I hope they are thinking of the compatability issues while building these things then.I am all for progress, but windows only media is not progress."Platform compatability? Starting with PC, because there are more."
To Quote from WotC 4e FAQ:
"This question was asked in the seminar I was at and, to the chagrin of the designers, Mac will not be supported for the on-line gaming table and character generator/visualizer. I believe it was Bill Slavicsek who siad "while you Mac guys are vocal, our research indicates that there are only three of you." Which got rumblings from more than half the people."
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(...)
I'm aware that many Paizo customers will not be converting to 4e. Honestly, before I heard some of the things I've heard at this show, I wasn't sure I wanted to convert either. So I sympathize.Pathfinder currently plans to support officially sanctioned conversions for Castles & Crusades and True 20, so assuming we DO convert, I suspect it is very likely that we (or some affiliated partner) will provide 3.5 conversion guidelines.
Or we might stick with 3.5. We haven't seen the rules yet, and can't make the decision until we do.
One thing I can say for sure: As a gamer I would be a lot happier with a game that doesn't require two hours of prep-time for four hours of play. I have heard that the new system addresses this problem, and that strikes me as excellent.
If Wizards of the Coast can streamline the rules without robbing the game of its variety and complexity, I will be very impressed.
So far, I am optimistic.
--Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing, LLC
I feel very similarly.
And yet there are two more things on my mind:1. Despite all complaining the majority will convert (it was the same thing with 3.0).
2. I just moved to a different country, will have to look for new D&D players around. After may 2008 most new candidates will play 4e whether I like the new rule set or not.
Existing groups can keep on playing 3.5e endlessly. DMs looking for new players (like me) will have to adapt to the new edition anyway.
For these and the above mentioned reasons I am also optimistic that 4e will keep the promises made. I wouldn't like to see a D&D incarnation with the complexity of a video game. And if WotC fails to keep their promises and you decide in favour of 3.5, I'd see the d20 industry being completely fragmented, each company supporting a different D&D offspring: Hackmaster, OD&D, OSRIC, True20, Arcana Evolved, OGL 3.5, OGL 4.0 to name a few...
Greetings from Austria,
Günther
Official conversion for C&C and True20 are more exciting news to me than the announcement of 4th edition.Me, too; I don't care about 4E at all. However, I run C&C and OD&D(1974), so news of a C&C conversion is great. I hadn't intended to buy Pathfinder, but a C&C conversion may just hook me.
I've already subscribed to and am looking forward to Pathfinder, now hearing a C&C conversion will come about just makes it all the better. Nice work Paizo, this is big step in keeping me as a loyal customer for years to come.
When will the last issue of "Curse of the Crimson Throne" be released?
Thanks!
I have a feeling that they will stick to 3.5, since 4.0 will be a WotC exclusive. ~sighs~ sorry.
Not true. WoTC has already said there will be a 4e SRD and they are pre-releasing it to certain publishing companies.
I hope they are thinking of the compatability issues while building these things then.I am all for progress, but windows only media is not progress."Platform compatability? Starting with PC, because there are more."
To Quote from WotC 4e FAQ:
"This question was asked in the seminar I was at and, to the chagrin of the designers, Mac will not be supported for the on-line gaming table and character generator/visualizer. I believe it was Bill Slavicsek who siad "while you Mac guys are vocal, our research indicates that there are only three of you." Which got rumblings from more than half the people."
¿Qué?
Why are these people allowed to talk?
[QUOTE
To Quote from WotC 4e FAQ:
"This question was asked in the seminar I was at and, to the chagrin of the designers, Mac will not be supported for the on-line gaming table and character generator/visualizer. I believe it was Bill Slavicsek who siad "while you Mac guys are vocal, our research indicates that there are only three of you." Which got rumblings from more than half the people."
bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHAAAHAHAHAHAH
<sigh>
Macs suck <just my opinion, yours may differ> Their adds make me want to put my foot through my television. I hate those commercials. "I'm cool cuz I'm a Mac, and your not cuz your a PC." !#$%!$^!@$^!!!!! <again, just my opinion and yours may differ>.
But back to the question at hand. I too am curious what Paizo is thinking about 4e with Pathfinder and the Gamemastery Modules. It would appear from the answers so far in this thread that the 4e announcement took them by surprise too. That really surprises me. I would have thought if anyone had been in the know it would have been some Paizo staffers. Guess Vecna really did do a good job of helping them keep this a secret.
