Do you think 6 months are enough for playtesting?

[AllisterH]

IWhat if the game wasn't planned until 2009, but sales numbers declined quicker than expected earlier this year, and Hasbro pushed WotC into releasing 4E a year earlier to compensate, and generate revenue?

Banshee

Doubtful IMHO.

You're assuming that Hasbro even notices D&D. They don't IMHO. They bought WOTC for one reason and one reason only and that's Magic:TG. I think people might've forgotten just how much money M:TG pulls in for WOTC.

As an aside, Hasbro HAS probably changed Magic. Previous to a couple of years ago, Magic used to release 3 expansions one year, 4 a next (the 4th one being the main edition) and it would be released along those lines. If you own a business, you can see where this is annoying since your yearly predictions will change year to year as well as making your revenue stream uneven.

However, in the last couple of years, WOTC has released gimmick sets in the off year so that magic has had 4 expansions a year for the past few years. This year, we (M:TG fans) wondered if they had any gimmicks left and WOTC has basically decided to split one of their regular exppansions into 4 instead of the usual 3.

Even though no WOTC official has admitted it, pretty much everyone in the online magic community believe this is straight from Hasbro.

re: As for playtesting, 6 years ago, I'd say this would be too short a time.

Now though? With pretty much all playtesters and WOTC being in instant contact, why would it take longer for playtesting?

 

[hong]

Besides which, even with lots and lots of playtest, 3E still came out with all of these issues that people want to see fixed. After a while, you run into diminishing returns.

 

[Quartz]

Seems to me that the whole of 3E / 3.5E has been a playtest for 4E. So they've learned the lessons and are tightening things up and simplifying and making things better. Sounds good to me.

 

[Glyfair]

Besides which, even with lots and lots of playtest, 3E still came out with all of these issues that people want to see fixed. After a while, you run into diminishing returns.

See that's the trouble with speculation, people see different things (often what they want to see). Looking at the number of "issues" in 3E, one group sees the need for more, another sees that there is a point of diminishing returns where any more playtesting isn't worth the time.

I'm definitely in the second camp (admittedly based on some experience). At some point in playtesting you reach the point where you make little progress. Until you open it to a hugely wide group, you won't see any progress. The point is basically release. Your whole customer base will find issues that any subset of the group won't find.

Also, remember that playtesting costs the company money that is passed on to the customers. Sure, the playtesters are free. However, you have to pay the designers to look over the material, evaluate the feedback and make any changes. A playtest coordinator has to be hired to send out the material, gather the feedback, put it into a form that the developers can better evaluate, and deal with the minor management issues of those groups. Plus, you have to let distributors and retailers well in advance when they can expect a product to arrive.

No product is ever released that is perfect. Indeed, with the varying taste of gamers and the nature of RPGs, it's pretty much impossible. After all the internal playtesting they've done (which we know has included some non-WotC people based on playtest reports), 6 months is probably enough to get the feedback they need.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Not buying it, sorry. If people won't go to the website to get errata when it's free, why would they go to the website to pay for errata (since you have to pay a "nominal fee" to unlock the digital version of the book you bought)?

Errata will still be free. This has been stated multiple times by the WoTC folks.