Due in part to Sebastian's efforts on the WoTC boards and his efforts to ellicit a response from Kim Mohan, many have expressed the feeling that WoTC has done nothing but insult them over the last many months. That got me thinking and I decided to put together a list of things that WoTC has said that I find incredibly insulting as a fan of D&D. Obviously this isn't a complete list of things as it will take me a while to track down all of the ridiculous things they have said but please feel free to contribute what you found insulting.
1)
How Did We Get into This?
Well, I won't belabor the obvious by telling you how electronic publishing works, and I won't waste your time by going into the details of why this new method of magazine delivery is better than shipping printed copies to postal mailboxes and retail outlets.
Obviously Sebastian has already brought to light how insulting this is. WoTC, just answer the question.
2)
An analogy used around here a few years back was "making the sausage". To extend and warp that analogy a bit: I think we want you to learn how good the sausage might taste, and realize that it can be part of a wholesome (and fatty) breakfast, before we go into the details about how exactly we made it. I think that metaphor is about to break down, though, so I'm going to move on now...
Not for nothing, but not only is this analogy insulting (making sausage??!!) but it fails to answer the question. We don't want to know how to make sausage, or how it will taste, we want to know why we are being served sausage when all we want is bacon! The question was 'why' not 'how' and yes your metaphor broke down because it wasn't even relevant to the topic.
3) The 08/16/2007 Dungeon Editorial by Bart Carroll and Chris Thomasson:
Upon checking the word count I noticed that only 60 words out of the more than 1300 word editorial pertained to Dungeon. Way to go. Bart, you managed to talk about everything but Dungeon and Chris, for someone who has done a lot of work on Dungeon, I figured you would at least spend more time talking about it. Thanks for wasting my time.
Alright, everyone, what other insulting things have WoTC spouted to us over the last year? I know there is more.
**EDIT: Ha! I just noticed that they used the same article for the Welcome to Dragon editorial as they did for the Welcome to Dungeon editorial! Talk about not putting any effort into doing this right.
Due in part to Sebastian's efforts on the WoTC boards and his efforts to ellicit a response from Kim Mohan,...
Link?
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Due in part to Sebastian's efforts on the WoTC boards and his efforts to ellicit a response from Kim Mohan,...Link?
Here's the thread from here, believe that there is a link to the wotc one on one of the posts. Sebastians request
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Well, there was the infamous faux-french speaking twit in the promotion video who dares to say the immortal words "ze game will remain za same". I think by that he means it uses a d20, and that's it.
And because I don't have physical evidence, all you can do is take my word that at the Friday D&D Q&A at GenCon this year I had to hear in so many crafted statements how "all DM's don't 'get' D&D and have no idea how to build encounters, and no player really knows how to create effective characters."
And yeah, a handful of folks in front of me walked out right there. I stayed to the end to be insulted more.
-DM Jeff
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How about the blatant lies of Bill Slavisek about the status of 4th edition at D&D Experience? He could have said that 4th edition would come out when the time was ready and leave it at that. Instead he made some false statements that implied that 3.5 would be supported for a long time to come, and 4th edition wasn't even in the works at a time when they had been working on 4th edition for almost two years. I would have repected him more if he said that they were working on 4th edition but we should still consider buying 3.5 products until they officially announce it. I don't have an exact quote, but we've all gotten the gist of his blurb. Also Kim Mohan's statement about electronic Dragon existing to reach more people is completely ridiculous and insulting to our intelliegence.
The one that always raises my eyebrow is when a designer addresses criticism with "you didn't work on the sourcebook so you can't question my decisions!"
However, that might explain the quality of the editing...
Well, there was the infamous faux-french speaking twit in the promotion video who dares to say the immortal words "ze game will remain za same". I think by that he means it uses a d20, and that's it.
And because I don't have physical evidence, all you can do is take my word that at the Friday D&D Q&A at GenCon this year I had to hear in so many crafted statements how "all DM's don't 'get' D&D and have no idea how to build encounters, and no player really knows how to create effective characters."
And yeah, a handful of folks in front of me walked out right there. I stayed to the end to be insulted more.
-DM Jeff
That is all sorts of messed up...
The "teaser" video. I found that insulting almost all the way through. I know several other who did too.
And if the D&D Q&A story is correct, I no longer think WoTC is trying to "fire it's customers." No, they are trying to "annoy them so much they quit."
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Although I deeply appreciate the way Paizo handled it, here is where I started getting alienated:
Paizo Publishing to Cease Publication of Dragon and Dungeon
...it pretty much went down hill from there. This kind of sums it up (link):
For thirty-three years, the D&D game has led the fantasy hobby gaming scene, and 4th Edition is taking the game in places its creators never dreamed.
I've been pretty disgusted by WotC's attempts to build up 4e by constantly explaining to us how broken 3.5 is and how "un-fun" it is to play.
That amounts to: "We've tricked you into buying $2,000 worth of crappy game product over the past 7 years. You may have *thought* you were enjoying yourselves, but now the long nightmare is over. You can now spend $3,000 on awesome new 4e product for the next five years or so, when Hasbro makes us do 5e (based on Candy Land) and we explain to you how broken 4e was and how little fun you had playing it."
"Ever faced one of those life-or-death saving throws? Hours, weeks, or even years of play can hang in the balance. It all comes down to that one roll. There’s drama in that moment, but it’s drama you didn’t create, and you don’t want."-Mathew Sernet
What is he some kinda Jedi
I'm a Paizonian, WotC mind tricks won't work on me.
