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I haven't seen it yet, but from everything I've heard, the movie isn't mocking anyone with mental disabilities, or anything of the sort. Rather, it's a satire that mocks Hollywood in general, on a number of levels. It isn't that Stiller's character portrayed a mentally disabled person, or that he did it insensitively - it's that the character thinks he deserved an Oscar/etc, simply for having made the portrayal. I really think the people who took offense to this took it greatly out of context.
I would say this sort of thing is valid, within reason. I recall one post, on another forum, where someone was ranting about how he didn't like the Pathfinder rules, and cited the fact that he believed Astral Projection could be abused to duplicate magic items. To this I replied, "No DM in their right mind would ever seriously let a player do this - it's blatant abuse." There are certain things that do need to be addressed, certainly, but there is a point where common sense comes in. Stuff like the example he was citing are the sort of thing that would more likely come up in a computer game, where the "DM" is mindlessly implementing the set of parameters it's been given.
Paizo lured me here with honeyed words, quality, 3.5 loyalism, and a willingness to make product in the PG-13 and up range. Yeah, I'll definitely echo this point. While I'm not looking for outright porn (which tends to distract from the game, and well... anything else), I've developed a certain distaste for what I term a 'puritanical mindset' with regard to sexual themes or topics. I find it silly to stick our heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist, or influence things - if not outright hypocritical. Thus, seeing PG-13/PG-17/and up rated stuff definitely strikes me as far superior towards a more 'puritanical' mindset. Paizo has done a good job, in my mind, towards this end.
Adding options can be a double edged sword. More flavor is good, and being able to better model certain things without just using a generic class, is certainly beneficial - but power creep and juggling too many extra books can cause problems (which is part of why I don't like using Psionics). Personally, I think Lilith and Samuel have a good handle on it. It's best not to go too far either way - having the books is good, but automatic inclusion or exclusion doesn't work out well (in my opinion).
the prevailing current marketing thought is that it's acceptable to lose ten 40-year-old customers if you gain five teenaged ones. I would also wonder about what sort of marketing plan they have. D&D traditionally has been passed on largely by word of mouth - people start playing because they meet other people who play, and introduce them to the game. That's been my experience, at least. Given the '4E backlash' among many of the preexisting customer base, especially in terms of FR, it seems to me that they've at least weakened, if not undermined, this route.
The way to bring new fans to the setting wasn't to blow it up, mash it around, and try and remake it into something that was more simplified. Rather, what was needed was to package things in such a way as to introduce the setting to someone who knew little or nothing about it beforehand. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like they've really succeeded in doing that even with the FRCG - instead, most of it is written from the standpoint of explaining it to someone who was familiar with the old edition versions (correct me if I'm wrong).
I'd post a more detailed set of examples where I agree with Obama - not on everything, certainly, but I find that I have no deal-breaking issues with him.
Politicians are, in the end, politicians. There is a strong difference, though, in the people they surround themselves with, and whom they put into office around them. There have been far weaker men elected to the presidency than Bush, who managed to muddle through even still, simply due to the fact that they appointed good people to help them, or had those appointments pushed on them by their supporters. After the last eight years, I have less than zero faith in the Republican Party to act in any way but their own naked self-interest. I have watched them put party and personal loyalty above all other considerations, including the good of the country. This is not to say that the Democrats are by any means pure, but they have clearly become the lesser of two evils. There was once a time when I felt McCain was different from the rest of the party on this, but his willingness to do anything and everything to win the nomination of his own party, has persuaded me otherwise. Bottom line - we can afford the screwups that a Democratic candidate, as President, would make. We cannot afford those that another Republican would bring. That's my opinion, at least.
Ex Army, Iraq War Veteran. While I couldn't give you exact numbers, there were certainly a number of gamers that I encountered in the military - definitely higher than the percentage of the regular population. Of course, the number of WoW players was much higher, but... At any rate, this stunt won't affect my vote. I was already for Obama due to general agreement with most of his policies, but mostly because I don't think we can afford four more years of a Republican Presidency. I used to have faith in them, and in McCain (voted for/donated to him in the 2000 primaries even), but the last 8 years have disabused me of that notion.
