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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Argyle King" data-source="post: 5694780" data-attributes="member: 58416">For one, the previews wholeheartedly embraced the 'Points of Light' idea.  The tone, mood, and scope (IMO) presented was very different from that found in the end 4E product as well as what is supported by the 4E mechanics.  The world was a primal and dangerous place; in this regard, I would say Dark Sun is probably the closest 4E product to the world as presented in the preview materials.  What I expected -based on the previews- was something much closer to Low Fantasy or perhaps a more grounded Sword & Sorcery experience with a touch of the dark duality found in classic fairy tales helping to shape the tone and feel of the world.In contrast, the end result of 4E was much more high fantasy and presented the PCs (again, IMO) in a much more exaggerated fashion.  To the point where it's somewhat ridiculous for the PCs to view the world around them in any manner that I would associate with the terminology of 'Points of Light.'  Yes, I get the idea that PCs should be the main characters; that is an idea I support.  However, the previews didn't paint a portrait in which I saw the PCs kicking in the door, totally annihilating threats, and just leaving a trail of destruction in their wake without a second thought.  I also had thought there would be more support for non-directly combat related tasks.  With the previews showcasing an image of a world which I took as being somewhat dark and broken, I had thought there would be more support for interacting with that world.  I thought with all of the unclaimed and unexplored territory there would be room for PCs to do things like settle a region and cut out a realm for themselves.  What I imagined from the previews was something that had the grittiness and primal nature of Dark Sun, the post-war/battered world feel and pulp style of 3rd Edition Eberron, and the sense of wonder & jolt to my imagination I had when I first picked up a D&D book only to have it tell me "we don't know what is in this part of the map; make of it what you will."I will say that the first round of books did a very nice job of that third point.  The Nentire Vale map was a great start, and a lot of the fluff alluded to things which made me hopeful for those other two points I listed to be met.  There were things I didn't like right out of the gate, but I thought to myself "ok, so maybe they just don't have that part of the game worked out yet; I'll stick with it and see."  However, as more material was released, I instead found the game moving further and further away from the things I liked in the preview material.  The mechanics didn't do a good job of portraying the stated fluff; as more fluff was released, it moved further away from what I was lead to imagine from the preview materials.  Now, a lot of that is a discussion on feel.  Feel is subjective; however, I'm by far not the only person I know who holds the opinion that there seems to have been a shift in focus between Worlds & Monsters and the end product of 4E.  Likewise, there are also sidebars in the preview books which talk about ideals behind certain  ways of doing things which seem to have never quite made it into the final draft of the game.  There were also discussions in other places with the designers -before 4E was released- which talked about concepts they felt were important to the game such as making the character matter more than equipment and having choices such as race matter more than simply being some sort of boost/power at level 1.  Aside from some race specific feats (which was exactly how 3rd Edition did it for the most part) that didn't happen until much later material with things such as backgrounds and some of the alternate features in Neverwinter.</blockquote>

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