I felt that was condensending, so your getting rid of saving throws (always loved them do or die saves), you don't have to tell me what i should like or what i should not. Man their is this air of arrogance about these developers, as if they can dictate what WE want in a D&D game. There are other examples of this aroggance. I( keep looking forward to D&D 4e. But WotC is really doing things to sour my anticipation.
This one made me feel appreciated as a Realms fan of 20 years:
I wouldn't necessarily agree that Realms "ain't broke." We've got concerns about the accessibility of the Realms to new players and new readers (and new writers and game designers, too). The Realms *will* be broken if it becomes an ossified setting played and read only by a slowly diminishing audience of old-timers. We need to reach out to new players and provide an opportunity for them to buy one game product or one book and feel just as invested in the Realms as someone who's been following us for ten years.
And apparently we have found the end of all possible storylines in D&D:
The new edition isn't just about new rules that improve the quality of game play; it's about new ideas to help DMs build their campaign worlds and their adventures. We can't keep revisiting the same places and re-using the same names, cool as they might be.
This one kind of felt like, you'll deal with what we give you:
So you've got time. We're going to reveal more and more of the game as time goes on, both here on the wizards site, in the preview books, and at D&D Experience (Feb. 28 to March 3 in DC). But all those individual "reveals" are clouds in the sky. You can admire the clouds' beauty or shake your fists at them, but they're just going to keep moving across the sky anyway.
There's nothing wrong with cloud-watching. If you're a farmer, you need to watch the clouds at least a little. (Maybe DMs are like farmers, but that might be straining the metaphor.) But farmers know that no amount of cloudwatching will bring the rain. (And don't mention cloud-seeding; it messes up the metaphor.)
You can shake your fists at the sky. You can do a rain dance. You can ignore the clouds completely. Given the circumstance you're in as a D&D player right now, those responses are all valid. But none of them move the clouds.
I do wish I could find the quote that one of the designers made about how easily he could "convert" 3.5 edition players over to 4th edition, which kind of sounded like we just idiots that haven't seen the brilliance of 4th edition's glory yet.
Also, I can't do direct quotes, but the following comments on the latest podcast bothered me as well:
Dave Noonan: "Guardinals? What are guardinals?" (which is a little scary that these guys make decisions on what stays and what goes when they don't know what some of the basics of the game are)
James Wyatt: "They're from the plane of Neutral Good? Bytopia?" (Actually Elysium, and again, these guys are determining that these elements are "played out" and must be reworked, but they don't know the details off hand)
Also, the fact that James Wyatt, Dave Noonan, and Mike Mearls all laugh and joke about not knowing the answers about these things, as if its beneath them to have to know about "uncool" things, is troubling.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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I've been pretty disgusted by WotC's attempts to build up 4e by constantly explaining to us how broken 3.5 is and how "un-fun" it is to play.
That amounts to: "We've tricked you into buying $2,000 worth of crappy game product over the past 7 years. You may have *thought* you were enjoying yourselves, but now the long nightmare is over. You can now spend $3,000 on awesome new 4e product for the next five years or so, when Hasbro makes us do 5e (based on Candy Land) and we explain to you how broken 4e was and how little fun you had playing it."
This has summed up perfectly one of my main gripes with the way the 4e Release Statements have been handled.
Just a taste of the unlistenable arrogance from their podcast, I'm guessing. I can only shake my head and imagine them doing the Peter Parker "I'm cool" walk down the street while everyone else points and laughs.
Part of the problem with this or anything has to do with user feedback. For the number of people wanting one thing there are as many or more wanting just the opposite. It comes down to "who should the developers listen to?". I always wish it were me, but unfortunately, even the people who love me don't listen to me.
perfect example of this is Star Wars Galaxies, the shuttle wait times in that game were horrendous. so they shortened them. Some people complained, saying they preferred the long waits because it built the community making people wait around and talk to each other. Others felt that the long times wasted time that they could be doing something they'd prefer.
Unfortunately user feedback is often useless. Also some jokes or goofing around by some people is okay, while from someone else is offensive. I would hope that the stuff from the video wasn't intended to offend. Maybe in the groups they play in, its a funny stereotype. I dunno.
*shrugs*
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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I have to agree here. It may be touchy, but while i think Save-or-Die spells suck for a number of reasons, i resent that opinion being shoved down my throat like this.
Its patronizing. If they had phrased this as "we think save-or-die situations occur much too frequently in high levels, because so much hangs in the balance. So we are looking into a way to not make you lose days, or even months of play time over a bad roll." it would have gone down slick as oil. This... not so much.
Also, I can't do direct quotes, but the following comments on the latest podcast bothered me as well:
Dave Noonan: "Guardinals? What are guardinals?" (which is a little scary that these guys make decisions on what stays and what goes when they don't know what some of the basics of the game are)
James Wyatt: "They're from the plane of Neutral Good? Bytopia?" (Actually Elysium, and again, these guys are determining that these elements are "played out" and must be reworked, but they don't know the details off hand)
Also, the fact that James Wyatt, Dave Noonan, and Mike Mearls all laugh and joke about not knowing the answers about these things, as if its beneath them to have to know about "uncool" things, is troubling.
Excuse me? When the heck did Guardinals become a basic of the game? Apparently they were so vital they managed to miss 1E entirely.
And they picked out the Neutral good plane instead of the neutral Good plane? That sounds more like a problem with the Great Wheel than with the designers.
From where I'm sitting, Wyatt, Noonan, and Mearls seem more in touch with my gaming experience and what's important about D&D than you do. And they're able to maintain a sense of humor about it.
