First I want to applaud Paizo for taking such a bold step, and to wish them good luck in their endeavor. They are an extremely talented group of people, and I know they will create an excellent product. This post is simply to express my disappointment over the decision regarding the future of Pathfinder.
Based on the statements they made, my impression was that Paizo would decide which edition Pathfinder would use after seeing the full 4e rules and the GSL. This was extremely important to me, because I feel that the proper context and complete information is needed to make a truly informed decision. As for myself, while I’m very interested in 4e and believe I will likely adopt it, I am reserving final judgment until the full product is released. I freely admit that my early impressions of the game could be wrong.
Now, I realize that the delay in the GSL has unfairly put a lot of pressure on Paizo, and my guess is that part of the reason for their decision is that they could not wait any longer. Again, though, I was under the impression that a delayed GSL would have implications specifically on whether or not the 3rd Adventure Path (Second Darkness) would be 3.5, and that the final decision over the future of Pathfinder would still be based on a full analysis of 4e.
Of course, my impressions could have been wrong, but I do not think they are that far off base, and I would guess that many other people shared them. I’m certainly not accusing Paizo of being deceitful or insincere in their intent, but I must say that I am much more disappointed in the Pathfinder decision than I would have been if they had announced it after reviewing the 4e rules and GSL. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure why it was necessary to make a final decision now.
Regardless of my disappointment, however, I again want to wish the fine people at Paizo the best of luck. I will continue supporting the Pathfinder line, because I absolutely love the setting and I enjoy the stories. It is very important to me, however, that Paizo understands that my continued support is based on the existing products and campaign setting, and not at all based on the decision to create the Pathfinder RPG. For those of us who love the setting but are not excited by the RPG, I'm not really sure how else we can provide the proper customer feedback.
Erik Mona posted this reply in the Welcome to the Pathfinder RPG thread:
The printing presses wait for no man. We blew two book trade solicitation periods waiting for the OGL/GSL and a first look at the new rules. Eventually, the train needed to leave the station one way or the other, so we made the "rules decision" based on the preview material leaked thus far, which is quite substantive in toto.
I would have preferred to have had weeks or even months to get acquainted with the 4.0 rules, but it became obvious that was not going to happen months ago.
So we looked at what we knew, we looked at what our customers were telling us, and we did our best to look forward and gauge where we thought the industry would be in the short term and the near term, and we made the decision that we believed best served Paizo's interests and the interests of the largest cohort of our customer base.
--Erik