D&D 4E The WotC designers will be bashing 4e once 5e is announced . . .

[CharlesRyan]

Just to contrast it with ad blurbs for 3E like this one here...

Why is this new D&D such terrific fun? The new system smooths out all the old rules' quirks and bumps, creating gameplay that is easy to understand and quick moving, yet with more depth than ever. Combat is much easier to conduct, but it's more exact, always making it clear exactly what's happening. The full-fledged skill system allows characters to do many tasks that fall outside their stereotypical roles. This means that characters in the same class aren't all clones. A fighter can be a slow brute with an axe or a lithe, rapier-wielding acrobat. All this customizability leads to more engaging characters and more opportunities for roleplaying.

....which for some reason sounds, in a lot of things, like the stuff being touted for 4E now. [. . .] I'm sure we'll get to hear the same sermon replayed in 7-8 years time.

I'm curious as to why this bothers you. Is it because they lied about all that stuff, and didn't really improve the game with 3.0? Or is it because they didn't acheive 100% perfection with 3.0?

What's wrong with the possibility that they saw ways to improve the game back then, and now, after 8 years of seeing the implications of those improvements, have found ways to improve it even further?

Cause that's what I hear them saying, and it sounds pretty good to me. . . .

 

[wanderer9]

In 1974 the Original D&D was released. Between 1977 & 1979 it went through various changes and became 1st Edition. It was 10 years before 2nd Edition came along and then 11 years before 3rd Edition. We had 3rd Edition for 3 years before the upgrade to 3.5 and now less than 5 years after that, we have 4th Edition.

I believe that the changes from 2e to 3e did a great deal to improve the game and yes there were still problems with 3e which were by in large corrected by 3.5. However I questioned the approach used to "sell" the changes between 3e and 3.5.

In my opinion (yes its only mine) it would have been better for gamers if WotC released 3.5e products that "updated" the 3e system without the players having to rebuy all the core books again. Yes an option should have been available for players to buy the revised core books if the wanted / could afford it, but a smaller cut down version detailing the difference could also have been made available, for those less able to afford the costs.

Suddenly out of the blue ( ok tongue in cheek), 4e comes onto the sceen. Now WotC tell about all the wonderful things that 4e will allow and all you have to do is rebuy their products (again). However this means a large chunk of material they have been releasing over the past few years will not usable with 4e. How do I know this you ask? Well I don't but based on what has been said about not being able to convert Living Greyhawk etc. it certainly looks that way. So will WotC be releasing "add-ons" that allow 3.5e material to be upgraded to 4e or are we going to be expted to buy everything again?

For the last 5 years there have been a huge amount of products coming out of WotC to support D&D and, although I have no facts to base this, I believe the community playing D&D has grown. I wonder how all these will react if it becomes apparant that a lot of what they have purchased is now obsolete. Yes I know that people do not have to purchase 4e, but if you want to play Living FR they you will have to purchase some of the books and there will no longer be any products created to support 3.5e.

I have no doubt that 4e will bring improvements to D&D, but I do question the motive of the company that is doing this release. I appreciate that WotC / Hasbro need to make a profit, but I wish it was because they sold quality products and supported a gaming community which would allow the hobby to grow, rather than try to rubbish a product they raved about 12 months ago and tried to convince us all about the improvements a product will bring which we will not see for at least another 6 months.

For all those of you who complain about rules, they are only guidelines and a DM can change them any way they please. The whole concept of D&D was about having fun, not blindly following a bunch of words in a book.

What I hope we see from WotC in the future are quality products and not just marketting ploys to get people to waste their money on products they push just to make money rather than enhance the gaming experience. If the quality is good the customers will come back for more. WotC might even make more profit because people will discuss the quaility and more will be bought.

Thats my 2p's worth anyway.

 

[CharlesRyan]

The other part is what I call 'the party line'. Big wigs tell the 4E designers to talk up 4E and fire up the troops (the fan base). And because that means jumping ship on 3.5, then point out the problems with 3.5 - whether or not that individual designer really believes that a certain problem with 3.5 is an actual problem.

Notice that all the WOTC D&D people are rabidly enthusiastic about 4E and nary a nay sayer in sight?

A few years ago (2003, to be exact), James Wyatt and I were at Origins. One evening we went looking for a pickup game, and joined a handful of D&D players who had a couple empty seats at their table. They didn't know we were WotC designers, and we didn't tell them.

The game was 3.0 (3.5 was a month or two away), but James and I (along with the rest of the WotC staff) had been playing 3.5 for 6 or 8 months. The changes to the rules were subtle, but the paradigm shift was pretty big--especially when it came to things like buffing up for combat. Not having played 3.0 for so long, I was stunned by how big a difference it made--and how much better I liked 3.5. I don't think I'm putting words in James's mouth when I say that he felt the same way.

Did 3.0 suck? Hardly. Is it "bashing" it to say that 3.5 improved it greatly? I don't think so. Must one be toeing the "party line" to feel that way? Definitely not.

When the guys at WotC say they like 4.0 better, I believe them. Having been there, I find the idea that any of them are being coerced by "big wigs" into their enthusiasm highly unlikely. (When I was a "big wig" at WotC, I would have been laughed at to my face if I tried to tell R&D to talk up a product they didn't like.) Not a naysayer in sight? That's probably because the game is really better, and they all had a hand in it.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Suddenly out of the blue ( ok tongue in cheek), 4e comes onto the sceen.

