WotC to Revise D&D 4th Edition GSL and SRD

[Semah G Noj]

So the half on this poll here http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=235481 who are not switching are non-representative? How about the 150+ people I talked to a week and a half ago at the convention in Spokane where I was a guest, half of whom didn't have very positive things to say about 4E? Or how about the local game store where I'm seeing the same trend? I suppose that you'd count that as anecdotal, or better yet, question my integrity since I've made up my mind about which game I'm playing.


.

Please.

You're saying the equivilant of, "I know that canidate A will win a national election because no one I know locally has anything good to say about candidate B in the political club in which I attend, locally"

 

[Ourph]

Yes, it's not a court of law, but if you're going to cast aspersions about some childish posts or make any other dubious or controversial claim, you should either back it up or back it off.

Why should I do that? There are thousands of posts on ENWorld every day that reference people's personal impressions and opinions without "citing sources" or providing "evidence" to back them up. I'm not going to hold my posts to a higher standard just because you disagree with my opinion. If you want to be the proof police, go get every other poster at ENWorld to provide documentation to back up their personal opinion before they post it and THEN come see me about doing the same thing.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I'll say it again -- IF the sampled fraction is small, THEN the simplied math applies in which population size is "completely irrelevant to the accuracy" of the poll. And that's the case we're actually in, the case misunderstood by the prior poster, the case of any standard poll.

Whether the population of ENWorld is 25,000 or 75,000 or 1 million or infinite, the math is exactly the same in any of those cases. Any larger population number disappears from the calculation formula.

Which is why I was the one who brought up the above-5% correction factor in the first place. You want a small sample fraction, such as we have, to use the standard math, in which population size is irrelevant.

Just to be clear, you use the word "accuracy", but that's not true. The "math is simpler" with a smaller percentage simply because those polls have a bigger margin of error. A larger percentage poll is more accurate due to a smaller margin of error, but then the m-o-e must be calculated with more complexity.

There is no margin of error in the EN poll, and it's not a representative sample or a valid poll for any use other than "hey, I was just curious". The fact that Drader's remarks are basically "I know internet polls are invalid, but this one proves I'm right!" is all I'm commenting on.

Either way, a smaller margin of error means more accuracy. A larger percentage of the base will result in a smaller margin of error and more accurate results, but the math will be more complicated.

 

[Wicht]

Why should I do that? There are thousands of posts on ENWorld every day that reference people's personal impressions and opinions without "citing sources" or providing "evidence" to back them up. I'm not going to hold my posts to a higher standard just because you disagree with my opinion. If you want to be the proof police, go get every other poster at ENWorld to provide documentation to back up their personal opinion before they post it and THEN come see me about doing the same thing.

I think the problem is that you did not appear to be stating a personal opinion but an observation of fact.

For instance, if I said that I suspected Erik Mona might really like to see WotC license out the Greyhawk lines to a 3pp, that would be opinion. Just a gut feeling.

If I said that I had seen Erik Mona posting at numerous times his disdain for the world of Greyhawk, that would be a statement of observable fact and because it flies in the face of other people's experience, I would not be surprised to be called on it and asked to cite a specific instance in point of time.

Your statement that you had observed Paizo employees wishing ill upon WotC flies in the face of their numerous posts to the contrary and therefore you should not be surprised when you are asked to cite a specific instance.

 

[freyar]

Just to be clear, you use the word "accuracy", but that's not true. The "math is simpler" with a smaller percentage simply because those polls have a bigger margin of error. A larger percentage poll is more accurate due to a smaller margin of error, but then the m-o-e must be calculated with more complexity.

There is no margin of error in the EN poll, and it's not a representative sample or a valid poll for any use other than "hey, I was just curious". The fact that Drader's remarks are basically "I know internet polls are invalid, but this one proves I'm right!" is all I'm commenting on.

Either way, a smaller margin of error means more accuracy. A larger percentage of the base will result in a smaller margin of error and more accurate results, but the math will be more complicated.

Absolutely correct. However, beyond a certain point (IIRC from statistics class, around 100 respondents), you really get diminishing returns from increasing sample size until you get to a significant portion of the population. The problem with the EN World polls is not sample size but that they are self-selected samples of convenience.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Duplicates my thought, and I am not particularly a "fan" of Pathfinder (recently being far more interested in Basic Fantasy and 3.5 as-is).

A lot of the reinvention didn't appeal to me at first and I haven't followed it since. I wish them luck, but I let dragon/dungeon lapse before the changeover so I have no interest in their work.

