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

[SSquirrel]

It was also open season on anyone saying anything even remotely neutral about 4E after the Pathfinder announcement was made, and with only token moderation at best.

If anything, I think ENWorld is and has been much more neutral than Paizo's echo chamber has been.

I never even got to the 4E forums on paizo.com. I went to the Pathfinder RPG forums to make comments regarding the first 2 alphas and the mood of teh forum and a complete lack of moderation, plus some of my posts being misplaced by the system (they showed in my posted list but not in the actual threads), I didn't feel it was worth the effort.

While the wording might be considered provocative, I would suggest that one of the biggest problems with this whole community is members who take a slam of a game system created by a large company as an insult to themselves.

If I said "All 4e fans are idiots", that's me insulting them...if I say "I see 4e as a complete abomination" (which is more extreme than my own real view), then why can't people be secure enough on their own to not find offense in that? Are people really that insecure that they can't allow anyone to speak ill of their favorite version of a little game where you pretend to be wizards?

This is kind of the nature of fanboys. Say something bad about Wolverine, the Green Bay Packers, Clay Aiken or the gods-foresaken Cincinatti Bengals (one assumes they have fans left) to a fanboy(girl) and you're in for a world of hurt.

Now take a place like ENWold, with its high concentration of the fan-like variety. It can get ugly quickly.

And herein lay part of the problem, IMO. The EN World News Page became so overwhelmed with 4ed news, even of the most trivial matter, that 3ed news was either totally neglected or buried under its weight.

Even now, several months after launch, the news page is awash with every piece of tivial news - in a way it never was for 3ed.

ENW is a D&D website. D&D itself was changing and people wanted information on that change. Many companies halted production of titles or at least cut way back on production in the 9 month interim.

I do remember when threads arose accusing ENW of ignoring PFRPG news and Morrus and company pointed out that it wasn't being submitted. The majority of news items on the site (from what I can tell) are scoops from people outside the admin membership of these boards. After this was pointed out we saw people specifically uploading PF news and magically it appeared on the front page.

WotCs internet persence and website was even worse (scary to believe I know) when 3E came out than when 4E came out. They were largely releasing teasing info in Dragon and Dungeon. Once a month we would get flooded with new bits of info and occasional bits we got in ENW or wotc forums and the occasional web updates. We had a concentrated thrice a week for half a year series of previews from WotC this time around. I'm not surprised at all that there were more small updates (not to mention the constant threads about who would/would not go 4E and later about the GSL)

 

[Shemeska]

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.

Then frankly Mourn, I can only assume that you've never visited the WotC boards*, or a few unfortunate threads around here.

*The GamerZer0 drama aside, they've even got their own informal messageboard thought police in the 4e Avengers... We don't need that sort of thing here, and thankfully we've avoided it except for a few folks

 

[Azgulor]

David Marks wrote:

ENWorld, I know, said there store saw a huge loss in 3E book orders after the announcement, but of course that's only anecdotal. Sorry if that came across otherwise. Cheers!
​

Lisa Stevens wrote in response:

Yeah, I remember when Morrus posted that on ENWorld as a prelude to one of his support drives to keep the website open. I think a big part of the reason why the ENWorld PDFs lost their luster is the all-in mentality that ENWorld went into in regards to 4e. If Morrus could have kept things on a more neutral ground, providing an environment where pro-3e and pro-4e folks could have felt equally loved, his sales wouldn't have dropped off as much. But by pitching his tent so firmly in the 4e camp, he drove away the folks who would have bought his 3e PDFs in the last year. -Lisa






just for the context of where it came from, got the quote from this thread....
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboard.../wizardsReorganizesLayoffsAhead&page=4#708431




interesting. i post this not to start an edition war, or a war between Paizo and Enworld, but to stimulate a discussion on whether or not there is truth in her comment that enworld is firmly in the 4e world. even though there are 3e threads, that doesnt mean the place is necessarily "friendly" to 3e like it used to be. the whole "back of the bus" thing comes to mind.

I know I visited ENWorld multiple times a day and posted frequently prior to the 4e announcement. Things stayed relatively normal until about two months before the release when it became increasingly difficult to express a criticism of the designer tidbits that were being released. Once 4e was released, it became downright unfriendly. Consequently, I visit much less frequently and hardly ever post.

There were jerks on both side of the fence, obviously. However, I observed the pro-4e supporters get a great deal more lattitude than their 3e counterparts when in came to moderators stepping in.

 

[Umbran]

I don't see 4e players going into 3e threads just to announce how much they hate the game....

Perhaps you don't see them, but we do.

I have, more than once in the past months, gone about counting complaints. Not in a wholly scientific manner, I admit, but with sufficient rigor to convince myself on the point - people on both sides behave badly. With roughly equal frequency of reporting.

 

[Darrin Drader]

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 fail to understand this criticism as one of the design goals of 4E was to dumb it down so it would appeal to a larger audience. Roleplaying games don't sell, but combat strategy games do, which is why the roleplaying aspects of D&D were clearly tacked on as an afterthought.

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.

Actually, every time I see a Pathfinder thread start up in general, it's followed by people declaring 3rd edition broken (which is isn't), that it fails because all classes should be perfectly balanced (which they shouldn't - Wizards have always lagged behind in early levels and then shot out ahead at later levels) or that somehow not playing 4E is bad wrong fun and not supporting WotC's corporate priorities makes one a hater of all aspects of the company (which I'm not). For me and many others who have been playing D&D for 20+ years, 4th edition isn't D&D. D&D as we have known it died about a year ago.

Worse, these threads are full of detractors who think that Paizo is at fault for using the OGL to create an even better version of 3rd edition. It's an utterly ridiculous and insulting stance to take, given the original intent of the OGL.

