My fwiw kickstarter economic analysis regarding the rift between the traditionalists and evolutionists

[metiman]

Everything I've heard so far about 4th edition has been bad. Everything I've heard so far about Pathfinder has been good. I really have to look into Pathfinder. I keep hearing that wotc has been planning to go back to some kind of 2nd edition / 3rd edtion hybrid with the 5th edition and backtrack away from MMO values. Probably just wishful thinking though. They'll probably take everything about the 4th edition and just make it even more like playing WoW. Anyone ever made a computer game based on Pathfinder?

[Althernai]

I assume they will release at least a small piece of a level or one encounter or something so that people with doubts can at least get a taste of their unique combat system. That's not charity. Just good business sense.

Based on what they have said and on the fact that the planned release date is still a year and a half away, I very much doubt that they have anything this advanced. In fact, I am a bit puzzled that people get so hung up on every word from Obsidian because at this stage, it's clear that these are just ideas -- they have not been tested in anything like the final product. Because these guys have been making such games for decades, the ideas are probably good ones and the core of them will survive intact, but there are bound to be fairly substantial revisions along the way.

 

Also, a single encounter does not convey a great deal of information because the quality of combat is determined as much by the encounter design as by the rule system. AD&D as used in Baldur's Gate 2 was far from perfect, but the gameplay was fun because the encounters were varied and interesting and played to the system's strengths. Conversely, the system in Dragon Age: Origins was actually not that bad, but it had a few glaring weaknesses and the encounter design fully exposed them rather than covering them up. It was also much more monotonous so it did this for most of the game.

 

Probably the majority of this forum (which to me is starting to resemble Bioware Social more and more) does regard me as the evil one, but I feel the same about most of you.

"Evil one" is a very strong phrase when you really mean "one who disagrees about optimal RPG mechanics".

 

I said the thing about trying before buying (which, again, I don't see anything wrong with) before I read Josh's recent Formspring and SomethingAwful comments. After Josh's comments I really am just left scratching my head. I hesitate to take anything they say about the magic system too seriously at this point. They keep contradicting themselves. At this point I'm too confused by all of their different statements to decide anything now as far as backing the project or not. I think I'm going to have to wait until maybe the day before the project ends and weigh all of the statements that have been made at that time to try to decide if the project is something that I feel I should support for philosophical reasons or just because I think the game will almost certainly be worth buying.

Again, you can't possibly expect them to have the complete system ready a year and a half before the game is released. They contradict themselves because they have different ideas which have not been made into a coherent whole yet and are incredibly unlikely to do so by the time the Kickstarter ends. I'm also waiting for more information to determine by how much I will increase my pledge, but I'm ultimately paying them because I am curious to see what Avellone, Cain, Sawyer et al will do when freed from the constraints of publishers, not because I expect something specific regarding cooldowns or romances or any other game element.

[metiman]

Althernai, you do realize I was talking about purchasing the game after it was released commercially, right? I was talking about Obsidian releasing a small combat demo after the game has been completed and is being sold. I do realize that a single encounter is less than ideal, but it is far better than nothing at all.

[Monte Carlo]

Everything I've heard so far about 4th edition has been bad. Everything I've heard so far about Pathfinder has been good. I really have to look into Pathfinder. I keep hearing that wotc has been planning to go back to some kind of 2nd edition / 3rd edtion hybrid with the 5th edition and backtrack away from MMO values. Probably just wishful thinking though. They'll probably take everything about the 4th edition and just make it even more like playing WoW. Anyone ever made a computer game based on Pathfinder?

 

Pathfinder is, really, just a variant of 3E D&D using the OGL. But, IIRC, the OGL precludes any electronic media being made from it without reference to WotCs interests. So, in short, no there is no Pathfinder PC game.

 

As for 5E, last I heard it was definitely but discretely edging away from 4E. 4E has tanked.

[lordgizka]

This thread has a weird premise to me. This project doesn't seem to pander to the new Bioware crowd at all (except for maybe ability cooldowns, but if they really steal it all from 4th ed, it won't be that bad). The more evident conflict is probably between people who want another Icewind Dale and people who want another Torment. The first group appears to be in the minority though (Storm of Zehyr did sell poorly), but they are quite vocal, and recent stretch goals do seem to cater to them specifically (party creator, giant dungeon etc.).

[MReed]

Based on what they have said and on the fact that the planned release date is still a year and a half away, I very much doubt that they have anything this advanced. In fact, I am a bit puzzled that people get so hung up on every word from Obsidian because at this stage, it's clear that these are just ideas -- they have not been tested in anything like the final product. Because these guys have been making such games for decades, the ideas are probably good ones and the core of them will survive intact, but there are bound to be fairly substantial revisions along the way.

