deganawida
Legend
That’s super disappointing. I was really looking forward to that one.
D&D General GenCon TV: Celebrating D&D
- Thread starter BigZebra
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overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
They just broke for lunch. There was a little bit more talk from Rob and Andy, but not much. Heard a whole lot about Gleemax and World of Darkness, but next to nothing about 4E. I now know more about the two players on the left side of the screen, their habits and preferences and one's wedding proposal than I learned about 4E and its design. Maybe 20 minutes about 4E in there. I'm likely to learn more about it from tracking down interviews from the designers. Such a waste.
Rob and Andy had their original notebooks from when they were designing the game with all their original notes. They opened the covers once each and tried to talk about what the process was like but were interrupted, so closed the books and never opened them again.
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Yeah. Same. That's why I bothered watching it live. Was super excited about it. But nope. Every time the designers started talking someone had to interrupt and inject some personal anecdote that made sense in their head but not so much once out in the world. So frustrating.
deganawida
Legend
What was Peter doing? It was his show, right? He should have taken control of the conversation and given Rob and Andy time.
Sounds like any number of meetings that I’ve been in with a weak meeting lead and lots of derailments.
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
He tried, softly, once or twice but it didn't matter and he didn't really try much.
It could have been an email from Rob and Andy. It would have been a short email.
deganawida
Legend
Ha. Yeah, I almost made a similar comment.
Really, 4e seems to never catch a break.
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Some interesting tidbits. Some was obvious, some was already widely known.
✦ Two designers hit on the idea of at-will, encounter, and daily powers at the exact same moment during a meeting.
✦ The game was designed to be more accessible (layout and text).
✦ The game was designed to be familiar to WoW players (everyone has something interesting to do and party roles).
✦ The game was designed because Hasbro wanted to kill the OGL and get subscriptions through Gleemax.
✦ The designers of 4E did not know about the attempt to kill the OGL. Both Rob and Andy said they'd have designed the game differently if they'd known.
✦ The coders were told to make their individual bits and pieces in whatever coding language they knew and not worry about integration, the higher ups would sort that out later.
✦ Consultants were hired to oversee the coding angle and integration. They were let got after a few days when they told Hasbro it wasn't going to work.
✦ D&D 4E won a stack of Ennie Awards.
✦ Two designers hit on the idea of at-will, encounter, and daily powers at the exact same moment during a meeting.
✦ The game was designed to be more accessible (layout and text).
✦ The game was designed to be familiar to WoW players (everyone has something interesting to do and party roles).
✦ The game was designed because Hasbro wanted to kill the OGL and get subscriptions through Gleemax.
✦ The designers of 4E did not know about the attempt to kill the OGL. Both Rob and Andy said they'd have designed the game differently if they'd known.
✦ The coders were told to make their individual bits and pieces in whatever coding language they knew and not worry about integration, the higher ups would sort that out later.
✦ Consultants were hired to oversee the coding angle and integration. They were let got after a few days when they told Hasbro it wasn't going to work.
✦ D&D 4E won a stack of Ennie Awards.
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Exactly the same. I watched the OD&D, 2E, and 3E episodes and was blown away by the amount insight and history on display. Those were fantastic and informative. Wonderful peek behind the curtain. No idea about the AD&D one as I haven't watched it yet.
This time, I think 2 of the 3 players simply did not understand their remit. The designers are the stars of the show. Ask them questions about designing the game and the context thereof. Then shut up and listen. This was more like 2 players who simply had to tell you all about their characters from other games while everyone else is trying to play this game. Nothing got through to them nor would anything shut them up. The rest of the table was too polite about it and after the 5th or 6th attempt to steer things back to the actual topic simply let it go and rode the table conversation for what it was. Which, for some reason, was about those 2 players instead of D&D 4E.
JEB
Legend
Very curious what that means.
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