SSquirrel's page

Whoo?

No it's [Ric Flair]WOO![/Ric Flair] :)

Just for my own edification - Is it true that the Book of Experimental Might I & II are not available for physical purchase? They are PDF or Print on Demand only?

I'd like to buy them, but only if I can buy a phsyical product.

Print on demand prints and ships to you just like if you would order it from Amazon. Sadly he has decided against a Complete BoXM sadly, but sounds like less than 10% of his sales would have gone that route so it's reasonable to not do the extra fiddling to get it into one book after the fact.

Ah ah, no wandering about slandering me squirrel. Don't like my analogies, go post your own. (Hi all, I am mxyzplk on various other boards.)

Actually slander is spoken, libel is print. Conveniently, that's both the truth and a quote of the first Spider Man movie ;) It isn't libel either, someone in the other thread linked to where you submitted that article on slashdot. Oops!

The person who is quoted in that slashdot article had posted to the slashdot gaming area and apparently got moved to the front page. His claims " WotC has said" are all basically false as no direct confirmation of pretty much any of that exists at this time. I have a post on that thread (#263 I think, I'm SSquirrel there too) that has the various turning points in commentary between when Orcus made his initial statement of his current understanding, Rouse post #99 and Linae posting another clarification as well.

ENWorld has drafted a long list of 18 questions (mostly w/subquestions) and dropped them to Scott to get answered. This set of answers should cover all the ins and outs of things as they have been discussed in that monster thread.

I really think it's terrible that the article made it to slashdot w/o being labeled as rumor. I should also mentioned that the poster who did that has the same name on ENWorld and was booted out the thread this morning for excessive continual rudeness. Definitely appears to be some sour grapes involved here. Also his analogy is terrible. A more accurate analogy would be saying that if you produce software for Vista you cannot produce software for XP anymore. Hasbro's control fo WotC is also labeled "(a recent development likely not unrelated to this change of heart)". Of course, Hasbro owned WotC prior to 3E even being released, so not that recent.

The most recent post from Scott on that thread has him making clarifying posts tomorrow. Much sooner than the Friday after this Friday.

I was under the consideration that Pathfinder is to improve on 3.5, not make cosmetic changes just so they can say, "look at me,I'm different."

Funny that seemed to be the guiding principle of many changes in 3.5, come up w/a bunch of changes so it will look more like something worth your $90 to rebuy the 3 core books. That said I'm nto a fan of change for the sake of change, just look at how awful it has turned out for most of the new World of Darkness books from White Wolf. Altho Changeling is excellent, I was pleasantly shocked.

I realized then that this was nothing more than a money grab by WotC.

The Conversion from 3.0 to 3.5 which was necessary showed the suits one thing that the market would accept new core rule books after 4 years. Since core rule books make them the most money why wait.

How precisely was 3.5 not a money grab? What was so super broken about 3.0 compared to 3.5? Considering I played in 3.5 games w/my 3E PHB and never really had any problems, I've never really seen huge changes. Oh, whoo, Power Attack is 2:1 instead, bards and rangers are a bit better, etc. WotC had planned a 3.5 from the beginning, but it was the bean counters who advanced their plans for it by 2 years. ie, "we need money NOW" aka money grab. I believe Monte had an article about just that on his website around the 3.5 launch. Not to mention pulling 3.5 out of their ass w/o warning their 3rd party companies at all, which caused a lot of financial problems for many companies and several went under.

Did the inital splats like Sword & Fist suck? Sure. Was the new Complete series better? Yeah. Too bad large swaths of the material was originally in S&F and such before and just slightly updated in classic money grab mode.

It has now been 9 years since 3E came out and I never bought any of the 3.5 so I don't personally see a problem w/a new edition coming out.

Also Weylin, I don't think Eberron will be destroyed. Remember that fans protested when they discussed moving the timeline forward by only 2 years and then recanted and aren't touching the timeline. So really Eberron will be updating races and classes to 4E stats, combining info from some other books into the new core book and planning how to release the other material plus new stuff.

EDIT:Monte had a review of 3.5 here: http://www.montecook.com/arch_review26.html

Small excerpt to follow:

"Even before 3.0 went to the printer, the business team overseeing D&D was talking about 3.5. Not surprisingly, most of the designers -- particularly the actual 3.0 team (Jonathan Tweet, Skip Williams, and I) thought this was a poor idea. Also not surprisingly, our concerns were not enough to affect the plan. The idea, they assured us, was to make a revised edition that was nothing but a cleanup of any errata that might have been found after the book's release, a clarification of issues that seemed to confuse large numbers of players, and, most likely, all new art. It was slated to come out in 2004 or 2005, to give a boost to sales at a point where -- judging historically from the sales trends of previous editions -- they probably would be slumping a bit. It wasn't to replace everyone's books, and it wouldn't raise any compatibility or conversion issues.