 

I certainly agree with that sentiment -- I'm pretty sure the "I'll look at the demo if there is one" is with the understanding that this will only be available @ release (e.g. April of 13), not today. And you are correct that this all ideas are "up in the air" -- what seems to be "final" today is highly likely to change in the next few weeks, and be changed further when they actually have the game running and can test the system to see how it works.

 

But...

 

What I'm responding to is the philosophy behind the proposed spellcasting system -- and that philosophy is "The spellcasting system in D&D 2E / 3E isn't very good, and the defects can't be fixed by minor 'tweaks'". That is probably not going to change, and that's my concern.

[nikolokolus]

I haven't really played PnP for about a year (too much field work with my job to be a reliable player) but the last group of people I played with happily switched to 4e as soon as it came out. I grudgingly made the switch with them, picked up a PHB, flipped through the pages, disliked much of what I saw and quickly realized that while most of the changes to combat were rooted in a desire for balance and logic, it's a game system without much of a "soul." Every fight feels more or less the same; people use a lot of little reference cards on the game table like they're playing Magic (a game I never really got into), powers are used ad nauseum. There's much action, but none of it seems to have much "weight" and characters all feel kind of samey and there's just no charm.

 

Monte Carlo is right, WoTC has grinded the quirky fun out of a game that I used to really enjoy. It's weird, because I remember how much I lamented 1st ed. and it's arcane tables and mountains of reference sheets that were a gigantic pain in the butt to navigate, and 3e actually was a pretty good refinement to the ruleset, but with 4e and all of its clinical efficiency and "every player is more or less equal" ethic something has been lost.

 

Whatever system Josh Sawyer and Tim Cain come up with, I hope PE tries to capture some of that older charm and doesn't become some efficient, sterile game without "soul."

[Tale]

As I said, I tried it yesterday. Sawyer is clearly influenced by it. You have powaz you can use per encounter, per day and at will.

That's now what I've heard about PE's system. What I read had nothing about per day, and even the low level spells can run out. It sounds like a 3E Sorcerer that recovers after each combat.

[metiman]

The per day stuff is from the most recent news. Sounds a lot like 4E.

[nikolokolus]

As I said, I tried it yesterday. Sawyer is clearly influenced by it. You have powaz you can use per encounter, per day and at will.

That's now what I've heard about PE's system. What I read had nothing about per day, and even the low level spells can run out. It sounds like a 3E Sorcerer that recovers after each combat.

 

A 3e sorcerer that recovers after each combat kind of is a 4e sorcerer, no?

 

Regardless, I know why they want to get away from the "rest 8 hours to recover spells" mechanic; it's because this is after all a computer game and not a PnP game where a DM can utter 5 little words "You rest for the night," roll some random encounter checks and advance the action in less than 15 seconds of real-time.

 

I'm happy to see Tim and Josh come up with their own take on things, I think they are both pretty good game designers and they've got a lot of experience with what works and what doesn't. My only concern is what I stated above in my previous post. I just hope they don't get so bogged down in making everything "balanced" and logical, that the combat system becomes sterile and kind of robotic.

 

The strategy of conservation (and the second guessing about whether or not to cast a spell now or save it for later) can help build tension in game play. If they can build in something that makes it so those moderate to high level spells become precious resources then I think they can capture the spirit of what made magical combat in those Vancian systems so compelling.

 

After yesterday's update from Tim Cain and reading some of Sawyer's stuff at something awful and his formspring account, I get the impression that is their aim.

[Monte Carlo]

If a vanilla mage tries to fight toe-to-toe I want to see him chopped up into hamburger. If a vanilla fighter goes up against a well-prepared mage I want to see him immolated. I don't want to see characters turned into super-hero swiss army knives.

[nikolokolus]

Exactly. It's the "rock, paper, scissors," thing.

[ravenshrike]

Everything I've heard so far about 4th edition has been bad. Everything I've heard so far about Pathfinder has been good. I really have to look into Pathfinder. ... Anyone ever made a computer game based on Pathfinder?

Not yet. They're doing a partially in-house MMO with a guy who worked with CCP on EvE and someone who worked on CoH. No idea how that's going to turn out. Tried looking for the tech demo they kickstarted, but either they haven't finished it or nobody leaked it. Supposedly going to be based on EvE model of actions beget skills instead of standard xp model. Been virtually no info on the subject since May.

 

Pathfinder is, really, just a variant of 3E D&D using the OGL. But, IIRC, the OGL precludes any electronic media being made from it without reference to WotCs interests. So, in short, no there is no Pathfinder PC game.