Hey guys, I think you are reading way too much into the various WotC quotes.
Remember that these guys are gamers, just like us! They are all thrilled (too thrilled perhaps) and fired up about the stuff they have been making, and eager to tell us about it. So naturally they point out what they see as improvements.
But they are not evil, arrogant or trying to belittle the game we are playing (3.5). I simply cannot believe that.
So try and give them a little leeway here. Don't assume that they are trying to insult you, cause I'm sure they are not. If they do so unintentionally, cut them some slack. We're all gamers right :-)
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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Hey guys, I think you are reading way too much into the various WotC quotes.
Remember that these guys are gamers, just like us! They are all thrilled (too thrilled perhaps) and fired up about the stuff they have been making, and eager to tell us about it. So naturally they point out what they see as improvements.
But they are not evil, arrogant or trying to belittle the game we are playing (3.5). I simply cannot believe that.
So try and give them a little leeway here. Don't assume that they are trying to insult you, cause I'm sure they are not. If they do so unintentionally, cut them some slack. We're all gamers right :-)
Well, the WotC "blogs" and "interviews" sure don't feel like being written by one gamer being excited about the next big thing. They feel like being written by marketing droids to push their next product to as many consumers as possible as quickly as possible.
So i'll hold them to the standard of marketing droids, at least for the time being.
I did not read this little gem before (and wish I hadn´t):
So you've got time. We're going to reveal more and more of the game as time goes on, both here on the wizards site, in the preview books, and at D&D Experience (Feb. 28 to March 3 in DC). But all those individual "reveals" are clouds in the sky. You can admire the clouds' beauty or shake your fists at them, but they're just going to keep moving across the sky anyway.
There's nothing wrong with cloud-watching. If you're a farmer, you need to watch the clouds at least a little. (Maybe DMs are like farmers, but that might be straining the metaphor.) But farmers know that no amount of cloudwatching will bring the rain. (And don't mention cloud-seeding; it messes up the metaphor.)
You can shake your fists at the sky. You can do a rain dance. You can ignore the clouds completely. Given the circumstance you're in as a D&D player right now, those responses are all valid. But none of them move the clouds.
So, whatever we, the gamers (and future customers) say or think about the new edition is just so much barking at the moon? Many thanks, WotC, for showing so much appreciation for your customers, and for the designers levitating sky-high above the crude unwashed masses. Even if this is fact, you could at least try to let it look like you care for your customers. This way, it is offending and more than condescending. I´m really getting angry at this. This is more of WotCs expert PR at work...
Stefan
That cloud looks like a dragon. Huh, now it looks like a dollar sign.
*shakes fist*
Stupid cloud.
Having *finally* seen some rules-oriented preview stuff (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20071005 for those of you with the hyped D&D insider access)... it seems like the game is not changing that much, but it *is* changing.
Obviously, there will be changes. Duh. But looking forward to (or even pushing) change is not such a bad thing. I know when I'm all excited about wanting to show off my new toys, I can be a bit dismissive of other people, maybe that's just what we're seeing on a bigger scale.
WotC said they spent the last seven years writing 4th ed, ever since 3rd ed came out. They're probably getting impatient that they even had to give us a whole year's warning. If they were able to dump the books on our collective tables and we went nuts power-building characters or roleplaying or whatever, they'd probably do that, but reality intervenes. WotC IS a company. They make money. If they didn't, we'd all be out of a hobby. It's that simple.
It's not really insulting, but it is a bit infuriating. Having been suddenly told that this is coming, that it's 9, 10 months away, that some massive changes are happening (FR for example... I didn't see that coming), that some things aren't really too different after all... I'm frustrated. I want to see hard rules. I want to play it, test it, see it! They have to keep us going along, because if they had let us know 2 years early, it would have been too long- 3rd party publishers would trail off, not sure whether to do 3.5, 3.51, 4.0, 3.14152791...., if they had warned us a week early and suddenly the books were there in stores, we would be complaining we had no warning and we wouldn't be adjusted... there has to be a period where we're expecting but not actually seeing change. It prepares us.
I'm nervous about 4th ed too. When I first heard, I was devastated. But I think, like any change, it can be a force for good as well as bad. I'm now getting to the hopefully (but cautiously) optimistic stage.
Think about it. When McDonald's had its new 'Healthy Choices' options, we didn't all go online and start posting about how insulting the CEO of McDonald's was, because he mentioned something about 'different diets for different people'... It's an option.
Some people still play 2nd edition. Some haven't even updated to a D&D where 'Edition' had a number, they just have a different coloured box. Some people will play 3rd ed without ever wanting to read the Tome of Battle.
If you don't update to 4.0, no-one's going to kick your door down and punish you. It's your choice. But maybe we should try giving it a chance. You never know, it could be even better. Maybe.
I'm not insulted that the designers couldn't remember where guardinals came from. I couldn't do it on the spot. Or that they dressed up to be in the video. That sounds cool. At least they're trying, give 'em a break.
Well, the WotC "blogs" and "interviews" sure don't feel like being written by one gamer being excited about the next big thing. They feel like being written by marketing droids to push their next product to as many consumers as possible as quickly as possible.
So i'll hold them to the standard of marketing droids, at least for the time being.
Actually I have to disagree with this. Designers are NOT marketers anymore than they are sales-people or spokesmen. This was blatantly obvious in the videos where Perkins and Slavisek (sp?) were speaking at GenCon. Those guys were obviously nervous and uncomfortable with being in front of a crowd — something that should not have phased professional speakers.
