Liner Notes

[Michael Morris]

This is raw - what I typed during the announcement.

History of the editions video
1e, 2e.

Making fun of THAC0
I grapple! everyone laughed.

Bill Slavesiek
welcome to 4e director of r&d book publishng
Chris Perkins
Cover reveled for the core rules

D&D takes advantage of technology - crowd heckles - in a way no prev edition has done
before seriously. D&D is a living game, 3rd edition has millions of $ of playtesting
Things will be done differently

"Better Faster Stronger"

Character advancement is meaningful at each level
High level play as fun and meaningful as low level.
Streamlining of mechanics
Online tools will be introduced

Simplified statblocks a lot.

Eliminated from the game are rules that grind the game to a halt. Grapple cited.

4e is still a d20 system game.

Core rules extend to 30 levels. Epic level supported in core.
Game will be easy to DM.
Character class roles are going to be more tightly defined within the rules.
New power sources will be introduced for the other classes.

Resource Management overhauled. Game will keep going even when the caster
is out of spells.

Monster rules are being redefined - DM will have easier time finding right
monster for the right job.

4parts of 4e

Physical Product
Core rules
adv

suppplements
tiles
minis

Organized Play
living camp
conv play
special events
connect players and dms in new ways.
giving rewards for playing dnd wherever and whenever

community
Gleemax.
Suite of social networking tools
ways to comm with each other
comm with wotc
express yourself
organize characters

Digital offerings
DND Insider - collection of online tools for DMs - char creations - editorial game content

Online expanded content for books (monster manual example)
behind the scenes stuff.
Designer commentaries for books provided.

Every physical product will have a code which can be entered into D&D Insider which will
unlock the product's digital version for you online.

Dungeon & Dragon will rise again in strictly online form.

Every 3 days new articles will be released for each magazine.

Wireframe of a dragon
D&D online tabletop shown will use voice chat.
Dice roller shown
Ability to draw items
Ability to show images

Not a game in and of itself - you provide adventure
Character generator includes character generator similar to NWN2
Figures are fully posable
Character can be drops into a scene - different scenes for different races.

4e has been in production for 2 years. Andy Collins James Wyatt Rob Heinsoo

How do you learn more about 4e

dndinsider goes live right after this announcement!

Playtesters will be signed up in the next couple weeks.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

Thanks. At least thats something. Wotc was killed. except for the forums apparently they are trying to fix the problem with the servers.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

2 years? What about the FEB DDXP announcement? Lying bastards!

Edit: As to the rest ... could be promising, could be bad. It all depends on the execution, and the devil is in the details.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Every physical product will have a code which can be entered into D&D Insider which will
unlock the product's digital version for you online.

That sounds rad. But what about foreign editions of the game? I'm English-savvy enough to game in English... but some friends, on the other hand... yeah.

Hoping for a well coordinated international release... WotC can do that! (see their TCGs)

Cheers, LT.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

That sounds rad. But what about foreign editions of the game? I'm English-savvy enough to game in English... but some friends, on the other hand... yeah.

Hoping for a well coordinated international release... WotC can do that! (see their TCGs)

Cheers, LT.

I read in a post from someone from Israel that there will be a Hebrew version of the core rules on the website. If there is a Hebrew version then that bodes well for other languages.

Olaf the Stout

 

[WotC_Dave]

I'm in no position to address a wider "who said what about when" topic, but as for February's D&D Experience...well, I was standing there in the room. Lying? Not by a long shot.

In February 2007, we said "long ways off." That's 15 to 17 months before the 4e core books would come out.

By the calendar, that's a long ways off. And from this designer's perspective, it was a long ways off in another sense: back in February, we didn't have a robust class/race/etc. system yet. We had a lot of promising pieces, but nothing we that would support full-on gaming. So it was a long ways off in that sense, too.

When we said "long ways off" at XP, I gave an affirming nod. Because that's the truth of it. 4e was a long ways off.

Nowadays, I vacillate between "Man, May is _still_ a long ways off" and "Man, how are we going to get all this done? May is just around the corner!"

 

[Razz]

Let's sacrifice the sacred cows of D&D and also make it more like a video game now to compete with WoW!

Yayyy!! :\

D&D is dead. If not now, it will be.

Unless, of course, WotC does the really smart thing and make it so that you can still use your 3.5E material for your 4E games with little work.

Any chance you guys can develop a book or program to do that? You just might convince me 4E's worth it if you can.

 

[Treebore]

Let's sacrifice the sacred cows of D&D and also make it more like a video game now to compete with WoW!

Yayyy!! :\

D&D is dead. If not now, it will be.

Unless, of course, WotC does the really smart thing and make it so that you can still use your 3.5E material for your 4E games with little work.

Any chance you guys can develop a book or program to do that? You just might convince me 4E's worth it if you can.

From what I am reading/seeing it won't be all that hard to use 3.5E with 4E.

If it is hard you can do what I do and use Castles and Crusades to make all the editions of D&D fit togehter.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Let's sacrifice the sacred cows of D&D and also make it more like a video game now to compete with WoW!

Yayyy!! :\

D&D is dead. If not now, it will be.

Unless, of course, WotC does the really smart thing and make it so that you can still use your 3.5E material for your 4E games with little work.

Any chance you guys can develop a book or program to do that? You just might convince me 4E's worth it if you can.

Razz, can you -please- quit with the doomsaying? It's getting old, especially in threads like this one where people are trying to get info.

 

[Glyfair]

BTW, I think you can get the info straight from the proverbial horses mouth here. Just watch the top two videos (and watch the others later for fun).