On the marketing of 4E

[billd91]

I think this is the key point. Wizards were trying to communicate openly with us about their thoughts, goals and intentions. They did not add much filtering or other corporate BSing that is the hallmark of a "good" marketing campaign. Thus, there was enough honesty in their statements that readers who wanted to get offended had material, and, as Umbran mentioned, the Internet is the perfect place to amplify such perceived offense.

So for the next edition, we can expect corporate BS again, as we obviously cannot handle honesty. Yay.

Except that designers getting the word out happened with previous editions too, without the same backlash. When 2e was under development, there were updates in Dragon. I recall updates from WotC under 3e. Things accelerated under 4e, I suppose, because even more people have access to the internet since the 3e era. But the basics remained the same. Developers aired some of their ideas and gave updates on the process.

 

[Mark]

Except that designers getting the word out happened with previous editions too, without the same backlash. When 2e was under development, there were updates in Dragon. I recall updates from WotC under 3e. Things accelerated under 4e, I suppose, because even more people have access to the internet since the 3e era. But the basics remained the same. Developers aired some of their ideas and gave updates on the process.

That "Things accelerated" seems to be the biggest difference and notably significant because of where this dicussion is taking place.

 

[Shemeska]

I remember the reply - critics actually accused WOTC of going back and revising the blog post - of editing the blog post after the fact.

Nah, they haven't done that in years as far as I can tell. The first and only time I've seen that was when the official transcript of the 3.x Planar handbook designer chat was heavily edited versus the raw transcript to remove a number of questions and responses that didn't exactly come off as flattering.

 

[catastrophic]

Simple. MANY people got to playtest beta rules for a possible bard and debate changes in a public forum where the designers participated. Some of those changes were incorporated in the final product, but the most important impact was that core customers felt heard by the process of creating the revision. Contrast this with the closed system of playtesting that you had with 4E and you have a key difference.

You know there's a three colum page full of small print playtester credits at the back of the phb, right? And that they were openly stating that they used late 3e products and feedback from them as part of the 4e design? And they used the RPGA for a great deal of playtesting? And they've been doing playtest releases of classes?

I guess WOTC's evil closed playtest system is going to be a new element in the rich mythology of 4e-hate.

Frankly I don't think you can hold the pazio playtest up as some kind of exemplar, from what I heard, the playtesters actually opposed efforts to make the fighter more powerful. And then there's the fact that they boasted about having tens of thousands of playtesters, based purely on how many people downloaded the free pdf. I mean, I'd be pretty happy if that many people downloaded a free pdf I put out, but it doesn't mean they're all playtesting it.

If somebody was looking for excuses to slag off pazio's testing process, they could find plenty. But they'renot- people are willing to give them a fair go.

Plenty of people are looking for excuses for slag off WOTC- and it's not like there aren't valid cricisms to be made again them- but all too often people reach into pure fantasy in the process.

 

[Windjammer]

Ah, the conundrum why Paizo can get away with marketing moves that WotC can't.

Here's the answer. It's not product marketing, it's customer relations.

Listen to any podcast featuring Erik Mona. And then (re)read Dan Noonan's old "The clouds are moving, 4E is coming, and you fans can do NOTHING about it! Wuhahahaha!"-blog entry.

Spot the difference?

 

[billd91]

You know there's a three colum page full of small print playtester credits at the back of the phb, right? And that they were openly stating that they used late 3e products and feedback from them as part of the 4e design? And they used the RPGA for a great deal of playtesting? And they've been doing playtest releases of classes?

There's some good things to be said about transparency in the play test process. It helps to show exactly how ideas get listened to, filtered, modified, and adopted and that's good for buy-in.

Frankly I don't think you can hold the pazio playtest up as some kind of exemplar, from what I heard, the playtesters actually opposed efforts to make the fighter more powerful.

Your source is misinformed. There was a great deal of debate on how to improve the fighter, relative to the other classes, but the general consensus was to improve him.

 

[AllisterH]

Your source is misinformed. There was a great deal of debate on how to improve the fighter, relative to the other classes, but the general consensus was to improve him.

Er, paizo's open playtest did have a lot of detractors who felt that it wasn't a true playtest (basically, the playtest didn't focus on "stretching/breaking the rules" but basically more of a "does this seem to work in this specific context").

I'm not sure an open playtest is actually a GOOD thing anymore after seeing how Paizo got slammed for it.

(I'm still personally unclear as to why changing the number of SKILL points each class gets was considered too much of a change compared to what did get changed. This WAS openly debated on the paizo boards and one feature I don't think I ever saw disagreement about yet it pretty much wasn't implemented)

 

[Ariosto]

Wonder how 4E would have turned out if it had an open playtest similar to Pathfinder.

Or for that matter, would attitudes be different if WotC had said back in 2006 that the "Book of 9 Swords" was a possible design for 4E.

"What if" 4e had turned out not to be what it is? The problem, I think, is that the negativity in the selling accurately reflected the design goals. The aim was not to improve 3e, but to produce a game for people who didn't like a whole lot of what D&D had been from the start. That was bound to piss off people who did like the game for which it was billed as a replacement.

That replacement was a key factor. People can't buy what's not on offer, so if you choose to stop offering it then losing their patronage is a lump you choose to take.

I expect the Wizards had enough moxie to know that going in.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Here's the answer. It's not product marketing, it's customer relations.

This. Times infinity.

 

[billd91]

Er, paizo's open playtest did have a lot of detractors who felt that it wasn't a true playtest (basically, the playtest didn't focus on "stretching/breaking the rules" but basically more of a "does this seem to work in this specific context").

I'm not sure an open playtest is actually a GOOD thing anymore after seeing how Paizo got slammed for it.

(I'm still personally unclear as to why changing the number of SKILL points each class gets was considered too much of a change compared to what did get changed. This WAS openly debated on the paizo boards and one feature I don't think I ever saw disagreement about yet it pretty much wasn't implemented)

There were people who pushed at the boundaries and reported their results on the Paizo play test web pages. Anyone claiming none of that was going on is incorrect.

They didn't change the number of skill points (or things like BAB) for the backward compatibility. Paizo laid out design parameters that they weren't going to cross in that regard and, in at least some of the threads debating the issues, communicated that.