D&D 4E Should WotC take a Step Back and Reevaluate 4E?

[drothgery]

I think WotC is in a kind of tough spot when it comes to developing new editions of D&D (and they've got to do this, if they want to make money off of D&D). As soon as it's widely believed that a new edition is coming soon, sales of current edition products are going to tank. If the game is widely playtested outside of WotC, it will leak, but some things won't show up without extensive playtesting. And if everyone is sure a new edition is coming (and this is, in fact, true) then WotC looks silly the longer they are oblique or misleading about whether or not a new edition is coming.

Personally, I like much of what I've seen of 4e, but I think it would be a bit more polished if they could take 2 years, or even one and a half, from announcement to launch. But I don't see an economically viable way to do that. And certainly pushing back the 4e launch more than a few weeks at this point would be a marketing disaster.

 

[Carnivorous_Bean]

I'm a middle of the road kind of guy. When looking at data, I throw out the extremes and evaluate the stuff in the middle.

Extremist views are skewed and untrustworthy.

Why is that positive reviews are extremist, and negative ones are in the middle and thus trustworthy?

A more accurate way of judging it would be to look at the positive and negative reviews, see where they differed and where they corresponded, and try to formulate an opinion based on the comparison, IMO.

And to reiterate, I think they'd be absolutely daft to redesign an entire system when 2 people post negative reviews about an experience playing what's probably less than 1% of the total game.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I'm a middle of the road kind of guy. When looking at data, I throw out the extremes and evaluate the stuff in the middle.

Extremist views are skewed and untrustworthy.

That's a flawed methodology. Say, for the sake of argument, that 90% of people loved 4e, 5% hated it and 5% were 'meh'. Under your system the opinion of the 95% would be discarded as extremist and hence untrustworthy. The designers would have to go back to the drawing board when in fact they had a massive hit on their hands.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So, should WotC re-evaluate the game? Granted, this would mean a hit in the release, but it seems like there are some fundamental issues that should be addressed.

I'm pretty sure I'll have some problems with 4e, but it's way too late in the game for that.

They'll release it. It'll be successful. It might not soar to the heights that 3e did, but it'll probably be VERY successful.

 

[Nymrohd]

If we avoid the insanity of early 3E I think it will be welcome.

 

[Hussar]

They (WOTC) have remade it to appeal to the younger generation and different style of gamer than I am, and they will do well with it.

Wow, and the same criticisms keep piling up. It's still being sold to the lowest common denominator and anyone who likes it must be immature.

Nice. Jeez, considering that 3e was being sold to the younger generation, 4e players must be in diapers.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I think it indicates they should look very closely at the feedback to determine if adjustments are warranted. It may be that some of the complaints are appropriate, but will be mitigated when the full game is released.

The challenge Rodrigo mentions of managing many conditions simultaneously raises a red flag for me, as does the blog post from one of the WotC employees about the number of tokens and other things he needs to use to track various conditions.

Too soon to tell, but WotC should probably listen closely.

Note that the reaction from a fan is one thing, but a reaction from a game designer -- like Paizo's -- is another entirely. Bu then -- grain of salt -- Paizo's current business is built on 3.5, so there is a disincentive for liking 4E.

 

[jaelis]

I'm a middle of the road kind of guy. When looking at data, I throw out the extremes and evaluate the stuff in the middle.

Then it is guaranteed you will have mixed feelings about everything

But as a practical issue, even if there are problems, it's too late now. Dates are set, the books are off to press, they are already too long delayed on the 3rd party licensing. Successful or not, the DDX release was a marketing tool, not a design tool.

 

[Ulthwithian]

Well, the whole 'getting rid of extremes' is a statistically sound approach... if you use it properly. (Like everything in statistics.) However, the question here is what are the extremes of your data set. Right now, you have at least 70% of the people who have played the game saying it's very good, and the rest saying it's good to middling. (I cannot think of a single review I've seen that states that they won't play 4E come June.) Right now, this is showing a very good chance that the overall reaction is positive.

Now, should WotC look at what people are saying? Absolutely! However, they should look at the comments critically, in the same way that people should look at their system critically. Evaluate what a given person's concerns really are. Determine if those concerns are valid and whether or not they have already been addressed in the system. Etc. etc.

Re: 'appealing to the younger crowd'... well, I don't know exactly where I stand in relationship to most people here, but I'm 31 and have played D&D for at least 20 years. If you want to see a zero-sum approach where an item must suffer in one area to excel in another, that's fine.

The beginning of Dungeon Crawlin' Fools (first OotS compilation) springs vividly to mind: "Damn. Time to break out the +2 Shampoo."

 

[Shroomy]

When did expressing concerns, reservations, or not liking a game 100% automatically translate into a negative review?