What scares me

[Zurai]

I have never in my life signed an NDA for a game testing position (of which I have signed more than a dozen) where the NDA did not have the "you may not say you are testing this game" clause. It's standard operating procedure.

 

[Duncan Haldane]

What scares me is that by this time with the 3.0 buzz we had a play tester or two post things like "I can't tell you anything about the game.. but it kicks ass"

But now we have not seen anything like that from anyone outside of WoTC.

Now this could just mean that the NDA is scary tight… But if the playesters where all that excited about the game, wouldn’t we end up with some random poster posting something like "playtesting it... and it kicks ass.. That’s all I can say"

I did a small role in playtesting 3.0, and I wasn't allowed to tell anyone that I had until the game was released. I think anyone who said they were playtesting 3.0 were breaking their NDA.

This time around only people in the US were able to be playtesters, because WotC's lawyers decided they couldn't be sure a US NDA would hold up outside the US.

So, you can know for sure that I'm not a playtester this time.

 

[Duncan Haldane]

Part of the reason is that there seems to be *lot* of playtesting going on this time. I think they've learned not to let things go to print unproven. It's better that they be silent for months longer now than go through huge masses of errata later down the road, or the nightmare of a possible 4.5 edition.

Of course, if they take all this time and still manage to screw it up, my nerd rage will know no limit.

If you've got a copy of the 3.0 player's handbook have a look at the list of playtesters in the back. There seems to be a lot of names there, to me.

The core books usually get a good workout by playtesters. Unfortunately this hasn't extended to non-core books. Some of them don't seem to have even been read by someone other than the authors, IMO (Complete Champion, anyone?).

 

[Cthulhudrew]

What scares me is that by this time with the 3.0 buzz we had a play tester or two post things like "I can't tell you anything about the game.. but it kicks ass"

Well, we also had a year's worth of lead-in previews in Dragon magazine before 3.0 came out, so it was a bit easier to justify some NDA slips, I think.

But yeah, there's definitely a dearth of information.

 

[bmcdaniel]

If playtesters are forbidden from saying they are playtesters, then the only way to tell who is a playtester is for all non-playtesters to admit it. By process of elimination, anyone who doesn't say they aren't a playtester can be assumed to be one. I'll start: I'm not a playtester.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

If playtesters are forbidden from saying they are playtesters, then the only way to tell who is a playtester is for all non-playtesters to admit it. By process of elimination, anyone who doesn't say they aren't a playtester can be assumed to be one.

You assume everyone would be truthful? Even the pranksters chiming in to mess with peoples' heads?

 

[Khuxan]

You assume everyone would be truthful? Even the pranksters chiming in to mess with peoples' heads?

I assume he's being facetious. Enworld has, what, 55,000 members or something? You'd never be able to get all those 55,000 to see this thread, let alone comment in it.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I'm a 4e playtester and the game kicks ass.

Feel better? Probably not since you can't know whether I'm telling the truth and breaking my NDA or just lying (though I'm sure you suspect).

How did anyone know for certain that those people claiming to be playtesters for 3.0 really were playtesters?

 

[sidonunspa]

I'm a 4e playtester and the game kicks ass.

Feel better? Probably not since you can't know whether I'm telling the truth and breaking my NDA or just lying (though I'm sure you suspect).

How did anyone know for certain that those people claiming to be playtesters for 3.0 really were playtesters?

Well keep in mind that we got to play the 3.0 system the day it was announced (I was one of the lucky ones, one thing that changed before 3.0 was out where fighters, originally they were the only class that got feats, also they were called "Heroic Feats"), then, thanks to that information hitting the net, you knew if some people where full of it or not, ya some people where lying… but it was not all that hard to catch.

Also there was a LOT more information by this time... it scares me, because I'm starting to wonder if this system has had any real play testing (like the 3.0 system that had over 2 years of play testing.. 1 year before the announcement and for the year before release.)

They just opened play testing for people outside WoTC.. and the game is due this June.

 

[BASHMAN]

IIRC, the NDA WotC made playtesters sign forbade them from even telling they were playtesters...

That's why wikis are anonymous. If they wanted to, a person could violate their NDA by posting info to a wiki on a computer in a library in a major city. For some reason, I think they were very careful to select playtesters on their likelihood not to do this even if there were no chance of being caught/sued [else we would have heard about it].

I have had friends that were playtesters of games in the past and signed NDAs... but I knew what they were playtesting. I was a playtester for Castles & Crusades, and it had an NDA-- but plenty of people were leaking info in spite of this (which only helped TLG get more people interested in joining the crusade). I think the NDA of 4e must be something really nasty... like they'll kill your puppy or something.