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<blockquote data-quote="Andor" data-source="post: 3871361" data-attributes="member: 1879">Because I'm not sure who's driving the bus. There was a very telling post about revenue streams and targets that tells me that WotC is, regretably, not operating on the Blizzard model when it comes to 4e. That's probably not clear so I'll expand. Blizzard (a computer game company) is famous for not shipping a game until they are happy with it. This is not the norm in the computer games industry where the usual attitude is &quot;Ship it now and patch it later.&quot; They'll announce a game sure, and do internet hype and fan feedback and alpha and beta testing, but they do not announce a shipping date until they are sure that the game is actually ready to go.WotC however announced a shipping date the very moment they told us the product was in development. Since then we have seen page counts fluctuate, designers discussing fundamental changes in game mechanics, confusion about how many classes will be included at shipping time and a lot of time spent telling us that the basics are sound and now it's just details. As the saying goes however, the devil is in the details. And when you don't playtest those details you can easily wind up missing something like &quot;Hey when I take this feat and this talent I auto-hit for triple damage!&quot;Now don't get me wrong, there are some damm fine game designers working on 4e and I can't wait to see what they come up with. But I'm uncomfortable hearing things like &quot;We have plenty of time left. We're working on the Fighter now.&quot; rather than &quot;We will not go to print until we've locked it down and playtested the hell out of it.&quot;And so I wonder, who is driving the bus? The designers or an accoutant? When 3e came out WotC didn't breath a word of it until they were sure they had an excellent product, and they did. However that was when WotC was flush with Magic money and was being run by some hard-core dedicated geeks and gamers. Peter Adkinson isn't in charge anymore. These aren't rich geeks remaking D&amp;D for sheer love of the game (and an opportunity for profit to be sure although D&amp;D has always been penny ante next to magic &amp; pokemon.) Again, I'm not screaming doom and gloom, but tight deadlines and strict schedules make mistakes and poor tuning more likely. And so I worry.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Andor, post: 3871361, member: 1879"] Because I'm not sure who's driving the bus. There was a very telling post about revenue streams and targets that tells me that WotC is, regretably, not operating on the Blizzard model when it comes to 4e. That's probably not clear so I'll expand. Blizzard (a computer game company) is famous for not shipping a game until they are happy with it. This is not the norm in the computer games industry where the usual attitude is "Ship it now and patch it later." They'll announce a game sure, and do internet hype and fan feedback and alpha and beta testing, but they do [i]not[/i] announce a shipping date until they are sure that the game is actually ready to go. WotC however announced a shipping date the very moment they told us the product was in development. Since then we have seen page counts fluctuate, designers discussing fundamental changes in game mechanics, confusion about how many classes will be included at shipping time and a lot of time spent telling us that the basics are sound and now it's just details. As the saying goes however, the devil is in the details. And when you don't playtest those details you can easily wind up missing something like "Hey when I take this feat and this talent I auto-hit for triple damage!" Now don't get me wrong, there are some damm fine game designers working on 4e and I can't wait to see what they come up with. But I'm uncomfortable hearing things like "We have plenty of time left. We're working on the Fighter now." rather than "We will not go to print until we've locked it down and playtested the hell out of it." And so I wonder, who is driving the bus? The designers or an accoutant? When 3e came out WotC didn't breath a word of it until they were sure they had an excellent product, and they did. However that was when WotC was flush with Magic money and was being run by some hard-core dedicated geeks and gamers. Peter Adkinson isn't in charge anymore. These aren't rich geeks remaking D&D for sheer love of the game (and an opportunity for profit to be sure although D&D has always been penny ante next to magic & pokemon.) Again, I'm not screaming doom and gloom, but tight deadlines and strict schedules make mistakes and poor tuning more likely. And so I worry. [/QUOTE]

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