*SNIP*

So, one has to surmise that the new business team determined that sales were slumping slightly earlier than predicted and needed 3.5 to come out earlier."

voila, money grab.

It's the "points of light" thing. I don't like Wizards telling me what my game is, and what it's supposed to be about.

Core setting gets ignored all the time, look at Greyhawk.

Why is everyone a Hero?

It's a game of heroic fantasy and adventurers are tougher and more capable than normal people, which makes sense in my book. Remember how strongly the core books have discouraged players being evil in past versions, b/c it was supposed to be a game about playing the good guys.

Why are all fighters Defenders? Why are you telling me what my character is for?

Roles have always existed in D&D, in fact previous editions is was even more blatantly required to have X class to gain Y ability for the group. Much less so now.

Why is it all highly combat oriented?

Well the 1E PHB had nothing BUT combat until one of the later 1E books came out. 2E had a proficiency system that was largely ported from said book and really wasn't that good ("What do you mean every Dex14 person in the world does this skill as well as I do?!") 3E improved the skill system greatly, but when has the core of D&D not been killing stuff and taking its loot?

And where are my Gnomes?

Burning in a special place reserved for Gnomes ;)

Maybe I'm weird, but much like Arcana Evolved having entirely new races and classes, I view the new race/class mix as an opportunity to try something new. We'll see how things are in under 2 months.

But this is not enough! Anyone interested in a class-action lawsuit against WOTC? IMHO, this is a monopolistic move that should be stopped in court!

Uhm, a class action lawsuit claiming a monopoly would be thrown out. Nothing is stopping anyone from making roleplaying games that don't utilize WotC's IP and PI. There could maybe be a lawsuit challenging the ability of the GSL to block companies from producing OGL material as well, but what company has the cash to actually spend long in court against WotC/Hasbro on this one?

Paizo, I think, should stick with Pathfinder/3.P, because I'm pretty sure that this new GSL will be tailored to make it clear that what Wizards wants is a gaggle of pliant module-writing farms.

Or maybe more than just modules. According to the below you could maybe produce a 4th Ed version of Arcana Evolved, so long as you pointed to the 4E PHB for character gen. You could say none of the core races and classes are eligible and use all your new races, but for the XP charts and rules for chargen, off to the 4E PHB. Not the complete system books they are today, but not ruling out variety completely.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=15650118&postcount=44

WotC_ScottR

Default Re: WotC shows the finger to Paizo
Quote:
Originally Posted by glimeral:
Are we able to create (and publish) new character classes, races, monsters, feats, and powers or will these be exclusive for wizards products only?

I am somewhat confused as to whether creating a new character class would constitute an infringement on the (applying XP) clause.

Then again, if the PHB excerpt is any indication.... All characters gain certain advancements at certain levels (Feats, Encounter/Daily/Utility Powers, etc).

If this is the case, when designing a new class it would be a simple measure of creating class features, and powers for the given levels (as per the powers by level table), and direct players to the PHB for rules regarding power acquisition, etc.
Generally speaking it should not be a problem. This was done a lot under the old d20 STL.[end glimeral quote]

Saying your new Glimeral class gets a +5 to all it's base stats is different than actual char creation offered in the PHB for character creation. As long as it takes a PHB to make a char we are cool.

Ok, thanks for the clarification. I don't know enough about licence law to know if a clause could be written basically agreeing not to produce OGL material as a permanent legally binding situation.

Is such a thing possible?

Also, does being in some kind of partnership with Necromancer games give you any ability to put out both kinds of material?

I believe it was posted either here or on ENWorld that Paizo producing 3.x and Necromancer producing 4E material would be fair game as they are 2 different companies producing materials, one is merely the publisher of the other.

Makes me kind of wonder though... Is WotC going to update D20 Modern then? Or, are they going to let that lapse along with the rest of the 3.5 books... *ponders*

No idea, I can only digest what I read. d20 Modern hasn't had very much done with it in awhile and they haven't peeped about any 4E absed version that I've seen.