In fact, I'd say this serves as a perfect example of why DMs should rule on diplomatic encounters based off of a d20 roll and a skill modifier rather than solely on roleplaying. A player who is lacking in eloquence and social skills, should not be penalized for their own personal failings when they want to try playing a charismatic character.
By the same token, just because those guys each have a +13 modifier to their Craft: D&D checks doesn't mean You should expect them to be able to make a diplomacy check worth a damn. I suspect that the entire reason why Bill and Chris didn't defer to allowing a suave spokesperson to do the talking is because D&D is such a highly technical game that some spokesperson would fail equally badly (perhaps even moreso) in that area. I've seen this happen plenty of times with video game developers holding open IRC events — some PR guy who doesn't know a thing about technical specs or gameplay turns the whole thing into a fiasco.
I think this is just one of those Catch 22 situations for these devs everyone is so quick to malign...
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For me, it isn't always what they have said, which seems condescending and arrogant on occasion, but what they haven't said. I'm hungry for some good, old-fashioned details on the rule mechanics. All they want to offer is vague hints at what is going to be and unintresting commentary on some guy's 4E Schmeberron campaign.
I agree with you Laithoron, except that I think they could have found a public speaker to present for them, and one who knows the game. I know one who could have done it and come off smelling roses.
Also, I can't do direct quotes, but the following comments on the latest podcast bothered me as well:
Dave Noonan: "Guardinals? What are guardinals?" (which is a little scary that these guys make decisions on what stays and what goes when they don't know what some of the basics of the game are)
James Wyatt: "They're from the plane of Neutral Good? Bytopia?" (Actually Elysium, and again, these guys are determining that these elements are "played out" and must be reworked, but they don't know the details off hand)
Also, the fact that James Wyatt, Dave Noonan, and Mike Mearls all laugh and joke about not knowing the answers about these things, as if its beneath them to have to know about "uncool" things, is troubling.
Excuse me? When the heck did Guardinals become a basic of the game? Apparently they were so vital they managed to miss 1E entirely.
And they picked out the Neutral good plane instead of the neutral Good plane? That sounds more like a problem with the Great Wheel than with the designers.
From where I'm sitting, Wyatt, Noonan, and Mearls seem more in touch with my gaming experience and what's important about D&D than you do. And they're able to maintain a sense of humor about it.
You miss my point. I'm not saying that every gamer uses them or loves them, I'm saying that if you are going to say, definitely, that these things have to go in order to make the game better, you probably should at least act like you know what they hell they are and how they work.
There have been elements of the game that Erik Mona and James Jaccobs have said they didn't like, but they have never seemed to have dismissed any aspect of the game without seeming like they actually know about the element itself.
Hey guys, I think you are reading way too much into the various WotC quotes.
Remember that these guys are gamers, just like us! They are all thrilled (too thrilled perhaps) and fired up about the stuff they have been making, and eager to tell us about it. So naturally they point out what they see as improvements.
But they are not evil, arrogant or trying to belittle the game we are playing (3.5). I simply cannot believe that.
So try and give them a little leeway here. Don't assume that they are trying to insult you, cause I'm sure they are not. If they do so unintentionally, cut them some slack. We're all gamers right :-)
No offense, but if they say something I feel is insulting I shouldn't let them know? Or if they seem to assume that "every" gamer thinks a certain way, I shouldn't shatter that belief on their part? I would like to know that I at least tried to make my opinions known before letting 4th edition "happen" to me.
I do feel that I should be respectful of them, but at the same time, I'm not going to avoid pointing out things that have bugged me for fear of hurting their feelings.
I get your point, I just don't think that, as long as we remain polite about it, we should sit quietly by and wait for 4th edition to come out.
I'm not insulted that the designers couldn't remember where guardinals came from. I couldn't do it on the spot.
"Insulted" is, I think, a strong term too. For myself, I'd say a better term is "disappointed." Whether or not Guardinals or the alignment of Bytopia are obscure bits of D&D trivia is irrelevant. The fact is these are the guys who are re-working a much beloved gaming institution and many people have strong feelings about that, particularly because of the paucity of real information combined with the implication of significant mechanical (and perhaps thematic) changes. In a situation like this, what you want is reassurance that the designers know the game and its lore at least as well as you do, preferably better. After those articles touting the long and deep connection between the designers and the D&D game, you'd think they'd want to show off that connection by being masters of even the most obscure game information.
Is this fair? Probably not, but it's a reality. If a doctor were to tell you he's going to operate on a loved one and correct a number of medical conditions all in one fell swoop, you'd hope that he'd possess a greater knowledge of medicine than you do, yes? Of course, the analogy is imperfect. The important point, though, remains: when you have a portion of your fanbase, even a minority of a minority, on edge and contemplating not buying your product, who feel, rightly or wrongly, that they've been "betrayed," the prudent thing to do would be to reassure them by demonstrating that, yes, you do in fact know D&D backwards and forwards, inside and out, and it's precisely because of your depth and breadth of knowledge about the game that you're in a unique position to make changes to it and genuinely improve it. That's not what they're doing.
When people are skeptical, they grasp at any evidence that their skepticism is justified. Some people are skeptical about 4E and every time a designer talks or writes about it, he reinforces that skepticism rather than dispels it when he evinces a shallower knowledge of the game's lore than many players possess. Again, I realize this may not be fair, but it's a reality. To sell 4E to many people, the designers can't joke around or plead ignorance. Every time they do that, they just feed the belief that they don't know what they're doing or don't know and respect the 30 year traditions of the game.
