D&D 5E Final playtest packet due in mid September.

[Jester David]

A playtest and a concept test are not separate things in this case. It was both.

Except this was hyped as a massive public "playtest" not "concept test". Really, playing was actually irrelevant.

The fine-tuning of mechanics will occur in internal testing groups that they have more direct contact with. The structure of a public playtest makes it very difficult to collect actionable information on specific mechanics you're concerned about. Their primary goal with the public testing was to get widespread player feedback on what resonated with people as being appropriate for D&D, and what broad mechanics players found compelling.

They've had over a year to work the kinks and fine tune how they received feedback and coordinate their staff to read through surveys and find alternate ways of reading the feedback. If this was a priority they could have found a way.
Looking at how video game companies handle public betas would be a start.

I'm sure they looked at some balance issues, but probably not much in the way of fine details.

Which is a huge missed opportunity. The more eyes on a product, the more people looking for abuses, the better. As the Character Op boards have shown, WotC frequently misses abusive combos and mechanics.
It's a mistake not to employ the people most skilled at finding bugs to find your bugs.

Why did you feel it was appropriate to call the move stupid?

Because they didn't tell us for a start.
How many threads have you seen that focused on mechanics? That were dedicated on reccomending small changes or fixing spells or catching errors? How many "playtesters" potentially focused their efforts looking for mechanics to fix rather than just examining broad concepts?
Because WotC didn't clearly explain this was a concept test and not a playtest they reduced their usable feedback and wasted a whole lot of time.

And if they had emphasised it as a concept test they might have attracted more readers who lacked groups to play and test with.

There's also the long delay. There's potentially eleven months before the game is released. A new package will tide people over for a few months but with no new content the game will slip from people's minds. There's no reason to check the website for news. It will be a litte too easy to get involved in new games and campaigns. The wait between 3e and 4e was long and tiring, and that was with surprising news trickling out. 5e doesn't have that any more; after eighteen months they're running low on monster lore and vague mechanical previews.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Those "playstyle issues" are actually "rules" issues encapsulated in the edition.

I think we're saying the same thing.

If Next truly wants to be style agnostic it has to do that from a rule perspective, and honestly, its no where near that, nor in my opinion does it truly intend to. Sure it will support options eventually, but out of the gate, we already see the base rules are taking us in a certain direction.

If the core of the game Dungeons & Dragons is Abilities, Race, Class, d20s, AC, and Hit Points and people can't get through that list without feeling that the game is going in a direction they don't want to go at some point they might want to consider that they don't like D&D. Or want everyone's D&D to be another game.

I expect DDN to look like (even if it takes a few Splats and an Unearthed Arcana 5e):
Ability Score Generation:
-options, probably no default
Abilities Score bonuses:
default
-options
Races:
default
-options
Classes:
default
-options
d20 System:
default
-options
AC:
default
-options
Hit Points:
default
-options

 

[the Jester]

Maybe, but if you look at, say, Murder in Baldur's Gate, it states that it can be run with 3.5, 4e, or next. I will tell you unequivocally that ANY adventure CAN be run in any edition, and I have played them all... but this adventure, while it says that it can be played in 4e, doesn't come with ANY supporting items for that edition. Yes, I know stats are available for all three editions, but 4e requires maps and minis/tokens and a very specific style of encounter structure... none of which is provided in that adventure. It would take a ton of work for a 4e DM to run this thing.

I have to disagree- you can run 4e without any of those things.

 

[Dannager]

Except this was hyped as a massive public "playtest" not "concept test". Really, playing was actually irrelevant.

That's flat-out false. I don't even know how you could feel that's a claim you could make.

They've had over a year to work the kinks and fine tune how they received feedback and coordinate their staff to read through surveys and find alternate ways of reading the feedback. If this was a priority they could have found a way.

What is your support for this? Do you have extensive experience in administering large public playtests? Because I have very, very little experience with playtesting, and even I know that most of the stuff you're saying is ridiculous.

Looking at how video game companies handle public betas would be a start.

I want you to seriously consider, just for a moment, how there might be important structural differences between the ways an online video game publisher can collect play data, and the ways a tabletop RPG publisher can collect play data.

Which is a huge missed opportunity. The more eyes on a product, the more people looking for abuses, the better. As the Character Op boards have shown, WotC frequently misses abusive combos and mechanics.
It's a mistake not to employ the people most skilled at finding bugs to find your bugs.

That's exactly what they do. They literally get in touch with individual people who they know to be extremely mechanics-savvy and send them testing packets. You don't see this, of course, because it's covered by NDA, and because you're not one of those people.

Because they didn't tell us for a start.
How many threads have you seen that focused on mechanics? That were dedicated on reccomending small changes or fixing spells or catching errors? How many "playtesters" potentially focused their efforts looking for mechanics to fix rather than just examining broad concepts?
Because WotC didn't clearly explain this was a concept test and not a playtest they reduced their usable feedback and wasted a whole lot of time.

WotC has made their priorities for testing abundantly clear. I'm not sure why you're pretending differently.

And if they had emphasised it as a concept test they might have attracted more readers who lacked groups to play and test with.

