Glyfair said:
We could certainly argue the semantics of "lie" but it really wouldn't change either of our point of view.
However, how could they make statements like "we will make all major D&D announcements at the D&D Xperience," "4th edition is a long way off" and "we are not working on 4th edition" and not think they would be misleading?
I never said they were not misleading, I said that they didn't lie, which is more a point of motivation than it is of semantics.
Maybe they knew a leak was going to happen before the D&D Xperience and they change their minds, or else they needed to move up the release date so, thusly they moved up the announcement.
Seriously, if some people are ticked off now, how would they have felt if the announcement didn't occur until Jan. '08, with the first book coming out four months later.
Big boom there.
As for the long way off, a year is a long enough amount of time that it is more of a point of perspective.
Plus, I've already stated my opinion on the "working on 4e" thing.
Companies are allowed to obfuscate their product releases, announcements, and timing and nothing about product development, so long as it is within legal and safety guidelines, is public knowledge.
Companies are allowed trade secrets, private development, and what not, in fact the earlier release of said developments, without the company in questions approval, can fall under industrial espionage.
All companies do it, heck White Wolf took a good amount of time letting people know how drastic the changes from WoD 1.0 to 2.0 were going to be, right up until they announced it and then started the previous.
Even book releases were a big change, with you having to own the main WoD book in order to play the other games.
While it's obvious you feel mislead, I seriously doubt that WotC had any malevolent intent in their misleading people, I think it just falls under a company's right to release information on future products in their own time.