Here’s what I want to see…

[Dragonblade]

I don't play WoW and have no interest in WoW. I have played every edition of D&D. And I'm not a WotC fanboy. The whole notion of them kicking around the idea of randomized digital minis still outrages me.

BUT, keeping all that in mind, I will say honestly that everything I have heard about 4e is got me really excited! I'm totally stoked for the game. I love the change to per encounter balancing. I love the jettisoning of the tired old Vancian system. I like making the DMs job easier and making monsters be monsters.

4e cannot get here soon enough!

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

(remember, they said repeatedly there would be no 4E announcement at GenCon and 4E was a LONG way off...8 months is not a long time, particularly in the publishing world, and I speak from experience).

Cite?

The only quotes I know to this effect were misquotes that sprouted legs. If you've got some actual quotes I'd like to hear them. I've heard a lot of people say this, but I've never seen anything to this effect myself. It could be correct, but I'd like to be able to verify/discount this line of discussion once and for all.

 

[MerricB]

What races and classes will be in the Player’s Handbook? When 3.0 came out we knew fairly early on what races and classes were appearing in the PH. All we’re being told about 4.0 is that some classes are staying and some are going. Some races are staying and some are going. Which ones, we don’t know. I am beginning to wonder if the folks at Wizards of the Coast know which ones are going where.

This is the purpose of the books coming out in December this year:

Wizards Presents: Classes and Races - amazon link - Dec 2007
Wizards Presents: World and Monsters - amazon link - Jan 2008

See also...
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=company/pr/20070816b
"Wizards of the Coast will release two 4th Edition preview books in December and January—Wizards Presents: Classes and Races™ and Wizards Presents: Worlds and Monsters™. The first live demos of 4th Edition will happen at the D&D EXPERIENCE™ gaming convention in Washington D.C. in February 2008. The full scope of 4th Edition books, miniatures, and adventures will be available in the spring and summer of 2008. "

Cheers!

 

[Henry]

Cite?

The only quotes I know to this effect were misquotes that sprouted legs. If you've got some actual quotes I'd like to hear them. I've heard a lot of people say this, but I've never seen anything to this effect myself. It could be correct, but I'd like to be able to verify/discount this line of discussion once and for all.

Scott Rouse did comment on these and the quote he used was, "4th edition D&D is still a long ways off" - at the time, it was 15 months away from May of 2008, so indeed that was "a long ways off", though not as long as most of us implied him to mean, me included. And what they said about D&D Experience being the venue for major announcements, reading carefully, didn't say it was the ONLY venue for announcements. The devil's in the details, as they say.

Frankly I was surprised that it was slated for 2008. I must admit I was taken off guard, and figured 2009 was to be the launch point, with an announcement at D&D Experience 2008.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Scott Rouse did comment on these and the quote he used was, "4th edition D&D is still a long ways off" - at the time, it was 15 months away from May of 2008, so indeed that was "a long ways off", though not as long as most of us implied him to mean, me included. And what they said about D&D Experience being the venue for major announcements, reading carefully, didn't say it was the ONLY venue for announcements. The devil's in the details, as they say.

Frankly I was surprised that it was slated for 2008. I must admit I was taken off guard, and figured 2009 was to be the launch point, with an announcement at D&D Experience 2008.

Those are the major quotes I remember - people misquoted Scott very frequently - and I was of the same view as you as to timing, as I thought they'd get the DI up and running for a while before launching 4E.

 

[olshanski]

What I found really interesting was that not only has WotC back-stabbed it's own product,

Quote, please?

Admittedly, 3rd Edition brought some sense and standardization to encounters that other editions glossed over, but that didn’t change a simple fact—I wanted lots of humanoids running around my dungeon rooms, and 3rd Edition said I could do that only if I wanted a TPK. Over the years, my initial frustration with the game never faded.

cite

 

[MerricB]

cite

Note, of course, that Mike wasn't a designer of 3e. He only came onboard when 4e started being designed. Or about then.

Cheers!

 

[grimslade]

cite

I am not really seeing any backstabbing here. Mike Mearls is stating that he was frustrated with ECL system not allowing him to have a sizable amount of opponents without a TPK.

I am puzzled by the instant nostalgia that erupts when a new edition is announced. A month ago there were dozens of threads on these boards discussing the flaws of 4E. A lot of them have been discussed by the designers in their blogs, DDI articles and on these boards. Yet after GenCon, 3.X has attained Sainthood. The flaws have vanished. The new designers are kicking the edition while its down. The cads!

What do you expect from a new edition? You want WotC to sell you the same thing but with a 4.0 on the cover? The biggest question after the announcement of 4E was 'Why?'. The simple answer, as it is whenever there is a new product, is to make the product better.
"Better? How so?", the community asks.
So the designers point out a lot of the things people have been complaining about since 3.0 rolled out. They contrast the problems, quirks and foibles of 3E with the solutions and design philosophy of 4E. They also have pointed out a lot of the things that work and would serve as pillars of the new edition.

You want to know the scary thing? In 6-8 years when 5.0 is warming up in the bullpen, these same designers will be pointing out the flaws of 4.0. No system is perfect. There is always a way to improve.
We can argue if the solutions presented will solve the problems we see, but let's not fool ourselves that the problems aren't there.

 

[Cadfan]

You know, I'd put $20 down on a bet that the people complaining that wotc is "backstabbing" their own product are mostly on record in this forum as having previously labeled wotc as a bunch of corporate cheerleaders, unwilling to look critically at their own work, and lauding everything they do as the penultimate in gaming regardless of its flaws.

Until the objectively perfect roleplaying game is created, I expect that the company writing it will play up its good points, suggest positive, optomistic ways of mitigating its bad points, and eventually release a new product which eliminates those bad points in favor of new rules. I expect the cycle to then repeat. On the day that the objectively perfect roleplaying game is published, I promise to buy a copy of the Player's Handbook and encase it in lucite for the ages. Henceforth from that day, anyone criticizing it will be lashed with barbed whips, and shunned from our gamer culture. But until that happens, I'm fine with reality, thank you.