D&D 4E 4E: What we think we know

[True_Blue]

I had a queue of like 10+ books that I was planning on buying, probably all in one big purchase. But now I think I'll go through it and weed out a bunch of them. I really only need to get the campaign books for the fluff thats in them, and the gamebooks I might as just not get.

Kind of a win situation I guess.. I would have rather had another year or two, but it happens.

I'll be excited to see what race/class changes have happened, same as I was when 3.0 came out.. it was exciting to see how they changed and if anything became better.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Nope. You are right.
They lied, simple as that.

It probably isn't as simple as that. Back in February when they said it was "a long ways away" they might not have received the green light to do everything they wanted with the project. All the online stuff is going to require a major investment to support it. So, at that time, they may not have known when they were going to be able to release 4e.

Add to that business sense. If in 2005 you announce you are working on a new edition for release perhaps by 2008, it might have a negative impact on sales as people hold ooff on buying stuff for the new edition. If sales drop over the course of a couple of years while the product is in development, they may not be able to continue to fund development.

 

[GentleGiant]

I don't understand this D&D Insider thing. Specifically, I don't understand the limits on the system.

Limiting you to three games per month is possibly reasonable, if they're concerned about people sharing passwords. This makes it so that sharing your password with someone else directly reduces the amount of times you can play. But there's objections to this: first, why three times? If a game runs on a weekly basis, that number needs to be 5 (to encompass 30 day weeks where the game starts on day 1 or 2). And second, there certainly has to be a better way to do this than to impose an arbitrary limit. Many other online communities have handled password sharing problems, I'm sure D&D could do the same.

What really doesn't make sense to me is limiting a player to 10 stored characters, and/or 10 stored versions of the same character. Why? It can't possibly be file space. A character sheet is a low file size item. Even if you allowed players to upload multiple high definition jpegs of their characters, you wouldn't expect to pass a megabyte in storage.

I am betting you can pay for upgrades to increase your storage or games per month.

The thing is that you can already do all of those things now for a one time purchase + lots of free tools.
Buy e.g. FantasyGrounds for an online tabletop, install e.g. Skype for voice and use one of the numerous free character generators available (PCGen, HeroForge etc.). All info/pictures/character sheets can be kept online (also many free places to do this).
So, for a low one off purchase you can already do what they promise you can do for a monthly fee...
[edit] Since all of these things are based of off the SRD, when the 4e SRD is published it's going to take... a week, tops, before all of these tools have been upgraded to 4e and made a huge chunk of D&DInsider.com obsolete (apart, of course, from the fabulous MySpac... erm, MyCharacter.com part... blech) - and without all the limitations Wizards plan to put up (only use the online gaming table 3 times a month, limited to 10 characters (WoW anyone?) etc).

 

[Darkwolf71]

I'm a little confused as to how we go from this in Feb:



to now?

Actually, that was the first time I speculated that 4e would be announced at GenCon this year and released next.

I am unsure how to look at this, so I will be adopting a 'wait and see' attitude for now.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

It probably isn't as simple as that. Back in February when they said it was "a long ways away" they might not have received the green light to do everything they wanted with the project. All the online stuff is going to require a major investment to support it. So, at that time, they may not have known when they were going to be able to release 4e.

Add to that business sense. If in 2005 you announce you are working on a new edition for release perhaps by 2008, it might have a negative impact on sales as people hold ooff on buying stuff for the new edition. If sales drop over the course of a couple of years while the product is in development, they may not be able to continue to fund development.

So it was the truth..."from a certain point of view".

I'm not mad about it. These things happen. I know how fast things can change in businesses. Back in February they may have been planning to continue development through 2008 but Hasbro cracked the whip. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is how it unfolded.

Hasbro Bean Counter: "Need money now!"
WOTC Developer: "But we want to get it perfe-"
Hasbro Bean Counter: "Need money now!" *crack*

 

[Aaron L]

Cautiously optimistic. I'm all about character customization, and if it follows Star Wars Saga lines, I'll be pretty happy. If it allows for some crossover of 3.5 feats and concepts and such, I'll be even more happy.

3.5 is pretty near spot on for my tastes. I like the grainyness and intricacy of it.

Just as long as it isn't too far simplified. I didn't quite like the way skills worked in Saga; I like a bit more option than trained/untrained/focused. But we'll see. Like I said, cautiously optimistic.

I do really like the 30 level breakdown part. More room for spreading out goodies so they don't clump together on certain levels, and if they are going with the concept of spreading out class abilities so there aren't any "dead" levels and every level earns you a goody, as seen in recent Wizards website articles, then that's really cool.

Plus, if upper levels get into Epic style stuff, I'll be even happier.

That, combined with the added flexibility of the Saga "pick your fruit from the Trees" approach to class abilities in addition to a common pool of Feats to choose from, I'll be a happy camper. Anything that lets me make my characters unique and just the way I want is a good thing in my book.


I really hope they don't eliminate multiple attacks per round, but I'm afraid they will Personal preference, I'll admit, but I'd rather have every swing in combat rolled for rather than "you actually make lots of attacks in a round, but you only roll for the one that has the best chance of hitting" approach of 1E and 2E.



Just as long as I can recreate a Duskblade or Bladesinger or Psychic Warrior in 4E rules, I'll be happy. And judging by the Saga rules, I think I'll be able too.


But if they make the game even more miniatures focused, I'll be very UNhappy. Unhappy to the point of not buying the game if minis are practically required.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Hey, don't get me wrong. I'm not going to lie -- I hope there is a $1000 licensing fee. I can afford that, and that would cut out a significant portion of my competition. A $2000 fee would be be even better.

Let me preface this by saying I'm not casting aspersions on you, your motives, or the quality of your products in what I am about to say:

Can you think of at least one competitor who can also afford $1000, but is otherwise, pretty much, a shoveler of sh*t?

And are you more concerned about that $1000 fee eliminating competition, or somehow acting as a gateway to quality?

I maintain that it will do the former, but will not significantly act in the latter capacity.

In fact a fee of any kind immediately puts the focus on "How best to publish for profit?" as opposed to, "How best to publish for quality?"

 

[scourger]

I just can't believe how fast eight years can go by.

You said it!

 

[DaveMage]

A simple response to the 4E question at the D&D experience would have been preferable. Something like: "We have not determined exactly when 4E will appear" would have been much preferable to the response they gave.

 

[Emirikol]

D&D has always been a 20 level game

Although the old editions went to 36th level and the 3.5 goes to 20th, I would personally LIKE to see more levels before epic.

I wish that the middle levels (the fun ones) were extende a little longer.

jh