D&D 4E 4E: What we think we know

[Eldragon]

Why would they need DRM at all? It looked like everything would be online, and you register which books you own with "Book-Keys" much like a CD key in an online game today. I'm more concerned their online tools are IE Only.

Registering our 4e books online will have the side effect of making 2nd hand books worthless. But I don't think there is much of a market for used D&D books. How many of you have sold yours off? And if they go that route, I hope they take steps to make sure random people in the bookstore don't steal the key off the inside cover.

 

[bloodydrake]

hmmm so subscription fee is more then Dragon and Dungeon Were but less then MMORPG's are
I'm guessing 12bucks amonth.
nominal fee i'm guessing 2bucks.

This DI sounds like its really gonna add up to hella expensive if its content you can't keep when your subscription runs out. I'm very sceptical of this. I might just keep using Kloogewerks for online play and poach players from the DI movement.

 

[Aeolius]

...I might just keep using Kloogewerks for online play and poach players from the DI movement.

Who's to say that WotC won't buy out and combine klooge.werks and dundjinni, and then release said product for Mac OS X 10.5.

 

[Gryffyn]

$9.95 a month would be an excellent price point for the D&D Insider, I think.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

Again, I don't think that Wizards are either stupid, disloyal or overly money-grabbing. I suspect that with your Gleemax account or whatever, you'll have access to anything you put there or one-off buy there (like digital books). It's the services like the gaming table and character generator that you have to pay to 'rent' so to speak. So if you don't keep your subscription up, all your characters and adventures etc, will be there, accessible, but non-editable and certainly non-playable in the DI setting.

 

[jasin]

While there are changes in play (such as incorporating "epic-level play," with 30 levels instead of 20),

I don't like this. If they're rescaling the existing framework to fit into 30 discrete chunks rather than 20, I disagree with it on grounds of nostalgia: D&D has always been a 20 level game (in the incarnations I've played). If they're keeping scale the same, but offering more support for level 21-30, I question the usefulness of the material: how many games have you had which went on beyond 21st and you found yourself thinking "gee, I wish I had better options for 27th level"?

they are described as "evolutionary" rather than "revolutionary."

Sounds good. I want better D&D, not something that's not D&D.

Other changes include new power sources,

What does this mean?

changes in resource management,

Per encounter?

I just hope they don't overdo it. One of the beauties of Bo9S is that it is different. If everything worked like Bo9S, it wouldn't be.

Bo9S swordplay and Vancian wizardry FTW!

Changes will speed play, make the game easier to learn, and make DM-ing easier.

Sounds good, but too vague to actually catch my interest. Of course they're going to say/think it's going to be faster, easier to learn and easier to run.

Concepts for 4th Edition gameplay were tested in the new Star Wars RPG, and the Book of 9 Swords.

Cool!

WotC is incorporating online components into the game through a new Website, DnDInsider.com. Each paper product will include codes to unlock digital versions on the site for a "nominal" activation fee.

Digital versions as in downloadable .pdfs? Or content not available in the books? If it's the latter, how important is this content going to be?

Really, the question most on my mind right now is: how much of the 4E experience will I be missing if I can't/don't want to use a computer for my gaming?

The Open Gaming License will continue as it has in the past, allowing the use of the rules in other publishers' games.

Epic win.

The setting for the core books are campaign neutral. Forgotten Realms will be the first campaign setting to be updated (in August 2008).

Greyhawk, guys...

Other campaign settings will be updated at a rate of one per year.

Greyhawk, guys?

 

[Sammael]

Why does the green dragon in the WAR illustration look absolutely nothing like green dragons from older editions?

Oh, I know. How else would they be able to sell the new minis(TM)? Blech.

 

[BlackMoria]

Originally Posted by Tharen the Damned
Hmmm, didn't they say only recently that 4ed was a long time away?

Working on it since 05 they MUST have known that 4ed was due next year.

Or am I wrong?

No, you are not wrong.

At D&D Experience in Feb 07, WOTC staff more or less said

- 4E is coming but is still a ways off.

- when asked if 4E was in development, the answer was 'no, 4E is not in active development and the normal development cycle for a product of this type is 1.5 to 2 years'

So, anything said at D&D Experience by WOTC was misinformation. Now, the only way their statements could be true would be 'a ways off' = 1 year more or less and that development for 4E was already concluded by the time D&D Experience ran in Feb. Still, I think there have been yearly denials by WOTC that 4E was in active development, so basically, they have been misrepresenting the actual status of 4E since 2005.

I call 'shennigans' on them for that.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

Again, I don't think that Wizards are either stupid, disloyal or overly money-grabbing.

But...but... the are eeeeeeevil!

 

[Agamon]

I'm not apologising for WotC, but what did you expect them to do? Announce it when they first started working on it and hope poeple still buy the 3.5 stuff? Not likely.