D&D 4E 4e: Isn't it ironic....

[EricNoah]

It has been remarkably upbeat. This community was built on that "ooh, here comes a new edition!" excitement, so even those who might not be switching can still relate to the excitement. The best way to keep this community together is for each of us to lead by example and treat our fellow gamers with respect.

 

[Quartz]

I remember the newsgroups - alt.games.frp.dnd, anyone? Pity they were killed by spam. I also remember the transition from 1e to 2e - I even wrote a letter to TSR about the bard being a bit too powerful a spellcaster at low levels.

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

Gah, help me remember -- did WotC even have real "forums" in '99? They had some kind of newsgroup thingy as I recall. And the WotC website was, what, the beholder with each eye as a hyperlink leading to different parts of the site? And SKR was webmaster?

Happy to oblige. Courtesy of the Wayback Machine, here is the Wizards of the Cost site from October of 1999: http://web.archive.org/web/19991013000321/http://www.wizards.com/

 

[Orryn Emrys]

It has been remarkably upbeat. This community was built on that "ooh, here comes a new edition!" excitement, so even those who might not be switching can still relate to the excitement. The best way to keep this community together is for each of us to lead by example and treat our fellow gamers with respect.

I remember finding this site back in '99, while Dragon Magazine was publishing their monthly "Countdown to 3rd Edition" articles, and being more excited about it than I expected to be. I think the growing number of participants on the board (at which I lurked for more than two years, I think, before registering and posting at all) was what made the difference. That, and the fact that a few of the ideas that were being presented in the unofficial news and rumors about the game were very similar to ideas I'd been developing as house rules...

In any case, I was so resistant to the change to 2nd Edition that I continued playing 1E for years after its release. With 3rd, I was an instant convert. This has easily paved the way for my reception to 4th, though I remain cautious in my enthusiasm.

In any case, Eric, I owe you and the community you founded a serious debt of gratitude for easing the transition, and I think it'll be the same this time around. (I haven't even been to the WotC forums yet...)

 

[GAAAHHH]

I've noticed one cool thing that is very different than at the beginnings of 3rd edition ... our community is already here, ready to talk about it. There won't be 8 months of news without a messge board to discuss it on. There won't be months of word of mouth as this site grows from a few hits per day to thousands. There won't be a string of new URLs as the site and the forums move around from home to home. That's kind of neat...

Gah, help me remember -- did WotC even have real "forums" in '99? They had some kind of newsgroup thingy as I recall. And the WotC website was, what, the beholder with each eye as a hyperlink leading to different parts of the site? And SKR was webmaster?

I don't think they had real forums back then. I don't know about SKR.