Why 4th Edition and why now? Because the time was right. My R&D team has been watching the play environment since the release of the 3.5 rules, listening to what you, the players, have been telling us. Two years ago, I assembled a team of designers, led by Rob Heinsoo, Andy Collins, and James Wyatt, to review all the data we’ve been collecting and see if we could make the d20 Game System (the engine that powers the D&D game) better, more intuitive, and more fun. When I saw the first expressions of that effort, I knew we could make D&D better, stronger, faster, more fun. We could rebuild it. We could take the d20 Game System we all know and love and rocket it to the next level.
First, they have only been working on 4th Edition for about 2 years not seven.
Second, what does MacDonalds have to do with anything?
Third, I don't care if WoTC makes money or not. That is their responsibility not mine and frankly if they went out of business we wouldn't be out of a hobby because there are enough other companies making quality products that someone would fill in. Oh, and if they wouldn't flood the market with more books than people have money to buy then I am sure that wouldn't be an issue.
Fourth, the new system might be great and might be a real improvement for D&D but that isn't the point. The point is that the attitude with which they have approached their customers and the way they are handling this transition (as opposed to the AD&D to 3.0 transition) sucks. For the most part they have failed to explain why they are making the changes that they are and have also failed to explain the thoughts and processes that led to these changes. There is little to no clarity or transparency to what's happening and the constant attempts at deception and light shows is angering a lot of people.
Fifth, they need to stop with the bloody metaphors and analogies because either they don't answer the question being asked or they just insult the reader/listener.
People see what they look for. If you look through everything the WotC people say, trying to find things that insult you, I guarantee you're going to find it. And if I read those same blogs and announcements, looking for signs that the WotC folks love the game and are trying to make changes that will improve the game, I guarantee I'll find that, too.
The problem is, when you come in here and insist that those guys are insulting you by stating certain things, or that they are idiots for believing gamers want the stuff they say gamers want - well, that means that you're insulting me for agreeing with them or looking forward to the changes being made. Meanwhile, you're not communicating these feelings to Dave Noonan or Mike Mearls, you're communicating your feelings to us. In effect, you're venting in a community where you feel safe, among friends - and if someone wants to call you for your negativism and say you're being a bit over the top about it, well, that's fair, because we (the whole Paizo community) are the ones you're venting to, and it's our airspace you're polluting. And we're all friends, and we want our friends to take a step back, and maybe try to be a bit more optimistic about life (or at least, less agressively pessimistic).
You're entitled to your feelings. The anger you feel is understandable. I've seen it with every edition change so far, and I know it's a very natural thing, and it lasts (usually) until shortly after the new edition comes out - so we can reasonably expect that between the announcement at GenCon, and next summer's release, people will be feeling this turmoil. But from my perspective, I've also seen that every edition change has been an improvement. AD&D was better than the little booklets. 2nd edition was mostly the same as 1st edition, but it cleaned up some stuff. 3rd edition was a great improvement over 2nd, and 3.5 (even though I fought it at first) made some real improvements over 3.0. But there's no denying that the current version of the game is very complicated, that it's easy for combat to bog everything down, and a whole host of other things that make the game less fun than it could be.
The idea that the game could use some improvement doesn't mean that everyone who enjoys it now is "wrong." Just as the fact that they're changing things about the game you love doesn't automatically make them "wrong." It's the knee-jerk reaction I protest - the casting everything "they" say in a bad light, just because you want to disagree with them so badly.
I'd be fine with "I feel" statements - "I feel like I'm losing something really important to me if they change the Great Wheel / Forgotten Realms / Succubi this way." But the overt inferences of evil intent, of stupidity, of malign attitudes ("they are just marketing drones" / "they don't know anything about the game because they got this obscure detail wrong" / "they say I'm having badfun because I spent all this money to play this game" are just getting really, really tiresome.
Or at least, that is how I feel.
Hmm.
I posted a reply here this morning and now it's gone. I wonder if the forum is having a hiccup.
Since my original post is no more for reasons unknown, a quick recap:
Whether or not the nature of guardinals of the alignment of Bytopia are obscure points of D&D lore is irrelevant. Right now, when hard information on 4E is few and far between, when all sorts of rumors, implications, and innuendos about 4E are flying fast and furious, what we need is reassurance -- reassurance that the current designers of D&D know the game and its history backward and forward, inside and out and that precisely because of that knowledge they are in the best position to evaluate what needs fixing, both mechanically and thematically, to make D&D the best game it can be.
We keep getting told that the 4E designers are not only great game designers but huge fans of D&D with a love of the game stretching back all their lives. We read an article full of reminiscences about the deep and abiding connection the designers have with the game. Given that, shouldn't they know what guardinals are or the alignment of Bytopia, even if they think both are silly things that should be excised from 4E or reworked? Shouldn't the designers know at least as much about D&D's accumulated lore as its fans?
Were I WotC I'd make damned sure that every time a designer spoke or wrote or otherwise weighed in on 4E, he demonstrated an encyclopedic knowledge of the game and its history. Anything short of that will only feed skepticism rather than dispel it. This might not be fair -- and it isn't -- but it's the way things are. What we need now is confidence that the current stewards of D&D love and revere as much as its fans and we frequently don't get that. This is just further evidence for the prosecution. Like I said, it may not be fair, but the build-up to 4E is all about creating the right perceptions rather than the wrong ones. This is creating the wrong ones.
That cloud looks like a dragon. Huh, now it looks like a dollar sign.
*shakes fist*
Stupid cloud.
lol.
