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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9572309" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Yeah. We can distinguish two claims:1. Create a subscription service which permits players to play D&D. This was, quite clearly, a goal of 4e from the beginning. In some ways, they succeeded, but in other ways, they failed. The murder-suicide that destroyed the digital tools' prospects (remember, the two people involved in that were both Wizards employees...and both of them were heavily involved with the digital tools stuff) essentially guaranteed that WotC could never realize their VTT dreams, which ended up being a crippling problem.2. Create a game based on the game design of MMOs, such as World of Warcraft. This is demonstrably false for a variety of reasons. As noted, the initial design work for 4e predates World of Warcraft, and much of what 4e would become was already laid down before WoW had become quite the worldwide blockbuster. Note, for example, that Mearls & co., and indeed anyone who brings up these comparisons, never mentions EverQuest. Because, prior to WoW, EverQuest was the holder of the crown of "biggest MMO"--and it got almost as much social recognition for it as (early) WoW did. People called it "EverCrack". There were TV spots commenting on it. Pearl-clutching news segments about MMO addiction. Etc. Yet it's ever and always WoW that 4e was trying to emulate, even when WoW was still in its infancy? Ridiculous.Further, most of the people making this comparison did not play WoW and had no actual knowledge of its mechanics...and many of them also did not play 4e and had no knowledge of its mechanics, so the comparison was completely bunk in many cases. As an example, a great many people tried to claim that the Marking mechanic, and defenders' mark-punishment mechanics, were directly copied from "taunt" effects in MMOs. This requires a short explanation for why it's so thoroughly incorrect, but I'll keep it brief.In pretty much all MMOs, monsters work by a simple priority system. There's a thing called a "threat table." "Threat"--also known as "aggro", "enmity", "hate", etc.--is a number that grows because players do something while engaged in combat with a monster. Casting a healing spell, using a damaging attack, etc. Monsters always* attack whatever creature is at the top of their aggro table; they cannot choose. "Tank" characters usually have actions or stances which cause them to generate extra threat, so they naturally bubble up to the top of that table. Many "tank" classes in MMOs have a "Taunt" action, which automatically jumps the user's threat to the top of the list, often with a bit of bonus threat on top so the tank doesn't instantly lose threat again.By comparison, Marking is entirely different. When a creature is Marked by a character, the status indicates the harrying and difficulties that come from being hounded by the character that marked it: attacks from a Marked creature that don't include the character that Marked it have a penalty, because the Marked creature has to account for the character's direct and indirect efforts at interference. Any character can pick up an ability that allows them to Mark targets, though only Defenders start with such a feature. Defenders get an additional benefit: they can punish Marked creatures who "violate" (=ignore) Marks applied by that character. Mechanically, a target can only be Marked by one source; a new Mark overrides the old one.But here's the critical point: the creature is NEVER required to attack the character that marked it!In other words, Marking and punishments are exactly the antithesis of the MMO mechanics for threat. MMOs simply do not have the computing resources, nor the time, to actually have "smart" monsters that make actual evaluations to decide which target is best to attack. Monsters in an MMO are perfectly mind-controlled by threat. If a Pastamancer's saucerous assault causes his threat number to become larger than the Battlemime's threat despite his gesticulations, then the creature in question immediately begins attacking the Pastamancer--no ifs, ands, or butts. Conversely, a Marked creature is never actually required to attack the character that marked it. However, the DM playing that creature may be quite well aware that choosing to ignore a Defender's Mark is a very dangerous prospect, and thus the DM is left with the unenviable choice of "obey the mark...which means attacking the giant slab of meat and steel that is hard to hurt, or disobey it, and get slapped AND possibly miss the attack anyway!" It is 100% always something that an actual human being has to decide. Despite the many claims that 4e was "made" for a computer-run environment, you cannot use Marking as a mechanic without a human mind making the decision of which thing to attack right now.</blockquote>

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