The OGL only applies to non-mechanics based material released by WOTC. Standard xp tables, spell descriptions(but not mechanics) etc.. etc... Special creatures originated by WOTC cannot be copied at all outside of OGL, so no Illithids. That being said, if Hasbro actually took someone to court over the mechanics whatever the OGL claims, they would get bitchslapped pretty hard. So Paizo could make a computer game. They'd just have to be VERY careful as to design. Edited October 7, 2012 by ravenshrike

[Merin]

Wild guess: most of the people here didn't even try the 4th edition.

 

It's my favorite edition of D&D, just edging out 2nd ED (which is where the majority of my playing was spent, even though I started in the Red Box.)

 

Anything I dislike in 4E was stuff that 3E introduced.

[Monte Carlo]

Out of interest Merin did you ever play Magic: The Gathering or anything like that?

[Merin]

Out of interest Merin did you ever play Magic: The Gathering or anything like that?

 

When I first heard about it, my friends and I were excited. "Here's a real-life version of Dragon Poker!"

 

I played it for about a year with my friends - we're talking, uhm, like 1994. It got old pretty fast after that. Especially when I hit college and started to see the "competitive" scene (and I'm not even talking tournaments - I just mean players who read magazines (pre-web here) or went to BBS's and got "killer deck builds") I was absolutely turned off. My circle of friends for gaming only had one min/maxer who joined early in our gaming and we beat it out of him, so the "win at any cost" dynamic is a huge turn-off for me.

 

So, yes, I played for about a year back when the game was fairly new nearly twenty years ago. Why?

[Monte Carlo]

I'm just interested in how the games you play back in the day end up influencing, directly or indirectly, what you like now. And to what extent.

 

4E is pretty awful for me personally, although I agree that 3E got too messy (and why Pathfinder is just right). I came up through 1st Ed AD&D and RuneQuest, it's definitely had a major impact on what I enjoy now. Never touched 2E AD&D, we just all had our 1E homebrew stuff and stuck with it.

 

4E has some trading card game vibe stuff going on, just wondered if that sort of influenced elements of 4E you found agreeable.

[Merin]

I'm just interested in how the games you play back in the day end up influencing, directly or indirectly, what you like now. And to what extent.

 

4E is pretty awful for me personally, although I agree that 3E got too messy (and why Pathfinder is just right). I came up through 1st Ed AD&D and RuneQuest, it's definitely had a major impact on what I enjoy now. Never touched 2E AD&D, we just all had our 1E homebrew stuff and stuck with it.

 

4E has some trading card game vibe stuff going on, just wondered if that sort of influenced elements of 4E you found agreeable.

 

No. If anything, it was the "Magic the Gathering-ing" of 3E that I disliked. 3E is such a major departure from the D&D that came before it's not even funny. I always find it amusing that 3E fans call 4E "not D&D"... all the big changes from earlier D&D to 3E are still in 4E. Feats, Skills, any race being any class, paladins of any alignment....

 

Tipping my hand. I like clearly delineated classes. I like races feeling special, being more than just some bonuses added on top of human. I don't like multi-classing. 3E is a munchkinners dream. If people want to play that way, that's cool, but I don't want to play with people playing that way. Every 3E game I played was a big mess of "my character can kill your character" or each player doing his own separate story and each of us taking turns...

 

or that horrible experience with all the random encounters, random loot rolls.... *shudder* - I know the random tables are from earlier editions, too, but we almost never used any of that stuff before.

 

My favorite game system ever was TSR's Marvel Super Heroes RPG. My favorite setting was Palladium's Rifts. For more modern systems I've got a tie between Eden Studios or the Cortex system (great for storytelling.)

[Gatt9]

@alanschu:

 

Why is it that you believe I am referring to you personally? I assume you are referring to my statement: "They will probably make a lot more money on a system that younger players and modern game players are used to and seem to enjoy."

 

If you wish to argue against this statement then please go ahead and do so. It seems clear to me that kooldown kombat is definitely an easier system for younger and more casual players to get into. Pretty much every major publisher would seem to agree with me. By "younger" I mean "younger". I am not referring to any particular age group. You are aware that 14 year olds play computer games too, right? Admittedly they are more likely to play console games, but some play computer games as well. I think it will be easier for, say, a 10 year old to get into a cRPG with the kind of combat mechanics being proposed here than the ones in the original IE games or god forbid something like ToEE or the Realms of Arkania etc. That is not intended as an insult. I was once 10 years old as well and was playing computer games like Zork or Super Star Trek or whatever. We obviously didn't have such fancy games. I'm sure I would have enjoyed them. Especially if I had never tried anything else. But, yes, I do think a simpler system with less micromanagement and more action will have a greater appeal to younger gamers. Publishers seem to be making a lot of money based on that very assumption.

 

 

I'm going to be very blunt. Your entire premise is based on assumptions that are wrong.

