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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Henry" data-source="post: 1400008" data-attributes="member: 158">There are several things that neither Mr. Stackpole nor anyone else could have known, that Peter and Ryan DID know:-The so-called "Skaff effect", Skaff Elias' theory that Evergreen products (the core books) sell the best of any product, and that there should be a system that drives it. The Skaff Effect, and the theory of Network Externalities, is what the OGL and d20 STL was based on, according to Ryan Dancey.-The playtesting. The 1000+ playtesters that WotC relied upon for 3E helped the design process like nothing before it. I'm not sure a major RPG company had ever TRIED playtesting on that scale before 1998-1999. It kept insular design theorists from holding complete sway over the design process. Anyone remember the "playtest notes" from 2000 about everything from Magic Missile to Paladins?-The customer surveys. Those documents told more about the habits of average players than any previous surveys - the funny thing is, there really were very few initiatives in the RPG industry before that one simple survey that told a company where more buyers were. They found out that there were 2.5 million people who played at least once a month, how they played, that when they left D&D they usually left RPG's althogether, that the majority of players were brought in by word of mouth, and many things we now understand but just 5 years ago took our answers for granted, and had incorrectly.</blockquote>

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