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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6056530" data-attributes="member: 82106">I wouldn't call it petty or conspiratorial at all. In fact this is a very standard reaction you get EVERY TIME you bring in a new engineering lead to maintain an existing software project. The first thing they almost invariably do is suggest throwing out the whole product and starting over because clearly they can do so much better and what exists must be a giant deeply flawed mess, etc. It is an "NIH" effect. It is QUITE obvious that's what is going on here with Mike and 4e. It is a rather insidious disease too, despite how easy it is to predict. There are ALWAYS some arguments for making a clean break and doing a new product from a blank slate. In this case it looks like Mike is pretty much in charge of making this decision. It is a slam dunk, and USUALLY a bad move at that.Well, clearly the trend has been accelerating over the years, and 4e is still at the short end of the spectrum no matter how you count. The problem is that every new edition is another fracture in the fan base. Eventually you have nothing left but the worst-case scenario, just the people that will 'buy anything that says D&D' reflex buying this year's endless rehash of core rules.I think we can make perfectly good comparisons of 2e and DDN. DDN may not be complete but even Mike tweeted something about once a couple tweaks he was working on were finished the "core would be complete". I think its valid to draw some types of conclusions. CERTAINLY we can consider the faults in a system that tacks on many disparate subsystems and has no strong exception-based design. THAT was the essence of the problem with 2e, mechanically. You had a dozen different confusing and competing ways to try to implement something and the result was chaos by the end of the Player Option series. It was indeed a hot mess. If you can have all the benefits without the downsides why wouldn't you?It isn't actually a matter of little pieces parts. It is a matter of the overall way in which the system is structured and extended. It is a large topic though of course, and one that has surfaced in various threads before.Yes, and note the guy that is one of the cheif architects of that business model as well. A guy who seems to keep pulling off successful game system launches too. I think I'd be all over that if I was running a game company with any pretensions to be a good business. WotC is according to him wasting its time churning out new editions, it is a loosing game. At least that is what I gather from what I read.</blockquote>

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