4E Development Process

[STARP_Social_Officer]

Having read through the 4E rules (though, as regular visitors will no doubt know, being underwhelmed by the whole product), I'm interested in the development process that occurred to create the rule set. Since it's far more of a ground-up rebuild than the change from 2E to 3E was, I'm interested in knowing the hows and whys of the changes.
For instance, some classes were removed, the 'powers per encounter/daily' etc. system was introduced, the old magic system was done away with, healing surges were brought in etc. etc. I'd very much like to understand the thought processes and design rationale that went into making these changes.
Are there any articles/interviews and the like that might give some insight into precisely why the changes that were made were made, or for that matter why 4th Edition was released at all?

 

[BeauNiddle]

Try reading the Design & Development articles on the wizard site

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drarch/dd

It doesn't give a full, complete or coherent overview of what they were doing but you should be able to pick up insights onto what they were thinking and why.

There are also the 2 'preview' books WotC released at the end of 2007 - 'World and Monsters' and 'Races and Classes' - which are part reprints of the previously mentined articles and part expansions on viewpoints (With some VERY nice artwork)

Other than that you could always ask here since quite a few of us fanatically followed every word uttered during the development process. However you will have to ask very detailed and precise questions since we can't condense 4+ years of work down into readable forum posts

 

[Khuxan]

Are there any articles/interviews and the like that might give some insight into precisely why the changes that were made were made, or for that matter why 4th Edition was released at all?

The two Wizards Presents books, Races and Classes and Worlds and Monsters should be exactly what you're looking for.

EDIT: Ninja'd, and by someone who did a better job too!