And it irritates me that people who are calling a spade a spade are shouted down by a mob of jackals. It's this poisonous atmosphere around here that is driving me and others out.

In the latest Kobold Quarterly, Monte Cook makes some interesting comments, which I'll quote:

KQ: Do you have an opinion you want to share about 4E coming out>
MC: .... WotC announced a new edition while 3E was still going strong. It has had to spend as much or more of its marketing push on convincing the audience that 3E is flawed as it has previewing and hyping 4E. (3E also had Dragpn and Dungeon magazines to helps support it and its marketing effort, and 4E does not, but that was by WotC's choice.) The economy is a lot shakier. D&D is portrayed (unfairly) in the media as the sad little precursor to online games.

So it will be very difficult for 4E to achieve 3E's success, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the game's design (which I know very little about). I do see that it is fracturing the D&D community in ways that 3E never did, but that's because there almost wasn't a community left back then - at least not in comparison to now. That's sad to see, and I don't think it had to be that way, but what's done is done.

Aside from being more informed about 4E's design than he was at the time of the interview, I wholeheartedly agree with Monte's assessment.

 

[The Little Raven]

Then frankly Mourn, I can only assume that you've never visited the WotC boards*, or a few unfortunate threads around here.

Actually, I have. Quite a bit. And until recently, it's been pretty venomous, and even now it is subject to regular drive-by threadcrapping by 4e haters. The Forgotten Realms forum is especially prone to this.

 

[Azgulor]

I wouldn't put too much stock in Lisa's words. They are merely the latest in the pretty blatant Paizo marketing machine (if it is big enough to be called a machine).

The more people who become convinced that ENworld hates 3e, the more people will migrate to places like [drumroll] Paizo's boards, and let's face it, be more likely to buy Lisa's products.

Either way. I do not see ENworld as anti-anything. If you want to consider the numbers of fans, I think 4e is a vast majority, but there is plenty of 3e fans around still. It is a small minority (in both "camps") that constantly stir up things. I know I myself had some blame at a point before the launch of 4e, but I have been trying really hard for a while now, to not get into the flame wars.

Cheers

I'll take Paizo's customer service and customer dialog over WotC's any day of the week.

Regardless of which edition you prefer, this type of attack is no better than the "WotC sucks" crowd. Lisa was expressing an opinion as to why ENWorld saw a sharp downturn in 3.x PDFs while Paizo and other companies have not.

Apparently, a$$hats come in enough sizes to be easily distributed amongst both sides.

 

[xechnao]

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

Frankly, anyone who feels it's OK to make such onerous accusations about me had BETTER back it up with proof or retract ad apologise poste haste. Because my patience for people lying about me on my own website is very, very thin.

I do not accuse other people of things publically; especially false things. I expect the same basic courtesy in return.

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

You are right to defend yourself against speculation here-as many others in the business do so.
Is it correct for the Enworld community though to weight on your defense the fact that you have more power over the site than anyone else? Especially in a thread where many site members are talking about the neutrality of the community? My point is that for a community to be healthy, regarding defending against the judgement of the community itself, it should be equal for every member of the community. Isn't this right?
Please, feel my post just as a remark regarding tactics.

 

[The Little Raven]

I fail to understand this criticism as one of the design goals of 4E was to dumb it down so it would appeal to a larger audience.

You fail to understand why people would take offense when you use a term that means "to lower the general level of intelligence" to apply to a game they enjoy when simplification and dumbing down are not synonyms? You fail to see how some internet jackass saying you're not a real roleplayer because you like a different game is offensive? Or his painting you as some medication-needing adolescent when you are far from it?

D&D as we have known it died about a year ago.

If D&D died, it's because of elitists that want to paint those that disagree with them as intellectually inferior.

It's this poisonous atmosphere around here that is driving me and others out.

Try approaching people with terms that don't actively insult their intelligence or tastes and maybe you won't get a whiff of the poison from your own words.

In the latest Kobold Quarterly, Monte Cook makes some interesting comments, which I'll quote:

Quite interesting, coming from a guy that left WotC 7 years ago, and has a serious personal investment in 3e and the public's perception of it. What would be nice is if he had facts to go with his opinion.

 

[Barastrondo]

I fail to understand this criticism as one of the design goals of 4E was to dumb it down so it would appeal to a larger audience. Roleplaying games don't sell, but combat strategy games do, which is why the roleplaying aspects of D&D were clearly tacked on as an afterthought.

I don't remember anyone at WotC saying that they were trying to "dumb it down." As design goals go, there is a tremendous difference between trying to introduce simpler mechanics or game assumptions "to dumb it down" and making things simpler because you feel that what you have has accumulated unnecessary cruft, or because you want to expand the audience to people who might be very clever but just not have the time to expend on mastering a more baroque system.

I've been there. The old Storyteller system had a combat system with potentially four rolls (dice pools at that) to determine the outcome of a single attack: attacker rolls to hit, defender rolls to dodge or parry, attacker rolls damage, defender rolls soak. Its successor, the Storytelling system, has one roll. Have people accused us of "dumbing it down?" Yeah, they have. Are they correct? No. It was done to speed up combat, to make things run more smoothly. The system isn't dumber — if anything, more thought and math went into it than into its predecessor. But some people who liked the old system will call it dumber, and yes, some of them deliberately use the turn of phrase because they mean to imply that those who like the simpler system, and therefore disagree with them, are therefore less intelligent. Because "if they were more intelligent/educated, they would agree with me," one of the worst fallacies known to the human race.

If you don't understand why that's insulting, try applying it to your favorite system. Try to imagine a fan of, say, Nobilis saying "D&D is a dumbed down game." If any counterargument you would make makes sense to you, bear in mind that there are counterarguments for fans of 4e, or even for disinterested bystanders without a horse in the race, that make just as much sense.