D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 is the REAL reason everyone is angry

[Friadoc]

And also they realized an announcement of this magnitude should be made at GenCon. Don't you think?
I think.

Exactly, in fact I remember people being upset that Gencon would no longer be the site of major D&D announcements, so much so that they vocalized it a lot.

So, wouldn't their announcing a major D&D news piece at Gencon be a sign that they listened to the community?

I think so, too.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

Well the old World Of Darkness edition could be played more less the same. I have second edition, and revised and played with 1st edition OWOD stuff with no problem.
Then NWOD came out and I was like what the heck? Nothing here can be played without heavy modification.

I think people feel the same way about D&D when they introduce a new edition its so different form the last one people cant use their old stuff. It's one reason I will stick with 3.5 and why I stick with OWOD. With the exception of the fluff books.

 

[koxler]

What is even sadder is that, for all my moaning, I'll end up buying the damn thing... if that weren't the case, they wouldn't be printing it. No for all the raging right now, 4E will do just fine... WOTC knows their base more than we know ourselves I'll wager.

I agree. We can all sit here and talk about how upset we are but the vase majority of us will end up buying them anyway. I was upset when 3.5 first came out and yes it did delay my purschase for perhaps a year but when you consider that all the supporting content and OGL supplemental information that will be moving to 4e it will be really hard for anyone not to move over if they enjoy playing.

 

[borc killer]

Four years ago. Over four years ago, actually. When 4e hits the streets, 3.5 will be five years old.

/M

/agree

3.5 was a great release of the game I thought. And was really needed. We had 0 issues with converting to 3.5.

Infact I was just in the process of generating a huge collection of house rules for my next campaign… and I can already see that about 1/3 of them are defently in 4e.

 

[Mistwell]

I think the title of this thread is based on a faulty premise.

Not everyone is angry. In fact, I believe the vast majority are not angry about 4e.

There is always a loud and grumpy minority of folks who do not like change. It happened with all past editions of this game, and it will happen with 4e as well. In the end, people will be relatively happy with the new thing that comes out, once it comes out.

 

[Torm]

I will buy 4th Edition - the core books, and anything beyond that that looks interesting, which will probably be most of it. And, I will buy 4.5, should that come to pass, in the same manner. And 5th, and so on. As long as they provide something different, and I'll admit, not even necessarily BETTER so long as it is INTERESTING, I'll buy.

People seem to want to get all indignant about WOTC's edition scheduling. I, for one, don't spend my disposible income on all sorts of nasty habits that people pick up - D&D is my crack, and comparitively, I think it is a pretty good one. So I'll buy. And I believe many of you who are complaining will, too, which is fine - the right to b*tch about it to your fellow gamers, and the time you spend doing it, that you must admit ALSO provides entertainment, is just a value added service WOTC is providing.

 

[Gargauth]

I think the title of this thread is based on a faulty premise.

Not everyone is angry. In fact, I believe the vast majority are not angry about 4e.

There is always a loud and grumpy minority of folks who do not like change. It happened with all past editions of this game, and it will happen with 4e as well. In the end, people will be relatively happy with the new thing that comes out, once it comes out.

The vast majority of WHO? I've played with alot of people that only own a Player's Handbook, I doubt they care one way or the other... allow me some hyperbole.

 

[SavageRobby]

Everyone is angry?

Apparently no-one, -- N

I'm not angry, I'm amused. But then, I jumped off the WotC-flavored D&D bandwagon a few years ago. I'm actually hoping the new system is good. I'm looking forward to stealing ideas from it for my other games.


But FWIW, I think the OP has the right of it. Were I still a WotC-flavored D&Der, I'd be pissed, specifically because of the 3.5-moneygrab. Couple that with their comments from earlier this year, their handling of Dragon magazine, and a number of other examples, and its no wonder a fair amount of people don't trust them for squat. They've proven, as a company, that constant spin, lying (or rather, calculated dissembling to preserve current and future business opportunities, if you want to buy the corpspeak) and edging-on-unethical behavior simply doesn't bug them. (Now in truth, many businesses are like this, so its not like they're alone in it.)


FWIW, I also don't think they're going to couple the books and DI so tightly that you can't play without the DI. I think that this is simply an effort to swap some distribution-based unit revenue (ie, crunch books) into subscription based revenue (ie, online content), and it makes total sense as a model, especially when you consider that typically they sell one book to a given group (usually the DM), and in this case they're trying to get all the members of the group to subscribe. Whether they can execute on the concept is a totally different question, but the concept itself is pretty solid.

 

[Khairn]

I think you're reading too much into the statements about the activation codes in the book opening on-line content for you.

While it's obvious they are moving towards the digital tabletop concept, thusly allowing people to access character and Dm content (such as class, items, adventures) by entering in the activation code from a book, I don't think you're going to lose functionality of the game if you play it off the grid.

You'll still get errata and what not, but I think a lot of the digital perks and what not need to be in place for those who use the DI.

Lets not talk about the eratta shall we? Its been 4+ months since WotC promised us that it would be a priority, and only after WotC was called to account for their lack of communication did we find out it would be another 3-4 months before any 3.5 errata would be presented, nevermind that it would only be published once a quarter. Now we have to question any eratta 3.5 being published since their dropping the system.

WotC's stated intent is to link both the DI and 4E together as seemlessly as possible. The option they are proposing is something along the following. If we were talking about an MMORPG (which looks more and more likely with each info packet released) it would be like paying for the game, but having additional monsters, loot, equipment, zones, NPC's and functionality available only if you pay an additional $10 - $14 per month.

The core books will cost you $90 to buy ( 3x $30) but the monthly fee's will cost you an additional $120 per year.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

A new edition every 3-5 years in the norm in the RPG industry, and more often than not it is a good thing. There are always a few more things that can be improved.

If you are a real old-timer you might be used to the glacial pace of innovation of the 1980-2000 era, but that was a strange outlier that did D&D more harm than good IMO. Obviously, opinions may differ.

As for 3.5, the quality of the Complete series when compared to Sword & Fist and its siblings alone justified a new edition for me. For all that many particular Core changes are controversial, overall the shifts were very well received -- people on these boards seem to like ~80+% of the tweaks, even if they might disagree about which exact small minority offend. The revamp of Psionics was a great thing as well.