I think you stole their metaphor ;-)
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How about the blatant lies of Bill Slavisek about the status of 4th edition at D&D Experience? He could have said that 4th edition would come out when the time was ready and leave it at that. Instead he made some false statements that implied that 3.5 would be supported for a long time to come, and 4th edition wasn't even in the works at a time when they had been working on 4th edition for almost two years.
While the statement I'm about to make smokes of paranoid conspiracy theories, I am truly not convined that 4e even HAS really been in the works that long. That, ot WotC better start fessing to to outright deceiving us every chance they got.
Again, no physical evidence, just words I heard still echoing through my head at the GenCon 2006 "Getting Kids Into D&D" seminar hosted by James Wyatt. He was asked about 4E and just shook his head, and quoted nearly thus:
"We at WotC would be just as happy if 3.5 outlived both previous edition's lifetimes. Sales and interest are great, it's doing fine. 4E is a long, long way off."
Yes, that could be read a couple of different ways, which is no doubt how it was chosen, but it still has some strange ring to it.
-DM Jeff
When people are skeptical, they grasp at any evidence that their skepticism is justified.
I think this is a very important concept to understand that needs as much reiteration as possible. Though it goes the other way around, too... in the form of rose-tinted glasses. Bringing these two types together always begets steaming controversy.
Despite the fact that I didn't initially feel insulted by most of these quotas per se, I too feel that there's a tinge of presumption in a few of them. Maybe some people are reading too much into some things... but in a few cases I think it's impossible not to. For instance, when I read the Cloud Watching piece, I rolled my eyes. It was filler... garbage, frankly. I already know I am not able to alter WotC's decisions and am just seeing what I want to see... I don't need an analogy to put it in perspective.
Whether or not Guardinals or the alignment of Bytopia are obscure bits of D&D trivia is irrelevant. The fact is these are the guys who are re-working a much beloved gaming institution and many people have strong feelings about that, particularly because of the paucity of real information combined with the implication of significant mechanical (and perhaps thematic) changes. In a situation like this, what you want is reassurance that the designers know the game and its lore at least as well as you do, preferably better.
Exactly.
There are currently a number of communities commited to campaign worlds that are no longer supported (Dark Sun, Planescape, Spelljammer, Greyhawk, and so on), but still playable under 3.0/3.5.
A lot of these gamers are concerned about how the new edition will affect their ability to run games in these settings. Comments that underplay creatures used in one setting (in this case, Planescape) raise doubt as to the usefulness of the new edition for them.
The same thing has happened with the abandonment of Greyhawk as the core setting and the spell plague that will reshape the Forgotten Realms.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I've been thinking a lot about responding to this thread, because, as is obvious, I've been less than thrilled with WotC's PR as of late. On the one hand, it can be hard to separate out the message from the messenger, so to the extent you are hostile to the very idea of 4e, the topic itself will probably be insulting. It's like reading a politicaly biased article on a topic on which you have an opposing viewpoint. It doesn't really matter how cogent the argument is if you find the underlying assumptions to be offensive.
And yet, I've been interested and anticipating 4e, but I've still been less than impressed with the 4e previews. Am I just being impatient? Do I want them to release more than they have? Maybe.
But, what if it's not releasing information fast enough that is a problem? I guess for me the issue is that they aren't laying any sort of foundation for their arguments. A good comparison of the right way to do things would be the old Design and Development column where they discussed the rust monster, beholder, and ogre mage and suggested changes to make them better monsters. They provided evidence of the problems with the current incarnations of the monsters, pointed out how they did not interact well with the game rules, and then suggested an alternate version. 4e on the other hand seems to be more of them just saying "here's the new beholder because the old one was dumb and hard to use. Look how cool its art is! Plus, it gets 73 attacks per round!!?!?!? But trust me, that's kewl."
The changes to the Realms and the planes are a very good example. It's not that I want them to tell me every change that will be made, it's that I want them to walk me through the problems with the Realms and the planes, the many solutions they considered and rejected, and then, and only then, a preview of what they are offering in 4e and how it addresses those problems. I realize that there would still be people that would quibble with the underlying assumptions even at that level (e.g., the now famous rallying cry of "grapple's not that hard"), but it would go a long way toward making me feel like they do know what they are doing.
As for Dragon, the issue there is distinct. The original PR given to us in April was that the new electronic version would be amazing. It's not. They really blew an opportunity to show us how cool their new electronic format could be, to prove that it would be more than just their same old web columns with the Dragon banner head. Maybe there aren't enough fans of Dragon to make them care about the presentation. Maybe they figured we were fired anyway. I suppose those are valid business reasons, and I should be no more insulted by them than any other company that ceases to produce something I like or changes it to a form that I don't, but I can't help but long for something more than an assertion that this new method is better.
In the end, this whole thing is like a break up. Even if they say it's not us, it's them, there are going to be hard feelings. Or, maybe it's a break up and they are scratching my DVDs, shaving my cat, and calling my Mom to say that I gave them syphilis. I'm just not sure.
I still have my fingers crossed.
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Read the Dragon article at wizards entitled "D&D 360". That entire article was insulting. The blatant self-aggrandizement, the listing of their D&D "pedigrees", and somehow how all of this makes them the obvious choice for 4E.
Yeah, I get, they are talented. But the evolution of D&D has always been in response from the community to the designers. This new edition is from the designers to the community. Thats what makes the whole thing so insulting.
Andy Collins writes in that article how its not enough to be a designer, you have to actually play the game. No S%#* sherlock. Unlike you, thats ALL the rest of us do. We play, and guess what, we design too. We just don't get a paycheck from WoTC to do it. He goes on to laud how that simple cardboard box (basic set) was such a great thing...you know why it was great Andy? It wasn't "broken". You took it for what it was and had fun.
