Why did you stop subscribing to DDI?

[Incenjucar]

At level 6 we saved an entire Drow civilization from a Lucodemon invasion, travelled to another world, flew around, managed armies, ...you can't even do 1/2 the things we did until epic in 4e, if that.

This is perfectly doable in 4E. My group just hit level 9 and we've been doing this sort of thing for awhile. Don't confuse DM inflexibility with game inflexibility.

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I actually had a discussion about the CB with a WotC representative the other day. He seemed to have been convinced that 20 characters is all you'll ever need. I reminded him that people like to do experimental builds and to pre-build characters from 1-30. He suggested that you could just print them to PDF. I asked him what, then, the use of an online CB was, if you had to print things to PDF onto your PC. By the lack of real answer, I think I got my point across.

Hopefully people are communicating their concerns to WotC directly through email, with polite and clear examples of how the limitations affect them. WotC employees naturally experience 4E in a different way than non-employees, so they need help getting information like this.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Hopefully people are communicating their concerns to WotC directly through email, with polite and clear examples of how the limitations affect them. WotC employees naturally experience 4E in a different way than non-employees, so they need help getting information like this.

Unless those messages got to someone in Hasbro with a clue, and the power to fire management, it wouldn't make any difference. Management capable of benefiting from such communication would have listened to similar objections from in-house worker bees.

 

[Incenjucar]

Unless those messages got to someone in Hasbro with a clue, and the power to fire management, it wouldn't make any difference. Management capable of benefiting from such communication would have listened to similar objections from in-house worker bees.

Again, I was face-to-face with a WotC rep and had the above conversation. Certainly, said rep had to tow the company line, but I don't believe he was trying to be deceptive, but instead was in agreement with or had been convinced of the official company position's validity. Had he disagreed with the current state of affairs, I would expect him to avoid the subject rather than disagree with me on it, which is what I would do in such a position.

It's easier to simply demonize a nameless concept of a person and to claim that any effort spent on attempting to reason with them is wasted, but you'll find that direct, polite communication has a far greater chance of producing results than grumping at ghosts.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I'm sure the rep was sincere. I'm also sure that if they got a lot of thoughtful emails, that they could use the ammo. Knock yourself out; it won't hurt any.

I'm also sure that someone in a position of management over all of this is a complete albratross, and effectively 20 lb weights strapped to the whole team. This puts a ceiling on what they can accomplish.

Until I see some signs that they recognize the main handicap holding them back, I'm not willing to knock myself out helping them around the edges. YMMV.