It WOULD be a good thing if people where reasonable. But honestly, we're not.
That's my number one issue, and WotC's greatest fear I think. IMHO, if someone attacks/flames a WotC official in any way, they should be suspended for 3 days, period. If they have an issue, they should be taking it up with customer support, or possibly a designated official, in PM's. The forums are not the place for that type of stuff towards anyone, let alone a WotC employee.
Reflavoring: the change of flavor without changing any mechanical part of the game, no matter how small, in order to fit the mechanics to an otherwise unsupported concept. Retexturing: the change of flavor (with at most minor mechanical adaptations) in order to effortlessly create support for a concept without inventing anything new. Houseruling: the change, either minor or major, of the mechanics in order to better reflect a certain aspect of the game, including adapting the rules to fit an otherwise unsupported concept. Homebrewing: the complete invention of something new that fits within the system in order to reflect an unsupported concept.
I mentioned this before. It would be excellent to see more devs and employees post, however only one of which should be considered the official source of information (Trevor).
The other devs can than talk freely and theorycraft with the public as they wish, but they cannot be held to anything as official. Those types of things are left up to Trevor. It avoids any faux pas while letting them discuss some of the ideas and goings-on and behind the curtain.
I.e. they can discuss with the customers potential ideas regarding functionality of the encounter generator, but nothing discussed is any guarantee that it will be included, or that we're even going to get an encounter generator. Only Trevor's words on the subject are gospel.
While I think something like this would be cool, I don't think it would work well. Any company employee posting in these forums as an identified employee is a representative of WotC. Eventually, one of them would make a mistake in what they said or how they said something and people would be mad and no amount of "It wasn't Trevor so it doesn't count" will calm them down. Trevor has said that they're going to try to keep the information flowing the same, but through him instead of piecemeal. If they can pull it off, then that will work best. That being said, I do think Paolo answering technical questions directly should still be allowed.
It WOULD be a good thing if people where reasonable. But honestly, we're not.
That's my number one issue, and WotC's greatest fear I think. IMHO, if someone attacks/flames a WotC official in any way, they should be suspended for 3 days, period. If they have an issue, they should be taking it up with customer support, or possibly a designated official, in PM's. The forums are not the place for that type of stuff towards anyone, let alone a WotC employee.
Hell, ban 'em if they're going to go to personal attacks. Most of the forums I go to are far more strictly moderated than this one.
And I say this knowing that I called out Paolo incorrectly and said something wrong in that particular thread. I retracted that part of my post (and I regret even posting it) when I understood the full story. I would have accepted a suspension over it because, while I did not call him a liar in so many words, I certainly implied that he acted in bad faith without actually knowing wherefrom I spoke.
It WOULD be a good thing if people where reasonable. But honestly, we're not.
That's my number one issue, and WotC's greatest fear I think. IMHO, if someone attacks/flames a WotC official in any way, they should be suspended for 3 days, period. If they have an issue, they should be taking it up with customer support, or possibly a designated official, in PM's. The forums are not the place for that type of stuff towards anyone, let alone a WotC employee.
I disagree with the banning, that won't help. IMO, employees shouldn't be posting on the boards, at least not in offical/announcement capacity. Which is why i suggested doing the announcements via the main sight. People want to vent, and it's usualy easiest to just let them.
Edit: The other reason, is that all the responses will be in once place. Right now i have to jump though 4+ threads to find them responses.
F-111 Interdictor Long (200+ squares) distance ally teleporter. With some warlord stuff. Broken in a plot way, not a power way. Thought Switch Higher level build that grants upto 14 attacks on turn 1. If your allies play along, it's broken. Elven Critters Crit op with crit generation. 5 of these will end anything. Broken. King Fisher Does an excellent job at keeping an enemy disabled in a few ways. Strong. Boominator Fun catch-22 booming blade build with either strong or completely broken damage depending on your reading. Very Distracting Warlock Lot's of dazing and major penalties to hit. Overpowered. Pocket Protector Pixie Stealth Knight. Maximizing the defender's aura by being in an ally's/enemy's square. Yakuza NinjIntimiAdin: Perma-stealth Striker that offers a little protection for ally's, and can intimidate bloodied enemies. Very Strong. Chargeburgler with cheese Ranged attacks at the end of a charge along with perma-stealth. Solid, could be overpowered if tweaked. Void Defender Defends giving a penalty to hit anyone but him, then removing himself from play. Can get somewhat broken in epic. Scry and Die Attacking from around corners, while staying hidden. Moderate to broken, depending on the situation. Skimisher Fly in, attack, and fly away. Also prevents enemies from coming close. Moderate to Broken depending on the enemy, but shouldn't make the game un-fun, as the rest of your team is at risk, and you have enough weaknesses. Indestructible Simply won't die, even if you sleep though combat. Sir Robin (Bravely Charge Away) He automatically slows and pushes an enemy (5 squares), while charging away. Hard to rate it's power level, since it's