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11 months ago ::
Aug 19, 2012 - 4:22AM
#61
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Date Joined:
Jul 17, 2003
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Well, the current news is that we have 2 years of 4e, which is more than a lot of us thought we had a year ago. So stick with your 4e plans for now.
Actually Mike Mearls said that bringing the game out was a two year process. He did not say what swtage in that process we are actually at currently. My guess is still Origins or GenCon next year.
If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I would not make plans based on a full two years from now being the release date of DDN.
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11 months ago ::
Aug 19, 2012 - 6:48PM
#62
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Our group has no intention of switching to 5th. Period. One guy will probably buy the PH to look at it ('cause he just does), but unless it is a major, major, unbelievable improvement, there is not interest in buying yet another set of books.
Now, maybe someone will go to the trouble of converting 5th ed adventures for us to use in 4th, but that is the limit of our expected 5th ed purchases.
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Bow down, my subjects, for I am your master! Yesss.....
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For some reason, none of my friends were surprised by this...
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11 months ago ::
Aug 19, 2012 - 7:56PM
#63
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Date Joined:
Jul 22, 2006
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We are definitely still rolling with 4E. There are still stories to be played, and we have gobs of crunch on which to build those stories.
Honestly, knowing 4E is effectively "complete", as far as official content goes, has led me to finally start looking into more homebrew content. I've done far less homebrew with 4E than with previous systems, because of its beautiful balance. I've been playing 4E from day one, though, and I'm now using those years of experience to round out our games with balanced homebrew content.
So, sad as I am to see WotC move away from 4E already, it has at least led to a bit of innovation at our table.
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11 months ago ::
Aug 19, 2012 - 8:27PM
#64
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Date Joined:
Dec 10, 2008
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If there's a silver lining in the premature death of 4e, it's that we know that the game will be officially finished in the near future and hopefully fully erratted before WotC puts it on the shelf forever. This means that we won't see the steady rollout of idiotic, overpowered, and gamebreaking material that appeared at the long drawn out end of 2e and 3e when they tried to milk those editions for as long as they could.
The final result is a complete game that is extremely well balanced and highly playable with a large amount of resources to back it up. That sounds like a winning combination to me. I'll keep playing 4e for as long as I can find people to play it.
Excellent point, sir. Nothing can last forever and just because new material isn't released anymore that doesn't mean the game is "dead." To me, that just means the game designers have finally finished building the game and now I don't have to think about any new elements except those I choose to introduce myself.
In other words, the "beta" phase is done and the game works as well as can reasonably be expected. 4e has exceeded all of my expectations for D&D, and this is coming from someone who has played for more than 30 years, every edition. I will continue to play 4e until a better version comes along. I don't see that anywhere, yet, but hopefully one day I will.
OD&D, 1E and 2E challenged the player.
3E challenged the character, not the player.
Now 4E takes it a step further by challenging a GROUP OF PLAYERS to work together as a TEAM.
That's why I love 4E.
"Your ability to summon a horde of celestial superbeings at will is making my ... BMX skills look a bit redundant."
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11 months ago ::
Aug 20, 2012 - 1:08AM
#65
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2010
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I love 4th edition. Right now I try to complete my collection and buy every book i can get on Amazon  Unfortunatly it's nearlly impossible to get my hands on fortune cards here in germany. At the moment I don't care about D&D Next at all and it makes me really sad that they abandoned 4th edition.
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11 months ago ::
Aug 20, 2012 - 8:58AM
#66
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Date Joined:
Sep 19, 2007
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We are definitely still rolling with 4E. There are still stories to be played, and we have gobs of crunch on which to build those stories. Honestly, knowing 4E is effectively "complete", as far as official content goes, has led me to finally start looking into more homebrew content. I've done far less homebrew with 4E than with previous systems, because of its beautiful balance. I've been playing 4E from day one, though, and I'm now using those years of experience to round out our games with balanced homebrew content. So, sad as I am to see WotC move away from 4E already, it has at least led to a bit of innovation at our table.
