Andy Collin's comments re censoring playtester reviews

[I'm A Banana]

I think the only real mistake WotC has made in this aspect of the playtesting is allowing Ari and some of the others to make any comments at all. That's clearly opened the door to madness and now that they've seen the results we can be sure that it won't happen again. They were letting people talk about their enjoyment of the game to give the public a little treat. That bit them on the ass (rightfully so, I think) and if they're half as smart as I think they are, they'll learn from the mistake.

I'm defending WotC's choice, here, but even I think this was kind of an ill-thought-out tactic. They didn't do anything wrong, but they should've know their audience enough to know that any hint of WotC "gagging" people would imply that they had something to hide.

It isn't bad, but it looks kind of bad. I get that they were trying to get buzz going, but they come off looking kind of manipulative (even though, as said above, they took pretty much the right course of action).

I don't blame them. I might've made the same descision in their shoes. But the praise does come accross as kind of cheap because it can't come with the criticism that a discerning audience demands, even if the posters really and honestly had no criticism to offer.

 

[BadMojo]

Watching the roll out of 4e is like watching a toddler trying to pick up a ball that he keeps kicking away every time he bends over.

Don't forget "falling down a lot" too. I don't think anything nefarious is going on, just poorly thought out. I shudder to think how many playtesters are sending emails as we speak, despite pleas to the contrary, thinking they will somehow also get permission to talk (a ticket to instant geek celebrity for at least an hour or two).

We're really not that far from the launch date of the core books. Ari and John's comments are interesting, but it's not like people weren't already aware and talking about these products. Regardless of whether people were talking positively or negatively on message boards, they were still talking about it. This just seems like it's caused hassle for Wizards and didn't really provide us with any new, concrete information.

Strangest product launch ever.

 

[Doug McCrae]

What good would posting a criticism to a message board do?

When they can just fire off an e-mail to Andy (or someone) and get it actually fixed?

Fair point but what about bigger problems? Playtesting feedback will only bring about minor changes. What if a playtester has a really major system concern? Let's say, for the sake of argument, that a playtester thinks per encounter abilities are fundamentally flawed. That's never going to be fixed.

 

[king_ghidorah]

The OGL was never the same as open computing, and never intended to create an open official product worked on by the community. Bugs were never posted and fixed by the developer community, the final product was not worked on in the same sense.
In fact, an early complaint about the OGL was that it wasn't actually an open system like open computing. It was a reasonable and factual complaint.

The "open" nature of the OGL was about developing add-on products that promoted the main product-- that d20 system games built on the engine was a byproduct of the system, not its intent. OGL was never entirely open, and always about selling core D&D books, no about opening up the core product to change. Playtesting of D&D 3.0 was done in house, not in an open development setting. 3.5 changes were done in house, not in an open development setting. 4.0, done in house, not in an open development setting. No changes in procedure at all.

That there may be a change in how supplementary or derivative material is developed does not change the core product development process.

I've commented previously about how WOTC has turned its back on the Open Gaming movement ( http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2008/01/part-iii-promise-of-ogl.html ). There's been debate in the OGL forum about why WOTC is even bothering to call its new license "OGL" ( http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=215975 ).

This new commentary is the perfect demonstration of the reversal. In 2000 Ryan Dancey wrote this about Open Gaming rules (still on WOTC site today):


Today Andy Collins says the opposite:


So we went from a philosophy of "work on problems in public" in 2000, to a clear-cut "work on problems in secret" that we have here in 2008. I find that to be a rather remarkable about-face.

Finally, you've got what Andy thinks is his coup-de-grace:


You do if it's Open Source. ( https://sourceforge.net/ )

 

[Pinotage]

Fair point but what about bigger problems? Playtesting feedback will only bring about minor changes. What if a playtester has a really major system concern? Let's say, for the sake of argument, that a playtester thinks per encounter abilities are fundamentally flawed. That's never going to be fixed.

I suspect at this stage of the game, playtest feedback is going to change the game very minimally. There's a point of no return where you just have to get the product out and can't accept any more feedback. If you think about things that way, and assume that 4e is in a position where it is nearly complete, then is makes Andy Collins' statements even more interesting. My guess is that WotC can't really be paying that much attention to feedback at this stage. So the 'negative comments' channel to WotC would be pretty much blocked.

Pinotage

 

[tomBitonti]

Bad analogy. Atrocious analogy even. The bolded portion is the problem -- WotC is not doing anything like that. What they are doing is telling all their "companies" (i.e.) testers that the best way to handle negative feedback is to send it directly to them where it can be properly addressed. There's no selective "discontinuing of testing" involved. It's not even remotely a similar circumstance.

Far as I'm concerned, WotC is acting properly, both in a business and an ethical sense.

Well, sending the negative feedback to WotC while allowing positive feedback to be sent to potential customers sounds exactly like my example. The negative feedback is filtered out.

The ethical problem is not disclosing, up front, that the reviews have been filtered.

 

[Stormtalon]

No, your example involved entirely shutting down everyone who was providing negative feedback -- that's not at all the same thing. What I said stands -- your analogy is fatally flawed.

Edit: additionally, your analogy tries to link a situation where negative feedback would be purely factual (bad drug interactions, fatalities, other dangerous side effects) with a situation where much (not all) of the bad feedback would be either opinion or stylistic differences. Again, the flaws in the analogy are too great for it to have any use at all.

 

[Agamon]

I can't imagine how anyone can read Collin's comments and come away with anything other than a reasoned and legitimate explanation. There's no 'damage' or 'credability hit' or 'spin' or 'marketing' or anything else involved.

You haven't been to the Paizo 4E board then. Some of those posters could spin any bit of info to make it look evil and detrimental to all life on earth as we know it.

 

[Delta]

But 4E is NOT OGL or Open Source. How can it be? It's not even out yet. Once it is out, then yes, it would be OGL, and then the first quote would apply.

We agree that 4E is not an Open Game. It could have been if the new rules were developed in a community-oriented fashion, which is what Dancey evangelized back in 2000.

It will also not be an Open Game after it is published. The changes signalled by WOTC for the new so-called-OGL do not satisfy the criteria of an Open Game ( http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/licenses.html ).

 

[king_ghidorah]

We agree that 4E is not an Open Game. It could have been if the new rules were developed in a community-oriented fashion, which is what Dancey evangelized back in 2000.

It will also not be an Open Game after it is published. The changes signalled by WOTC for the new so-called-OGL do not satisfy the criteria of an Open Game ( http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/licenses.html ).

But under these criteria, 3e and 3.5e core rules also weren't Open Games, either, no matter what Dancey evangelized in 2000. Development and play-testing was not communal, but in-house or closed -- just like 4e, despite the option to use OGC.

Is there any commercial RPG that is truly developed in a development community like open-source software? Maybe FUDGE, but its commercial sale came after its open development on the web.