terrain dependent. Death's Gatekeeper A fun twist on a healic, making your party "unkillable". Overpowered to Broken, but shouldn't actually make the game un-fun, just TPK proof. Death's Gatekeeper mk2, (Stealth Edition) Make your party "unkillable", and you hidden, while doing solid damage. Stronger then the above, but also easier for a DM to shut down. Broken, until your DM get's enough of it. Domination and Death Dominate everything then kill them quickly. Only works @ 30, but is broken multiple ways. Battlemind Mc Prone-Daze Protecting your allies by keeping enemies away. Quite powerful. The Retaliator Getting hit deals more damage to the enemy then you receive yourself, and you can take plenty of hits. Heavy item dependency, Broken. Dead Kobold Transit Teleports 98 squares a turn, and can bring someone along for the ride. Not fully built, so i can't judge the power Psilent Guardian Protect your allies, while being invisible. Overpowered, possibly broken Unnamed Avenger|Runepriest/Hammer of Vengance Do lot's of damage while boosting your teams. Strong to slightly overpowered. Charedent BarrageA charging ardent. Fine in a normal team, overpowered if there are 2 together, and easily broken in teams of 5. Super Knight A tough, sticky, high damage knight. Strong. Super Duper Knight Basically the same as super knight, only far more broken. Mora, the unkillable avenger Solid damage, while being neigh indestuctable. Overpowered, but not broken. Swordburst Maximus At-Will Close Burst 3 that slide and prones. Protects allies with off actions. Strong, possibly over powered with the right party.
Having a single person filter stuff back to the devs isn't ideal. Here is my take, you have a firehose worth of feedback coming in, you need to put multiple VCLs onto it, filtering the chatter and rage posts from the posts with feedback, with the idea that there is an acknowledgement to the poser of the question that it's being forwarded to the devs and they will respond in amount of time.
This does a couple things. First, it shows that someone is listening to me. Second, it shows that someone is going to get back to me, even if it's just "we need more time to look into it, but we understand your concern"... at least it's not black holed.
There needs to be a single point of distribution for the questions posed... with their answers when they come up. Nobody but the authoritative voice should post in that thread, not even VCLs... just the person appointed to respond in an official capacity. I think much of the above is currently happening, with the exception of someone following up in part... which would really help.
Lastly, we, as a user community, need to have some realistic expectations. You can't get immediate answers, and there really isn't a need for an immediate answer. Sometimes these things need time to analyze, and thought needs to be put to it to ensure it does not break other things. Nobody is going to die if you don't get an answer right now, this isn't a hospital type application. Some of us, myself included, probably should throttle back on the volume of posts if they have no point. Responding to another users post is pointless and just serves to clutter. Take your argument to a new thread (man, can we fork on these forums)?
Spent the last hour reading about a competitors product. You wanted to see how communication is done.
On Oct 28th the Head of the Company logged on to there forums and posted that a announcement would be made over the weekend.
Many Players of this game hung about the forum posting wisecracks and speculation as to what the announcement would be building excitement and anticitpation.
At least six members of the management/design team logged in over the weeked describing the design process and jesting with those eagerly awaiting the release.
The deadline of the "weekend" came and went and the comments posted on these forums of not meeting a deadline and calling the Head of the Company a "liar" where all stated but clearly in jest and with no real malicious intent.
The gentleman in question finished the product at 4 am on the monday. Clearly passed the deadline.
He came on post his link to this a "Pre-order" product. They appologized for the delay, but because of the fact that you can easily follow that the guy was fixing a small error that was found on the weekend to keep his bosses word. All of this was communicated step by step over the course of several days. They posted a "Beta" version in PDF for free to those that pre-ordered as an appology. The final mailed version would be complete and whole with no error.
That is service. They have no on-line tools, no VTT, no CB but right now after reading our forums (4E) and reading theirs I am happier with them, then I have ever been since the first communication debacle.
Do this, put a face to your company. I see Chris Perkins playing D&D with celeberties and looks fun. Can nobody from WotC spend 5 mins a day just popping in and saying this is what we are doing today? We don't need specifics just the reassurance that something is going on (Ie teams are working long hours and we hear ya).
Trevor and Paolo came out of the wood work and are putting a face to the bad news. This should continue, you have editors they can write a few posts a month and not just there editorials...
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Having a single person filter stuff back to the devs isn't ideal. Here is my take, you have a firehose worth of feedback coming in, you need to put multiple VCLs onto it, filtering the chatter and rage posts from the posts with feedback, with the idea that there is an acknowledgement to the poser of the question that it's being forwarded to the devs and they will respond in amount of time.
I like this idea better. Have the VCLs gather questions in a public space, so we can see what's going back to the Devs and make sure our paticular concern is going though. (They've actually kinda sorta have a thread like this for Essentials and the CB).