When folks were (understandably) upset about shennanigans with WotC;
1) claiming that rumours the 4e announcement was close were false,

If you went back, you'd see they did what they said, and said what they did. Maybe they didn't give exactly a year notice, but you do have to factor in that 4e rumors started in 04-05 and were continually refuted.

cancellation of Dungeon & Dragon,

Also, Dragonlance. Still, no lies or unprofessionalism there, so not a big deal.

broken promises about tiered licensing, broken promises about the DDI (when, and what it could do), and problems with the GSL,

This I think is there biggest diplomatic hurdle, DDI for the mainstream, and GSL for the 3P.

What WotC does impacts me; what a 3pp does, except in the case of what they produce, or in the case where they champion something of use to the market/industry/hobby....like Clark with the GSL and the APG....really doesn't affect me much.)

(Never hurts for a 3pp to be professional, though. )

RC

The main thing with the smaller 3PP is that their audience is smaller and more directly connected. Most of Paizo's fans are probably on their site and in contact with them via that site or this.
For me, I just didn't see the variety I wanted to see, so I faded. The main big screwup for me was Age of Worms Overload (this was a long time ago now...)
Paizo promised this before the path started, people bought into the path based on it, and it was continually shifted back. Paizo's folks were apologetic at first, but the rabid fans were quick to attack folks, calling it a "free product" and telling people they were wrong to be mad about the broken promises. After a while, Paizo took up the stance of "it's a free addon anyway" and the responses became more ambiguous and less consoling.

Some remember further back though;
1) The addition of Polyhedron
2) the REMOVAL of Polyhedron...
3) The ditching of the Annual (even though folks had paid for 13 issues a year, no refunds/credits were forthcoming afaik)
4) when Dungeon went from bimonthly to monthly, they shifted the subscription from "a year" to "12 issues" and then tried to tell people they were getting more.

There's more of course, but it's besides the point really. Folks that were/are offended by such things know, folks that think it's unimportant don't care.

The other thing I think the rabid fans are overboard on is giving credit where it's not due. When the magazines were canceled, Paizo offered options and folks applauded.... but they weren't being "gracious". They had to refund the remaining money regardless. They were giving you options to let them keep your money. A wise business decision, and in no way a BAD thing, but certainly not worthy of rabid praise.

Anyway, I don't mean to bash Paizo with this stuff, other than them screwing me over with Overload (starting a campaign based on promises not kept sours me), they treated me well enough. (Two lost issues were quickly replaced.)

 

[Darrin Drader]

JThe fact that Drader's remarks are basically "I know internet polls are invalid, but this one proves I'm right!" is all I'm commenting on.

Actually that is not what I said. I simply pointed to all of the evidence available as well as first hand experience. From my perspective, there's a huge number of D&D players who aren't switching, possibly as many as half. Nothing proves me right and I never said that I was right. As I am unable to be everywhere all the time and personally speak to every D&D player, I could easily be wrong. That's the thing about perspective, you take what you have available and you draw conclusions. I'm not losing any sleep over whether my conclusions are right or wrong. It really makes very little difference to me when it comes down to it.

 

[Delta]

There is no margin of error in the EN poll, and it's not a representative sample or a valid poll...

Totally incorrect about the first statement. The margin of error is (currently 913 votes), at the 95% confidence level, 0.98/sqrt(913) ~ 0.03 = 3%.

Now, whether it's a representative sample of anything is a totally separate question (and that's been my point all along). At best it's possibly representative on ENWorld posters who care to vote on 4E-based polls.

One last time, and I'll boil it down to a true-or-false question. True/false: Is the following, and only the following, a legitimate criticism of the poll's level of confidence?

Also, there's only 904 total votes while ENWorld has over 74,000 members, so that's only a small fraction of forum members (addmittedly many of those 74,000 are probably inactive).

 

[Delta]

Hopefully the person who posted such a thing wasn't surprised by that! Once legal text becomes involved, then of course the vast majority of the populace won't bother becoming involved. That much is obvious.

I agree they shouldn't be surprised, but I disagree about the reason why. The OGL legal text is exceedingly easy to read, use, and understand.

The problem is how to physically receive payments and deliver goods over the Internet. That part is relatively hard for a hobbyist layman.

 

[The Little Raven]

I simply pointed to all of the evidence available as well as first hand experience.

I think the issue people have with your posts stems from the fact that you're not actually accepting all of the evidence, as you have been dismissing the sales information as biased or untrustworthy. It seems strange to point to an internet poll as a source of evidence without bias, then imply that sales data from even third-party sources (Amazon, NYT Bestseller List) can't be trusted.