Today I finally realized where my dissatisfaction with 4E is coming from.
It's not the rules changes. Looked at objectively (from a standpoint of 3.5 not existing), a lot of what I've seen points to 4E being a really great roleplaying system. A lot of work is going into addressing common problem areas that have been in the game for ages (some of which I'd like to see improved, others I think don't place much importance on personally).
It's not the flavor changes. Some things in the old canon are kind of silly, and it looks like a lot of the changes they've made are changes I've been slowly moving towards for years. Plus, heck. Changing fluff is easy.
I realized what was up when I read this on WotC's OGL FAQ page:
"Innovation happens at the edges of the envelope, rather than at the core. Changes to the core require a general consensus from large numbers of people to be successful, otherwise they'll just be ignored or "fixed" to maximize compatibility.
In fact, one of the biggest groups affected by this force will be the Wizards of the Coast tabletop RPG Research & Development team. When the time comes to make a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons, they'll have to make a very persuasive case to the market to adopt any changes to the core rules they want to make!"
It's not R&D's job to make that case. It's Marketing's job to make that case. And they dropped the freaking ball. When 2E switched to 3E, care was made to emphasize the similarities as much as the changes. This time the emphasis is on the changes. I've been following things very closely, and I was suprised as heck to see the word "Bigby" still attached to one of the spells.
Also, the information wasn't doled out in hidden areas requiring registration, it was done in the pages of Dragon magazine. To get your "old" content you had to also get the "new" content.
Doubtless someone in WotC's marketing department thinks that the people complaining loudly are just making noise (good for sales). But it's hurting brand confidence in the serious hardcore consumers and pitting one group against another in the same market. That's bad. That loses hardcore consumers, which are costly to replace. *Keeping* your hardcore following is comparatively easy: make them FEEL like you know what they want, and that you're going to keep giving it to them.
I haven't been made to feel like Wizards knows or cares what gamers want lately. The development team says they know, and I believe them, but the presentation's been so bad it's taken me ages to believe them. If the emphasis had been on "you will still be able to play the game the way you like to play it, in spirit if not in exact mechanics" rather than "we're making these changes for your own good" I would have been championing 4E from the beginning as I did 3E.
And it doesn't seem like they've changed tracks at all; I still hear "You will play the game in the settings we provide, with the rules we provide" unless I look directly at the actual changes.
You might be one of the many people who feel like 4E has been presented perfectly: everything said and done has just made you want to buy the product more. And that's fine. But that fact that so many people are so emotionally distraught over it should still indicate a fubar. You can't please everyone, but if 1/4-1/2 of the vocal consumers are going batcrap crazy, something's wrong.
The reason I like Paizo so much is that for the last two years they've shown that they care about their consumers. I didn't use every article in Dragon, and I didn't like every adventure in Dungeon. Heck, I'm just stealing bits out of Pathfinder until I have all the adventure path in front of me. But overall everything they do makes me feel like I'm being listened to, even though I've never actually said much until now.
If the people higher up the chain at WotC would or had taken a good hard look at that kind of customer relationship and how to foster it (it exists with many other 3rd party companies), rather than relying on brand loyalty, things might be very different. Including their bottom line.
Again, this isn't an anti-4E rant, and it's not a pro-4E rant. I respect both groups' opinions, and why shouldn't I as a fellow gamer? We're all just trying to have fun in the ways we like best. I'm just getting something off my chest, so sorry if this has shown up several times before.