I hope they are thinking of the compatability issues while building these things then.I am all for progress, but windows only media is not progress."Platform compatability? Starting with PC, because there are more."
To Quote from WotC 4e FAQ:
"This question was asked in the seminar I was at and, to the chagrin of the designers, Mac will not be supported for the on-line gaming table and character generator/visualizer. I believe it was Bill Slavicsek who siad "while you Mac guys are vocal, our research indicates that there are only three of you." Which got rumblings from more than half the people."
¿Qué?
Why are these people allowed to talk?
Exactly. It is not the fact that they are not supporting MAC alone that has me walking away from WotC, rather the attitude they approach the whole thing with. They offer the "simple" solution of running an emulator, but to do that one has to spend anywhere from $200 - $400 (before tax) just to update their machine to run such a thing. Then they are expected to pay $10 a month to access any of the digital media, then they have to purchase the books if they want access to the PDFs, but to get those they still have to pay more.
Their greed and arrogance towards the whole thing is appalling, and quite frankly I don't care if they crap solid gold in material, if they act like jerk about it all I won't buy their products.
bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHAAAHAHAHAHAH
<sigh>
Macs suck <just my opinion, yours may differ> Their adds make me want to put my foot through my television. I hate those commercials. "I'm cool cuz I'm a Mac, and your not cuz your a PC." !#$%!$^!@$^!!!!! <again, just my opinion and yours may differ>.
I use MAC because when it comes to Photography, digital animation, and film editing, there is no better machine, hence they are the industry standards, if PC could even match a MAC in these industries, you'd see the more economical PC there. But it can't so MAC owns those industries. Since I work in that industry, I use MAC at work, and since I bring work home so I can see my family, I have MAC at home.
If you want a computer to run games on, buy PC, if you are in any of the above mentioned industries, you buy MAC.
Most people I know in my industry play D&D, so there are more of us out there than WotC would care to admit.
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Macs suck <just my opinion, yours may differ> Their adds make me want to put my foot through my television. I hate those commercials. "I'm cool cuz I'm a Mac, and your not cuz your a PC." !#$%!$^!@$^!!!!! <again, just my opinion and yours may differ>.
As I've noted, I have a PC that's dual-booting Windows and Linux. I also own a Mac.
I hate those commercials, too. They're stupid and insulting, and stuck in this 80s paradigm where PCs are solely business machines running Windoze. Um, no. There's far more diversity in PCs than there ever will be in Macs. Macs are wonderful machines, but they aren't the be all end all of computers and they ain't magic.
Ok.
...
Until both of those factors change, it would be foolish and irresponsible for me to make a decision about whether or not Pathfinder will convert to fourth edition.
Thanks for the update Erik!
And for everyone else - I think we had better relax a bit on this. We shouldn't mount too much pressure for a decision now for an issue that is a year away. Where would we choose, right now, to be on the safe side?
It'll be a huge decision if Pathfinder stays 3.5 (the right one in my mind, but still huge), and we should give Paizo the time to make the right choice for them, and us.
... and as for Microsoft comparisons, I'd say 4E is a lot closer to ME than Vista.
I use MAC because when it comes to Photography, digital animation, and film editing, there is no better machine, hence they are the industry standards, if PC could even match a MAC in these industries, you'd see the more economical PC there. But it can't so MAC owns those industries. Since I work in that industry, I use MAC at work, and since I bring work home so I can see my family, I have MAC at home.
If you want a computer to run games on, buy PC, if you are in any of the above mentioned industries, you buy MAC.
Most people I know in my industry play D&D, so there are more of us out there than WotC would care to admit.
I'll agree with pretty much everything you said...but doesn't that prove their point? If you are in one of these 3-4 industries, you use Mac...otherwise, it's PC all the way. I suspect a lot of people in the IT industry are D&Ders, too...and we mostly use PCs.
I wasn't there, so I can't comment on his tone when he said the crack about "3 of you", but I can only assume he was being jovial...and it was obviously hyperbole. The fact of the matter is that MAC users are a minority...and not by a small margin.
I, personally, don't like MACs. I don't despise them, either. I think their commercials are fairly amusing, however, I completely disagree with them. Oh...MACs don't have viruses? Let's see...if I were a virus writer, and I wanted to infect a lot of machines...nah, I'll write one for PCs, thanks. If there were a sudden paradigm shift and MACs took a huge market share, then there would be plenty of MAC viruses to which PCs wouldn't fall prey.
