Marketing criticisms miss the point

[Arnwyn]

The purchase of Skills and Powers quickly disabused me of the notion that the rest were worth picking up. I'd be interested in learning how many other people purchasing the books felt the same way.

Our group absolutely loved C&T and S&M - but hated S&P, which we refused to use after review. But the other two books vastly improved our 2e game (it was written close to the way we were trying to play already) that we still have extremely fond memories of those two books.

In any case, I see the 'usual ENWorld suspects' (you know who you are) making their usual attacks against those ("bitter" ex-staffers, this time) who aren't interested in 4e. No particular surprise there.

Their whines aren't relevant or valid, thankfully - it is perfectly legitimate to be 'offended'/put off/whatever from 4e due to what one considers bad marketing. They may or may not be in the minority, but that also isn't relevant. Also no surprise.

 

[Hussar]

Our group absolutely loved C&T and S&M - but hated S&P, which we refused to use after review. But the other two books vastly improved our 2e game (it was written close to the way we were trying to play already) that we still have extremely fond memories of those two books.

In any case, I see the 'usual ENWorld suspects' (you know who you are) making their usual attacks against those ("bitter" ex-staffers, this time) who aren't interested in 4e. No particular surprise there.

Their whines aren't relevant or valid, thankfully - it is perfectly legitimate to be 'offended'/put off/whatever from 4e due to what one considers bad marketing. They may or may not be in the minority, but that also isn't relevant. Also no surprise.

Yes, because it's perfectly acceptable when criticising something, to be vague and vacuous, but, when people get called on it, they're drinking the Kool-aid.

For Christ's sake, he's quoting an EN WORLD POLL for PROOF of his point. And the "usual suspects" are nodding and stroking their beards patting him on the back for being right all the way along.

Never mind that he's actually interpreting the poll misleadingly (ignoring the 15% or so who are also changing), HE'S USING AN EN WORLD POLL for PROOF!! And you're criticizing people for criticizing him?

It's like way back in the earlier days of the previews, after the first plays at Winter X. Someone who posted a positive review was obviously a mindless drone for following WOTC, but anyone who posted negative reviews was preaching the gospel.

And you wonder why people get a smidgeon testy?

 

[helium3]

Anyway, I think we need Hong and his beer pic to tell us all we need to know about JDWiker.

OMG.

This almost makes me want to take "Hong" with his 30,000+ posts off ignore.

 

[helium3]

The "crowd" they are designing 4e for didn't exist when 3e was released. Living RPGA play is a 3e invention. RPGA numbers were tiny back then. Certainly nowhere near the over one hundred thousand members they have now.

Wait. What?!?

This is entirely orthogonal to the situation as I understand it. WotC could give a rodent's behind about the RPGA as the driver for future market growth.

The POINT of the new edition (to boil it down to basics) is to make the game "cool" enough again so that people who aren't already on the social fringes will be inclined to give it a try without fear of not being able to get a date for the next 25 years.

I can't think of anything LESS cool than the RPGA except the whole "I play D&D, haven't showered in seven days and live in my mom's basement" thing.

 

[JohnRTroy]

For Christ's sake, he's quoting an EN WORLD POLL for PROOF of his point. And the "usual suspects" are nodding and stroking their beards patting him on the back for being right all the way along.

Why are people attacking polls?

All the people who say "polls lie" tend to forget that there is a truth to polls. ENWorld can be considered one of the best representations of the D&D players. This is not an "anonymous" poll where anybody can reset their cookie, you have to be logged in and a member of the community.

I do see 4e being a bit more controversial than any other edition of D&D.

 

[Arnwyn]

Never mind that he's actually interpreting the poll misleadingly (ignoring the 15% or so who are also changing), HE'S USING AN EN WORLD POLL for PROOF!! And you're criticizing people for criticizing him?

Nah. Anyone who uses an ENWorld poll for "proof" deserves to be criticized. Hard and loudly.

Thankfully, I saw him use it as just a data point (foolish even then) in a wider discussion as opposed to something silly as "proof". I wouldn't be surprised that a certain subset of ENWorld would immediately think of it the other way, though.

But, by all means - as long as every criticism refers to his use of the poll (which has nothing to do with 4e and everything to do with lack of knowledge of statistics), I'm totally on board. More people need to learn about statistics.

 

[Hussar]

Why are people attacking polls?

All the people who say "polls lie" tend to forget that there is a truth to polls. ENWorld can be considered one of the best representations of the D&D players. This is not an "anonymous" poll where anybody can reset their cookie, you have to be logged in and a member of the community.

I do see 4e being a bit more controversial than any other edition of D&D.

Ok, I'm not a statistician, but, even I know that an internet poll, posted on a forum like this, is so badly skewed as to be useless. It's self selecting for one.

Heck, I was listening to a podcast last week (can't remember which one) and RIFTS won their SF game of the year award.

That's what online polls based on forums gets you.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Hey, to be fair, a poll is proof of something.

It proves that x% of people who decided to push the button pushed button 1, and y% pushed button 2.

(I've been puttering around here quite a bit and this was the first I heard of the poll.)

 

[Jedi_Solo]

Why are people attacking polls?

Short Answer:

There are lies, d***ed lies and statistics.

Long Answer - and with all due respect to this site as a whole:

A single EnWorld poll is hardly proof of anything, except maybe that internet polls exist. They can be fun and half of the ones I have responded to I went into the thread just to see if there were any funny answers.

There are professional companies that try to be an scientific as they can in order to gather information, and then there are collage level statistic classes to determine what the Margin of Error is, and that is based off of multiple things such as: Questions Asked, People Polled, Order Of Questions Asked (not making that up), How THey Were Asked (by phone, etc) and Time Of Day.

It is quite possable that some of these internet polls are designed by professional pollsters. Ask me about any one particular poll and I'd hazard to guess the answer is 'no.' At the very least who knows who will actually answer them. The people that visit EnWorld are a small subset of D&D gamers, let alone those people that have actually signed up and answered the poll in question.

That said; if he had used as proof 'six different polls including ones at Site A, Site B and EnWorld' I think he would have much more leverage in his statements. He repeated the 39% amount multiple times to back up his statement. That was taken from one internet poll. If that 39% was an average from multiple polls it might have more weight with me.

I do agree that WotC dropped the ball on the marketing - at least certain aspects of the marketing. I just don't his 39% is an indication of it.

 

[JohnRTroy]

How is it skewed?

It's a serious question. ENWorld is probably the biggest community of D&D players outside of Wizard's own forums.

Are ENWorlder's progressive? Anti-4e? Pro-4e? Are you saying that this message board is not representative of a community? Is there a narrow focus. I've heard passioned arguments that ENWorld is now a "pro-4e" or an "anti-4e" site.

Granted, you could be getting bias. But at the same time, maybe the poll speaks volumes. Right now we're probably one of the best statistical samples you can get of the D&D playerbase. At the very least it's an indication of trouble.

It seems nowadays (in general, this isn't targeted at anybody) if you don't like an argument now you attack the methodolgies or the person's motives. I would rather look at the poll and say "okay, it seems like this is a very controversial move", then look at other communities, etc.

It seems like people are fearing being in the minority and want to manipulate opinion. If the 3e fans are wrong, then the game will change and D&D will be stable. However, if the 4e fans are wrong, the game has made mistakes and (worst case scenario) might either revert to something the new 4e fans won't like or something else will happen. Attacking people for being "fanboys" or "grognards" isn't going to change the fact that one faction or another might be in the minority (or it could be split down the middle).