Hmm, I could have SWORN I saw a mention of a podcast and more information about all this tomorrow oevr on ENWorld, but now I can't find the post. With luck we'll get some better explanations of what kind fo thinsg we can expect using both GSLs (4E D&D and d20)

I have a feeling we're going to see a VERY limited SRD. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I'm getting the SRD for 4E is going to be very small. So small in fact that nothing in it can be used to create an alternative PHB or a different RPG using the rules.

That's funny, I read the same thing and saw them saying that the 4E D&D GSL will govern all the books people make that have a text like was found on all d20 logo branded products:(paraphrasing) "Please refer to the 4th Edition Player's Handbook for character creation and experience". The d20 GSL is what the old OGL was, except it has a non-fantasy requirement. So someone could use the d20 GSL to make something like Mutant's & Masterminds, but not to make Arcana Evolved. They have already previously said that variant PHBs were something that would not be acceptable under the new GSL method.

A PDF of Ptolus? Reading the hard copy was difficult enough, and I don't mean from a readability standpoint. You don't realize just how HUGE Ptolus is until you actually try to digest it all.

Yeah I pre-ordered The Brick(tm) thru Monte's site and it really is as insanely big (and awesome) as people say. I can't very well suggest people go look for it locally tho. Unless they have a lucky gamestore who still has a copy, then I say buy it as quick as you can, worth every penny.

But...but... I have a day off on Friday. A three-day weekend! If I don't have Release 2 to read, whatever will I do?

Pick up a pdf of Ptolus. Plenty to read ;)

I hope it has monster conversions in it. My groups players have just been completely decimating all encounters with the new classes. The only things that can stand up to them are npcs who are classed with pathfinder levels, and those only last 2 rounds instead of 1. its ridiculous.

This is exactly the problem many of us were worried about having happen w/the newly tweaked classes. Either have to tweak all the npcs to PF classes or figure out how many extra bad guys make things equal for each fight

As I said in another thread, look at all the examples in the Lord of the Rings and other Tolkien books of mental commands and conversations, tests of mental power that read like the basis for the psychic combat rules of D&D. people speaking w/animals, etc. Sounds like psionics to me, but how can that be? It's in fantasy! Curious.. :)

Psionics: not strictly sci-fi or fantasy.

All Barbarian rages are not created equal. Some abilities are just plain more powerful than others. Having the point system allows more granularity in the strength of each point of rage.

I think that if it was total # of rounds per day instead that would actually cause more griping b/c instead of "Ok I used my Rage to run really fast, catch the guy and drive my axe thru his skull, crossing off 3 more Rage points" it could easily become "Bill, how many rounds were you raging?" "Uhm...raged after surprise round...2 rounds of combat w/taht guy but I marked one of those off already then I got distracted...5 rounds all told. No wait 6, minus the one I already marked off.." :)

I also don't think the anime thing is a very good arguement. Where did anime get it? Martial arts? How much longer have the martial arts been around than anime? Exactly. Calling some sword move Crane Cleans Beak or something for a sword move where you lift the sword over your head, point downward and stab down into their body at an angle could be descriptive as heck. Or maybe it's just a catchy thing, who knows. I'm all for more interesting names. I don't mind names like Lightning Reflexes as they're easy to figure out, but I'm from that generation raised watching likes like the Karate Kid and that crane kick was awesome ;)

Psi Warrior felt more like a Monk to me b/c the Monk is a heavily eastern influenced character archetype and the Psi feats had all kinds of effects that are right off the screen from asian film, running up walls, crazy leaps, etc. Much more monklike. I actually combined the 2 classes into a class w/a few more of the Psi Warriors feats, a melee progression between the 2 classes and access to psionic feats.

I actually really like Monte's solution to Psionics in Arcana Evolved. Just make it a template feat and if you have it, you can choose that spells you cast are done psionically(sp?). A Swordmage kind of character or a Psionic character would be my preference. I've never understood the "get yr sci-fi out of my fantasy" about Psionics, I mean we have several examples in Lord of the Rings of mental battles and such that seem to be perfect ways to show Psionics in fantasy. And that's just one example ;)

And I dare say you're all wrong - it always seemed one of the most insulting things about the fighter was its uselessness out of combat, more than its relative suckiness in it. To be precise, both in and out of combat, all classes should be equally useful read: "preferrable", not "able to help carrying stuff" or anything else a commoner could do about as well).

Probably a lucky thing that 4E has skills work the way they do so it is no longer a case as you get higher in level that only the specialist has a shot in hell of being useful.

Disagree. If all I want is combat I can play "HackMaster," or better yet get out a deck of cards and play "War" ... or better still find an old Atari and play "Space Invaders," or a computer to play "Doom." D&D can involve a lot of stuff in addition to the combat; that's its strength as a game. I'd really hate to see that gimped.

