Mike Mearls comments on design

[Wulf Ratbane]

I agree. It brings me back to the opinion that 4e is going to be good but is being marketed horribly. The most recent official updates have left me uniformly lukewarm to cold, so much so that they were actually verging on 'unselling' me from my default position of "Buy the core and check it out at least and hopefully it'll be good".

These responses, backed up by quotes from the DMG, are quite heartening, and they look like they indicate a change of direction in marketing / revealing info. As someone who wants to see 4e succeed, I hope they continue!

Pretty much Ditto.

 

[Klaus]

I have spoken to Mike on several occasions (all of them named Gen Con), and he's a really nice guy, very upfront and a good chat. His replies here showcase that.

Plus he loves Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser.

 

[Rechan]

I agree. It brings me back to the opinion that 4e is going to be good but is being marketed horribly.

Reminds me of Eberron previews. "It's got magic robots! And lightning trains! and Halflings on Dinos!" That resulted in a collective "Whut?" Then when the books hit the shelves, people were happy with what they got.

 

[MerricB]

Plus he loves Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser.

I knew there was something wrong with him. Boo! Hiss!



Cheers!

 

[Drammattex]

This just bolsters everything I already liked about 4e and Mearls.

 

[Guild Goodknife]

Great respond from Mike! I hope this post manages to ease some of the doubts some folks here have.

 

[MerricB]

I agree. It brings me back to the opinion that 4e is going to be good but is being marketed horribly.

Although I'm not particularly happy with the marketing, I do wonder how much of our reaction to 4e is being affected by pure negativity on the forums. I mean, I found the Quest article rather good, giving an idea of how the structure of 4e XP awards would be changing, and also including a bookkeeping tip that some might find useful.

However, the reaction on the boards was suddenly this explosive "4e sucks - it's railroading you", and so forth.

I'm not entirely sure that 4e isn't being marketed properly, but the marketing is being hijacked and being purposively misread.

Mind you, any criticism of Gleemax is fully justified. They've now managed to miss the first patch update by 7-8 weeks, which is unacceptable.

Cheers!

 

[Gundark]

I have a new sig...

 

[Wormwood]

This just bolsters everything I already liked about 4e and Mearls.

Me too!

Damn. Another content-free post.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Reminds me of Eberron previews. "It's got magic robots! And lightning trains! and Halflings on Dinos!" That resulted in a collective "Whut?" Then when the books hit the shelves, people were happy with what they got.

Yup. Sadly, that's for some a major turn-off (the marketing). Wizards' ads are often worse than their material, that's perhaps the reason why the "crunch" articles (e.g. Paladin smites) "deliver" more in general.

And Mike does. He should blog more often. And drop in here at ENWorld again. Scratch that, back to work, Mike!

Mind you, any criticism of Gleemax is fully justified. They've now managed to miss the first patch update by 7-8 weeks, which is unacceptable.

Probably it's not helpful that the Gleemax launch is very close to the DI launch, which is also a bit lacking... and since they have a webteam... it's easy to draw conclusions, connections, which can be less than favourable.


Cheers, LT.