We're playing Junta? Awesome! I love that game... ...it's like Diplomacy, though, just don't play it with friends. ;) Bonus points if you can get an assassination chain where almost everyone dies. I think our best was a five-person chain, which ended the game (since the guy at the end was at the bank, and immediately stashed all of those players' combined cash). :D
I always liked genasi, myself. A paizo version would be niceI too love Genasi, but aren't they Wizard's IP? Well, we already have tieflings in Golarion, for one, albeit as NPCs, not as a playable character race. I would imagine genasi and aasimar are OGL material, as well, so that wouldn't be a problem to include. I do like the notion of making them LA +0, instead of LA +1. I wouldn't add them to the core book, but having them as playable would make sense. In general I don't mind notes on playing any number of weird character races/templates, but that's different from making them core races. As far as Illumians/etc, yes - Blech. Those races struck me as being ill-conceived notions of a way to pad those books, rather than just having two races to put in there. More races simply for the sake of more races is not necessarily a good thing.
I don't think I could have put it any better myself. Congratulations, to everyone!
I will note that speculation about the timing of this vis a vis GenCon is probably pretty off the mark. I'm not one to deny ulterior motives where money is involved, but consider that they have merely announced they intend to/are willing to revise it, not what those revisions would be. Furthermore, they've done so less than a week prior to GenCon, which means... well, nothing really. It's not going to change the attitude of any of the 3rd Party Publishers (those who haven't already signed on are almost certainly going to wait-and-see what the changes entail). Even if they do announce the changes in time, it won't really make any new third-parties announce new source material other than stuff that wasn't already in consideration, and just held up by GSL issues. Maybe it was just an attempt to grab attention? Possibly, though I still think peoples' focus will be more on new RPG products.
I definitely think they will revise some things about the GSL. The question, however, is to what extent. There are a number of potentially problematic points within the GSL, and I'm fairly sure these have been made clear to WotC by Clark. I also think that, as the poster above states, the people Clark is dealing with will certainly push for changes, or at minimum present his requests. I agree, too, that the real question is to what extent the legal department, and the people in charge, will say. How willing are they to loosen some of these clauses, and potentially even get rid of others? Will they go far in enough in making changes? We'll have to wait and see, though I at least won't be betting on it.
The problem that I saw when reading the quote struck me mainly as giving credit in a very backhanded way, and came off as twisting the facts to meet a given preconception. To elaborate, instead of saying "what these guys did was a good idea, and was better than the average 3.5 deal" and then explaining how it's the same sort of thing they wanted to see in 4th Edition, he instead comes off sounding like "we had this great idea, it's ours, but other people were emulating it beforehand," and then seems to try to argue that the lack of these things was part of why 3.5 was 'flawed' despite the fact that this was being done anyway, in 3.5. In summary, I think the reason a lot of us are harping on this matter, and why we find it to be a big deal, has a lot to do with WotC's attempts to convince us that the system we enjoy, and have been enjoying, is horribly, inherently flawed.
Considering the amount of money they'd lose simply from having to ditch all of their investment on the PFRPG and the 3.X system in general, I seriously doubt that Paizo will abandon that. I think at most you would see them printing additional, unrelated products for 4E, or perhaps conversion guides, and the like - but I strongly tend to think that Wizards is not going to loosen the GSL to the point where that's possible.
The most likely result of all of this is that the GSL will be altered enough to allow third-party companies like Necromancer Games to feel confident about publishing support materials and adventures for 4th Edition D&D. If I had to hazard a guess, this would be something along the lines of providing guarantees that it won't a) prevent them from publishing 3.X/OGL products, b) that they won't totally get screwed out of any of their rights, and c) that the GSL won't later be revised again to revoke any of these beneficial changes being made. What I'll be curious to see is whether the changes will convince Kenzer to switch to publishing under the GSL, rather than releasing non-GSL 4th Edition material as was their current plan. But I'm not holding my breath on any of these counts - if WotC makes the right decision here, it will be a big departure from their recent series of missteps.