No one has suggested that the game be pure hack and slash, it's just been pointed out that combat is typically where more loopholes are found and thus should be vetted more carefully. In a typical D&D game, combat is the resolution method for many things and is thus used more than the skill system. There are games people run that hardly ever have a combat and are mostly Diplomacy and such, but those aren't what I would consider typical either ;) Remember 4E has a social conflict system that isnt' being previewed at all, we won't see it until we get the core books.

I can tell you this, I have 3 local gaming stores, 1 used book store. The book store has no pre-3e stuff. 2 of the local gaming stores have used pre-3e stuff. ALL of the pre-3e stuff is in just as bad, if not worse condition then my own collection.

It doesn't make sense to replace a book that's falling apart with another book that's falling apart.

See here in Louisville we have 3 gaming stores, I know of at least 2 Half-Price Books, another really good used book/cd store and probably more I haven't seen. In Iowa City where I used to live, there were 3 gaming stores in a 30 minute radius (till they all closed w/in 4 months of each other) and now only 1 pure gaming store and 1 store that has been there the whole 10 years I was there and has great gaming selection but is more about model cars and things like that. There were 2 or 3 used book stores and they all had gaming stuff too.

Iowa City was reasonably small, but had a large college that tripled the town population when school was in session. Louisville is bigger yet. I grew up in a town of 9000 w/one small family owned bookstore that carried a few products and later a comic store that sold gaming. Cincy or Lexington was it for gaming and there were no used book stores.

All of my books are in pretty nice condition, even while being used heavily, b/c I've always been pretty careful w/stuff like that. I don't let my wife dog-ear my novels either ;) All of the stores in my area that have gaming product have it in pretty darn good condition b/c books in bad shape don't sell. I can easily go pick up 10 3.5 PHBs in a day if I want and they'll all be probably 7s or 8s on a 10 scale.

People on Monte's boards already have a thread where people post if their game store has a copy of Ptolus available, but Ptolus was always much more rare. Down the line if people really want a copy of the book and ebay has nothing, something similar will happen. Or maybe Pathfinder will end up close enough that people who have their PHB die on them will just buy it. Depends how close to core things end up I suppose.

The focus is on combat b/c combat is typically (key word) where most abuse can be found. It is generally less of a big deal if someone is about to super boost one skill to unreal levels earlier than it would be for someone to figure out a way to have a +10 BAB at level 3. (random number I picked)

Class stacking bonuses seem to be the other big issue w/the 3.5 design, esp w/some of the prestige classes released over the years.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=82858&highlight=Dr+Spunj%27s+cl assless

is an interesting thread turning 3.5 into a classless system. It utilized the Arcana Evolved magic system to rebalance out magic and make it so there were only 2 spell progressions, but they found that a fighter was already behind the curve as written in 3.5, esp compared to some classes. This was solved by allowing a fighter a bonus feat EVERY level. It actually worked out well too.

I know not everyone lives in a town w/a used book store, but every used book store I've been in in the last 10 years has some amount of roleplaying product and the current and most recent before that edition of D&D always have at least a couple of copies. I don't forsee obtaining a 3.5 core book for a LONG time.

No, I got your point. The point you ignored is that we aren't talking about that part of the SDLC - that your point is irrelevant because its about an entirely different part of the SDLC for an entirely different type of product.
Its like if I said "peizoelectricity plays a part in the mending of bones" and you replied "yeah, well blood has copper in it". Its a total non sequitor.

How so? They're asking for feedback. If this was phone based, they would (I would hope) have it setup to go to specific channels for more accuracy. Feedback is feedback and being completely off topic in a thread trying to hijack it doesn't help anyone, which is what yellowdingo was doing.

In other words, if this was a thread complaining about the lack of a detailed economic system and yellowdingo was posting his economics information in response, that would be great. But this was a thread about people ignoring everything and posting what they want regardless of topicality or pointing to where in the alpha their feedback is addressing.

I think I'm about done w/these boards.

Customers calling a company and getting a VRU typically occurs later in the SDLC then PRPG is at this time.

You ignored the point which is that a focused setup for responses is more valuable than people randomly throwing their crap into threads that have nothing to do with what they are talking about.