With all that admittedly-pro-PC-sounding-discussion, I do think that companies stand to gain more than they lose by trying to make sure that any digital offerings they serve up are as usable as possible on an array of platforms. The problem is that doing so is expensive and time-consuming.
Anyway...my 2 cents. :)
Creative Director
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Hey everyone!
We're all just getting back from Gen Con today... and as you can guess, there's been a LOT of news and developments and all that. I'm not going to be able to go through most of the posts that have already been asking questions here about Pathfinder & 4th edition (fortunately, Mike and Erik have been here to do that fore me!), but going forward I'll be here fairly often checking up to answer questions where and when I can.
Keep in mind, of course, that we haven't seen the 4th edition rules yet, and until we do, we can't make any decisions on how to go forward there.
I do know, though, that Curse of the Crimson Throne will use 3.5 rules up through the last installment, which should be coming out a little less than a year from now.
I use MAC because when it comes to Photography, digital animation, and film editing, there is no better machine, hence they are the industry standards, if PC could even match a MAC in these industries, you'd see the more economical PC there. But it can't so MAC owns those industries. Since I work in that industry, I use MAC at work, and since I bring work home so I can see my family, I have MAC at home.
If you want a computer to run games on, buy PC, if you are in any of the above mentioned industries, you buy MAC.
Most people I know in my industry play D&D, so there are more of us out there than WotC would care to admit.
I'll agree with pretty much everything you said...but doesn't that prove their point? If you are in one of these 3-4 industries, you use Mac...otherwise, it's PC all the way. I suspect a lot of people in the IT industry are D&Ders, too...and we mostly use PCs.
I wasn't there, so I can't comment on his tone when he said the crack about "3 of you", but I can only assume he was being jovial...and it was obviously hyperbole. The fact of the matter is that MAC users are a minority...and not by a small margin.
I, personally, don't like MACs. I don't despise them, either. I think their commercials are fairly amusing, however, I completely disagree with them. Oh...MACs don't have viruses? Let's see...if I were a virus writer, and I wanted to infect a lot of machines...nah, I'll write one for PCs, thanks. If there were a sudden paradigm shift and MACs took a huge market share, then there would be plenty of MAC viruses to which PCs wouldn't fall prey.
With all that admittedly-pro-PC-sounding-discussion, I do think that companies stand to gain more than they lose by trying to make sure that any digital offerings they serve up are as usable as possible on an array of platforms. The problem is that doing so is expensive and time-consuming.
Anyway...my 2 cents. :)
Ah but like I said - I don't know many people in my industry that don't play D&D. Meaning those 3-4 industries ARE a good part of their target market. I read on a forum on WotC that their own R&D people admit that 25% of their market are MAC users. If that is true, that is a huge chunck of their market to be ignoring.
But all of that aside, it is not the fact that they are not supporting MAC alone that has me pissed at them, it is their entire attitude towards MAC users and any question thrown their way about it.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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I doubt you're doing anything wrong. Even for pre-published adventures I put all the monsters on stat cards beforehand and that counts as prep time for me, because it helps make the game move faster. If you're comfortable doing what you're doing, there's no need to fix anything.
This is exactly what I'm talking about, because I do the exact same thing and it takes ages. I also include building stat blocks for NPCs who don't come out of a magazine or a module, calculating gp values of original magic items, and awarding experience points.
I think it would be relatively simple to revise the way a lot of the above stuff is handled without threatening the spirit of Dungeons & Dragons, and I hope that's what we'll see with the new edition.
Erik
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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I use MAC because when it comes to Photography, digital animation, and film editing, there is no better machine, hence they are the industry standards, if PC could even match a MAC in these industries, you'd see the more economical PC there. But it can't so MAC owns those industries. Since I work in that industry, I use MAC at work, and since I bring work home so I can see my family, I have MAC at home.If you want a computer to run games on, buy PC, if you are in any of the above mentioned industries, you buy MAC.
Most people I know in my industry play D&D, so there are more of us out there than WotC would care to admit.
This mirrors my feelings, as the same is true in the publishing/graphic design industries, so it's a Mac for me at work and at home. I don't like the temptation of games on my laptop (which is for writing), so I tend to limit my gaming to my Playstation and XBox 360.
Plus I like Macs way better.
--Erik
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I just want to chip in here with my opinion and vote.