Is there some precedent that could allow 3PPs to produce non-spellplague timeline realms materials? I'm no expert, but judging by what Paizo can and can't use in Golarion, I'd say the answer is no. For instance, it's okay to use something that was derived from real-world mythology. Tiamat is an example of this, being derived from a Babylonian deity (or maybe it was Sumerian, I don't remember exact details offhand). Thus, you can use the name Tiamat. Ditto the names of major devils, like Asmodeus. This sort of stuff is fair game for anyone - it's not something that a particular author invented. What you can't do is directly make use of something that someone else did create. Using the Planescape setting is out. Creating an adventure set in a extraplanar city called Sigil, which is ruled by the mysterious Lady of Pain, etc, isn't going to fly either, even if you never say it's Planescape, because everyone will realize it is. Probably the best anyone can do is create modules that will fit in a generic setting that matches the themes of the Realms, and avoids using any custom Realms-only stuff. You might be able to get away with a town that has a temple to the "God of the Sun" if you never state anything more than that, and otherwise make it a completely generic religion. Yes, FR players will know it's easily replaced by Lathander - but then, anyone running core could just as easily drop in Pelor instead.
Am I the only one who thinks it sounds like maybe the Spellplague is Ao saying "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again"? I can't recall where they stated this, but if I recall correctly, Rich Baker or one of the other designers stated that they were basically just not going to mention Ao again, and thus quietly put him out to pasture (Hey, beats what happened to Mystra, the Chosen, Eilistraee, or any number of others). Set - I think that was probably the most humorous summary of the Time of Troubles I've ever seen. :D
Latest update, via the Luruar (aka Silver Marches) preview excerpt posted to the WotC website.
The two big things that jump out are: 1) Alustriel is dead (doesn't say how, I presume of old age, and the implication is it happened a long time ago). 2) The Harpers have long since disbanded.
I don't really see how Paizo could have avoided it, in all honesty. The 'Edition Wars' seems to have touched on every major D&D based or related board that I've seen, so far. I think this kettle would have boiled over regardless.
For many of us, this distrust is permanent. Trust is never something that is easily earned once broken. It is this loss of trust in the collective stewardship of those who oversee the imaginary world where our stories are told that is perhaps the most telling blow. For me, it has also come at a time where I have had the opportunity to compare it to how the designers at Paizo have acted towards their fans. The difference, even it is merely my own perception of such things, has been stark. This has contributed in large part to my disentangling myself from a heavy commitment into the Forgotten Realms, replacing it with an investment (at least monetarily, to begin with) in Pathfinder.
I don't mean this to be insulting to anyone. I just worry that these are the reasons so many gamers are accused of lacking social skills and thus excluded from other social opportunities in society. If we want to ever be taken seriously or accepted as anything but fodder for jokes about geeks, each of us needs to make a conscious effort to avoid "posting to win" and straw man rhetoric. Actually, I would compare it more closely to contemporary political discourse, on various web forums, blog comments, et cetera, than anything else. Posters on both sides of the argument tend to be of a fairly determined mindset, tend to discount the views of the other side, and are prone to the sort of straw-man rhetoric that you refer to. I suspect that in both of these cases, too, the underlying intent is not to convince those of the opposing side, but rather, to sway the opinion of the undecided bystanders. This leads me to wonder, then, if this is not so much a phenomena relating to gamers, but rather, to internet discourse as a whole.
From what little I've experienced of online mmrpgs, they and table top RPGs are like apples and oranges. I don't think that all tabletop players are destined to switch to online mmrpgs because they are "faster", any more than all chess players are going to switch to football because it's "faster." I think your assessment is pretty much spot on with regards to the Commercial MMOs, that truly fit the 'massively' aspect. While it is certainly possible to roleplay within the confines of a game like World of Warcraft, Everquest, Ultima Online, or any number of other examples of the genre, it certainly isn't easy. The game itself is just not geared for the sort of story-driven, roleplay oriented game. Neverwinter Nights is something of a different animal, though. Though necessarily smaller in scope (most servers run with a player cap of around 40, though I've seen up to 96), because NWN is at its heart a set of tools to effectively create, run, and play your own D&D based MMO, there are a lot of things that can be done with it that just aren't possible in WoW, for instance. To give an idea of what is possible, I help run/play in an NWN server, set in the Forgotten Realms, that focuses on roleplaying and character-driven storytelling. It relies on a number of active DMs, with major and minor plots going on, and focuses on developing those stories rather than on repeatedly bashing monsters, or playing against the built-in AI. Characters likewise advance ultimately due to roleplaying, character development, and participation in these plots/quests, rather than from monster-killing. That being said, it's still a distinctly different experience from tabletop gaming, and has its advantages and disadvantages. For one, it's available anytime, over wide distances, and can involve visuals that help establish the characters and the world around them. At the same time, it is inherently restrictive, because the underlying rules system is much more difficult to change once set in place. My biggest regret though, is that companies don't seem to see any profit in continuing this sort of product. NWN2, for all its promise, focused much more on the single player aspects, to the detriment of the multiplayer client. Furthermore, no one else seems interested in trying to emulate this model under different rulesets, to the point that Bioware, the maker of the original NWN, announced that there would be no multiplayer in their upcoming Fantasy CRPG, Dragon Age. ;)
I think this is just one of the casualties of the 'Edition Wars'. I think most of us have taken for granted the general unity of D&D fandom over the past few years, and the sudden introduction of a schism of this magnitude is not something that people are taking easily. I also tend to think that the majority of gamers are, on the whole, people who accept the general notion that we all have different tastes, and some of us will prefer one system to the other. However, there is a minority on both sides that is of a more fanatical bent. Considering that emotions are still somewhat raw on all sides, it is unsurprising that it merely takes a spark to cause a renewed conflagration. The nature of the internet, and the tendency of posters to argue relentlessly (as if by doing so they could somehow 'win' and convince everyone of what they 'know' is right), merely adds fuel to this fire. In the end, I think it will simply be a matter of time before all of this settles down, into something more of a 'stalemate' in the 'Edition Wars'.
