SpyCraft vs Wheel of Time

[Havoc]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: SpyCraft vs Wheel of Time

Heh, I hope you did not take my messages as trying to brow beat you- I just think the more varied reviews we have, then the better our review section is for everyone.

Heck, it is not like I want to see a bad review of Spycraft. But, then the scores mean very little to me.

FD

Not at all. I really find that the tone of the En boards is very civil.
And even if I do not always agree with the reviewers, most of the reviews remain civil and generally motivated.
Most of them... seen some reviews of e-tools? 1/5!!!
WoTC bashing syndrome (WBS) again !!

 

[Mortaneus]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: SpyCraft vs Wheel of Time

Not at all. I really find that the tone of the En boards is very civil.
And even if I do not always agree with the reviewers, most of the reviews remain civil and generally motivated.
Most of them... seen some reviews of e-tools? 1/5!!!
WoTC bashing syndrome (WBS) again !!

In that case, I think it's merited. The program is garbage, WotC or not.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: SpyCraft vs Wheel of Time

Most of them... seen some reviews of e-tools? 1/5!!!

*chuckle* The e-tool review explosion was kind of funny- there were a lot of people trying to alter the average score with rant reviews.

FD

 

[drquestion]

Originally posted by Furn_Darkside
*chuckle* The e-tool review explosion was kind of funny- there were a lot of people trying to alter the average score with rant reviews.

Well, they did kind of dig their own grave with e-tools. Not delivering on promised features is a pretty easy way to piss off your customers.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Well, they did kind of dig their own grave with e-tools. Not delivering on promised features is a pretty easy way to piss off your customers.

I thought they made it pretty clear what was going to be in the final product.

Granted, it was not the original specs, but welcome to software.

FD

 

[Psion]

Granted, it was not the original specs, but welcome to software.

Though I am not as down on etools as somewhere, I don't dismiss the role of WotC management in this mess. I find the intention to make a utility to serve D&D players into a proto-online gaming tool a bad idea from the get go. For that matter, I consider switching software companies between editions ALSO to be a bad idea, since CoreRules had just started to become a mature when they kicked evermore to the curb for fluid.

I put this up there with the decision to make a WH style minuatures game out of chainmail instead of the mass combat system everyone was clamoring for.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

I put this up there with the decision to make a WH style minuatures game out of chainmail instead of the mass combat system everyone was clamoring for.

I agree- there were bad decisions involved, but it is not as if they misled the customers about what would be in the final product.

I was disappointed they cut a lot of the options originally listed as being in there, but I didn't buy the product.

FD

 

[derverdammte]

I put this up there with the decision to make a WH style minuatures game out of chainmail instead of the mass combat system everyone was clamoring for.

Just to mention--what the heck were they thinking when they packaged them in boxes? You can't inspect the figures to see how much flash is on them, or whether there are casting defects, and people who don't know any better (yes, this is true) might assume they're pre-painted. Besides, isn't a blister pack cheaper?

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

The difference between Spycraft and WoT is substantial.

WoT contains nothing (except the chanelling system) that you couldn't easily create in D&D. As psion put it, it's re-warmed D&D. Bleh.

Spycraft took the system by the horns and rewrote practically everything, and made it COOL.

WoT: Channelling Magic System, new base classes, new prestige classes

Spycraft: Mastermind system, skill criticals, Chase system, completely re-worked combat system, unique automatic weapon rules, action dice, gadget and budget point system, new core classes, core feat concept, new prestige classes, TONS of new feats, feat categories, etc.

WoT is nothing more than a D&D rehash.

Spycraft is a completely new GAME, and one that, in many ways, I feel is superior to D&D.

WoT is supposed to have a lot of rehashed material. WotC was perfectly capable of releasing a book that only had the new stuff and changes, but they didn't want to. They wanted to make it an attractive "one book buy" for people who like WoT but don't play D&D. Just like Star Wars.

As a D&D player you may not like this, as a non-D&D player who likes Wheel of Time, it's a very desirable option. There's no way they could have made it so you could buy the WoT material, plus a PHB, plus a DMG for the price you can have the "WoT RPG" at.

This way a WoT fan can try their hand at a game set in RJ's world without shellin out a bunch of money for rulebooks that have nothing to do with WoT.

WoT isn't meant to be a supplement to D&D, it's meant to stand alone, so repeating the basics is a necessity. If they had repeated character creation rules and everything in the FRCS, that would have sucked. The WoT book is just a different situation.

 

[Mortaneus]

WoT is supposed to have a lot of rehashed material. WotC was perfectly capable of releasing a book that only had the new stuff and changes, but they didn't want to. They wanted to make it an attractive "one book buy" for people who like WoT but don't play D&D. Just like Star Wars.

As a D&D player you may not like this, as a non-D&D player who likes Wheel of Time, it's a very desirable option. There's no way they could have made it so you could buy the WoT material, plus a PHB, plus a DMG for the price you can have the "WoT RPG" at.

This way a WoT fan can try their hand at a game set in RJ's world without shellin out a bunch of money for rulebooks that have nothing to do with WoT.

WoT isn't meant to be a supplement to D&D, it's meant to stand alone, so repeating the basics is a necessity. If they had repeated character creation rules and everything in the FRCS, that would have sucked. The WoT book is just a different situation.

I didn't say that it was a bad rendition of WoT, nor was it not a good game. What I meant was that it wasn't anything special as games went. It was just more of the same. Spycraft knocked down the walls and stomped out quite a new bit of territory as far as d20 goes.

In my book, that makes it worthy of a 5.