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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 12:42AM
#1
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www.livingdice.com/6963/is-it-really-dd-..."My only remaining worry is that the pillars of this new system will never be changed even if fan response proves them unpopular. One of these ideological foundations is the apparent obsession in recreating the perfect storm churned up by 3rd Edition, effectively disregarding the contributions of 4th Edition. The common complaint I’ve been reading recently is the similarity between this new edition with 3rd Edition and the lack of any carryover from 4th, peculiar considering the apparent assumed consensus that 4th Edition was a disaster on the same scale of New Coke and Highlander 2."
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 1:38AM
#2
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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It sounds like the blogger has no experience with D&D out side of 3e and 4e. It definitely wasn't 3e that DDN reminded me of. In fact, the sheer fact that there is no vertical scaling of attack bonuses, skills, and saving throws is such a vast difference between 3e, I am puzzled how anyone could come to that conclusion.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 1:39AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Oct 11, 2009
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www.livingdice.com/6963/is-it-really-dd-...
"My only remaining worry is that the pillars of this new system will never be changed even if fan response proves them unpopular. One of these ideological foundations is the apparent obsession in recreating the perfect storm churned up by 3rd Edition, effectively disregarding the contributions of 4th Edition. The common complaint I’ve been reading recently is the similarity between this new edition with 3rd Edition and the lack of any carryover from 4th, peculiar considering the apparent assumed consensus that 4th Edition was a disaster on the same scale of New Coke and Highlander 2."
Why would the people who like the direction their headed in complain about it? Many people are stating a preference for the implications of D&DNext.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 3:03AM
#4
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I would never compare 4e to Highlander 2.
4e actually had some enjoyable parts in it.
Pro DnD Member of the Axis of Awesome Fighters: Using socks to kill monsters since 2012 DnD Next: Now with more then 4 minutes of Roleplay per gaming hour Spoiler:
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"If you can't make an interesting human fighter, then you aren't ready to play anything else yet" Edymnion
"The idea of resting up between encounters to fill-up on hit points and spells struck my meta-gaming nine-year-old as a distinct possibility. "Are you mad?" says my seven-year-old "This place is full of monsters!" "jamesgrahamuk
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Sometimes that story is short and sometimes it is long. They can be tragic, comic or absurd. Some teach. Some are just to fill the empty spaces in our lives. Rarely it is a transcendent fugue only half remembered but wondered at. And frequently: "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." -William Shakespeare
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 3:39AM
#5
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Date Joined:
Apr 22, 2001
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I think 5th edition is trying to distance itself from 4th edition and associate itself with the concepts that all editions of D&D had in common. I believe this is specifically a response to the fact that after everything was said and done, 4th edition did not do well. Thats just my opinion, but I don't see any evidence in 5th edition that says "hey 4th edition was awsome, lets build from that", its more like "crap, how are we going to make a new edition and maintain the few 4th edition players while re-capturing the masses that have left the system". Again just my observation here, but thats how I see this whole thing playing out. By the time 5th edition comes out I doubt there will be much that is reckognizable from 4th edition in the game.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 5:44AM
#6
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I think 5th edition is trying to distance itself from 4th edition and associate itself with the concepts that all editions of D&D had in common. I believe this is specifically a response to the fact that after everything was said and done, 4th edition did not do well. Thats just my opinion, but I don't see any evidence in 5th edition that says "hey 4th edition was awsome, lets build from that", its more like "crap, how are we going to make a new edition and maintain the few 4th edition players while re-capturing the masses that have left the system". Again just my observation here, but thats how I see this whole thing playing out. By the time 5th edition comes out I doubt there will be much that is reckognizable from 4th edition in the game.
And contrariwise I think you'll see more and more influence from 4e. The problem is that much of what is in 4e is a simple logical necessity of needs of the game. 5e's current attempt at a healing system for example is fail. It neither accomplishes what the 4e healing system did, nor is it really that much like AD&D healing. The problem here is AD&D healing was too limited and led to the heinous mess that was 3e healing. Inevitably if you work out the bugs in 5e's healing you end up with 4e's healing. You can go back to 2e healing, but that will just mean you finally end up with 3e healing again!
I could go on, but the problem is the 4e developers already thought through all of this and came to certain inevitable conclusions on a lot of points. Their EXACT solutions aren't sacred or necessarily the best, but the approach they took in every case is the logical and usually almost inevitable direction. Given that 5e is going to basically stay within the bounds of what has been in previous editions there's only one way it can go forward.
I won't even touch the whole 'popularity' swamp except to say that if WotC is going to pull off a success they don't need "a few" 4th ed players, because I've got news for you, there are a LOT of us. No, they will need 90% of us onboard. We're the ones that are actually spending money NOW. We're also the ones that aren't going to obsess over some obscure difference between 5e and 1e AD&D or whatever. It is already proven I'll buy a good game from them.
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 6:22AM
#7
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Date Joined:
Jun 17, 2010
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www.livingdice.com/6963/is-it-really-dd-...
