I am NOT affected,
But this does not bode well for the future of Wizards PR. Wizards needs to get its act together and tell its lawyers to shut up. Half of 5e's failure to maintain market share had nothing to do with game design; it was Wizards' horrible, antagonistic legal policies and public relations.
If 5e is going to succeed, Wizards needs to unequivocally leave behind the old days of royally screwing the pooch. No more draconian, one-sided license that drives away third party publishers. No more trying to pass off a fan site kit license that forces the user to sign his soul away as an actual reasonable fan site policy. No more refusing to actually communicate with your fanbase. No more terrible customer service giving conflicting answers to very common rules questions.
That **** has got to stop, Wizards. There's a reason why even people who like 4e are not anywhere as near as proud to support you as the Pathfinder people are to support Paizo. Because you pull antagonistic nonsense like this.
But, *sigh*, here we are again, with a totally pointless limitation on access to the playtest docs which serves no purpose except to make people who are experiencing technical problems really mad. And you can't even run the game online. Seriously, Wizards? Tons of groups play online. Does not their feedback and experience matter too? Don't you want to make the happy so they'll give you money? But no, you go out of your way to exclude them from the playtest. And for what? What are you even protecting yourself against?
You will fail, miserably, Wizards, if you don't stop acting like the corporate equivalent of a schoolyard bully playing catch with the scrawny kid's lunchbox. Let the damn people play.
~ please note - this isn't the place for ranting about it, this is the place for meaningful discussion : Plane Sailing, Admin ~