Earlier Then Planned?

[TerraDave]

The strong feeling I had is that they did plan to announce at D&D Experience...the one that happened at the start of this year. But they where not quite ready.

As noted, with all the lead time needed for these things, they waited about as long as they could.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Well, don't forget that being a gearhead is a designers' disease - they're always trying new things. And that's good - if playtest shows something as totally out of whack, they still have several iterations of the rule to use.

Cheers, LT.

I think they could use more time to playtest these new things, however. Good ideas are good, but better with refinement.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Mongoose's Conan The Roleplaying Game 2nd Edtion (man, I feel sorry for those guys...releasing a revamped line of 3.5e Conan within weeks of the 4E announcement)

Conan isn't a 3.5 product. It's an OGL system unto itself, and is considerably less compatible with D&D material than, say, d20 Modern or Star Wars Saga. It's probably about as far from D&D as Spycraft is from Modern, possibly further.

While their announcement obviously got overshadowed, compatibility with the current version of D&D was never an issue for them.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Does it feel rushed? Yeah. Did anyone over there hurry the announcement? We probably won't know until two years after* someone leaves or there's another "reduction in force".

*Guessing, just guessing on the NDA expiration dates.

 

[Umbran]

Does anyone ever get the feeling 4e was announced slightly earlier then planned?

Not to me

First off, the whole I thought Wizards said they wouldn't be announcing anything until D&D Experience...

A common misconception, but that's not what they said. They said D&D Experience would become the major place where they'd make D&D announcements, but they didn't say it was the only place. They never said they'd not ever announce anything at GenCon. And, honestly, no matter what they want, GenCon is still the bigger and better place for certain announcements.

Then the fact that a lot of the stuff still seems like it needs a little work... Like Dragon and Dungeon, Gleemax... D&D Insider... All of it supposedly still "coming on line."

It's a big, new thing - you could easily liken it to a new startup company all its own. How often does a startup get everything right at opening?

Plus, when I watched the announcement seminar, the whole thing seemed kind of rushed... But that could be because they used D&D geeks to announce it and not public speakers.

D&D geeks, who are announcing about the most controversial thing they could possibly be announcing, too...

 

[KingCrab]

I'll probably like 4e, but I keep getting the feeling it isn't being playtested long enough. The WotC employees mention "we're trying this new thing now" in their blogs, but aren't they "locking up" the PH 4e so they can't make any significant changes now? It could be just a wrong impression.

I always got the impression that 3.0 and 3.5 were both rushed (the first to save DnD, the second due to market forces). I think 4e might be a bit rushed for the same reason as 3.5. However, I'm liking what I'm hearing about it.

A lot of bugs and flaws were found in 3.0 long before 3.5 came out, so the rushing of 3.5 wasn't too disasterous because many problems were well known. We know there will be no 4.5, so they really need to get this right on the first try. I think it's a horrid idea to be releasing it so soon. I say, give the playtest groups some serious time to balance things out and delay the release of 4ed till it's going to be something really good.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

A lot of bugs and flaws were found in 3.0 long before 3.5 came out, so the rushing of 3.5 wasn't too disasterous because many problems were well known.

3.5 was a relatively minor change, and still couldn't fix things like Mordenkainen's Disjunction. I wish someone at WotC would clarify the playtesting schedule a little bit. I may be worried about nothing.

 

[amethal]

A lot of bugs and flaws were found in 3.0 long before 3.5 came out, so the rushing of 3.5 wasn't too disasterous because many problems were well known. We know there will be no 4.5, so they really need to get this right on the first try.

I hope they don't need to, because I doubt they will achieve this.

I just hope they get the SRD up and running as soon as possible, and regularly udpate it for errata.

 

[Geoff Watson]

A lot of bugs and flaws were found in 3.0 long before 3.5 came out, so the rushing of 3.5 wasn't too disasterous because many problems were well known. We know there will be no 4.5, so they really need to get this right on the first try. I think it's a horrid idea to be releasing it so soon. I say, give the playtest groups some serious time to balance things out and delay the release of 4ed till it's going to be something really good.

There won't be a "4.5", but there might be a "4E Revised", or something that amounts to the same thing.

Geoff.

 

[tvknight415]

The announcement was planned before the events submission deadline for Gen Con. RPGA flagship events were scheduled around the announcement from the get-go. The D&D Open had only an 8 AM slot that Thursday, and when asked on the judges' email list, we were told that they couldn't do a 1 or 7 PM slot because of some sort of thing happening between the two slots that would eat into both. If I recall, they did the same thing for the Living Greyhawk special scheduling (both events have time constraints).

While they didn't tell the Open judges what it was going on, how many things could be so important to RPGA/WotC that they would axe two slots of their premier events to accomodate? Wasn't a surprise at all to walk into the hall and get a t-shirt that said "4rrival May 2008".

As to whether they announced it earlier than they wanted, I can't say. But, they certainly didn't decide a few weeks prior to the con to make the announcement - it was planned far in advance. Perhaps the discussions about something at D&D Experience was to throw people off and try and keep a sense of surprise for Gen Con.

Eric