Keep your filthy points of light away from me!

[WhatGravitas]

Now basically meaning that if you want all the content and features you MUST have an internet connection. You cannot play via LAN as far as I know, so what is the point of this system if you must have a cable hanging out the back of your book???

What do you miss without an internet connection? And why would you want to play over LAN, if you just can get to a single desk!?

Cheers, LT.

 

[Lackhand]

LordTirian: He can't respond, he's left. Besides, LAN might stand for Library Area Network.

Shealladh: I'm not sure I understand your point.

As it stands we can already do what they are updating for 4e anyway, you just have to scan and edit all the friggin books.

That's a lot of typing they're saving you! If you don't want it, don't buy it, but I'll seriously consider buying it (even though I use a mac, and so can't use the table software). They've also mentioned that this component of the system will cost a nominal fee / book, something like $1. I'll skip coffee each time I buy a D&D book; hardly a wallet-buster.

What they're doing is forcing you to connect and waste tons of paper in printing everything out again until it becomes available in a book. They should be looking at other techniques to allow for an update via the internet, yet allow for us to play WITH ALL the information.

This is self-contradictory. There *is* a way to play with all the information: Wait for it to be collected in a book. You want to play on the bleeding edge? Then you pay the price of not having things be as neat.

I bet you the first person to make a plugin to allow for custom content and to enable our stuff to be loaded into the software, will be issued with a "Cease" order....Now I have seen this happen too many times from the WotC BS machine.

I bet you the first person to make a plugin for custom content will work for WotC.
Besides, speaking of Cease & Desist orders... didn't you mention distributing the digital contents of their books above? That's pretty desistable, too.
edit: urm, I didn't mean that as a threat. As an acknowledgment that fans do quasi-legal things out of love, more like.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

points of light

If they actually do this, I might actually run FR.

Up to now, I've considered the setting completely unsuitable for the types of games I like to run.

If you think about it, lots of people on this board spent the last 10 years bitching about FR ("why doesn't elminster just solve the problem himself?" "why is FR so full of ultrapowerful good organizations and feeble evil ones?" ). I'm hopeful that the changes they envision may go a long way towards resolving some of the concerns of FR detractors like myself.

Ken

 

[Mercule]

All the information so far indicates exactly the opposite. You'll only need the PHB, DMG, and MM to play. Which is the same as now.

Shh. Stop talking logic. As soon as someone claims "you have to be online to play 4E", you can pretty well be sure logic isn't a factor. If it was, they wouldn't say that in the first place because it's completely wrong and illogical.

 

[Mercule]

As far as the "points of light" goes, I like it. It's much closer to how I played (and enjoyed) the game in 1E.

I feel vaguely bad for all the Realms fans, but I think it's more than a bit insulting to say that a change to the Realms is cramming things down the throats of every player. Forgotten Realms couldn't be more irrelevant to my D&D game. I don't want it to be relevant.

 

[Nifft]

Who else doesn't like that 4e forces the Points of Light campaign philosophy down our throats?

Actually, I'm buying a Points of Light Big Gulp(tm).

Can't force the willing.

Cheers, -- N

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Actually, I'm buying a Points of Light Big Gulp(tm).

Heh, I'll grab the PoL beer bong.

 

[Nifft]

Heh, I'll grab the PoL beer bong.

Damn it, you win.

Next time, Mister Anondson! NEXT TIME!

Cheers, -- N

PS: My setting is pretty much already a Points of Light kinda deal. Humanity is just a few nations on a big world surrounded by terrestrial monsters, and that whole world is just a bright spot in the archipelago of worlds Fallen to Demonic or Diabolical plots, and even those prison hell-dimensions are at least islands of order and sanity amidst the infinite ocean of raw chaos...

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Looking at how they are setting up the 4e system, you need to be plugged into the internet 24/7 just to play.

I'm not seeing how you've arrived at that conclusion. All I've seen is that there will be online tools so you can play online if you want to - like, say, if you have friends who used to play D&D in the late 70s and early 80s and have scattered to the four corners of the world and the internet is the connection that allows them all to play at the same time - but I don't see anything to indicate that the game will require an online component. It's kind of like complaining that written letters have been made impossible by phones and email - one can still communicate in any manner one likes, there just happen to be several more ways to do so now.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Oh, and that "points of light" thing? Awesome. I'm glad that's the default assumption. Vastly more interesting from an adventuring point of view.