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

[KarinsDad]

Right. And the 2 most extreme negative data points might be, for the sake of argument, Jason Bulmahn and Rodrigo Istalinnnnndir. The 2 most extreme positive data points might be the 2 AICN reviews. Which leaves you with a whole bunch of positive impressions in the middle.

Could you quote those?

Here is a negative review.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?p=8539323

A positive, but with dislikes review by Alethea:

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/gaming/4thEdition/4EDDXP&source=rss



So, we have 2 extremely positive, 1 extremely negative, and 3 in the middle so far.

Care to quote others?

 

[Atlatl Jones]

It's not extremist. It's scientific. Throwing out the extreme data points, even in a subjective experiment, is a valid statistical approach.

No, it's not even remotely scientific. Such an approach would be scientific if we knew what the distribution looked like, drawn from an unbiased sample. We have no clue what the distribution is, and the sample is neither random or unbiased. The data we have consists of "a half dozen guys who wrote about their opinion" out of hundreds or thousands who have actually played the game. It would be a mistake to generalize any trend or distribution from such a limited sample.

But it comes down to what type of data one is looking for: analyzed, or cheerleader, or total naysayer.

Your biases are showing. You assume that a positive review must be just a "cheerleader", and that only people who dislike part of the game have actually analyzed it.

 

[KarinsDad]

Your biases are showing. You assume that a positive review must be just a "cheerleader", and that only people who dislike part of the game have actually analyzed it.

No. I assume that if someone is gushing over it like a new born baby and they post example after example of wonderful things and never ever discuss issues that the more moderate reviewers list, then I consider the possibility that they have an agenda. That's my bias showing.

Ditto for people who trash it in a review without few or any of the positive aspects.

 

[BryonD]

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.

It is not helpful when you put words in other people's mouths.
Saying "anyone who likes it must be immature" is absurd, whereas the actual statement was quite reasonable. It is telling when major distortions are required to rebut a point.

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

Huh? One of 3E's big wins was the great a job it did of bringing former players back into the game. I don't recall any claims that 3E was primarily designed to target younger players.

On the OP, I agree with the statements that they have no choice at all at this point. For better or worse, 4E is in.

That said, I think a lot of pro-4Eers are whistling past the graveyard now. As someone who is very disappointed in what he sees, I was assuming that the initial blast of brand new excitement alone would force me to listen to a bunch of short term "I told ya so"s. I am pretty shocked that this kind of conversation is even happening already. The idea that the luke-warm responses from a lot of people who went to D&D experience or who were interested enough to study everything right as it came out are somehow going to be less positive than the responses of the wider audience seems a stretch of wishful thinking.

I've certainly seen nothing close to the explosive bang of excitement that came with 3E's unveiling.

 

[Fifth Element]

No. I assume that if someone is gushing over it like a new born baby and they post example after example of wonderful things and never ever discuss issues that the more moderate reviewers list, then I consider the possibility that they have an agenda. That's my bias showing.

Ditto for people who trash it in a review without few or any of the positive aspects.

So what do you do with a 100% positive review from someone who simply, honestly, enjoyed 100% of his/her playing experience? Assuming a positive review (or a negative review) to be biased is not fair, and you'll be throwing out reviews that you should not be.

But even with the numbers you mentioned, you found 2 positive reviews, 3 middling and 1 negative. Are you suggesting we should throw out both positive reviews and the single negative review? Does not the fact that there are more positive reviews than negative in your sample mean anything?

 

[Hathorym]

Well, if this thread is any indication, then it really IS just like an MMO!

People are going to hate it. People are going to complain about it. People are going to want it to bear their first born child. People are going to want to create an NPO so they can worship it. And then, in the middle, the majority of the players will simply shrug and move on with whatever they intended to do in the first place. Yes, sometimes the squeakiest wheels will get the grease, but to most of us, that was just a fairly useless spell in 3.5e.

So, no, they don't need to re-evaluate anything. The need to show confidence in their product and move forward. That's the way things are done in a business model, and if it turns out that the game is seven shades of teh suck, then the market will show that, it will fail, and WotC will cry. As a reminder, however, we have not seen the whole system yet, just a miniscule snap shot of one particular system, thereby making ANY call for re-evaluation wholly premature.

 

[KarinsDad]

Does not the fact that there are more positive reviews than negative in your sample mean anything?

Not yet. We need a larger sample set, hence, the reason I asked for more reviews.

 

[Stalker0]

It's not extremist. It's scientific. Throwing out the extreme data points, even in a subjective experiment, is a valid statistical approach.

One could also keep those data points in as well.

But it comes down to what type of data one is looking for: analyzed, or cheerleader, or total naysayer. The extremes of cheerleader and naysayer often tend to be of limited value, limited objectivity, and often have an agenda associated with them. Look at them, but take them with a grain of salt as potentially skewed and non-objective data.

However, extreme has a very different statistical meaning than most of us consider. Extreme in statistics refers to outliers, data points which are far and away from the rest of your data sample.

For example, in a group of numbers:

1 5 4 7 3 1 4 1 4,123 3 7 8 9 10

4, 123 could be considered an outlier (there are actual equations to determine this in statistics)

However, in this set:

2,000 2 5 4 3,345 7 6,532 10 5,432 12 4,123

Even though the numbers are quite extreme, none of the numbers can be considered outliers, they are valid data points in the set, and you cannot just throw them out (again, you would have to run the appropriate equations to be sure).

 

[Imaro]

Er, if you don't read the full reviews (and please note, by your own admission you've read 1 part of what was explicitly a multipart review), how can you expect to create an informed opinion regarding them?

The only review I've seen on here by someone who actually played the game that was not, all in all, positive (meaning 'I'll play this game) was the guy from Paizo, and he was not asked his personal opinion so much as what Paizo would do.

I just wanted to address this real quick. Massawyrm lost me with this statement...

The rules? They’re damned near perfect. I have zero complaints. I’m pretty confident most folks will feel the same way once they dive in.

This right here says he believes this game is perfect, and that's hard for me to take at face value. That's not just saying majority is positive, that's saying this game is so revolutionary and perfectly designed that it has no flaws.

In fact the "negatives" he sites have nothing to do with the rules or how the game plays, but instead on how information is distributed and how mini-centric it is. I am sorry but I can't believe that D&D 4e is the "PERFECT" roleplaying game with no room for improvement anywhere in it's rulesset. It just comes off as gushing, especially with the lack of specifics as far as rules and play. YMMV of course

 

[Hathorym]

Not yet. We need a larger sample set, hence, the reason I asked for more reviews.

Well, with all due respect, why didn't you just ask for more reviews, rather than claim it needed to be re-evaluated due to two less than favorable reviews when there are twenty favorable ones. Sometimes, regardless of the sample set, a trend will be apparent to those who do not have the necessity to spin their own agenda.