Unfortunately, by the time that came around, I was already too soured on the 'new' Realms. I think what really did it was feeling time and again that much of what was done was unnecessary, heavy-handed, and seemed to hold a great deal of disregard for the existing fans of the setting as it was. I kept finding myself thinking "Well, if they'd just moderated this or that one little thing, they would have accomplished all of the same ends, yet not left me/us feeling like I/we have had salt poured in our wounds." The seeming unwillingness to listen to suggestions made along these lines, or the impression given that the only views that were taken into consideration were those of the "Realms haters/detractors" only added to this. I may be entirely unfounded in that assessment, and it's just my own personal opinion. Mostly though, it wasn't even so much that I was soured on the new Realms, conceptually, but that I could not bring myself to overcome my distaste for the level of discontinuity (to borrow Mikaze's term) that the designers had introduced. If they could do this, then what stops them from doing the same again, etc...
I think the true point on this for me is that the deaths of Mystra's Chosen seem more intentional and less like collateral damage. Considering that they're scattered in 2 novels and an adventure (so far), it seems to me like WotC is building up to the more important Chosen (relatively speaking). Which worries me, since Laeral is having Khelben's children and Alustriel was due to step down as the ruler of the Silver Marches. Recipes for disaster in their own ways. Agreed - this is the same sense I get, both from what WoTC has printed in recent adventures/novels/etc, and from what the various designers have stated (both in terms of "Powerful NPCs" in general, and the Chosen of Mystra, specifically). The NPCs in general, and the Chosen of Mystra as a primary example of this, have been repeatedly cited as one of the 'major problems' with the Realms by several of the designers (notably Chris Perkins, among others). Hence, my 'Jihad on the Chosen' (of Mystra, should've been clarified) comment.
I don't need the gaming companies I buy product from to agree with me. But I also don't think I need them talking about why they dislike my game of choice. Especially when such talk is not necessary to sell you product. You have a lot of loyal fans who also play 4e. Why even touch on the subject at all? ...because people (specifically, 4E fans) asked them? They were asked to clarify exactly why they didn't want to go to 4E. They did, and are doing so, and have continued to clarify and explain when pressed about details. Would you prefer they instead snubbed their fans and refused to answer? The fact that they're this open with us, and take the time to explain themselves (especially when they don't have to) is one of the very things I love about Paizo.