The way that WotC essentially lied to everyone leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. At this point, I'll likely finish up collecting books that interest me, and support Paizo by way of their GameMastery/Pathfinder products. If Paizo swaps over to 4e, I'll pick up the core books, and snag a copy of the SRD for reference, but that is all that I intend to let WotC have of my funds.
Like a lot of others on this board, I do not appreciate being lied to by WotC; even if I recognize the nature of it as a marketing move, to preserve their sales as long as they can, it still is an insult to me, and to all the others who believed what was said, ordering materials with the belief that they would be supported for some time to come.
So, then... I speak for all of my gaming group when I say that I'm with the guys at Paizo, whatever the future holds, for as long as the products released are the quality we're getting today.
I'm planning on pre-ordering the core books, but I still plan on running Pathfinder as I want a campaign that I do not need to spend so much time preparing.
So basically, I'll run whatever Pathfinder is, but will be ready if it ever changes, and if I ever feel the need to I'll run some 4e games in between and on one shots like I do with AD&D.
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So WotC even said 25% of their customers are Mac users, they are disregarding them.
Ok, I know that there are WAY MORE PC's out there than Mac and Linux machines. BUT the Mac and Linux machines have been gaining ground over the last decade. It's also true that if you want to play computer games, it's a PC you play it on. (The popular games will get Mac and Linux versions eventually.)
Go ask some business out there to alienate 25% of the customer base and see what happens.
I wasn't even thinking of Windows vs Mac when they were talking about the DI. I was thinking that they would be using Java, Ajax, or whatever so you would be able to access the information online on whatever machine.
Yeah, I'm a Mac user. It's sitting next to my PC.
So far I'd say the overall reception to 4th edition is pretty positive considering the normal negative reaction to just about anything new on the internet. If WoTC merely makes a game equal in fun to 3rd edition, but different enough to get people to buy it, then 4th will be a success. Unfortunately for me, that most likely means Paizo will also 'upgrade' and I'll lose my access to great new 3rd edition adventures.
I'm not switching to 4th edition any time soon, but not because I don't think it will be a good system, but because I have tons of great 3.5 adventures awaiting my players. I enjoy the 3.5 mechanics and it will take awhile for good 4th edition adventures to be created. I still have yet to run one Dungeon AP, Monte Cook's Ptolus, and both of Paizo's first 2 pathfinder campaigns! That's at least 8 years worth of 3.5 material at the rate we progress through adventures.
As far as prep times go in 3.5, I don't have any concerns for how long it takes because I run Paizo and Malhavoc adventures. All I have to do is read the adventures for enjoyment, then later on really study the story and the NPCs for an hour or so just before I DM a session.
I'll be skipping 4th edition and maybe when 5th comes along I'll be out of published adventures and ready for new material.
To Quote from WotC 4e FAQ:
"This question was asked in the seminar I was at and, to the chagrin of the designers, Mac will not be supported for the on-line gaming table and character generator/visualizer. I believe it was Bill Slavicsek who siad "while you Mac guys are vocal, our research indicates that there are only three of you." Which got rumblings from more than half the people."
This is my issue with them not supporting Mac. You walk into teh WotC Office and it's row after row of Mac, but they arn't going to support it? Seems pretty short sighted to me.
This is my issue with them not supporting Mac. You walk into teh WotC Office and it's row after row of Mac, but they arn't going to support it? Seems pretty short sighted to me.They did that on purpose so the employees won't be able to play during work hours! :lol:
LOL!!!
Actually they are not writing it in JAVA because they are concerned about protecting their proprietary rights and take issue with JAVA as a "security weakness", their words, not mine.
They are indeed retaining OGL... so....
This is my issue with them not supporting Mac. You walk into teh WotC Office and it's row after row of Mac, but they arn't going to support it? Seems pretty short sighted to me.
Exactly. Hypocrisy never bodes well with me.
I use MAC because when it comes to Photography, digital animation, and film editing, there is no better machine, hence they are the industry standards, if PC could even match a MAC in these industries, you'd see the more economical PC there. But it can't so MAC owns those industries. Since I work in that industry, I use MAC at work, and since I bring work home so I can see my family, I have MAC at home.If you want a computer to run games on, buy PC, if you are in any of the above mentioned industries, you buy MAC.
Most people I know in my industry play D&D, so there are more of us out there than WotC would care to admit.
This mirrors my feelings, as the same is true in the publishing/graphic design industries, so it's a Mac for me at work and at home. I don't like the temptation of games on my laptop (which is for writing), so I tend to limit my gaming to my Playstation and XBox 360.