Not so tongue-in-cheek as you might think. Remember, while they were gearing up for the announcement of 4e, WotC was actively saying that 4e was a long way off. IOW, they advertised and sold you books that they knew were liable to soon be obsolete, while at the same time telling you that they would not shortly become obsolete.

Now, I'll grant that once 4e was announced, sales on 3e were bound to dry up more than a little. However, there is a big difference IMHO between saying nothing and actively disinforming your consumer base.

As a result, I personally find a bit of cynicism toward WotC's announcements more than a little appropriate.

YMMV.

RC

 

[hong]

This is ultimately what is bothering me, as a customer. Converting from 3.5 to 4e? - not worth the effort.

If you're referring to the announcement that they're not producing a conversion document, I don't see how that leads to the conclusion that converting is not worth the effort. What they're saying is that it's not worth producing a mechanical formula that will take as input a given 3.5E character and spit out an equivalent 4E character. And they're very probably right, given that the 2E -> 3E document was laughable. You would get better results, in less time, by just thinking about the core concept and reexpressing it in 4E terms without worrying about 3E crunch.

 

[Gimby]

In my opinion (yes its only mine) it would have been better for gamers if WotC released 3.5e products that "updated" the 3e system without the players having to rebuy all the core books again. Yes an option should have been available for players to buy the revised core books if the wanted / could afford it, but a smaller cut down version detailing the difference could also have been made available, for those less able to afford the costs.

Just to nitpick a little, but they did release this conversion document (for the hard-covers at least) - it is (or was) available on the wizards website. For free even. All the changes were also in the SRD, also released for free.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

I'm curious as to why this bothers you. Is it because they lied about all that stuff, and didn't really improve the game with 3.0? Or is it because they didn't acheive 100% perfection with 3.0?

What's wrong with the possibility that they saw ways to improve the game back then, and now, after 8 years of seeing the implications of those improvements, have found ways to improve it even further?

Cause that's what I hear them saying, and it sounds pretty good to me. . . .

Maybe because of this?

And just because every other brand is doing it that way doesn't mean it's not twice as annoying when it comes from the producer of my most favorite passtime, because every time they try to make me feel like the game I play, and how I play it, suffers and is inferior for all the "errors" it contains. Which is what's getting on my nerves a bit, and probably not just mine. It simply would be nice if the PR specialists found some other way to advertise their new game edition without trying to blackpaint the older ones.

As for the rest of my opinion on the 4E marketing strategy, see my answers to Maggan.

 

[Sun Knight]

The interesting thing here is that while 3e does have some problems, they're minor issues compared to earlier editions. 3e and 3.5 are damn good game systems. Don't think that WotC isn't intimately aware of this fact. That means that for something to make the 4e cut, it's got to feel more fun to the designers and developers than what we have now.

Will they get every one right? Certainly not for everyone, as different people like different campaign styles.

But my expectation is that they'll have a better game when they're done. It's possible they won't, but if that happens then everyone will keep playing 3.5. With a huge vested interest in making this the best game possible, they're certainly targeting the few weaknesses in 3e.

It is good to target the weaknesses of 3.5e but they seem to be also targeting the strengths as well.

 

[CharlesRyan]

[WotC tries] to make me feel like the game I play, and how I play it, suffers and is inferior for all the "errors" it contains. [. . .] It simply would be nice if the PR specialists found some other way to advertise their new game edition without trying to blackpaint the older ones.

I guess I'm just reading the info they've put out differently.

I've heard a lot of "this part of D&D isn't working well, so we fixed it," and "some parts of the game aren't as fun as they should be, so we worked on making them more fun."

I haven't heard anyone say "3.5 sucks, and you're a fool for playing it. Play 4E, cause it's gonna actually be good."

If 4E isn't an improvement over 3.5, why would they make it and why would we buy it? If it is an improvement, isn't in right and proper for them to talk about what they improved and why it benefitted from improvement?

 

[Geron Raveneye]

I guess I'm just reading the info they've put out differently.

I've heard a lot of "this part of D&D isn't working well, so we fixed it," and "some parts of the game aren't as fun as they should be, so we worked on making them more fun."

I haven't heard anyone say "3.5 sucks, and you're a fool for playing it. Play 4E, cause it's gonna actually be good."

If 4E isn't an improvement over 3.5, why would they make it and why would we buy it? If it is an improvement, isn't in right and proper for them to talk about what they improved and why it benefitted from improvement?

Yep, you do...which is to be expected, since it's all dependent on the "eye of the beholder".

The same goes for what's an improvement and what not. Otherwise, we'd not have a heap of endless arguments on ENWorld alone about the merits and flaws of some things 3E instituted.

Note that I'm not saying 4E isn't an improvement. It might well be. More likely, it will be an improvement in some areas, a complete change in others, and will create at least as many divergent opinions on every detail as 3E did back in its day.

What I'm saying is that the first bit of advertisement I got gave me a bad impression of the marketing scheme for 4E, and that simply colors my perceptions of the same. And just because the designers show a lot of game designer enthusiasm for the rules they currently design doesn't mean they can't tread on some toes with the way they express it, either.
And to be honest, in some parts I'd prefer it if they simply came out and said "We're not making D&D better, we're simply going to make it different than 3E", because that's clearly what they are doing with some of the things, and let judgement if it's "better" or not come from the customer base.