The only reason I'm not a charter subscriber is the fact that the first issue coincided with my last months in Iraq. Once I was home and settled, I immediately subscribed and bought up all of my back issues I'd missed. :D Of course, this did have the benefit of letting me grab the coveted Karzoug-cover Pathfinder #1. >.>
In particular, I'm concerned with the posts on what has happened to the Forgotten Realms. I've always loved the FR setting, and to be honest I see a LOT of similarities between it and Paizo's setting - Golarion just happens to be more organized and cohesive overall, though FR has its own charm in its iconic characters and long history. Has the 4E re-imagining of the Realms really made it that unattractive? Whether or not the 4E Realms are unattractive is going to be a matter of opinion, and there are more than enough flame-bait threads on these forums and elsewhere over it. I'll try to present it from as neutral/objective a position as possible (I don't like the 4E version myself). One thing that can be taken as fact, is that a lot of prior Forgotten Realms fans have major issues with the changes, to varying degrees. I would ask yourself what it is you like about the Forgotten Realms, and then attempt to assess how much of that is still present in the materials being presented by the WoTC 4E design team. Can you still get a "Realmsian" feel to the adventures there? Probably. I certainly won't say that it has become "Eberronified" just because of the deaths of various gods and NPCs, or the introduction of new elements. For me, though, I find that I have lost faith in the designers of the 4E Realms. By this, I mean that I don't feel that I can trust them not to pull the rug out from under my feet again, and run rampant through a setting I love, chopping out things they find disagreeable, with questionable rationales backing them. Anyway, there's a lot more that could be said here, and probably deserves its own topic.
You may be right, the circumstances of the gaming community have seen some changes in the last eight to ten years. I always wondered at the "money-grubbing-WotC" argument, though. I have no problem giving my money to a company that continues to support my hobby and does a great job of it, because I know that they need money to continue to operate. As hobbies go, D&D is phenomenally inexpensive. Agreed. I think to some degree, WoTC (and TSR before it) are interested in making money - they are, after all, a business, but I don't think the caricature of a bunch of schemers plotting to separate gamers from their money is anything other than absurd. Personally, I had every intention of continuing my habit of picking up every major book released, and switching to 4th Edition, at first. It was only after seeing everything being done with the Forgotten Realms 4E, and being less than impressed with 4E, rules-wise, that I generally lost a lot of confidence in WotC's ability (and intention) to put out products that cater to my needs.
Building on what Brent said earlier, I think we're seeing a lot more of the arguments between editions, due to the fact that the internet is in heavy usage now, compared to the 1->2 and 2->3 changes, which were largely debated in the local gaming store. However, the source of the biggest resistance to 2nd and 3rd edition (and 3.5) was focused primarily around spending the money. "Why should I buy a new edition of this game, they just want to squeeze more money out of me!" As many people have noted, though, once people played the new edition, they were gradually won over. The release of 4th Edition has seemed a bit different to me, on a number of levels. For one, the radical redesign of one of the most popular campaign settings has put a lot of people up in arms. Secondly, though, the 4th edition rules are very different than any previous version of D&D. Lastly, there is a unique situation here in that companies are in a position to continue fully supporting 3.x, and even sort of take over its mantle, to a degree. This was in no way possible with 1st or 2nd edition.
This reminds me of the rules from a rather fun, if insanely complex, World War II wargame. The rules were constantly in flux, and new versions were being put out all the time. It got to the point where they were even published in a three-ring binder, with the intent that you could pop the rings open and replace pages as they were changed. In email discussions on the mailing list, we would refer to "RAW" (with version number), as well as "RAE" (more infrequently, once updates to the RAW were put out). Those acronyms referred to "Rules As Written" and "Rules as Erraticized." Anyway, that listing just reminded me strongly of this one game. It was (and is) a very good game, but this is definitely not something that would be a strong point for a game like D&D.
The key point here though, as Jal Dorak states, is the question of why someone might choose to purchase a non-D&D d20 Fantasy core rulebook. I agree that questions of quality are at the heart of it, as are similar things such as customer relations. I, too, remember what the RPG market was like prior to 3rd edition and the OGL. As Mike notes, D&D was not the market leader that it is now. It is my personal opinion that Wizards has taken much of that status for granted, and is liable to lose a great deal of that status due to a schism in the D&D community that (again, in my personal opinion) lies squarely at their feet. It is, admittedly, monday-morning quarterbacking, but I think far too much emphasis was put on trying to capture the "MMO player" demographic, and not nearly enough attention given to keeping the existing fan base within the RPG market happy. I think the whole matter could have been handled much better, and it saddens me that things have come to this, because I think the real losers here are the players on both sides of the split. The handling of the OGL vs GSL issue, I think, is an example of an overreaction to minor problems, which seems to have been the repeated case with 4th Edition and its associated materials (such as the Forgotten Realms setting). The above poster who noted the differences with the Traveller SRD seems to have a good handle on a way that Wizards could have addressed potential problems without jettisoning the concept altogether. Yet instead, we seem to get the baby tossed out with the bathwater.