There needs to be a single point of distribution for the questions posed... with their answers when they come up. Nobody but the authoritative voice should post in that thread, not even VCLs... just the person appointed to respond in an official capacity. I think much of the above is currently happening, with the exception of someone following up in part... which would really help.
Agreed. But i think putting it on the main site would be better then on the forums, as it allows the common concerns to be acessed by more people. Still i wouldn't complain if they used the announcement thread to reply.
Lastly, we, as a user community, need to have some realistic expectations. You can't get immediate answers, and there really isn't a need for an immediate answer. Sometimes these things need time to analyze, and thought needs to be put to it to ensure it does not break other things. Nobody is going to die if you don't get an answer right now, this isn't a hospital type application. Some of us, myself included, probably should throttle back on the volume of posts if they have no point. Responding to another users post is pointless and just serves to clutter. Take your argument to a new thread (man, can we fork on these forums)?
Not really anything you can do about people freaking out. So just let them.
F-111 Interdictor Long (200+ squares) distance ally teleporter. With some warlord stuff. Broken in a plot way, not a power way. Thought Switch Higher level build that grants upto 14 attacks on turn 1. If your allies play along, it's broken. Elven Critters Crit op with crit generation. 5 of these will end anything. Broken. King Fisher Does an excellent job at keeping an enemy disabled in a few ways. Strong. Boominator Fun catch-22 booming blade build with either strong or completely broken damage depending on your reading. Very Distracting Warlock Lot's of dazing and major penalties to hit. Overpowered. Pocket Protector Pixie Stealth Knight. Maximizing the defender's aura by being in an ally's/enemy's square. Yakuza NinjIntimiAdin: Perma-stealth Striker that offers a little protection for ally's, and can intimidate bloodied enemies. Very Strong. Chargeburgler with cheese Ranged attacks at the end of a charge along with perma-stealth. Solid, could be overpowered if tweaked. Void Defender Defends giving a penalty to hit anyone but him, then removing himself from play. Can get somewhat broken in epic. Scry and Die Attacking from around corners, while staying hidden. Moderate to broken, depending on the situation. Skimisher Fly in, attack, and fly away. Also prevents enemies from coming close. Moderate to Broken depending on the enemy, but shouldn't make the game un-fun, as the rest of your team is at risk, and you have enough weaknesses. Indestructible Simply won't die, even if you sleep though combat. Sir Robin (Bravely Charge Away) He automatically slows and pushes an enemy (5 squares), while charging away. Hard to rate it's power level, since it's terrain dependent. Death's Gatekeeper A fun twist on a healic, making your party "unkillable". Overpowered to Broken, but shouldn't actually make the game un-fun, just TPK proof. Death's Gatekeeper mk2, (Stealth Edition) Make your party "unkillable", and you hidden, while doing solid damage. Stronger then the above, but also easier for a DM to shut down. Broken, until your DM get's enough of it. Domination and Death Dominate everything then kill them quickly. Only works @ 30, but is broken multiple ways. Battlemind Mc Prone-Daze Protecting your allies by keeping enemies away. Quite powerful. The Retaliator Getting hit deals more damage to the enemy then you receive yourself, and you can take plenty of hits. Heavy item dependency, Broken. Dead Kobold Transit Teleports 98 squares a turn, and can bring someone along for the ride. Not fully built, so i can't judge the power Psilent Guardian Protect your allies, while being invisible. Overpowered, possibly broken Unnamed Avenger|Runepriest/Hammer of Vengance Do lot's of damage while boosting your teams. Strong to slightly overpowered. Charedent BarrageA charging ardent. Fine in a normal team, overpowered if there are 2 together, and easily broken in teams of 5. Super Knight A tough, sticky, high damage knight. Strong. Super Duper Knight Basically the same as super knight, only far more broken. Mora, the unkillable avenger Solid damage, while being neigh indestuctable. Overpowered, but not broken. Swordburst Maximus At-Will Close Burst 3 that slide and prones. Protects allies with off actions. Strong, possibly over powered with the right party.
Still i wouldn't complain if they used the announcement thread to reply.
The *Announcements* thread feels more convenient to read while Im already perusing the forums.
For me, the most important part of the communication is informing the customers about where D&D is heading, thus giving customers a chance to voice feedback before the changes become official. Players need to help shape the future of the D&D tradition.
Originally, that was the point of being an 'Insider', being on the inside of the decisions that get made about D&D. Unfortunately, customers felt like they had to pay to be a playtester. So that aspect vanished.
But there still must be playtests and all manners of feedback before changes become official. All D&D players should have a chance to voice their feedback on big ideas, not just the D&DI subscribers.
It would be nice to have far more interaction from WotC on this site than say..ENWorld.
ENWorld can be (is) a lot more restrictive with it's posting standards than here. This place is like the Wild West compared to there. If WotC tried to enforce that level of civility here they'd be accused of censorship.
