Dear Wizards: How about some real information?

[BASHMAN]

You know, for a while here, I was on the anti-4e bandwagon, and especially for the fact that WotC had been so vague on any information given out, and so secretive w/ actual information. I was longing for the days of Eric Noah & the black pages, and just ranting about how WotC is keeping things from us and my hat of ed04 know no limitz.

Then, that miniatures card with a full 4e stat-block of a spiked devil came out. REAL, ACTUAL MECHANICS for 4th ed instead of just promises of "it's WAY easier/better/etc than 3e-- trust us even though we can't say anything". This stat-block not only revealed actual information about 4th edition D&D, but it also restored some of the little faith I had left in WotC. I have since heard that info was leaked-- but I'm sure it was with a wink and a nod, and I'm grateful.

Then I joined the 4e is great, better than sliced bread even bandwagon, and all was good... for a while. In the past few weeks, it has been the sahara of information being posted, back to the smokescreen blogs. I am turning back into that person whose hat of d02 knowz no limitz-- and I'd rather not.

PLEASE wizards-- know your audience! The more info you give us, the more people will want to buy it. Remember 3rd Ed at launch? A lot of us had almost the entire SRD for months before the launch and we still bought the book.

What would it hurt to give us ONE FEAT or ONE RACE or ONE SPELL or ONE CLASS writeup? It has already been stated that the PhB text is done, but even if it weren't I'm sure we'd understand if something changed between now and then.

I want to be anticipating and happy for 4e-- not a crusty grognard who wants to keep 4e off his lawn. But this lack of information is embittering potential customers like myself, while the artificial flavor blogs are annoying-- having to read some long article in the vain effort to glean something-- anything-- relating to the mechanics of the game.

Why not do a countdown to 4e? You have DRAGON-- tell us something clear 1/month-- that's all I ask...

Your possible customer,
C

 

[Henrix]

It has already been stated that the PhB text is done, but even if it weren't I'm sure we'd understand if something changed between now and then.

No, it is only "done" in the sense that the PHB eas ready to be handed ou to playtesters. Listen to the latest podcast and you'll get some sense of how "done" it is.

 

[Stormtower]

Why not do a countdown to 4e? You have DRAGON-- tell us something clear 1/month-- that's all I ask...

I expect that the D&DI (along with its Dragon and Dungeon eZine content) will be the primary venue for 4e previews/countdown in the months to come. I agree that the rollout has been underwhelming thus far in terms of real, solid information. As stuff goes to press I expect the amount of usable info will increase dramatically.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think it's just a little bit early... Soon there is going to be the D&D worldwide (?) event, then the 1st book about D&D design with some 4e information, then the 2nd book... Once those 2 books are out, and the 4e core books are almost finalized, we will probably see a weekly preview column on WotC website, just like we had for the 3.5 revision (in which case it was only a few months before the release, IIRC).

 

[SSquirrel]

As Eric has pointed out often in other threads, we know more about 4E now than we did at the same point with 3E. Information is coming in time. I honestly never expected to get much info before New Years.

You can skip reading all of the blogs and just read ENWorld since you know people will post the good bits here. IT's what I do

 

[KoshPWNZYou]

Keep in mind, they could have held off announcing 4e until the start of the playtest process. We can debate whether or not they should have, but that's neither here nor there. If we hadn't even known 4e was coming the last few months, we could hardly lament not receiving information over such a long period of time.

It has already been stated that the PhB text is done, but even if it weren't I'm sure we'd understand if something changed between now and then.

Considering how grumpy people have tended to get at 'this aspect or 4e' or 'this approach taken by WoTC', I'm not sure how confident they are that we would understand ...

We just live in a world now where businesses don't like to announce things unless they're in writing, signed, and stamped. It can get frustrating at times, but what can you do. :\

 

[WyzardWhately]

Yeah, I figure we got a good three or four months before they should open up the throttle a little. Maybe more than that. I don't really expect the serious previews to hit until a month or two before street date. Not saying that's my *prediction,* I'm saying that's when I'd start to get leery of a lack of hard data.

 

[Kesh]

December is when the first Preview book ("Races and Classes") hits the shelves. I'd expect we'll start seeing more information once it's out, with increasing frequency as the months roll on.

 

[grimslade]

December is when the first Preview book ("Races and Classes") hits the shelves. I'd expect we'll start seeing more information once it's out, with increasing frequency as the months roll on.

Kesh has the right of it. The 'preview' books will not have much hard info in them but it will serve as the launching point for discussion I am hoping.
With 3E more palytesters wanted to bend their NDA it seemed. There were a few anonymous posts that would be confirmed later. I may be misrembering but the official info was very vague in Dragon too. Generalities were discussed and details were sussed out of examples more than flat out official descriptions.

 

[BASHMAN]

Kesh has the right of it. The 'preview' books will not have much hard info in them but it will serve as the launching point for discussion I am hoping.
With 3E more palytesters wanted to bend their NDA it seemed. There were a few anonymous posts that would be confirmed later. I may be misrembering but the official info was very vague in Dragon too. Generalities were discussed and details were sussed out of examples more than flat out official descriptions.

Ah, since having an ENworld account does not grant anonymoty (wotc could sue someone for violating the NDA by posting info here) perhaps a wiki is the best way to go for information-- people can edit them anonymously. Someone suggested starting one, but nobody seemed to be interested-- but a Wiki would allow access to more info than these boards can I think...