Plus I like Macs way better.
--Erik
So true, I keep my games to console gaming, because I vastly prefer them to gaming on my computer.
As it has been said by other people: I understand if pathfinder does decide to go 4e, depending on how 4e turns out, it might be a smart business choice. In that case, I would buy the core books, but nothing else. I will be running pathfinder, and I will utilize what ever core mechanics they choose. Because honestly, Paizo is good to their customers.
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I use MAC because when it comes to Photography, digital animation, and film editing, there is no better machine, hence they are the industry standards, if PC could even match a MAC in these industries, you'd see the more economical PC there. But it can't so MAC owns those industries. Since I work in that industry, I use MAC at work, and since I bring work home so I can see my family, I have MAC at home.If you want a computer to run games on, buy PC, if you are in any of the above mentioned industries, you buy MAC.
Most people I know in my industry play D&D, so there are more of us out there than WotC would care to admit.
This mirrors my feelings, as the same is true in the publishing/graphic design industries, so it's a Mac for me at work and at home. I don't like the temptation of games on my laptop (which is for writing), so I tend to limit my gaming to my Playstation and XBox 360.
Plus I like Macs way better.
--Erik
You know ... every time I think I can't like and respect Erik any more, he proves me wrong!
As an avid Mac user and fan (who also uses PC from time to time at work)I agree 100%! There are PLENTY of Mac users out there and because Mac users tend to be more creative (not a shot at creative PC users, simply a fact based on research and the fact that most creative jobs are done using Macs) one would think that there are MANY D&D players using Macs.
Oh and for the record, I think those commercials are great and petty darn clever.
I'm trying so hard not to be too negative toward WOTC and 4E, but it's getting harder and harder and harder and ...
Just so my voice is heard on this subject, I do not plan to convert to 4th edition. My group and I plan to stay on 3.5.
Although I have not subscribed to Pathfinder yet (because we are only 1/3 the way through STAP), I do plan to pick it up when we finish the STAP. It would be nice if there was more than 2 Pathfinders to choose from when the time came.
I don't like the temptation of games on my laptop (which is for writing), so I tend to limit my gaming to my Playstation and XBox 360.
World of Warcraft is a PC/Mac hybrid disc ...
(Mwah ha ha ha!)
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Just so my voice is heard on this subject, I do not plan to convert to 4th edition. My group and I plan to stay on 3.5.
Although I have not subscribed to Pathfinder yet (because we are only 1/3 the way through STAP), I do plan to pick it up when we finish the STAP. It would be nice if there was more than 2 Pathfinders to choose from when the time came.
A nice sentiment, but for the people all getting ready to switch to 4E it'd be nice if there were more than 0 Pathfinders to choose from ^_^
I also do not plan to switch to 4th Ed when it comes out, though I'm not ruling it out in the future.
As well the money I spend on the new core books when they come out will be the last money WotC get's from me.
From that point on all my D&D, 1st Ed., 2nd Ed., 3rd Ed., and Paizo products will keep me in all the gaming material I will likely ever need.
Thanks for being so great Paizo and I will stick with you guys no matter which way you jump (just stick a cushy one of you under me if we all fall)!
Funny how this turned into a PC/MAC thread. As a Mac user (I use PC's at work), is WOTC really expecting me to pay the same monthly subscription price but get only a portion of the functionality?! Yeah right! Unless they offer a discounted price for Mac users, who are getting the shaft, there's no friggin' way I'm signing on for their digital initiative. What a bunch of retards...
Back on topic, as goes Paizo, so go my gaming dollars. WOTC might get my money for the core books, but not much else. That's how I see it at this admittedly early point in time.
Its funny how so many people say they dont want to support WotC anymore and they will only buy the core books if Pathfinder converts.
If Pathfinder doesnt convert you wont have to give WotC a dime!!!!
Sound good?....Anyone?....Aw c'mon!!
:)
Oh and for the record, I think those commercials are great and petty darn clever.
Yeaaahh ... I'm going to have to disagree with you on this. I tend to find them funny, but for reasons the people made the commercials didn't intend.
In my opinion the Mac commercials and the WotC speaker both tried to be funny and to me ended up seeming silly and out of touch.