I don't think I could have put my feelings any better than Todd has. Certainly, there are people that the new setting will appeal to, and that this setting has been written for - I'm not one of the latter, and as a result, not one of the former.
I'd kind of disagree. One thing about the Realms is that it's gods hardly enjoy a secure position. Many have fallen, been absorbed, or replaced. In a way, the way she went was appropriate and one that fulfilled her purpose. And it had nothing to do with the events that touched off the Spellplague. Gods have certainly come and gone in the Realms, yes. It's certainly a fair opinion to have that the ending to Eilistraee's story was a fair one. However, that doesn't seem to be the general consensus among the vast majority of fans of Eilistraeean Drow. Furthermore, while the Spellplague itself is unrelated to Eilistraee's death, both are part of the overall changes that are being made for the 4th Edition Realms. The designers stated that they felt there were too many gods, and that aspect made things too confusing for players. They're also retcon'ing a number of remaining gods, to the point that there will be no more separate gods for the various non-human races. For instance, Sehanine Moonbow will now just be another face/aspect of Selûne.
The notion that the term referred to a second, 'twin'/alternate world, is perhaps slightly better than just saying "Well, something crazy happened and continents from alternate universes got swapped around" without the added justification. It is, however, a fig leaf at best. There just were so many other ways they could have brought the Realms into 4th Edition, without having to resort to what I will diplomatically term 'Creative Shortcuts.'
Is this the first time that a divide like this has happened in our community? I know that when we went from 2E to 3E (and 3.X) there were those gamers who stayed with the older versions, but is this the first time where the divide went deeper into other publishers? I assume yes seeing as the OGL was born out of the change to 3E. We live in interesting times. The number of third-party publishers for 2nd edition/1st edition products was negligible. Those companies who did so had to be very careful in how they presented their products, because they couldn't use any trademarked materials. In large part, also, there were so many settings and sourcebooks available for 1st/2nd edition that there wasn't a lot of demand for alternate settings and adventures, anyway. Honestly, I think that WoTC is doing themselves a disservice by scrapping the OGL, and switching to a more restrictive GSL - even if they do loosen it somewhat. Do they really think they're going to lose a lot of money to third-party companies that print their own base rulebooks? I would estimate that 99.9% of people who would purchase a third party rulebook are ones that would have already bought the D&D core books. More importantly, those people who would skip the D&D core materials for a third party book, aren't going to change their minds and buy the core stuff because of this. I can think of two major reasons: 1) They're skipping the core D&D rulebooks, because they're diehard fans of this one particular setting (Conan, perhaps), and are only interested in playing that. 2) They're skipping the core D&D rulebooks because the product WoTC is putting out is (hypothetically) so drastically inferior that they want nothing to do with it. In the case of 2), you're going to be shedding market share regardless - and I would hope WoTC is confident enough in their product quality to discount this. ;) In the case of 1), it doesn't matter if the rules are 3.5/OGL, 4th, d6, SAGA, whatever - they're going to pick up the rules associated with the setting. Honestly, had it not been for the nature of the OGL/GSL matter, I'd probably be buying 4th edition rulebooks now, because Pathfinder et al would likely be converting to 4th Edition, and I'd stick with that. So, I'd buy the 4th Ed rules from WotC, setting books from Pathfinder, and probably subscribe to DDI for various articles, updates, and web enhancements, since there aren't major sourcebooks coming out the way there used to be. So... where is WotC losing money here? Sure, if Paizo printed a Pathfinder 4ed Rules book, I'd buy that - but only after getting the 4e books. They wouldn't be getting my money for the 4e Forgotten Realms campaign sourcebook, but that's an entirely unrelated issue, based around my dislike for what they've done to the setting. Instead, I'm not buying anything of theirs, and spending more money on Paizo products. Certainly Paizo is hurt by this situation too, as there are others who like 4e rules, and might pick up Golarion supplements if they were printed for 4e... so it's bad for the hobby in general.
Hopefully the campaign book will explain this pretty well. I'd hate for it to just be dropped in with little rhyme/reason.2. Several pieces of Toril exchanged places with pieces of Abeir, Toril's long lost companion world. (hence Abeir-Toril) I'm fairly certain it is a case of reinterpretation. That is, taking an old, rarely used detail, and saying "well, this is what it really meant all along", even though it never meant anything before. Not necessarily a 'bad' thing, per se, but it certainly was not a preexisting part of the FR universe.
