NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dd.stevenson" data-source="post: 6177523" data-attributes="member: 6683099">Cool. For some reason I took your earlier post as trolling/spoiling for a fight. Clearly that was a misunderstanding on my part. I think that Mearls' post was just about as clear as it gets when it comes to WotC communication. He is giving playtesters notice that their contributions won't be needed any more, and relaying in broad strokes what he had decided based on their feedback. Since this playtest was really more of a focus group than an actual playtest, it's appropriate that he culminates with some realizations he's come to [i.e., decisions he's made] about Next's target audience. And he explicitly excludes edition warriors from this group.Why isn't this just venturing an opinion about some interesting things he found in the playtest data?First, the statement "you aren't edition warriors" is phrased as a fact, not as an opinion. Mike is no stranger to weasel words, and he could have softened this several degrees if he had wanted to. Further, this statement is presented in the context of a list of R&D findings, all of which are phrased as facts.Second, Mearls is a decision maker (head of the D&D business group), and it's <a href="https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/369253969169641472" target="_blank">clearly crunch time</a>. So in the bigger context, there's absolutely no reason to assume he meant anything other than what he said.Third, the tone of this article can be summarized as "Thanks for the help, guys: we've got what we need from you and now we're ready to go git 'er done!" Which again offers no reason to re-frame Mike's assertions through the it's-just-my-opinion lens.I did make some extrapolations: from "DDN playtest group" to "DDN target audience" and from "not part of target audience" to "not wanted". But these are not outlandish; in any case, they're consistent with the spirit with which the AEW contingent received Mearls' message.</blockquote>

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