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I'm going to see if maybe, just maybe I could put some things that I have been feeling, as eloquent as possible.

I started with 2nd edition, and I had a bad time with it.
I played 3.5 some years later, and I had a less bad time with it, but I was always lacking in some tools to properly enjoy it.
When fourth came out, I was the first one I know to invest. From my continuous support of buying expensive book after expensive hard cover book, from my terrible, surly local gamestore, tiles at 200% of canadian MSRP, paying for D&DI every month to get the content for my friends so they can build their characters, and getting them on the bandwagon to pay for it, and getting hosed and finding only boosters of minis with the same Shown Large Skeletal Cyclops, rat swarm, and few other samsies that don't have a place in my campaign full of zombies and gods, also joining group after group trying to find a group of four people who weren't jerks to DM for.

My DM, needs time off, and someone else offered to take his position for a while, and DM our DM's favourite setting, Dark Sun. We've been on hiatus, so we could build them with builder, since we don't have much time and we communicate through email. Being able to send our character builds helps prevent last season when we had three controllers and no defender, although there was one with that role.

I've bought two books from the essentials line. What can I tell you? They are ESSENTIALLY the same. Lots of overlap between Heroes and rules compendium. FINE.
Last year they advertised both Dark Sun and Essentials at gen con. It's on your podcast. I listen to every one, several times even. Even if a lot of them have overly-redundant advertising for certain things.

We all knew this was coming. Surely everyone in the company knew this was coming. It was everywhere. Everyone who has ever visited the forum has seen endless strings of messages about how much they love / hate essentials or how they think it is a different edition. You can't visit the D&D forums and be surprised. REALLY.

Why did it take so long to integrate something that I have been hearing about since, as long as I can remember?

Why do I always hear "Person X" is leaving, quit, laid off?

Why is darksun the last mentioned campaign setting?

Why is it that D&DI just plain sucked the last couple months, and mostly sucked this month?

Why is the system getting a nearly complete revamp in a direction I'm not sure I care for?

Where are those tools mentioned in my player's handbook?

Look, I'm loyal, and I love the game. Am I going to ask for my money back? No.
There is a concrete answer.

I know that Wizards keeps doing everything under the sun to make everyone happy.

Rather than complain about any of that, do some good with our money. Maybe some things need change. Maybe, everyone needs a little help to see the problem.

A business is just that, business. Who ever screams loudest, pays more gets what they want.

Here's my scream. I hate every edition before fourth, mechanically. I like that people could choose from a wide variety of options, especially at will powers, that used to be for the most part, interchangeable. I want those options to stay.

Maybe the company needs to stop making so many crazy promises and get a redo from the what everyone is demanding, including the company, of itself.

There was an apology, and some people got money back. Worse things have happened. Maybe a better route is to make a solid, sustainable plan for the future.

If you read all that again, you might see what I see. A company doing a fine job. I'm getting what I want, heck, I'm even getting what you want too. Very few people on the community site were as excited about some of the forth coming tools as the monthly update.

It's not like they cancelled it. It's coming.

Am I sad, yeah. Angry, no. It's just unfortunate planning.

I'm going to keep paying, and I am sure they do plan to get to all the magical things they had in store from the get-go, as long as I am buying it. 

Good things come to those who can wait, and better things come to those who will talk to the people who will help them get it.

There is hope, I found a good local game store. Just about anything can happen, if you're willing to fight for it. Quality is worth the wait. Just look at Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Sep 17, 2010 -- 12:55PM, AsmodeusLore wrote:

Sep 17, 2010 -- 12:51PM, Medriev wrote:

what's wrong with an apology from someone senior on the web site.

WotC_Trevor posted an apology here: community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...(September)&post_num=1#466317425

Thanks AL. I have seen this and won't go into again the reasons already posted why "We apologise for any incovenience caused is inadequate". As I have said in my e-mail to CS, I use the CB exclusively to generate characters and so the Dark Sun books I spent money on in August are currently sitting unused on my bookshelf. The game is incredibly complex and without the CS, AT and the Compendium, I have no way of looking at all the options available.

Others have also posted the effect that this is having on the Encounters programme, especially given that players were encouraged to generate new Dark Sun characters for Chapter 3 of Season 2 without a CB update to do that with. Equally, players will now have no update to generate Essentials characters for season 3.

I would expect an apology on the D&D home page that is longer than 3 sentences and recognises the problems that this delay is calling while also explaining the real reason for the delay. This would show some understanding of how the loyal D&D fan base feels. "We apologise for any inconvenience cause" does not.

I am pleased, though, that WotC seem to be responding quickly with refunds and I await the reponse to my own CS e-mail.

Sep 16, 2010 -- 5:27PM, mudbunny wrote:

Sep 16, 2010 -- 4:58PM, KM.549 wrote:

But someone was bound to ask this, so it might as well be me. Since this big update in now due in October, does that mean the planned update for october will be pushed back a month, and so on?

I have done some poking, and hope to have an answer for you tomorrow.

Any update?  Or did I miss it elsewhere?