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Jancoran wrote:

I wish we could dismiss neotism, but I think that is the strongest urge in a gamer amongst the POSSIBLE reasons you listed.

I can really only speak for myself, but my strongest urge is to have a game that's balanced and interesting for every character class. "Here's a thing that is new" only works on me when it's accompanied by "...and here is why we felt it was necessary to do so." I'm on board for 4e because I tend to agree with their reasons -- in short, that there were a number of problems with 3rd edition that were at the very heart of the system (such as, for example, the nature of the Sweet Spot).

...the people entrenched in 3.5 will be far more solidly entrenched than were 2.0 players...
So neotism is going to be the driving force. It's quite easy to see that 3.5 could not have exhausted its possibilities at ANY table.

But do we really only switch versions when one version is exhausted? I'm not interested in the switch because I think I'm "done" with 3.5; I want it because I want the changes that make the whole game faster and fairer. I haven't had an adventure in an arctic environment to take advantage of Frostburn? So what?

The other reason to switch is that 4E is "better" qualitatively. I suspect it will be hard to see it as better, but I think it would be easy to see it as different. Buying it because its different or novel is just neotism in a different form.

Buying because of novelty is the definition of neotism. It's not a different form...

But I think WOTC better scale down their intense release schedule a little because future pubs from 4E are going to be eyed with suspicion (and rightly so) based on how they brutalized pocket books with 3.0/3.5 supplement. Before anyone has really even TRIED to collect all that STUFF, let alone use it ingame, they sent us a new edition!

I disagree there. The initial releases are there to get certain material out as soon as possible because they know that material is in high demand. There are a LOT of players who will want to get their 4e Forgotten Realms game going, and putting off that book until next year would be foolish.

Again, I don't think anyone is supposed to "use up" book X before they buy book Y. A new book adds new information to the system that a DM can draw on or not, as he needs.

Let me ask you this: are you going to be EQUALLY interested in 4E supplements as you were previous editions? My bet, if you were honest on this point, is that you won't buy as many.

You lost that bet, m'friend. I'll buy suppliments for 4e with the very same interest I did for 3rd - "Does this book fit into my game? Does it have information I'm interested in?" I never bought any of the 'environment' books (Cityscape, Dungeonscape, Frostburn, Sandstorm, and Stormwrack) because I didn't feel I needed more help with any of those. I did buy Complete Arcane and Complete Scoundrel and so on, because those caught my interest.

I never was a person who would buy anything WOTC put out. I purchased the books that were interesting to me or useful to my game -- and that isn't going to change just because there's a 4 on the cover.

There's too big a financial risk in going out and purchasing a bunch of supplements and then watching those dollars go waltzing off into the sunset again. You couldn't SAY that reasonably about 3E, because WOTC hadn't yet proven they would disrespect the investment of its players. But now that we see that they will pump a TON of stuff out (over 100 supplements)...and see that they will allow 4 editions in 8 years, you can now SAFELY say that WOTC will do it again.

100 supplements? Really?

Does that include counting novels? Dungeon Tiles? Minis? Because those aren't actually "suppliments". Does it count all the FR books, all the Eberron books, and all the core (settingless) stuff? Because most people don't buy every book for every setting -- I never purchased a single FR book because I have no interest in playing there; and I didn't even get all the Eb books even though I love the setting, because "Religions of Eberron" and "Forge of War" and such, just aren't of interest to me.

Anyway, so what? They try to release a book or two every month. That's many, many less than what 2nd edition ever did. (Though I will happily admit that I never played 2nd edition -- the new 3rd edition was what got me into this game.)

They WILL put a 5th edition out if 4E doesn't sink them and it WONT be more than four years from now.

What you meant is "I think they will..." You have no proof, and in fact quite the opposite -- all the devs have said they have no interest in doing a 4.5 or even THINKING about a new edition.

I think you may not understand how much work it is, and how HUGE an undertaking, to start a new edition. It's not a money grab. It's an incredible investment to produce something like this, and an enormous risk. If the player base doesn't agree that a new edition is a good idea, they risk losing a huge quantity of money -- that's not the sort of thing you do if you really need income.

If you're desperate for income, you stick with what has been working in the past. You quickly release a lot of suppliments of inferior quality. You stop using expensive hardcovers and release lots of softback splats; you give up on glossy paper and full color illos and start going with simplistic black and white.

Oh, wait -- I just described TSR.

We KNOW this to be true now. It isn't theory. It's a known strategy, IN EVIDENCE, right now.

Actually, we know the devs don't want to do that again. 3.5 wasn't a good idea, and they admit as much. It was an attempt to fix the system, but it didn't -- couldn't! -- address the real root causes.

It's not a "strategy". The designers are as interested -- or more interested -- than we players in making the game as good as it can be. Sometimes that means a new edition because the problems have just become too much to deal with.


I'm a computer programmer. This happens from time to time in the computer world. It's usually better to try to refactor an old program than rewrite it. You want to patch it and fix it instead of trying to go back to zero. That's what 3.5 was; a patch. It worked okay, but it couldn't address the problems that were down at the base level. Problems like BAB. Like caster progression. Like CR. Like LA.

You've clearly made up your mind about WOTC, so this is all probably futile. I can't help it, though... I guess it's just in my nature to argue against venom.

Ztyx wrote:

Still, birds fly by nature, some other animals glide, and that's it. Also, no animal larger than a swan flies or takes off by its own power, hence it is obviously very difficult.

Not true. The only part you got right was that birds fly by nature...

1.. Bats are NOT birds

2. Dinosaurs are NOT birds.

3. The largest flying bird is NOT a swan. Heck, it is not even close. It is a wandering albatross.



The Wandering Albatross has the largest wingspan of any living bird, with the average wingspan being 3.1 metres (10.2 ft). The longest-winged examples verified have been about 3.7 m (12 ft), but... reports of as much as 5.3 m (17.5 ft) are known.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandering_albatross


When you consider what creatures lived before, you might be in for a real shock. We have found evidence that there were creatures that had about a ~40' wing span that could fly on thier own..

However, the more recently discovered azhdarchid pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus is much larger, with estimates of the wingspan ranging from 9 m to 12 m. Some other recently discovered azhdarchid pterosaur species, such as Hatzegopteryx, may have also wingspans of a similar size or even slightly larger.

Although it is widely thought that Quetzalcoatlus reached the size limit of a flying animal, it should be noted that the same was once said of Pteranodon.

You can find this here (under the flying sections):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_and_gliding_animals




So, the largest verfied living animal has a wing span of over ~12 foot. If we go back to the extinct animals, they exceeded ~40 foot wing spans.



So, you may want to revisit how difficult it is to have a larger, flying creature...

Keenath wrote:

Actually, we know the devs don't want to do that again. 3.5 wasn't a good idea, and they admit as much.

Actually, we don't know that. We do know that the developers would not be allowed to say "don't buy the 4e books, wait for 4.5...

Keep in mind that 3.5 was a commercial success.


Besides, we already have heard that their will be a new PHB, DMG, and MM every year. How is that really different from 4.5?

Do you thinkt that they will not change, or add new rules in the yearly core books??? What, exactly, do you thinks those books will contain?


P.S. BTW, if wizards really wanted a better edition without all of the errors, they would have playtested a lot more. The books are being printed as we speak, even though the play test reports have found some issues...

And that is with Pre-Gen'ed characters and a specific campaign.

P.P.S. Also, as a computer programmer you already know that while you want the best product that can be made, your bosses want a product that will sell, be highly profitable, and meet the release deadlines. Those are factors that directly affect your work as a developer....