No, no its not. Not really.
What this thread is doing is bringing out a problem - that its taking too long to review all the responses that are being generated.
There are several solutions to that problem - only one of which is trying to force all posters to stick to what's 'on topic' (however 'on topic' is defined).
Now, personally, I think expecting a bunch of anonymous fan boy posters to start behaving according to some set of guidelines just because someone else said they should - well, I don't think that's a solution with much hope for success. I think we need a different solution.

This thread was not asking people to post more of their ideas, which is what yellowdingo is doing. If he loves his economic ideas so much, make another topic and don't pollute other discussion. Really, this isnt' rocket science here.

When the guidelines have been set by Paizo, sure I expect them to follow them. It's perfectly fine to have a more structured environment for feedback, esp if you want your feedback heard. Why do you think you have to go thru phone VRUs when you call a company? They want to get your question/problem to the most specific line so you don't have your problem about your internet service end up at billing, where they will just have to transfer you again.

[edit] A quick check of my error logs doesn't show an exception being thrown for you. When you made your post did you get tossed back to the front page of paizo.com?

I don't recall that happening, it just came back to this page and then when I refreshed a bit later my post wasn't showing. I made the post at 10:33PM yesterday.

Unrelated to this thread, but these boards could really use a report option for people trying to hijack threads.

SSquirrel wrote:

Yellowdingo, why are you posting your suggestions in this thread? Besides, the economy information is not something I would worry about for alpha material.

I would have said it was contrary...if We are going to comment on what is wrong, then we should feel free to comment on what is missing.

Yes but this thread is a thread condemning what you are doing. These boards have no report option either.

Yellowdingo, why are you posting your suggestions in this thread? Besides, the economy information is not something I would worry about for alpha material.

SSquirrel wrote:

Hey nice job deleting my post. I just pointed out that sometimes things happen at the same time and even if you don't intentionally do so, it could be viewed that you did.

I can still see your post... I suspect the messageboard had a temporary fit or something.

Gary has apparently covered this situation just below this post. Hopefully the other post shows sometime ;)

Hey nice job deleting my post. I just pointed out that sometimes things happen at the same time and even if you don't intentionally do so, it could be viewed that you did.

Well, we don't intend to "backwards engineer" 4e into our system, so I'm not worried about it.

Just b/c you don't intend to doesn't mean that it wouldn't happen anyway, even unintentionally. Plenty of talk can be found about how many times design from one company is very similar to design of another company, just b/c similar solutions present themselves. This happens in real life w/evolution like when you had humans evolve at basically the same point in time in completely different areas.

Plus, you have fans of Pathfinder loudly professing in various parts of the net that that is what is going to get done and/or many of the suggestions to enhance the current alpha could be construed as just this.

Like I said, I'm not trying to say you guys are planning this at all, just that that impression can and does get made.

You are either none other than secret squirrel himself or an SS officer named Quirrel. One way or another, we'll unmask you.

Actually it's short for Slappy Squirrel. Same name I've used on an old telnet based BBS (ISCABBS for the curious) since 1995. All the other Animaniacs character names I liked had been taken and I figured no guy in his right mind would wanna be Slappy. It wasn't taken and it's stuck ever since ;)

The point the OP is trying to make is that if Paizo would take a few minutes to structure the boards a little differently, trying to focus suggestions/stuff left out of the current alpha to one forum, commentary on things actually in the alpha to another, it could help funnel things more productively. They can't stop people from posting in the wrong forums (altho more active moderation can shuffle things to the proper forum), but if the structure is a bit clearer to everyone maybe things would go a bit more smoothly and lead to less wasted time when trying to look for important bits.

They were developed in an OGL friendly era of WotC, and during a time when the current version of D&D fell within the license of the OGL. I'm not suggesting they would be sued for violating the terms of the OGL; I'm worried they would be sued for mimicing concepts designed for the new, non-OGL D&D system.

I think this is the larger concern. To have the d20 logo on a product, you are required to refer customers back to the PHB for character gen and XP, which the OGL license does not. thus the products in question were perfectly within the bounds of the license to publish their own XP charts and character gen info.

The question of backwards engineering 4E material to work in a 3E world is the tricky part and I have no idea how things will go in that realm.

How many of these Realm shaking changes have been published in the game supplements recently? Most of the Realms supplements have just been detailing more areas and fleshing out villains. The novels enter FR canon when published it seems, but it is mostly the new edition books that sum all those things up. The Grand History of the Realms was produced to sum everything up and catch people up to where things were. So people who want to continue in the 3.X Realms can do so and not have to buy 200 novels.

