bowbe
First Post
I'll start by saying, I really hope that 4ed is everything to everyone! (but of course nothing can be).
The design team has taken on a huge task of more or less shelling a popular system for one they feel is superior and that takes cajones to do. Whether its for the money or for the love of the game is a moot point to me. I have ample creative opportunities in RPGs with or without a 4ed D&D from WOTC. Would I prefer to work in the current, most up to date system available with access to core rules/definitions and stamp of approval that once upon a time generated fat sales for product? Of course!
I give Kudos to WOTC for its assertive attempt to offer an online medium for people to play a relative "table top experience" online. I say this, as I started playing 3.0 edition rules solely on a chat based server run by White Wolf prior to any 3.0 table top experience.
The depth of actual role play vs. roll play and people getting "into their character" vs. min maxing and number crunching was high in those times and it endeared me to the game as a revival of my old "fun" experiences as a youthful AD&D gamer. If WOTC can successfully pull off even this portion of their new initiative.. then they have a huge success on their hands and every printing of the new core books is worth its weight in pure gold. Surely more than the $10 or whatever a month subscription for the online initiative will end up costing average joe gamer.
I can't even tell you the hours that myself and others who eventually went on to become a core writing team for Necromancer Games had playing with owners Bill Webb and Clark Peterson in those early organic days of 3.0. We had a blast, we stayed up way too late, we spent WAY too much time on our characters.. but we really REALLY learned the system inside out. If done correctly, the online initiative, and online play could really truely be the one savior of D&D overall and offer a level of depth and flavor that no MMORPG can touch no matter how good. Such online games rely on imagination rather than a programmers limitations or the quality of chipset in your current machine. They work best with a small group of friends who live in different parts of the world finding a common time to game and game hard.
Where such initiatives tend to fail is in moderation (should they require an online moderator to handle online predators and so on) and connection quality. Nothing sucks worse than having your character drop from play because of a thunderstorm in the midst of an epic battle... unless its having to contact the administrator to have an abusive player removed/banned from the game. IP blocks and other issues arise if players are using something like america online or net-zero because it blocks EVERYONE using that connection to log in. This is less of a problem now that the majority of people have high speed but it was still a nightmare to online chat based play as little as 3 years ago.
Online systems are also ripe targets for hackers. As we all know there have been several well documented cases where servers for both Reaper Miniatures and White-Wolf were hacked by criminals. When you start putting a pile of money into memberships you have to put a pile of money into security. Wizards knows this of course.. hence a cost for use. Despite this the internet can still be a dangerous place. I've known of ad hock online games where a player gets PO'ed and sends not so friendly viruses to game masters and fellow players. I'm sure they have this in mind and know how to work around such issues... I just wanted to throw it out there as i've seen such things happen in the past on the Wild Wierd Web.
Those concerns aside, I think this is a smart move in the right direction that offers WOTC a chance to generate tons of operating capitol and solve that whole "bottom line" situation that companies with larger parent companies tend to face. If they can generate half a million a month from a kick-a$$ online initiative that allows them to do cool products company wide i say succeed succeed succeed! That kinda $$ is good for all kinds of gaming and helps everyone. It makes gaming more mainstream and accessible.. I dig it!
The other concerns I currently have are more ambiguous at the moment. With the possibility of an online format to play and run games with so many ways to go right... I have been struck by the amount of conflicting statements coming out of WOTC itself in the past 10 days since this leaked/was released.
All weekend at Gen Con the big reassurance was that most of the rules changes would be cosmetic, and designed for a more streamlined approach to the game. Awesome right? It alleges to provide tools, and rules to make the tabletop experience both easier to run, and more sensible to play. Also Awesome... I'm all IN baby.
That the cosmetic changes would mean in essence that things designed for 3.5 rules set would be "easily portable" to 4ed game, but with such things as adventures and what have you being a bit "more complicated" to port backwards. In otherwards forward compatibility was the goal, but backwards compatibility wouldnt really be in the cards. So far I'm liking what I hear... OGL ready and various companies invited to get in on the ground floor of the new OGL/D20 license? Again... very good.
This however isn't really the whole story we are getting since arriving home, and pouring over the "genuine" information both here at ENworld and released daily in fervent manner on the WOTC website. I consider myself to be fairly intelligent, and a decent gamer but a lot of what I am hearing doesn't really speak to forward or backward compatibility at all. 4ed is a different dog all-together. Its a whole new game. Perhaps a better game, perhaps not, but definitely different and the differences require quite an adjustment. We are assured that the online tools will work and help us convert characters, monsters, and "do it all for us to facilitate an easy transition to the next generation of table top goodness".
The problem is, I have heard that sort of talk before and it's never been true no matter what the context or who was saying it. Maybe this time it will be. Again we are in that nebulous world of "maybe". I don't care for that part so much.
