Pathfinder 1E Lisa Stevens, CEO of Paizo, commenting about ENWorld

[Morrus]

I think the moderation during this period should have been more aggressive. I could name half-a-dozen individuals on both sides of the argument who do nothing but troll, thread-crap and basically look to harass and bully whenever a thread/argument appears that they are opposed to. The moderators should have simply banned them - first time as a warning, second time for good. These individuals have been allowed to cast a dark cloud over EN World and are still being allowed to do so. Simply put, I do not enjoy my time here as I once did and I'm constantly seeing the same regurgitated threads and pointless arguments over and over. IMO the lack of consistant and aggressive moderation during this period also bears a large responsibility to the present tensions and angst that pervades on these boards.

Who are these mysterious individuals? Have you reported their posts? I don't know who you're referring to.

 

[dmccoy1693]

The only vibe I get from ENWorld lately is numbers. Cold, hard numbers. It seems that the number of 4E people out weight the 3E people by a rather large margin. I wouldn't say that 3E people are unwelcome, just a minority. Perhaps the largest minority, but still less then a quarter of the total regular posters. That alone keeps me from coming here on a regular basis since there is little for me to read. And when I do come here, I generally look more in the OGL rules section or the legal section then I do in the main section anymore.

As far as sales go, I remember Orcus saying not long ago when he said, "I'm not going GSL as the license stands right now," that he's not going to put out any 3.x stuff because sales are rather sluggish in that regard. Well, duh. He hasn't put out anything new for 3.x since City of Brass at GenCon '07. Is he expecting a rush on ToH II sales? Just about everyone that's going to buy it already owns it (unless they're looking for an 80% off sale or something). I subscribe to Paizo because they're one of the few still putting out NEW 3.x product.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I think that people who post here are PRO ENWorld and by the slice of the pie that is the gaming market about one of the more equal sites on gaming, ie, you are going to have the 60% of members be PRO 4e, 30% PRO 3e, and 10% PRO other games. RPG.net made be about the same, WOTC is 90% 4e, and Paizo is 90% Paizo.

(NOTE those numbers are made up)

What would be interesting is to see what happened to sales when 3e and 3.5 came out, I would not be surprised to see a trend.

 

[Dragonbait]

I don't exactly recall any of the 3e designers calling something from 2e the "antithesis of fun" when they promoted 3e. Some of 4e's self-promotion by trashing 3e ventured into insulting territory, and the tone and application was distinctly different than the previous edition change.

I have to agree with the Yougoloth, to a point. I'm a big fan of 4E and had grown frustrated with 3E (to the point that I had stopped writing my own adventures for 3E 2 years prior) but I did notice a distinct "3ed kills the fun" aspect of the 4e move. Check out the original video commercial showing the 3ed designers in funny retro clothes playing older editions of D&D. They showed 1ed was fun! 2ed ruined the fun (THAC0) and 3ed REALLY ruined the fun (Someone tries to grapple and everyone looks bored). 4ed, though? Thats HELLA FUN!

I get it from a commercial standpoint: you try to convince people to convert to the new game by pointing out the flaws of the old game.

If you really want to see if there was 2ed bashing when they made the move to 3ed, check out the old Dragon magazines when they promo'ed their ideas for 3E.

As for staying on topic: IMPO the sentiment varies from strong pro- to strong anti-. About two months ago, I would have said ENWorld was anti-4E. I remember reading all the posts about how tieflings/dragonborn/eladrin/skill challanges raped people's siblings and ruined gamer's lives. This month, if you say you don't like A. B. or C of 4ed you get a real dressing down. So I say it's balanced, but not all at the same time.

I visit Paizo's boards, too. They are obviously pro-3E, but quick to point out its flaws (which is a good thing, IMO. It means they are practicle about their game). I felt that they are a bit more friendly to the 4E threads.. Provided they clearly state from the get-go that the thread is about 4E. (like "Let's adapt Pathfinder adventures to 4E" threads).

 

[Cadfan]

Who are these mysterious individuals? Have you reported their posts? I don't know who you're referring to.

Umm. Technically, posting names constitutes a violation of your rules of conduct.