I'm not buying anything being said to me, these are just my stated opinions based on the things I have seen in my own groups and acquaintances. Sloppy continuity is always a bad thing, but hey, they blew up the Realms and it's 100 years later so no need to worry about all that if you make the move to the 4E Realms ;)

You might do well to remember that "the kid that's playing WoW right now" could well be a future table top role-player. Just b/c someone starts their fantasy interest in a computer game does not restrict them from getting into D&D.

Now what they did to the Realms . . . that's a whole other issue.

The Realms haven't had a really significant shakeup in quite awhile. Maybe I'm just a lil too chaotic in my own life, but I was also tired of people being like "Oh we're at Bob's Tavern on the corner of the market in waterdeep. That means that 2 blocks over and 3 stores down is the apothecary blah blah". New stuff is scary to a lot of people, but I'm an optimistic person and am approaching from the angle of freeing me of all the past and allowing me to look forward to the future of the game. I guess the same applies to 4E. If it sucks I have other game systems and d20 variants to enjoy plus several I haven't ever picked up but have always wanted to.

Well, for one thing, there won't be any more "one ups" from official WOTC products. No more new classes that get to do everything that the old classes can do "and more." In a way, since much of d20 is over and done, Pathfinder can look back at the whole and make their decisions based on this.

I voted w/my dollars and ignored a lot of product (WotC or 3rd party* that didn't feel like it was properly balanced or just blew all other related options out of the water. If I wanted that, I would play more RIFTS ;)

d20 isn't over and done tho, 4E is still solidly d20 at the core. Is the 3.x stage of things largely over from their publishing viewpoint? Sure.

A patch over a band aid doesn't solve a problem, it just keeps the infected puss from showing. I'd rather see changes at the root of the system than exterior changes, but that might just mean that PRPG was never a product remotely aimed my way. I know a lot of people who disliked Arcana Unearthed/Evolved b/c they felt it was too different. The differences were what I loved. Yes it's still based on a d20 core and has some of the underlying flaws, but many of the problems I had w/D&D were resolved.

I would like to see Paizo able to figure out how to solve the design problems of 3.X while still maintaining reasonable compatibility, but I don't know that that is possible.

I think the power creep is, as the designer says, make it more attractive to stick with the core classes in the long run, and to maintain balance/backwards compatability with the more recent WotC releases which had gotten significantly more powerful than the original PHB core rules. I stopped buying published stuff by Wizards a couple of years ago, because I thought things in their complete series and races series were growing significantly more powerful than what was found in the SRD.

The question becomes how are all the adventures developed? Are most adventures out there designed to be pretty much in line with the CR system in the DMG or are they taking into account all these extra-curricular classes? Most that I've looked at feel closer to the CR system, meaning some groups may already be blowing thru encounters more easily than they should. I see people whose groups allow anything and everything that can be found in a d20 book and some who say WoTC only or even just core only.

Granted, Paizo can't account for which books people play with, but I question how useful the re-balance ends up being. I also see no evidence of the lessening of the christmas tree or several other key flaws of 3.X that get listed rather frequently.

Then they announced 4e, and closed the doors to outside sources. I know we play an evolving game, but that's just rude. Of course, I'll still participate. I like collecting all the editions, but when my friend told me what our good pals at Paizo were doing with the PRPG, I felt relieved. Now that I've read the Alpha 1 PDF, I have to have more!

Actually that isn't accurate. The GSL sounds to be more closed than the OGL (specifically alternate PHB books like Arcana Evolved sound like they've been ruled out), but they have yet to say that there will be no GSL. To date, things are delayed farther than intended, but no definitive answer exists.

The class changes look fine, I just question the whole backwards compatibility and wonder how much extra work to use 3.5 modules w/PRPG books we will see in the end. I do like the picture of the Rogue doubling as a pin cushion tho ;)

*DISCLAIMER:Yes I know it's an alpha and they're pushing harder to scale back, but I can only go w/the information I am shown*

If Paizo really was aiming for backwards compatibility and the worry was just that the 3.5 books would be OOP eventually, then they would just reprint the 3.5 SRD, add campaign specific information and that would allow full compatibility w/the books people have.

Instead, we are seeing 3.5+significant power creep. I don't see how telling people it's all being done to be able to keep using everything when to use any 3.5 adventures the DM will need to tweak all the opponents to make them stand up to the new version of the classes or else risk the players just breezing thru everything.

Yes it's important for the game to advance, but WotC already has that all covered w/4E. The farther you take the Pathfinder RPG from standard 3.5, the more work that is needed to run anything that doesn't come directly from Paizo or any company producing Pathfinder material.