I have to agree muchly with this. When 4e first came out I did alittle bit of homebrew, but alot of it got either made redundant by official material, was inferior, or was simply ignored by players because they already had so many new and shiney official options that were in the CB. Now not only do I have a sense for the balance of power in my group, but I have a stable system that I can add things to or tweak.
My next campaign's party, thats looking like a year away still, is mostly comprised of 3rd party/homebrew material.
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11 months ago ::
Aug 20, 2012 - 12:48PM
#67
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Date Joined:
Jul 31, 2008
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While I'm excited about the process of Next, I'm still very invested in 4E (both monetarily and time-wise), and I plan to keep running my 4E home game (as well as the D&D Encounters program & Lair Assault at my FLGS) for as long as they're still publishing stuff (and likely for some time after that). As long as they keep the digital tools available for 4E stuff, I'll be happy.
Which is not to say that whatever form D&D Next eventually takes won't be awesome, too. I'm just very happy with the balance of 4E, and I've got a lot of players who are quite used to the way those rules feel. So for now, we'll stay the course.
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11 months ago ::
Aug 21, 2012 - 8:18AM
#68
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Date Joined:
Mar 27, 2008
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It is nice to see so many other players plan to stick with 4E in the wake of D&D Next. I would normally appreciate what they are doing with D&D Next, but it was WAY too soon and they gave up on 4E (including support) far too early. I always said they are simply fragmenting the player base again by releasing a new edition so quickly. Both online and in what I have seen personally, this seems to be very true. I have found very few gamers who like 4E who plan to migrate. Since I don't beleive Pathfinder playes will come back either, that leaves a smaller sliver of consumers for 5E.
I will continue to play 4E after D&D Next releases. Maybe not exclusively...I have almost all D&D products going back to 1st edition when I stared playing in the 70s. We will play 1st and 2nd Edition too. I won't do 3E, because I feel that was the most probematic version of D&D released. But my thoughts are, why go to D&D Next to feel "old school" when I can just play my old school products?
If WotC keeps around the 4E character builder (and why kill it, if it is already built), I will continue my subscription to Insider. But if they do something silly like take the tools down so they can artifically push players to D&D 5E, that is when I pull the plug. Here's hoping...
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11 months ago ::
Aug 21, 2012 - 8:25AM
#69
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Date Joined:
Mar 27, 2008
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One other quick point...I just watched some of the D&D Next seminars from Gen Con online yesterday. One point WotC kept making is that they are really listening to gamer feedback on developing a new version...including message boards. I call BS on that, as it is SO rare for anyone from WotC to visibily visit the message boards. But if they are...I sure hope they include reading this thread in their evaluation of D&D Next, becuase it is very telling how many of their customers think.
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11 months ago ::
Aug 21, 2012 - 11:21AM
#70
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Date Joined:
Dec 10, 2008
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Well, I think it behooves the devs to listen to community feedback by visiting the boards or analyzing the surveys or whatever, but don't make the mistake of thinking that just because the community has input that means that the devs are necessarily going to implement any of those suggestions. After all, Sturgeon's Law applies to opinions of the DnD community too and too often the opinions that seem to be the most widely held are really just squeaky wheels from a few vocal, strident, frequent posters. Regardless, WoTC is not a democracy and there's a reason the devs are game devs and the rest of us are not, no matter how brilliant you think your contributions are.
But that having been said, it's always smart to at least HEAR what your customers (who game regularly) are saying and use their best ideas (that's the trick, figuring out which ones are really the best) as long as you don't fall into the trap of letting them design your product. Design by committee results in a lowest common denominator product just as often as a superior one. Unfortunately, it looks to me like WoTC is falling into the trap of design by committee, a committee composed of frequent message board posters and people who play old versions of their game made by another company.
But there's a long way to go in this design process so hopefully I will be proven wrong. I still believe I will.
OD&D, 1E and 2E challenged the player.
3E challenged the character, not the player.
Now 4E takes it a step further by challenging a GROUP OF PLAYERS to work together as a TEAM.
That's why I love 4E.
"Your ability to summon a horde of celestial superbeings at will is making my ... BMX skills look a bit redundant."
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