Why would they want that? They want to test how those concepts actually play.

There's also the long delay. There's potentially eleven months before the game is released. A new package will tide people over for a few months but with no new content the game will slip from people's minds.

I think they're okay with taking that risk (read: it's not a risk).

There's no reason to check the website for news.

Really? Think about this before you respond.

 

[JeffB]

I have to disagree- you can run 4e without any of those things.

Yup.

No minis, maps or counters here. My group and I hate it.. Essentially I 13th aged 4e before I ever heard of 13th age. Well at least from what I read about 13th age? I do not own the book.

Of course that makes it not exactly 4e. But I have been modifying D&D to taste sin e I started DMing back in 1978. That kind of thing used to be actively encouraged.Why stop now?

 

[Dausuul]

If "2014" is all we've got... that's not really news. It was pretty clear they weren't going to release this year, and hard to believe they'd push it out all the way to 2015, so what does that leave?

Now, if they mean "January 2014"--that's news.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

2014 is a pretty broad target. 1 Jan? 31 Dec? Somewhere in between?

Probably one of those three.

 

[Dausuul]

Looking at how video game companies handle public betas would be a start.

So... they should force everybody to play D&D on a computer so that they can automatically collect play stats from everyone's games? Because that's how video game companies do it. It's the whole reason public betas have become a big thing; before broadband Internet became near-universal among gamers, video game companies seldom did public betas.

 

[DMSamuel]

I have to disagree- you can run 4e without any of those things.

Read my second sentence. I also said you CAN run any adventure in ANY edition, and that includes 4e. BUT I pointed out that 4e has an expected play style and that play style includes minis and maps. To the general 4e player, that is what they will expect from a 4e game because that is the expected play style of 4e. This adventure doesn't conform to the standard expected play style of 4e, so it will be/may be disappointing to 4e players. I then stated that it will take a ton of work on the part of the DM to run this adventure.

I started playing in 1982, I love playing theater of the mind, and I have run 4e without maps. My preferred edition is Mentzer redbox basic, where the rules get out of the way and I can run the game me and my group want to play. But I still stand by what I have said. If they want to market MiBG to 4e players, they should at least put a disclaimer on it that says it will need a lot of finesse to run it like a traditional 4e game. I can understand why people who love 4e are not liking what they see with 5e and with MiBG.

 

[Jester David]

That's flat-out false. I don't even know how you could feel that's a claim you could make.

Could you provide a link where they say this is a concept test?

What is your support for this? Do you have extensive experience in administering large public playtests? Because I have very, very little experience with playtesting, and even I know that most of the stuff you're saying is ridiculous.

While I've never managed or administered a large public playtest I've participated in the betas of numerous MMOs. 150,000 people are involved in the D&D Next playtest. During the Beta of the most recent Warcraft expansion, that's how many people were invited in every couple days. They'd have to set-up a form on their website to report problems rather than just hitting /bug, and have a database of known problems, but if it were a priority it would be very possible to accomplish. Not easy mind you, but nothing worth doing is. If they want an edition done right, then it might be worth the effort.

I want you to seriously consider, just for a moment, how there might be important structural differences between the ways an online video game publisher can collect play data, and the ways a tabletop RPG publisher can collect play data.

Yes, there are. But given WotC is collecting all their data via online surveys, there's a lot of overlap. The big difference is that online games report problems in real time as they happen while the 5e playtesters are reporting sporadically as surveys are released.

I think they're okay with taking that risk (read: it's not a risk).

Except that it is.
It took me awhile to even try 4e because, in the interim between 3e and 4e I got involved in a new campaign. So I never went out hunting for games. My new campaign started because they cancelled Living Greyhawk and all the players in my region coalesced into a few homegames. And it will take me awhile to start 5e for likely the same reason. I just started a Paizo adventure path and will likely still be playing that in a year. And then I'll want to try some non D&D systems for a while. With Kickstarter going strong there's so many new RPGs gaining attention and traction. From this year alone I have some FATE Eclipse Phase I'd love to try and Shadows of Esteren. To say nothing of what will come out in the next year.

People play what's available and if 5e isn't available they have a long time to get comfortable in other campaigns and systems. 5e becomes the game many people will pick up when it's convenient not right away at launch.

Really? Think about this before you respond.

There's barely any reason to check the WotC website anyway.
There's three articles every few days and one is editon neutral and not really of interest to me as I don't play in the Realms. The monster articles were cool but they're beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel and I can't imagine them holding my interest for another forty-odd weeks. And there's only so much Legends & Lore can say now. We've been getting teasing half hints and potential mechanics and design for longer than we've known about 5th Edition.
After a year...

All the good news is here at ENWorld. I come here far more often. But since this is not a dedicated D&D site and will likely be covering 13th Age, Numeria, Paizo and other games as much as 5e it'll be easy to miss the news.

Two years is a long time to hold people's interest and the WotC marketing department isn't that great at the best of times. Unless you seek out information on D&D you're not likely to find it. Without new big changes to the packets and regular product D&D will slip a little lower on the radar.