 

[Logos7]

I also think lisa is comparing apples and oranges here and trying to conclude grapefruits.

The Enworld pdf store and Paizo's pdf/book store are not the same at all in my opinion. I think the reason that if Enworld bit it in sales and Paizo didn't of 3.x products is because Paizo is a dedicated store, with some great products and Enworld, not so much (God knows I love enworld, But I don't come here for the pdf's , Paizo on the other hand is more or less the only reason I go there , along with tilting at windmills on occassion)

These reasons seem to have a whole lot more impact on the subject at hand ( could enworld have upped their 3.x sales leading up to release of 4th edition ) than the subject of neutrality imho. Apparently Paizo has a very special interpretation of neutrality and 'open' than most other people. If you want an example, come hang out in the 4th forum at paizo. Its not what i would call neutral, and its about where i would peg enworld was when 4th was announced.

Enworld is a news and discussion sight for DnD news. That's fourth edition for the record.

I kinda wish the En world '4' would have stuck arround.

But hey, just my thoughts. Thanks for everyone's hard work.

Logos

 

[Umbran]

People who like 3e and dislike 4e think ENWorld is anti-3e.

People who like 4e and dislike 3e think ENWorld is anti-4e.

To an extent, this is true - I have done some (perhaps unscientific) counting of reports and complaints, and I've convinced myself that we are on a fairly even keel there.

I'd say things are fine...

I have to disagree, there. I cannot look at the reports we get and think that everything is "fine".

I think folks are asking the wrong question - we don't need to know if EN World is pro-4e or pro-3.x. We need to know if the people of EN World are tolerant. And, for months now, they have not been. People on both sides are highly intolerant, and are backing down only very slowly.

For years, EN World was largely focused on 3e. While folks who wanted to discuss other editions or other games might have found we were light on traffic, in general they'd not come away feeling like they were assaulted for liking something else. That is too-often not the case at this time.

It seems that too many people have bought into the ideas that one or the other edition needs defending - as if it were a damsel in distress or something - and are willing to go waaaay too far in that defense. They don't seem to stop and think that the damage they do to the goodwill on the site is far worse than any good they do for the reputation of their chosen edition.

 

[Keith Robinson]

I see. And what groundbreaking 3E news would you have liked to see reported? What was missed?

"No new products for 3E!" - a fascinating news article, to be sure!

Are you asking me to invent fake news? Invent some new 3E product that doesn't exist and report on it?

News. It's about what's happening. 4E was - and is - happening. CNN doesn't report on current events in the Hundred Years War, you'll notice..

You didn't need to fake it, as you weren't doing it. Oddly enough I was primarily the one putting it up there during this time. I remember when heckles were raised when it was felt (rightly or wrongly) that Paizo news was being ignored - something I (and others) tried to make sure was rectified after that. There were also plenty of third party d20/OGL releases by pdf publishers during this time.

I report 3E publishers' news scoops when they bother to send 'em to me. I report Pathfinder info when they bother to send 'em to me.

You see, if there wasn't any OGL/d20 news, I'm left wondering just where it was that all the time I spent keeping the front page updated with anything other than 4ed news went. But at least your rather snide, sarcastic and passive-aggressive post shows exactly what you think of those who have tried to help support this site in a pro-active way.

But not sending the scoops and then complaining that it wasn't reported is, at best, disingenuous.

I have absolutely no idea what this is refrencing - certainly not anything in my post.

 

[Joe Sala]

Sure, but it did something more important - it gave people the information they wanted to hear. How did all these people decide they didn't like the look of 4E and locked onto Pathfinder before the rules were even out?.

Again, I think Lisa was writing about your PDFs. But since keeping an active and popular site is for you more important than selling your game products, then everything is fine.

 

[Keith Robinson]

Who are these mysterious individuals?

If I had wanted to name them, I would have done. I have no intention of finger pointing in public.

Have you reported their posts?

Indeed I did, originally. But mostly the moderators didn't appear and when they did, they same argument appeared elsewhere time and again. Reporting posts became pointless, so I stopped. Now I just try to ignore certain threads.