Pathfinder 1E Lisa Stevens, CEO of Paizo, commenting about ENWorld

[Morrus]

Wait... the ennies are rigged based on beer payoffs???

Well... duh! Of course they are! What, you thought we looked at the votes or something?

 

[blargney the second]

From a basic web design viewpoint, there's search engine optimization to consider, too. What keywords do you put in your title? Obviously, the aim is to bring traffic here. For the record, the title wasn't replaced by 4E, it had 4E ADDED to it.

Yeah, my first thought when you took 4th edition out of the title pages was that it would affect your SEO. Do you have a traffic analyser that tells you what keywords people use to come here? If 4th edition is high in that list, you could find there will be a hefty drop-off in traffic from search engines. On the other hand, if 4e is low in the searched terms, dropping it from the title could increase the visibility here for everything else.

On a different note, I really don't understand the balkanisation I've seen about D&D since 4e was announced. I know there are some bright people playing RPGs out there - I don't want to hear whining about what other people might be doing, I want to read about the cool stuff actually happening in your games!
-blarg

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Well... duh! Of course they are! What, you thought we looked at the votes or something?

Whoohoo!

 

[Darrin Drader]

That's insulting, ridiculous, and untrue. I don't deserve that.

No, you don't. I personally don't blame what has happened to the site on anything that you or the mods do, though there were a couple of posts that I reported that were clearly out of line and received no action.

The main reason I don't find myself coming around anymore is a lack of common ground. I'm not particularly interested in talking about 4E. I bought the books, I learned the system, I played some games, I gave it a fair shake, and it's so not my kind of game, it's ridiculous. Since the people who don't like it seem to be fair game around here, why put up with the abuse. There are other forums filled with other people who have also gotten fed up and left.

For everyone else: the above accusation is false; it has no basis in fact, and does not reflect my stance whatsoever.

I for one take you at your word on this. I know you've always tried to make this a safe place for everyone who cares to post, and not since recent months have I ever felt uncomfortable coming here and talking about gaming. I think the only way to get this community back to the atmosphere it had before is to break out the banhammer and start temp banning people who make baseless claims about the character of other posters, engage in outright snarky behavior, insults, or otherwise make posting here less than the fun it has always been. Warnings and thread bannings don't seem to be working. You need to use a bigger gun.

 

[Henry]

On a different note, I really don't understand the balkanisation I've seen about D&D since 4e was announced. I know there are some bright people playing RPGs out there - I don't want to hear whining about what other people might be doing, I want to read about the cool stuff actually happening in your games!
-blarg

Hear, hear! One of the reasons 4e has picked up so much more traffic these days is because.... IT'S NEW! It's got a lot of buzz! And one thing that gamers respond to is NEW! most certainly.

My biggest question has always been why so much of the "new 3e innovations" talk for rules, modules, etc. has flagged on message boards across the spectrum? RPGnet, WotC older editions forum, heck even the Paizo forums (though talk for Pathfinder has quite flourished), whereas forums for 4e new rules / innovations talk has flown. The General and the Fan Creations forums here for 4e, for example, seems to have a new rules subsystem posted every five minutes. For the pathfinder forums, and the ENWorld Pathfinder forums, people are batting ideas back and forth, hammering out ideas for classes, races, etc. and the creative juices are flying. Every bit of it, for 3e and 4e both, has the effect of energizing the hobby; for that, I'm thankful.

 

[dmccoy1693]

So, to make sure I understand what you're saying - when you come to EN World, and you loko in the 3.5 DD specific forums, you find that 3.5 fans are the minority and that the 3.5 forums are filled with 4E fans?

No. I mean the general discussion section feels to have 4E majority so I tend to stay to the 3.5/OGL sections. Like I said, I don't feel that the 3E crowd is unwelcome here, simply in the minority in the whole community area.

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

The OD&D vs. AD&D edition war is the only true edition war. All other edition wars are pale imitations.

 

[The Little Raven]

Since the people who don't like it seem to be fair game around here, why put up with the abuse.

That's funny, as I see more abuse directed towards 4e players on all forums (these included). It's often, as stated earlier, couched in terms that skirt the line of direct attacks, but in a way that any reasonably intelligent person can understand the intent behind the semantics ("It's dumbed down." "It's not for real roleplayers." "It's for 13-year-olds with ADD."). I don't see 4e players going into 3e threads just to announce how much they hate the game or how it's dumbed down/for the ADD generation/whatever, but I see quite a bit of the opposite.

 

[El Mahdi]

I didn't join ENWorld until I was doing a search for 4E info on Google and found the link to here. Putting 4E in the page title was a very smart and shrewd business decision. I wonder just how many new accounts you've had since the 4E anouncement compared to the rate of new accounts you had before 4E?

While being relatively new here, and despite my choice to stay with 3E, I don't feel excluded, ganged up on, or a minority. Roleplaying is Roleplaying, regardless of the system. There are a lot of really good threads on here that give me all kinds of inspiration and new ideas. It's what keeps me coming back.

I find that as long as I stay out of posting in the snarky, flamewar threads, I have a lot of fun here (although I'll admit to reading them and even following some - not that I have a vested interest in the arguments, but it's morbidly entertaining - like watching a car crash).

Personally I think the Mods here are extremely tolerant and, usually, evenhanded. This is only the second forum I've ever joined and the first I've posted on (the other being the WoTC boards), so I don't really know what the Mods are like on other threads. That being said, there are some threads going on here right now that I'm surprised the Mods haven't closed, leading me to the conclusion they are extremely tolerant.

Morrus and friends, as long as you can maintain the environment of these boards, and keep gamers and game industry people coming here for good discussion and synergistic creativity, then I will be here, despite the snarky attacks on you and the boards.

 

[Grimstaff]

That's funny, as I see more abuse directed towards 4e players on all forums (these included). It's often, as stated earlier, couched in terms that skirt the line of direct attacks, but in a way that any reasonably intelligent person can understand the intent behind the semantics ("It's dumbed down." "It's not for real roleplayers." "It's for 13-year-olds with ADD."). I don't see 4e players going into 3e threads just to announce how much they hate the game or how it's dumbed down/for the ADD generation/whatever, but I see quite a bit of the opposite.

Sad but true. Board critics of 4E constantlly use the term "dumbed down", etc, when it should be obvious by now that this is insulting to a lot of folks and always draws passionate/angry responses. So why continue to use this terminology?

There also seems to be a much-touted opinion that someone posting a harsh critique of 4E is "expressing their feelings"; but anyone who offers a rebuttal to it is being "rude" or "insulting". Why post on a messageboard if response is not wanted or expected?

Hopefully, the edition war epidemic will continue to chill out over the next few months, its already much better than a month ago. Though occasional flare-ups do still occur.