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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Smerg" data-source="post: 3931350" data-attributes="member: 57427">Now, I voted for WotC should not change the name.  I voted for that not because I thought that was the best response but because I thought that was closest to the correct response.There is something that many people have failed to do when they have a poll like this.  They have failed to do what in business is referred to a Step 1.A Step 1 is taking time to listen and think of the situation from the other person's point of view.Currently, this poll is built around the end user's thoughts.  It is a valid way of thinking because end users are important for the sale of business items.  No end users and you have sunk a mountain of development costs into something without a reasonable payback.That does not invalidate the need to look at things from the point of the producer and their needs.Artists and developers have a reasonable need to protect the work that they produce.  Unless you are the person that believes that you should have an open right to plagerize works and not support a company like WotC which does work hard producing original materials for your campaigns, funding stores to have events like world wide DnD game day, magic tournaments, and sponsoring conventions.  Those are profits that they rechannel to support the end consumer and grow their business.One of the developers said they send things like many of the feats to their legal department that does web searches to determine if there are any matches and makes recomendations.Why is this?What if the 4e team comes out with something that they call Spellshaper and someone else on the web has made an ability with the name of Spellshaper.  Now the developers could be in a mess do to that person choosing to file a law suit stating that the Developers stole the Spellshaper feat from them.  It is money that is thus diverted now into fighting a frivolous lawsuite instead of sponsoring a gaming convention.Unfortunately, we live in a litigious world (aka we sue anything we can) and the best way to avoid these types of law suits is sometimes to go with silly seeming names.  Not because the developers themselves want to do it that way but because our current world makes it safer for them to operate that way.This is what I mean by saying that you need to think from the designer's needs first before you comepare your needs.  This is why I do not oppose the WotC developers using names like Golden Wyvern.</blockquote>

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