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I'm sorry, this wasn't a review. The entire thing was pure glowing admiration, besides some vague "epic levels are weird" comments. Is 4E really better than 3.5 in EVERY way? C'mon, different systems are going to have their strengths and weaknesses.
As pointed out, many of the innovations mentioned were things any DM worth their salt has been doing for decades.
I realize that D&D feels extremely threatened from MMO's, but it seems downright silly to me to respond to it by making D&D into a table top version of an MMO. This is a road to disaster since computers will do this stuff better and faster every year. Why have a table top game when its essentially the same thing available on a computer. It seems Wizards ought to have focused on what differentiates them from MMO's not what they have in common.
I'll reserve final judgment till I see the books, but I am pessimistic.
My two cents.

molten_dragon wrote:

Once again, this reinforces my belief that a large part WotC's reasoning behind 4th edition was to try to attract the large MMORPG crowd to D&D. I'll give it a year or so for everything to come out in the wash and then make my decision.

You never gave your player's rewards for completing something? Like...I dunno, gold?

"Kill those ogres for me, I'll give you gold." Is a quest with the reward.

"There's a dungeon outside of town, it's got phat lewtz." Wow another reward for killing everything inside it.

Rewards have been around for longer than 4e.

personaly I'm going to wait and see what it's like when it comes. the problem I have is now that 4e is on it's way there'll be little or no new material for 3e/3.5e, or 4e stuff will not be compatible enough forcing people to upgrade to the new rules. though I don't see that happening as any creative DM can upgrade 1e basic adventures to 3e rules with little fuss (change a few stats here, adjust item names there)

if i do decide to buy the 4e books then I'll do like I always do. take what I think is good from it and mix it with 3.5. and if 4e is better then I'll still add elements from 3.5e, though I don't see much point in a major change of the rules as the current rules do their job well enough (and where they don't it's possible to edit them as a DM) the only thing I fear is they'll make it too simple. granted simple is great for beginners (first time I played 1e basic I never had a problem as everything was stated clearly but when it came to MERP my head exploded with all the manuver tables, fumble tables and critical strikes).
that's the main problem I see. if they make it too simple they risk alienating the older players not to mention the die hard role players if the classes become less specialised (kind of like 1e basic dwarf and fighter. basically the same class with the dwarf having a few bonuses). don't get me wrong I like the occasional jack of all trades class which can fill in the ranks but if all classes are designed as such then what's the point in having diffrent classes instead I feel that aditional specialised classes with a few general all round classes thrown in would be better (basically what we already have).

but bottom line is we just have to wait and see. and if it is too simple we always still have 3.5 to fall back on

Jhaelen wrote:

I have to admit I am a bit astonished at the amount of denial shown by many posts here. Is it so hard to believe that 4E might actually BE better than the 3E rules in most regards? Ever heard about Occam's razor?

Good game; yes - Better game, that's debatable since it's all a matter of opinion.

I'm also somewhat amused by all those anecdotes along the lines of 'why, our group's been playing like this for ages!'. Well, good for you! And even better for everyone who hasn't, because now, if it's spelled out in the rules, everyone has the chance to benefit and not just those groups with 'DMs worth their salt'.

Since I'm the only one to have used anecdotes, I'll bite. My problem with the information as presented in the review is specifically as you say "now it's spelled out in the rules".

Or more specifically the anecdote about the player kicking a table out from under another individual. The reviewer presented it as though it would have somehow been an insurmountable ruling challenge to address had it not been for 4E.

Maybe its a generational thing, I dunno, but I'm constantly feeling like a large portion of the 3.x players are playing with the "Invisible Wall" effect present in so many Video Games, if something isn't specifically addressed in the rules. The reviewers anecdote just reaffirms this for me, and becomes particularly contentious when one of his players is a designer whom I would have expected enough creativity from to know that the 'solution' was just as easily addressable in 3.x

What used to be a game of "this is how we do it" for the last 20+ years, has slowly turned into "you can't do that because it's not in the rules".

Don't you think it's a good thing if reading the 4E books makes people better DMs? Or are you suffering from some kind of jealous elitism because you don't want other players to have as good a playing experience as you seem to have enjoyed already?

Two parts to this for me.
1) I don't believe 4E is going to make people better DMs, any more than its going to make some people better players. There are systems far more intuitive, fast, and flexible than D&D in any edition and they don't make DMs any better either. This is spoon fed bull.
2) My solution to players who can't seem to find a decent play experience is to suggest that maybe they should look elsewhere -different game or group whatever works.

For me the major selling point of 4E is the promise of less work for the DM. I've been DMing 3E for a couple of years now and if my players are to believed I am not doing a bad job of it. But I doubt that many players appreciate the vast amount of work it takes to prepare for those fun sessions, especially in the higher levels.

Congratulations, I sincerely applaud you for that - because I know how much work it takes.

I've been DM'ing since AD&D, and if there's one thing that TSR and WoTC to follow up always promised was easier work on the DM - and once again, you know what? That's never been true, in any game. DM'ing in every system is a difficult, time consuming, and sometimes thankless job.

What bother's me is that 4E is being presented as though the "rules" will make it easier for you to be creative, or more spontaneous. I can't be the only person to see the irony in this? Once again, maybe its just me, but I never knew so many players required every last thing to be spelled out for them in such minute detail that creating fun and exciting adventures was actually a bullet point list and a 'do this here' schedule, and if the rules didn't stipulate that you can do something it automatically defaulted to 'you can't'.
(Before leaning on me for that one, recall the reviewer did specifically say the rules re-inforce the DM saying 'yes'. Every resource on roleplaying has enforced this, but now suddenly the 4E manual says it, so only now is it gospel?)

EDIT: Also, I think alot of this "rules indifference" you're sensing from some of the older school crowd is specifically because some rules were pulled in 3E because they didn't streamline the game; ie. quest and story rewards, etc. and WoTC is using that player generation gap to sell 'revolutionary rules' to players who never knew they were actually there before. For some of us, alot of this is history repeating itself and alot of "well we've always been doing that" is because it was in the rules before but if you're only exposure to D&D as a game is 3.x then you'd never know that.

Am I generalizing? sure - but at least when they were presenting 3.x to the 2E community they presented hard, cold facts about how the rules were better and faster. THAC0 even had its own article about the speed of calculations in combat to demonstrate how much faster 3E was.

4E still hasn't presented those facts, just a lot of emotional rhetoric and 'trust us'. And this reviewer in my opinion didn't help the cause.