I think she might be referring to the difference in lifespans under the original editions (where elven lifespans were in the one to two millenia range) versus later editions. 2nd edition, if I recall, reduced it to somewhere in the 350-700 range, but that was itself left somewhat nebulous (they didn't actually 'die', they just left to go elsewhere, or somesuch). Anyway, we do know for a fact that Drizzt survives - the prologue and end of the latest novel, the Orc King, are written by Drizzt after the 100 year time skip.
If that rumor dies, something else will take it's place. Since it was announced, people are going to continue to invent reasons not to like 4E. Well, I could probably hazard a guess as to one of the reasons people are so busy looking for parallels and borrowed ideas from Warcraft - because the designers themselves admitted they did. :P Now, whether or not this is a good or a bad thing is entirely a matter of opinion, just the way that we can argue ad nauseam over the historical example of hobbits->halflings, or any other things that D&D has borrowed in the past from a variety of sources. We're not going to change each others' minds, and it's likely missing the point as to why a number of people really dislike 4th Edition. I think the real reason why many D&D fans are unsettled/upset isn't so much because of the notion that ideas are being borrowed from World of Warcraft. Rather, I think it's because of the general feeling that WotC is paying less attention to the interests of the existing base, and focusing more on trying to woo the more stereotypical/theoretical WoW player, to the detriment of the existing fan base. So where do they (I/we) get that impression? I can't speak for everyone, but I got it from a combination of comments made by the designers, particularly regarding the way they made so many sweeping changes to existing lore, both in the Core Game, and to the Forgotten Realms in particular, along with the general (different) feel that the game now has, that it did not in previous editions. As one of the employees at my local gaming store said when I asked him his opinion on 4th Edition, "It's a good game, but it doesn't feel like D&D."
Now mind given that that 4e is set a century in the future, there's nothing to prevent Salvatore and company from unleashing a new set of books in the "present" world unless WOTC specifically enjoins them from doing so. Not that this would be a major problem for Salvatore, after all what's a century to a drow? This is perhaps less of a problem for R.A. Salvatore, and perhaps moreso for others, whose pre-existing characters are not so long-lived. Furthermore, I tend to suspect that both Mr. Salvatore and Ed Greenwood have sufficient clout to pretty much write whatever they please, in whatever era they please, much the way that Ed Greenwood's current trilogy is set in 1350s Cormyr, detailing what would be historical matters even for the 2nd and 3rd edition settings. I suspect other novelists would likely not have this sort of leverage, and would be much more likely to be given topics to write on, to promote the new setting, rather continue in the 'old', those existing trilogies that are currently 'bridging the gap' notwithstanding. That being said, I'm sort of glad that two of my (remaining, since they killed so many others off) favorite characters of late are long-lived enough that it's not an issue - elf (Fox-in-Twilight) and alu-fiend (Aliisza). Of course, having said that, they'll both probably get killed off in the coming months. ;)
Overall, this may sound parallel, but in practice perhaps less so. However, there are certainly examples of borrowed ideas (Hunter's Mark to Hunter's Quarry), for example. Overall, the feel of the game just seemed more akin to WoW to me, overall, and that's what concerned me more. Heh gotta say, WoW has 10 million subscribers. I'd be tempted to borrow from 'em too. Our hobby could thrive a lot by bringing in a lotta new blood. It's tempting to look at it in those terms. However, cheap knock-offs aren't going to be the way to do it, whether you're a competing MMO, or a tabletop RPG. In something like this, you have pretty much two different avenues you can use - "different" and "better". Personally, I tend to think that it's more profitable to push the 'different' aspect than it is the 'better' one. WoW has done a lot of things right, and for the scale it's on, and the audience it's selling to, it's going to be hard to outdo that. That's not going to stop people from trying, but as seen with most of the MMO offerings currently, it's not going well for them. I tend to think that WotC attempting to aim at the MMO crowd, while disregarding the interests of its current fan-base, is probably going to fall pretty short.
I'm an old FR fan, and I'm certainly interested in Golarion. That doesn't mean I don't like the old FR stuff, by any means, and I may still play/run games set there - after all, I do have all those old books. However, the money that I used to spend on FR, and would have spent on FR products that interested me, is instead going to Pathfinder/Golarion stuff instead.
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