"My only remaining worry is that the pillars of this new system will never be changed even if fan response proves them unpopular. One of these ideological foundations is the apparent obsession in recreating the perfect storm churned up by 3rd Edition, effectively disregarding the contributions of 4th Edition. The common complaint I’ve been reading recently is the similarity between this new edition with 3rd Edition and the lack of any carryover from 4th, peculiar considering the apparent assumed consensus that 4th Edition was a disaster on the same scale of New Coke and Highlander 2."
And yet another 4e fan who seems to not have gotten the memo that the 4e-style things are being introduced later.
Seriously, people, they are adding 4e-styled things. They said so several times. There is no "consensus that 4th edition was a disaster" at WotC, no matter what the internet may lead you to believe.
D&D Next = D&D: Quantum Edition
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 6:36AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2007
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Interesting insights. Two things that jumped out to me: "Defining something does not add complexity... Definitions allow homebrew DMs to redefine them. Definitions remove doubt..." I totally agree with this. I have a big problem with the skill system; not the adjudication of the DCs or which ability score to use, but rather that the skills are undefined. I have only a vague sense of what sort of checks Natural Lore or Commerce apply to. "In this new version, one monster can cast spells—because nothing says speedy combat like a DM having to flip through a Player’s Handbook." I haven't played with this particular monster yet, but this makes me cringe. I hope this is somehting that gets purged as the monsters are better defined.
D&D Next... for those who would rather play a version of D&D they dislike the least, rather than the one they like the most!
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 7:14AM
#9
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I won't even touch the whole 'popularity' swamp except to say that if WotC is going to pull off a success they don't need "a few" 4th ed players, because I've got news for you, there are a LOT of us. No, they will need 90% of us onboard. We're the ones that are actually spending money NOW. We're also the ones that aren't going to obsess over some obscure difference between 5e and 1e AD&D or whatever. It is already proven I'll buy a good game from them.
Such truth! 4E players are largely here because we've adapted to and valued the changes from edition to edition. We didn't walk away in a huff when gnomes and druids didn't make it into the first PH for 4E. We stuck around becuase we valued the underlying ideas, so we could be patient with some changes. I don't think that's the kind of audience you make no effort to keep, unless DDN is really just supposed to be a "Greatest Hits" nostalgia purchase for everyone who hated the new album.
Ed_Warlord, on what it takes to make a thread work: I think for it to be really constructive, everyone would have to be honest with each other, and with themselves. Quotation of the moment
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Areleth: How does this help the problems we have with Fighters? Do you think that every time I thought I was playing D&D what I was actually doing was slamming my head in a car door and that if you just explain how to play without doing that then I'll finally enjoy the game?
Quotation of ALL moments
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TD: That's why they put me on the front of every book. This is the dungeon, and I am the dragon.
A word of warning though: I'm totally not a level appropriate encounter.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 8:25AM
#10
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Date Joined:
Sep 12, 2008
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I think 5th edition is trying to distance itself from 4th edition and associate itself with the concepts that all editions of D&D had in common. I believe this is specifically a response to the fact that after everything was said and done, 4th edition did not do well. Thats just my opinion, but I don't see any evidence in 5th edition that says "hey 4th edition was awsome, lets build from that", its more like "crap, how are we going to make a new edition and maintain the few 4th edition players while re-capturing the masses that have left the system". Again just my observation here, but thats how I see this whole thing playing out. By the time 5th edition comes out I doubt there will be much that is reckognizable from 4th edition in the game.
Well, it's a shame WotC won't even hint at the real numbers and their trending.
All indications were, for quite a while 4E was doing fantastically. It hit national bestsellers lists, which was a first for D&D that I recall. All of the releases topped the charts on Amazon, and according to the numbers of major distributors like Diamond/Alliance, in their trade periodicals. Encounters, too, was a huge success, for that type of program especially (which historically...umm...suck).
You know when the numbers started to really plummet, as I recall? When WotC went from a steady (and perhaps too flooded) release schedule, to almost nothing for quite some time, followed by the release of...............Essentials. That was the brick wall that essentially destroyed 4E and thrust Pathfinder into the limelight. Now, Pathfinder according to the numbers Alliance, etc, was giving us retailers, was solid. But 4E was simply selling more, period.
WotC, of course, will not confirm this, or the numbers and when they started to trend downwards.
So...basically, as far as the data we retailers were given for a very long time, 4E was trucking along just fine, although the supplement release schedule should have been pulled back somewhat. Then Mike Mearls got ahold of the game, and released what ended up being an overall spectacular failure of a tweaking and relaunch of the game, and seems to be now working hard on effectively destroying what was learned and was a success with regards to 4E.
So...where, exactly, does the problem seem to actually lie? Not with 4E, with the data we retailers were given for years. Data given to us not by WotC, but rather by the leading distributor of the game to local brick and mortar stores (Alliance Games) and also the top online seller (Amazon). EDIT: Oh, and those were also the numbers we were given by the trade periodicals that compiled data from the brick and mortar retailers directly, and gave us the rough percentages of market share, and list of top 10 sellers in each genre of game and comic, RPGs being one of those genres, and D&D 4E always being top dog in it.
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