick out as particularly dangerous minefields.

Nymrohd · 29th May 2009, 03:30 PM

Tbh the worst I saw was not on general forums but on Wizard's FR forums. It wasn't so much angry responses but far more like condescension by the very tight-knit group that practically rules those forums which I for one found far more aggrieving (this was from the 3.5 people but ofc on the FR forums was more about the timeswitch and 4E was more like collateral).

Dyson Logos · 29th May 2009, 03:42 PM

I keep running into it in the blogosphere through the RPGBloggers network.

filthgrinder · 29th May 2009, 04:00 PM

Well, this might be a surprise to some, but people on the internet like to argue. Second to that, people on the internet LOVE to prove that they are "cooler", "hipper", "more with it", "more indie", and "more hardcore" than everyone else on a forum. So, you'll find it anywhere with almost anything.

Seriously.

go to any forum you might frequent and make a post about anime. Just say you recently saw some anime show and you thought it was pretty good. WITHIN SECONDS you'll have tons of posts talking about how that is new garbage and the old stuff was better and you don't know anything and how they were into anime back when they were tape trading VHS copies of fan made subs from laser discs. It's just the way it is.

The "Edition War" is just another spark of this. If someone brings up 4E, you'll see someone trash it and talk about how the older edition was better. It really doesn't mean anything at all, it's just that people like to argue, and it's something they can argue about. Plus anything new has to be crap and the old stuff is "where its at".

You'll see old Star Trek vs New Star Trek vs TNG vs DS9. It also plays into the concept of "The Last Generation". Everyone tends to see their generation or their culture as "the last great generation". Their music was so much better than their kids, their movies, their values, their everything was better than the new stuff. This is a really deep seated habit that people share, you'll see this come up constantly. The internet feeds this need.

I personally think it's a good thing to see these threads pop up. Honestly, before the announcement of fourth edition, I didn't hear a whole lot about D&D. I didn't see it being talked about anywhere. Since 4E came out, I see alot of chatter about it in different places than expected. I think this is a positive sign for the hobby. Plus, heated edition wars just shows how passionate players can be. We just need to make sure that passion doesn't disenfranchise new players.