There is a cabal of designers who think that just because they like THEIR games so much, everyone will like it too. Such arrogance and hubris is insulting. They mention things like "no school like old school" and then blithely march forward tromping old school under their goose-stepping boots.
Damn, that article pissed me off.
I think this is a very important concept to understand that needs as much reiteration as possible. Though it goes the other way around, too... in the form of rose-tinted glasses. Bringing these two types together always begets steaming controversy.
Indeed. That's why I keep hoping WotC will just come out and be straight about stuff instead of doing the Dance of the Seven Veils with 4E. It makes the new edition a Rorschach Test where everyone sees what they want to see and that's not doing anyone any good.
But I get the impression that WotC keeps at least one TSR tradition alive and well: the tin ear. Seriously, you would think that, in this day and age, a company that's trying to make use of things like blogs and forums would understand that these media are two-way. Instead we get mostly platitudes about how the designers would really love to spill the beans but they can't (for some nebulous reason) and so we're left with "Trust us; we know what we're doing." That doesn't build confidence and it reinforces all the worries some people have.
It may all prove unfounded in the end and 4E may well be the Second Coming in game form, but there's simply no way to know that right now and just about everything WotC and its representatives does or says adds to the growing pile of worry. They should take a page from Paizo's book or that of many other game companies that do much better jobs conveying their messages and interacting with fans.
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I'm not insulted that the designers couldn't remember where guardinals came from. I couldn't do it on the spot."Insulted" is, I think, a strong term too. For myself, I'd say a better term is "disappointed." Whether or not Guardinals or the alignment of Bytopia are obscure bits of D&D trivia is irrelevant. The fact is these are the guys who are re-working a much beloved gaming institution and many people have strong feelings about that, particularly because of the paucity of real information combined with the implication of significant mechanical (and perhaps thematic) changes. In a situation like this, what you want is reassurance that the designers know the game and its lore at least as well as you do, preferably better. After those articles touting the long and deep connection between the designers and the D&D game, you'd think they'd want to show off that connection by being masters of even the most obscure game information.
Is this fair? Probably not, but it's a reality.
I think it's completely fair. Writing monsters is James Wyatt’s job. He spends 8 hours a day, 5 days a week doing it. I don’t take that to mean that he should be able to rattle off the hit dice of a cifal or the intelligence of a flumph, but I don’t think knowing the origin of a third edition core monster is too much to ask. And this wasn't just three guys talking over beers -- they chose in post-production to leave that exchange in the podcast, when they could have gone back and taken it out or fixed it.
That's what really "insults and infuriates" me. I want 4e to succeed. I want Wizards to succeed. But why do they keep going out of their way to offend people when they don’t have to? Is there really anyone out there who’s going to buy 4e just because there aren’t guardinals in MM1? If not, why lose even one guardinal fan? Just leave the critters you don’t like out of the 4e rulebooks, keep your feelings to yourself, let the (hypothetical) fans of guardinals (or very real fans of demonic succubi) home-brew them, and everyone’s happier.
Maybe I'm preaching to the choir, but Wizards badly needs some help with PR. Either give us full information -- let us know exactly what’s planned for 4e, down to the provisional mechanics, so people actually have something to which to react positively or negatively -- or keep giving us no real information but bring in some PR pros. Give polished presentations, edit the blogs/podcasts/editorials to take out parts which might piss people off without any corresponding benefit, put out a professional digital product, and get people excited. Just stop gratuitously pissing people off.
I think that people who work at Wizards should know the rules, should not piss off the fans gratuitously, and should put out quality products. Right now, they’re 0 for 2 with one still up in the air. It’s getting to where I hope Hasbro sends in some adult supervision, and that’s something I never thought I’d say.
And I don’t even like guardinals.
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I think this is a very important concept to understand that needs as much reiteration as possible. Though it goes the other way around, too... in the form of rose-tinted glasses. Bringing these two types together always begets steaming controversy.Indeed. That's why I keep hoping WotC will just come out and be straight about stuff instead of doing the Dance of the Seven Veils with 4E. It makes the new edition a Rorschach Test where everyone sees what they want to see and that's not doing anyone any good.
But I get the impression that WotC keeps at least one TSR tradition alive and well: the tin ear. Seriously, you would think that, in this day and age, a company that's trying to make use of things like blogs and forums would understand that these media are two-way. Instead we get mostly platitudes about how the designers would really love to spill the beans but they can't (for some nebulous reason) and so we're left with "Trust us; we know what we're doing." That doesn't build confidence and it reinforces all the worries some people have.
It may all prove unfounded in the end and 4E may well be the Second Coming in game form, but there's simply no way to know that right now and just about everything WotC and its representatives does or says adds to the growing pile of worry. They should take a page from Paizo's book or that of many other game companies that do much better jobs conveying their messages and interacting with fans.
You know, I think that is the essence of what is irritating us so much. WotC is saying "If our super-talented and experienced game designers like it, then you should like it too, or there is something wrong with you. 3.5 is broken, and you weren't having fun with it. 4th edition will fix everything. Trust us."
They're not telling you it's "un-fun". They're saying that they're trying to make it more fun. I can't stand it when I look around my table and see people who're getting bored because a combat is taking to long.
Also, no one's trying to "fire the customers". They're making changes, kind of like rennovating your favorite coffee shop, so you get your coffee faster and fresher. If you feel like you're being "fired" then you're not having fun. You're viewing the game as work, not a game.
