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Ok much more productive day.
WOTC was on hand to talk 4th edition, Bill Slavicsek and Michael Mearls.
First they showed off the NEW PHB cover.. busy female warlock (I think) instead of female fighter/paladin. It's on Wizards.com to see (she's got nothing on Seoni!)
They talked about a bunch of stuff we've all heard before and saw a demo of the D&D Insider working. They're promising Dungeons & Dragons magazines will both return to full featured magazines come October.
They talked about 1 updated campaign setting a year.. this worries me that they won't do many additional supplements.. I know I wasn't very happy with the 3/3.5 offerings for the Realms.. something tells me there will be even less. They feel "bloating" a campaign setting with too many books is bad. *sighs*
Lastly, Mike and Bill both ran 6 person custom adventures they came up with 30 minutes before hand using the 3E tiles. 4E rules using the Game Day pregens.
Oh! And in my first booster of the new miniatures I got the new Beholder.. it looks awesome and was selling on the show floor for $30. :)
Pictures: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v494/sf411/icon/
Audio: http://www.savefile.com/files/1486588
I have to say it felt like 3/3.5. It was just new abilities for the class and having to decide when to use the per encounter and per day abilities. The whole healing thing didn't bother me at all and kinda make sense now that I've used it... I just don't like what they're doing to my campaign setting. Oh and Drizzt isn't on the FRCG, some chick riding a dragon is... because that so fits into the Realms.
All things aside, during the presentation and in person they were dodging talking about the GSL. I have a feeling it's not going to happen. Hopefully publishers get behind 3P.
Oh and Drizzt isn't on the FRCG, some chick riding a dragon is... because that so fits into the Realms.
Matches the content, then.
They talked about 1 updated campaign setting a year.. this worries me that they won't do many additional supplements.. I know I wasn't very happy with the 3/3.5 offerings for the Realms.. something tells me there will be even less. They feel "bloating" a campaign setting with too many books is bad. *sighs*
I had a feeling that this was the direction they were heading, especially when they were talking about supporting settings on the DDI. The problem is that FR is popular enough to sell, but not enough to sell as much as "core" books. So why "waste" the time working on FR books when you can have your developers working on Martial Power II?
And somehow it feels even more onerous for them to blow up the setting so that they can put out a Campaign Guide and a Player's Guide and then move onto to Eberron.
I'd say that perhaps we should hope that 4th edition only runs for about five years, so that only four other campaign settings get trashed before the next "reset." If I were a Greyhawk fan I'd start telling everyone that I was a really big Council of Wyrms fan.
Anyway, the best solution to all of this is what they did in 3.5 with Dragonlance. They should have farmed out FR to freelancers that are more in tune with the fan base, and could tailor the books to them, and just publish the FRCS themselves.
Seriously, 4th edition's greatest controversy isn't in the game rule changes, its in the twisted maze of marketing decisions that seem to surround the game.
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Quick fix.. I know the img tag won't work but i don't feel like editing them out... just use the links. :)
Seriously, 4th edition's greatest controversy isn't in the game rule changes, its in the twisted maze of marketing decisions that seem to surround the game.
No argument here. My first reactions to what they told us about 4e was "this doesn't sound so bad" (well, actually that was the second, the first being: "Didn't they say that this is a long way off? Rewriting the dictionary again, wizards?"). Then the information about what's going to happen to the Realms started rolling in, and my opinion turned on its head (and that was when we only thought it would be a 10-year-jump, not a 100-year one). By then, 4e was dead to me. That the rules information we got after didn't sound thrilling didn't exactly help it, either.
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I'm going to agree. The more I read about it the less shinny it becomes in my eyes. I really, really hated what they did to the realms just so they could add a new race in. The tieflings were already part of the realms in smaller numbers they could have worked with that. Mostly though why the hell is Elminster turned into and doddering old fool unable to cast spells now? They should've just created a new world for themselves then carve up an Icon like FR.
I will also admit that after reading PFrpg 4e got even dingier in my eyes...
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It's not that he can't cast spells, he's just afraid to. They've turned him into a Noah's Ark. Should they need to revert the Realms, Elminster walking around with the memories and powers of some many super power beings means that some how they can "get out" of Elminster's head and back into bodies. ;)
If I were Elminster with my long list of enemies...I would be afraid to cast spells as well IF THEY ONLY LASTED ON AVERAGE 1-2 ROUNDS!
Sorry for the outburst...I hate the idea of a 45% save mechanic about as much as I hate jogging naked backwards thru a cornfield.
If I were Elminster with my long list of enemies...
They're all dead.
Anyway this Ark thing is disgusting. I know I won't return to the Realms if they decide that their new stuff is crap and no one want sit and they want the old fans back. That lighning-rail left long ago.