Case
The design team has taken on a huge task of more or less shelling a popular system for one they feel is superior and that takes cajones to do. Whether its for the money or for the love of the game is a moot point to me. I have ample creative opportunities in RPGs with or without a 4ed D&D from WOTC. Would I prefer to work in the current, most up to date system available with access to core rules/definitions and stamp of approval that once upon a time generated fat sales for product? Of course!
I give Kudos to WOTC for its assertive attempt to offer an online medium for people to play a relative "table top experience" online. I say this, as I started playing 3.0 edition rules solely on a chat based server run by White Wolf prior to any 3.0 table top experience.
The depth of actual role play vs. roll play and people getting "into their character" vs. min maxing and number crunching was high in those times and it endeared me to the game as a revival of my old "fun" experiences as a youthful AD&D gamer. If WOTC can successfully pull off even this portion of their new initiative.. then they have a huge success on their hands and every printing of the new core books is worth its weight in pure gold. Surely more than the $10 or whatever a month subscription for the online initiative will end up costing average joe gamer.
I can't even tell you the hours that myself and others who eventually went on to become a core writing team for Necromancer Games had playing with owners Bill Webb and Clark Peterson in those early organic days of 3.0. We had a blast, we stayed up way too late, we spent WAY too much time on our characters.. but we really REALLY learned the system inside out. If done correctly, the online initiative, and online play could really truely be the one savior of D&D overall and offer a level of depth and flavor that no MMORPG can touch no matter how good. Such online games rely on imagination rather than a programmers limitations or the quality of chipset in your current machine. They work best with a small group of friends who live in different parts of the world finding a common time to game and game hard.
Where such initiatives tend to fail is in moderation (should they require an online moderator to handle online predators and so on) and connection quality. Nothing sucks worse than having your character drop from play because of a thunderstorm in the midst of an epic battle... unless its having to contact the administrator to have an abusive player removed/banned from the game. IP blocks and other issues arise if players are using something like america online or net-zero because it blocks EVERYONE using that connection to log in. This is less of a problem now that the majority of people have high speed but it was still a nightmare to online chat based play as little as 3 years ago.
Online systems are also ripe targets for hackers. As we all know there have been several well documented cases where servers for both Reaper Miniatures and White-Wolf were hacked by criminals. When you start putting a pile of money into memberships you have to put a pile of money into security. Wizards knows this of course.. hence a cost for use. Despite this the internet can still be a dangerous place. I've known of ad hock online games where a player gets PO'ed and sends not so friendly viruses to game masters and fellow players. I'm sure they have this in mind and know how to work around such issues... I just wanted to throw it out there as i've seen such things happen in the past on the Wild Wierd Web.
Those concerns aside, I think this is a smart move in the right direction that offers WOTC a chance to generate tons of operating capitol and solve that whole "bottom line" situation that companies with larger parent companies tend to face. If they can generate half a million a month from a kick-a$$ online initiative that allows them to do cool products company wide i say succeed succeed succeed! That kinda $$ is good for all kinds of gaming and helps everyone. It makes gaming more mainstream and accessible.. I dig it!
The other concerns I currently have are more ambiguous at the moment. With the possibility of an online format to play and run games with so many ways to go right... I have been struck by the amount of conflicting statements coming out of WOTC itself in the past 10 days since this leaked/was released.
All weekend at Gen Con the big reassurance was that most of the rules changes would be cosmetic, and designed for a more streamlined approach to the game. Awesome right? It alleges to provide tools, and rules to make the tabletop experience both easier to run, and more sensible to play. Also Awesome... I'm all IN baby.
That the cosmetic changes would mean in essence that things designed for 3.5 rules set would be "easily portable" to 4ed game, but with such things as adventures and what have you being a bit "more complicated" to port backwards. In otherwards forward compatibility was the goal, but backwards compatibility wouldnt really be in the cards. So far I'm liking what I hear... OGL ready and various companies invited to get in on the ground floor of the new OGL/D20 license? Again... very good.
This however isn't really the whole story we are getting since arriving home, and pouring over the "genuine" information both here at ENworld and released daily in fervent manner on the WOTC website. I consider myself to be fairly intelligent, and a decent gamer but a lot of what I am hearing doesn't really speak to forward or backward compatibility at all. 4ed is a different dog all-together. Its a whole new game. Perhaps a better game, perhaps not, but definitely different and the differences require quite an adjustment. We are assured that the online tools will work and help us convert characters, monsters, and "do it all for us to facilitate an easy transition to the next generation of table top goodness".
The problem is, I have heard that sort of talk before and it's never been true no matter what the context or who was saying it. Maybe this time it will be. Again we are in that nebulous world of "maybe". I don't care for that part so much.
Case