That's my two cents. Cheerio!
<snip>
There have been elements of the game that Erik Mona and James Jaccobs have said they didn't like, but they have never seemed to have dismissed any aspect of the game without seeming like they actually know about the element itself.
Ahem! cough *psionics* cough
As for the rest of the thread, this is the same tennis game since April, and it looks like a lot of projection and assumptions to me regarding 4ed. I'm eagerly awaiting 4ed, and although I sympathize with Sebastian, I don't feel personally insulted by WotC. My take is that new editions are natural. I think there's always room for improvement. I didn't conclude that WotC's opinion of 3.5 devolved to where they now feel anyone playing the game now are idiots and that anyone continuing to play the game should be dragged out and shot. I'm not going to throw out my 3.5 books regardless of the results of 4ed. I personally don't need to know the backroom story behind all of ther decisions. I can see for myself when 4ed comes out what changes have been made, and I won't care for *why* at that point.
I have really enjoyed 3.5ed, but there are elements I find could use improvement just as I had with 2ed and with the original boxed set (I skipped 1ed).
There is also one MAJOR difference with this edition change that has never happened before:
The fact that WotC is NOT the only company producing D&D products. Paizo, Necromancer, Goodman, Green Ronin, and others also produce D&D products. We don't *need* WotC (or the holder of the D&D brand) anymore to get our D&D fix.
Also, these companies INTERACT with their fans in a give-and-take way much moreso than WotC comes close to. We've gotten used to scoops and having direct input on many projects. (Heck, over at Necromancer Games each adventure has its own forum where the designers talk about decisions and whatnot BEFORE the product is even out.) Now granted, the input itself is limited, and in some cases doesn't happen at all, but in other cases, user input can directly affect what product is done.
So those that say "this happens every edition" are speaking without precedent, as the OGL never existed like this before.
And this wasn't just three guys talking over beers -- they chose in post-production to leave that exchange in the podcast, when they could have gone back and taken it out or fixed it.
That's exactly what bugs me too. This was left in and I am pretty certain it was calculatedly left in. What they wanted to convey was that the designers aren't high and mighty know-it-alls; they're just ordinary gamers like you and me who love D&D. And I'm sure that's true, but, if you want to convince the skeptics, you need to convey more than that. You need to convey mastery of what has gone before so that no one will even question (or at least not question as much) the divergences from past editions.
So much of the anger and frustration could easily have been avoided and indeed still could be if WotC talked straight with us. Instead, I feel like I'm being played for a fool who'll just accept whatever line I'm being fed. That's a shame, because they may not in fact be feeding me a line at all, but there's simply no way to know that. We get lots of promises of this and that and little explanation of how this will occur or why. It's an approach that breeds skepticism and frustration.
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I've edition changes too, and while 1st -> 2nd was met with skepticism, 2nd -> 3rd was mainly meant with enthusiasm. 3rd -> 4th is the first one where I've seen people this annoyed.
My own experience was a little different, in that the switch from 1st -> 2nd was met with a mix of trepidation and optimism, at least by all the players and DMs I knew at the time.
Everyone acknowledged that 1st Edition had some real strange quirks and could do with some revisions, but since nothing like that had ever been done before, the whole idea of any change was unnerving. But (again, in my own experience) no one was terribly annoyed or horrified when 2nd edition finally rolled out.
And 2nd -> 3rd just seemed like a natural evolution. TSR's financial woes had left 2nd Edition pretty barren. It hadn't been properly supported for years, and people seemed ready for a change.
I think that's the big problem with 3rd -> 4th. Both prior changes seemed organic, and the prior editions had really run their course by the time the new ones showed up. People were ready for a change. Right now, though, people seemed pretty satisfied with 3.5 ... and 4.0 is definitely an unwelcome, unwanted change for most.
The 3.0 -> 3.5 change also adds to the annoyance. I don't think people would be so irked by 4th edition if substantial changes hadn't already been made to the game with the 3.5 revisions.
Hey guys, I think you are reading way too much into the various WotC quotes.
Remember that these guys are gamers, just like us! They are all thrilled (too thrilled perhaps) and fired up about the stuff they have been making, and eager to tell us about it. So naturally they point out what they see as improvements.
But they are not evil, arrogant or trying to belittle the game we are playing (3.5). I simply cannot believe that.
So try and give them a little leeway here. Don't assume that they are trying to insult you, cause I'm sure they are not. If they do so unintentionally, cut them some slack. We're all gamers right :-)Well, the WotC "blogs" and "interviews" sure don't feel like being written by one gamer being excited about the next big thing. They feel like being written by marketing droids to push their next product to as many consumers as possible as quickly as possible.
So i'll hold them to the standard of marketing droids, at least for the time being.
I have a different reaction. I've never listened to a podcast and felt Dave or Mike were robots spewing forth corporate logos and CP-30 platitudes. I've always felt that they seemed very animated, enthusiastic, and were always a pleasure to listen to. As for anything over the internet, it's typed text. There's no facial expressions, body language, or tone of voice. When read with pessimistic glasses, anything read will have a more dour interpretation than when read with optimism. I've read the blogs and interviews and felt just as excited about what they are planning as you have felt aggravated and annoyed. It feels like arguments over spilled milk at this point. 4ed will come out. People will buy it or not. People still using 3.5 will somehow die horrible deaths or not. WotC will go out of business or not. As the world turns. . .
As I see it, I don't feel that WotC are intentionally insulting anyone. If they are, it's directly because they have a severe negative modifier to their Diplomacy checks and are rolling 1's.