WotC_PeterS talks about his "aggresive playtest" (with Le Rouse, SKR, & Noonan)

[Kraydak]

"The Rouse"! From now on, that's his name!

I'm trying to figure out where that quote comes from. I can't see it on my screen and certainly didn't *intend* to write it...

 

[mhensley]

I wonder if wotc does any blindtesting as Steve Jackson writes about here.

 

[Raven Crowking]

It's covered, we hired these guys to run our playtest.

Sir, you have just risen in my esteem.

RC

 

[Kraydak]

Let me guess. Do you by any chance wear one of the fabled "Scott Rouse must be stopped!" t-shirts?

*blink* *blink*

Not that I am aware of...

I thought his post was hilarious. Personally, I like it when WotC staffers come in and hang out with us and joke with us. I much prefer that to corporate press releases being our only contact with WotC.

His post would have been funny if he had responded constructively to the worries laid out earlier in the thread. As it is, it comes across as him not even understanding *why* people would be worried. If so, I am even more worried. If he has reason not to be worried, I (and I imagine others) would like to know about it.

Right now, he is (I'm hoping not deliberately) flat out insulting people who think that the blog post raises issues with WotC's play-testing.

 

[Stormtalon]

Except, he DID post constructive answers -- reread the first page of the thread. He gave quite a bit of nice, helpful info well before that post.

 

[Kraydak]

Except, he DID post constructive answers -- reread the first page of the thread. He gave quite a bit of nice, helpful info well before that post.

No he didn't. He didn't say *anything* about serious (WotC char-ops style) stress testing. The blog post suggests that there barely is any. This is a problem. Remember the 3e (not 3.5) druid companion? it slipped through because there wasn't heavy stress testing.

 

[The_Baldman]

*blink* *blink*

Not that I am aware of...



His post would have been funny if he had responded constructively to the worries laid out earlier in the thread. As it is, it comes across as him not even understanding *why* people would be worried. If so, I am even more worried. If he has reason not to be worried, I (and I imagine others) would like to know about it.

Right now, he is (I'm hoping not deliberately) flat out insulting people who think that the blog post raises issues with WotC's play-testing.

I know there is such a thing as a double negative. What about a double or triple worry though? Does that come out in the end as the glass is half full or empty cuz I confused ?

His post was funny. If you don't get it then nothing anybody here says will fix that. I recommend heavy doses of Blazing Saddles and Raizing Arizona until its funny.

Dave

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

My only comment to the original post and playtest report is that I like that they are doing some intense work to run the combat encounters and the players report gives blow-by-blow statistics, but how many times is this being done? Different groups with different tactics may end up with very different results in the exact same encounter. I would think this style of playtest would be best suited for external groups where maybe 25 different groups play the exact same encounter and see how they measure up to each other.

And I would like to thank The Rouse for the pictures of some of the crew at WotC. I always wondered what Mike Mearls, Rich Baker and Chris Perkins looked like.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

*blink* *blink*

Not that I am aware of...



His post would have been funny if he had responded constructively to the worries laid out earlier in the thread. As it is, it comes across as him not even understanding *why* people would be worried. If so, I am even more worried. If he has reason not to be worried, I (and I imagine others) would like to know about it.

Right now, he is (I'm hoping not deliberately) flat out insulting people who think that the blog post raises issues with WotC's play-testing.

OK...did you read my other posts? I thought this summarized the extent of the play test:

There are enough playtests happening that various groups can focus on certain aspects of the game. Motsly it is about tuning and balancing and not about big sweeping changes.

My group is playing through Keep on the Shadowfell. We have been roleplaying, building our charcters by writing back stories out of the game but also looking at crunch, running characters through their paces in the game, sometime facing huge bands of monsters.

We have a large group with up to 8 players at times. Today we had 5. Sometimes we fight large groups of monsters and while today we only fought 5 (kobolds and goblins). A few weeks ago I was chatting up the barmaid trying to get the quest and weeks prior to that managed to do something that lead to Coup de Grace rules changing somewhat.

All in all I get the sense that things are going well.

We are playtesting the heck out of this game and have been doing so in earnest for the better part of two years. I find it funny, bordering on the ridiculous, that from one playtest report that people assume we have our heads in our butts and don't know how to develop and playtest a game. We have hundreds of years of combined game development experience on the 4e team with some people like Bill Slavicsek and Kim Mohan having experience going back over multiple editions. So instead of being a jerk in responding to criticism I decided to inject some humor (albeit sarcastic) into the thread.

Two years ago playtesting started in earnest we we began looking at various designs of a game for 4e. I wont divulge those details but these included system and format changes. Two of these designs were code named Tiamat and Orcus (Races and Classes covers this more).

Before and during that time we were secretly injecting test ideas as products (DMG II, PHB II, Shatterd Gates of Slaughterguard) and test ideas into products like powers for fighters, the tactical encounter format, revised monster stat blocks, etc. The products and ideas that ultimately tested well (based on sales and consumer response) went into our plans for 4e on top of stuff that is totally new.

But this has all been said before in multiple articles, blogs, and message boards posts.

We are very serious about playtests and making the edition the best it can be.

Very seriously yours,

 

[Midknightsun]

As one of the people who consider this to be a giant red flag (so giant in fact, I am amazed that permission was granted to post the blog), do you mind cluing me in as to how you are able to be so flippant about something so important? Have you hired the super-stars from the Char Op board?

I am quite curious. To me, the blog reads at the "oops, I forgot to get dressed before heading into work" level.

Well, everybody else is doing it, so I feel compelled to add my 2c:

1) Step away from your PHB!

2) Go outside and play a bit

3) Live, laugh, love

4) Come back and reread your post