Just one Question WHAT ABOUT GREYHAWK...... ITS GONE THERE NOT SUPPORTING...... ERIK your ARE ONLY HOPE>>>>>>
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Chief Technical Officer
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I don't like the temptation of games on my laptop (which is for writing), so I tend to limit my gaming to my Playstation and XBox 360.World of Warcraft is a PC/Mac hybrid disc ...
(Mwah ha ha ha!)
SHHH! Don't tell our employees things like that!
*Nope, sorry, guys. WoW is still PC only. Honest! Now back to your desks!*
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Chief Technical Officer
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Too late, Vic, we've known about WoW on Macs for quite some time. I don't think anybody has loaded it onto our work computers, though. ;)SHHH! Don't tell our employees things like that!
*Nope, sorry, guys. WoW is still PC only. Honest! Now back to your desks!*
Oh, good. Because it... won't... run... on them. Yeah. It won't. Because of... um... something... um... Microsoft did. Yeah. That's it. Microsoft. It would totally break Word. You editor people still use that, right?
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I hope they are thinking of the compatability issues while building these things then.I am all for progress, but windows only media is not progress."Platform compatability? Starting with PC, because there are more."
To Quote from WotC 4e FAQ:
"This question was asked in the seminar I was at and, to the chagrin of the designers, Mac will not be supported for the on-line gaming table and character generator/visualizer. I believe it was Bill Slavicsek who siad "while you Mac guys are vocal, our research indicates that there are only three of you." Which got rumblings from more than half the people."
If this remains the case, I, for one, will not be participating in the DDI...
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... Macs are wonderful machines, but they aren't the be all end all of computers and they ain't magic.
Yes, THEY ARE! I have my fingers in my ears and I'm loudly humming a nonsensical and atonal (i)tune as you politely tell me I'm wrong, because I'm not, and you're wrong! La-la-la-, zippy-dee-la-la-loo-bee-boo-dee-doo-lallaaaaaaa
I'm on a Mac... RIGHT NOW!
Its way to early for Paizo to do this now of course, but...
I feel as the 2nd Adventure Path is drawing to a close..all subscribers should get an e-mail inviting us to go to Paizo's site and take a poll as to wether or not to convert.
If its overwhelmingly "Yes I wish to go to 4th edition"...So be it.
I'll agree with pretty much everything you said...but doesn't that prove their point? If you are in one of these 3-4 industries, you use Mac...otherwise, it's PC all the way. I suspect a lot of people in the IT industry are D&Ders, too...and we mostly use PCs.
Actually, it's amusing since it is because I'm in IT that I decided to convert to Mac at home this year. Over the years, I've grown so sick and tired of fixing Microsoft stuff all day, I decided I wanted something much easier to use at home. My IT experience has made me a Mac convert. ;)
As for D&D Insider, of course we'll see what the end product is - but given the following, I don't have high expectations:
- They are going Windows only when the general trend in software development has been to cross platform.
- They are apparently going with a stand alone software model rather than a web-based service. Web-based is orders of magnitude easier to update and maintain than thousands of standalone applications on thousands of different computers.
- Prior software products that they developed and/or directly guided (Master Tools anyone?) were pretty much flops.
- Also there seems to be a inclination towards "looking cool" over "working well" - I could be entirely wrong, but with Master Tools, I recall them saying how great it looks with animations and 3D maps and all that, but when they had to cut out the animations and 3D maps because of Hasbro, they had very little useful functionality left. And with DDI I keep hearing how amazing it looks with 3D maps and all this. Sounds too familiar to me.
- WotC is a TCG and RPG company, not a software development company and they are trying to do this all in house. I'm sure after a few iterations it can turn out great, but I don't have high expectations for the first release because there is a very steep learning curve on not just programming software, but management understanding what is needed to support it.
- They day they announce 4e and give details on their big digital push, their servers are overloaded and go down. For over a day.
So, I do hope DDI is something cool and useful. But given the points above, all signs point towards a company that isn't very experienced in software development making a lot of mistakes and going down paths that more experienced companies wouldn't. If they had hired an outside company to develop this (or even bought up an existing small web-app shop), I'd have far more confidence in the end product. But I will be quite happy to be proven wrong.
I will continue to buy Pathfinder and Game Mastery modules as long as they are a quality product.
I converted from class based rules systems long ago. I have a well supported system that I am happy with. Sure converting adds work, but converting spirit rather than letter dispels most of the difficulty and time.
So here I sit, on my high horse (yes, it's wooden…leave me be), pointing at all of you and laughing. I will see you all back here in 2010 when WotC releases 4.5.