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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Olgar Shiverstone" data-source="post: 3728493" data-attributes="member: 5868">After reading this disucssion and thinking about it a bit, I'd like to see them push the release backa few months to allow more public playtesting and allow the results to be iterated into the rules.I look at gaming systems like software: because a change in one place usually creates a bug somewhere else, you can't stress the system enough internally, and it takes a very large-scale beta test to really work the kinks out.  WOTC may have been playtesting internally for a while, but I look at that as an alpha test -- no system survives contact with the gaming masses.  Given the production lead times some have printed here, there's probably 6 weeks to 3 months of true playtest time, which really doesn't allow time for stressful iterative testing.You could look at 3.0 as a beta test for 3.5, but with the number of changes they are predicting for 4E, I don't think the same relationship holds.And the "we can give you errata digitally!" argument is bogus to me ... it's like that common (and totally BS) software approach of avoiding a lengthy beta test by simply releasing the software and sending out a mound of patches later.  That approach has killed a lot of good software, and people are turned off by the first experience.</blockquote>