d20Dwarf said:
Well, what I"m saying is that unless you know you are turning out the perfect game, then how could you be offended at the idea that you'd be able to go back and fix your mistakes and make an even better game? That's what I mean. When I heard Midnight was going to a fully revised 2nd edition, I wasn't upset or offended, I was thrilled!
I was talking about was honest human emotion, not intellectual analysis. Of course we realized that there would be mistakes in our work, and that there would be further additions and editions to the game. There's a huge difference between knowing intellectually that there will be further development on your work, and a business manager looking you in the eye and telling you that he's planning on revising something you've been working on for 3 years and aren't even quite finished yet. Just like there's a big difference between realizing that our work wasn't going to be perfect and actual planned obselescence (which is what the post I was initially addressing was talking about).
We knew from day 1, of course, that there would be a 4th edition D&D. Probably about a year into 3E development, I started keeping a file called "4th edition," that contained ideas for things that could be done with the rules, but were too drastic a change from 2nd edition. Many were the next logical step for something we did for 3E, but would have been inappropriate since the audience wouldn't have seen the middle step. In other words, it would have been like going from 2E to 4E. We, of course, had no idea when 4E would come along--that wasn't really the point. The point was that the rules were a continually evolving process.
But even that level of planning aside, I'm fairly confident that I can speak for everyone on the team when I say that none of us thought what we did was perfect. (Does this really need be said? I've never met a writer or designer who thought their work was perfect. Well, OK, one.) We were making little changes right up to the last minute, and even at one minute after the last minute we were finding things wrong that we wish we could have fixed. Later on, we worked together to develop the errata lists. There were no illusions of perfection.
As a designer, my outlook has always been to be ambitious enough to strive for perfection, but not to be so arrogant (or naive) as to ever think you achieved it.
