Marketing criticisms miss the point

[jmucchiello]

An old joke I once heard, done by a comedian claiming to own the axe that George Washington used to cut down the famous cherry tree:

"This here is the axe that George Washington used to chop down that cherry tree with. *pause* Of course I had to replace the handle. *pause* And I had to replace the head after it got rusty. *pause* BUT it occupies the same SPACE as the original axe."

That is 4E right there. After having replaced the entire system, it occupies the same space as D&D. But that doesn't make it D&D.

Yes it does. If it still cuts down cherry trees, it's still an axe.

And the original version is usually told with just "this is my grandfather's axe." I can't imagine someone actually using GW's axe enough to warrent replacing the handle and head since it would be a museum piece.

 

[Tetsubo]

Yes it does. If it still cuts down cherry trees, it's still an axe.

And the original version is usually told with just "this is my grandfather's axe." I can't imagine someone actually using GW's axe enough to warrent replacing the handle and head since it would be a museum piece.

Here's the kicker, the claim is that it is a *specific* axe. George Washington's axe in fact. Which of course it isn't. The claim is, "Will this axe chop." Of course an axe will chop.

My claim isn't that 4E isn't a fantasy game. My claim is that it isn't D&D. One is a general category of products, the other is a specific example.

All poodles are dogs, not all dogs are poodles.

All D&D campaigns are fantasy games, not all fantasy games are D&D.

Like 4E.

 

[The Little Raven]

Like 4E.

It's great that opinions mean absolutely nothing to anyone other than the people who hold them, because they aren't facts.

4e is D&D.

 

[billd91]

How is it skewed?

Its main problem is that it's not an unbiased random sample, thus the ability to infer how the general population behaves entails a high margin of error.
That said, there's nothing wrong with using it as a point of discussion. Losing over 1/3 of active community members who participated in the poll is still an interesting bit of information on 4e, particularly since our activity online and on this forum, where the 4e marketing was often linked, makes it more likely that we were exposed to the marketing than the general D&D-playing population.

 

[Erik Mona]

Thanks Erik. It's nice to know that I'm not way off in tinfoil hat land with these thoughts.

Since you might know, you say 15k (ish) LG players. What about the other Living campaigns, like Xendrik? Any ideas on numbers there?

Smaller. Perhaps much smaller.

--Erik

 

[Cthulhudrew]

His post has nothing to do with what a gamer should do.

Gamers should vote with their dollars, and only buy 4e if they think it looks good, yes. Marketing should not influence the decision.

That's exactly what his post says, if you read it.

And marketing definitely influences the decision making process- if you aren't turned on by what is presented to you, you're far less likely to buy, right?

 

[BlackMoria]

It's great that opinions mean absolutely nothing to anyone other than the people who hold them, because they aren't facts.

4e is D&D.

Correct on the first part.

Your opinion on the second part unless your referring to the fact that 4e books had D&D in big letters printed on them. If that is the case, then if I print and release a chinese cookbook and put Dungeons and Dragons as the cover, that makes it D&D.... right? Because it is right there on the cover and therefore must be a fact.

4e is D&D is subjective and based on the opinions of the owner of the book and how he defines what is D&D for him.

If you took Rifts and slapped a D&D cover on it doesn't make it D&D despite what that 'fact' implies.

 

[Spinachcat]

Ugh, that was a painful blog post.

The author is a sharp guy who drank the Internet Kool Aid. I know its impossible for most forum people to imagine, but the vast majority of gamers have NEVER heard of ENworld, RPG.net or WebRPG or any other online game site. They know Amazon and eBay.

We just did 4e demos with hundreds of people at the last LA convention and whenever we said anything about the ENworld 4e Lite we got blank stares from 90% of the people. These are hardcore RPG players who pay money to play D&D at cons and they had no freaking idea what we were talking about. Some had no idea 4e was coming out this year.

39% of any online gaming survey is useless - doubly so on a forum that has been dedicated to 3e. I fully admit that I get caught up in the Internet Kool Aid as well. I actually thought Ron Paul had a chance so its an easy thing to believe that Teh Intarweb = Teh Real Life when there is no notable correlation.

 

[SSquirrel]

What could Wizards have done better? All IMO, of course:

1) They could have talked less about how 3e sucked (the phrase "if 3e encounter design actually worked" comes to mind as the most notable example). That very quickly became obnoxious, not least because it utterly failed to line up with my experiences with the system.

You mean the encounter system that had people calling it out as broken a month after release?

2) They could have cut the attitude in general. Everything from suggesting we should just end our ongoing campaigns and start over, to comments about cloud watching came across as being overly authoritarian and arrogant.

When 3E came out they told us they had a conversion book available, but it was not super accurate and it would probably just be easier to start new characters.

3) Too much use of 'cool', 'awesome' and 'knock-down drag-out fight'.

With ya on this one, but it does amuse me

4) Very recently, there was the gloating that they'd got the books and we don't. That was annoying.

Yet immediately after that they mysteriously appeared on the web in pdf format. Hmm.

5) They should have done what they said they were going to do with the GSL, not say one thing, then change their minds, then delay, delay, delay, and finally deliver... oh, wait, they haven't yet, have they?

Agreed.

The funny thing is, they've produced a very good game. But the marketing had me fully expecting a train-wreck, and everything that's peripheral to the game itself seems to be made of FAIL at the moment.

Key word peripheral. The core math of the system isn't broken and they are releasing more books to explore more options and settings. The rest will come in time...or it won't. The latter just reminds me of the character generator/eTools debacle.

 

[SSquirrel]

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.

Uhm, no, you can't choose that on the current version of ENWorld. When the best product of 3.x poll was going on the admins admitted it and Morrus got testy when I said their poll system sucked. Which it does. B/c for some reason it's important for anyone to be able to vote on something on the front page. So make them take 10 seconds to setup an account and limit polls to logegd in individuals. Currently you can login and vote, then logout and vote. And vote some more.

If we could make it logged in members only, it would still be skewed due to the simple fact that ENWorld will never be a representative slice of the D&D community at large. A slice of the hardcore certainly.

Correct on the first part.

Your opinion on the second part unless your referring to the fact that 4e books had D&D in big letters printed on them. If that is the case, then if I print and release a chinese cookbook and put Dungeons and Dragons as the cover, that makes it D&D.... right? Because it is right there on the cover and therefore must be a fact.

4e is D&D is subjective and based on the opinions of the owner of the book and how he defines what is D&D for him.

If you took Rifts and slapped a D&D cover on it doesn't make it D&D despite what that 'fact' implies.

You invoked Kevin S. If you slapped a D&D cover on RIFTS he would sue like mad Putting a D&D branding on a cookbook would just be a copyright violation. WotC is the company who owns the rights to the game. They changed some aspects of the game, but the overall game is the same. You play elves, dwarves, humans, halflings. You play fighters, wizards, clerics and rogues. You kill stuff and take loot. This is D&D whether you like it or not.