Post by Iron Warrior on Jun 11, 2008 17:00:04 GMT -5
I'm going to preface this by saying that I've been playing D&D for over 20 years now. I've played every edition from Basic, AD&D, 2nd edition, 3.0, and 3.5. I've played more other systems than I care to remember, and I've played in bad games with people I don't like just to be able to play. That being said... I think I hate 4th edition.
I was initially pissed off that 4th edition was coming out so soon after 3rd. Wizards of the coast argues that it's been 8 years since edition 3.0, but neglect to point out that they hit us with 3.5 in the middle of that 8 year period and forced us to re-buy all the core rule books, so in reality it's only been a few years since the last edition. That being said, I was willing to give it a chance. I started hearing things about the new edition I didn't like. Messing with the core races and classes and other things that made it feel a bit "un-D&D" to me. I was pretty down on the whole thing when I picked up the preview books. Having read the previews, I actually became cautiously optimistic. They changes were explained and seemed less radical than before and I decided to withhold any further judgment until I'd actually PLAYED the new edition. I bought my new PHB on Thursday and started to become wary once again. The whole thing seems a bit too "video gamey" in feel to me. It felt difficult to create a unique character, and I felt as thought Clerics had lost their uniqueness and purpose and Arcane caster has been TOTALLY screwed. Still, I reserved judgment.
On Saturday, I played it, and my worst fears were confirmed. The party Cleric seemed to have no purpose. There was no reason to bother playing a wizard at all. Later, my feelings on the video game feel of $e were confirmed by the owner of the hobby shop, who said Wizards was trying to win over people from the MMORPG crowd. The pen and paper version of D&D is not a video game. It will never be a video game. There is already a D&D video game. Pen and paper games will never attract swaths of video gamers no matter how many MMORPG terms like tank and healer you adjust in the books. As far as I'm concerned, Wizards is merely alienating their core supporters in a misguided attempt to pursue a group they cannot win over.
I will happily continue playing 3.5 for the foreseeable future. Luckily, in the great "Wizards of the Coast: Quest for more money", I'm sure they'll spring version 4.5 on us in two years time, and hopefully some of these glaring issues will be addressed. Better yet, perhaps they'll scrap most of the concepts in 4.0 in their entirely and make a system that is fun to play and that appeals to people who actually PLAY their games rather than just computer gamers.
I was initially pissed off that 4th edition was coming out so soon after 3rd. Wizards of the coast argues that it's been 8 years since edition 3.0, but neglect to point out that they hit us with 3.5 in the middle of that 8 year period and forced us to re-buy all the core rule books, so in reality it's only been a few years since the last edition. That being said, I was willing to give it a chance. I started hearing things about the new edition I didn't like. Messing with the core races and classes and other things that made it feel a bit "un-D&D" to me. I was pretty down on the whole thing when I picked up the preview books. Having read the previews, I actually became cautiously optimistic. They changes were explained and seemed less radical than before and I decided to withhold any further judgment until I'd actually PLAYED the new edition. I bought my new PHB on Thursday and started to become wary once again. The whole thing seems a bit too "video gamey" in feel to me. It felt difficult to create a unique character, and I felt as thought Clerics had lost their uniqueness and purpose and Arcane caster has been TOTALLY screwed. Still, I reserved judgment.
On Saturday, I played it, and my worst fears were confirmed. The party Cleric seemed to have no purpose. There was no reason to bother playing a wizard at all. Later, my feelings on the video game feel of $e were confirmed by the owner of the hobby shop, who said Wizards was trying to win over people from the MMORPG crowd. The pen and paper version of D&D is not a video game. It will never be a video game. There is already a D&D video game. Pen and paper games will never attract swaths of video gamers no matter how many MMORPG terms like tank and healer you adjust in the books. As far as I'm concerned, Wizards is merely alienating their core supporters in a misguided attempt to pursue a group they cannot win over.
I will happily continue playing 3.5 for the foreseeable future. Luckily, in the great "Wizards of the Coast: Quest for more money", I'm sure they'll spring version 4.5 on us in two years time, and hopefully some of these glaring issues will be addressed. Better yet, perhaps they'll scrap most of the concepts in 4.0 in their entirely and make a system that is fun to play and that appeals to people who actually PLAY their games rather than just computer gamers.