 

Your first major assumption is that Publishers have any idea what they're doing, and that they do it for valid reasons. This is not true. Publishers make decisions based on how well games did, or to be more specific in the case of niche games, how well a single game did. The Adventure Game genre is a great example, it is dead not because Adventure games couldn't sell, but because Grim Fandango did not sell. One single game did not sell, and the Industry declared the entire genre was dead.

 

They do this because they're not interested in making Quality games, they're interested in money, because business people who greenlight projects that sell 10 million units get bigger bonuses than business people who greenlight projects that sell 5 million units. So the people in charge of what we're playing are basing decisions purely on what's most likely to get them the biggest bonus.

 

This is the same premise that got us "Turn based games can't be made anymore", and the recent "The only game worth making today is [Call of Duty]" uttered by EA, Ubisoft, and Capcom (Syndicate, X-com FPS, Resident Evil 6).

 

So your evidence is faulty, because the source's rationalization has no real logic behind it other than "I want the same bonus the COD guys got!".

 

Your next major issue is "Publishers are making alot of money", they really aren't. If you go look at the NPD results for the last 3 years, you'll find that the market has been shrinking, and in 2012 it's starting to shrink at catastrophic rates.

 

You might want to take some time to read this article...

 

http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/7/2/3125866/the-state-of-games-state-of-aaa/in/2910504

 

Publishers have been surviving by either copying what someone else did, or by rehashing the same couple of games over and over. Not by making well informed decisions. Further, Publishers don't make money by selling games people think are really fun to play, they make money by misleading customers.

 

Publishers do everything possible to make a game look better than it is at release, railroad customers into preorders, and make it look like it's wildly popular. They intentionally misrepresent their game prior to release. They use Review Embargoes to keep negative reviews off the net until after release, and if your score is high enough you're allowed to break the embargo. They rip content out of the main game as preorder DLC. They have shills talking up the game prior to release. For one major release, one "Respected" company banned everyone who was negative on the eve of E3 for ridiculous reasons such as "Posts that contain rhetorical questions". Even their demo's are fabricated, RPS did a piece after this year's E3 about how all the games were being shown on PC's, not the much lower powered consoles. They do everything in their power to sell copies before anyone actually has any idea what the game is really like.

 

The entire Publisher model is based on a house of cards built upon misinformation, and greed, at the expense of customers. So using that as the basis of any arguement is going to get you in enourmous trouble. Publishers aren't selling games because of cooldowns, or any other mechanic, they're selling games because until this past year, there was no other option if you wanted to play games, and because they do their level-best to misrepresent the product before you can actually learn what you're buying.

[Monte Carlo]

The first iteration of 3E suited me. It was the splatbook-itis and prestige class nonsense that killed it. And that has more to do with the PnP business model than anything else. Then again, I'm one of those old bastards who strips out any ruleset I come across and bends it to my will with some serious homebrewing. So the crap elements I just ignore.

 

But 4E doesn't feel or play like D&D to me. As the man said, it's sort of soulless.

[Merin]

The first iteration of 3E suited me. It was the splatbook-itis and prestige class nonsense that killed it. And that has more to do with the PnP business model than anything else. Then again, I'm one of those old bastards who strips out any ruleset I come across and bends it to my will with some serious homebrewing. So the crap elements I just ignore.

 

But 4E doesn't feel or play like D&D to me. As the man said, it's sort of soulless.

 

I just don't understand this. For me, for decades, D&D was "human paladins" , multi-classing was a non-human, limited affair. When you made a character you could just role-play that he could ride a horse or tie a knot or smith his own tools. And classes stood on their own. Leveling up, unless you were a spell-caster who picked your new spells, took seconds.

 

3E introduced Feats, Skills, and virtually unlimited multi-classing. Any race could be any class. It certainly doesn't feel like D&D to me, if we're talking mechanically.

 

*shrug* I guess it's what your priorities are. If the powers systems, boiling down of the alignment system, and removal of unlimited multi-classing makes it "not D&D" to you, so be it.

[Uomoz]

Everything I've heard so far about 4th edition has been bad. Everything I've heard so far about Pathfinder has been good. I really have to look into Pathfinder. I keep hearing that wotc has been planning to go back to some kind of 2nd edition / 3rd edtion hybrid with the 5th edition and backtrack away from MMO values. Probably just wishful thinking though. They'll probably take everything about the 4th edition and just make it even more like playing WoW. Anyone ever made a computer game based on Pathfinder?

 

That's because a lot of people HATE new stuff and needs a lot of time to assimilate (somewhat related to your persona as well). Also, if someone needs to write something about anything on internet, and is not payed to do so, 90% of the times will write about how bad that thing is. People who likes stuff usually don't go talking about it in forums, they enjoy it.

 

4th Edition is by far the most *fun* D&d I've played. I loved 2nd (mostly nostalgia now I think), HATED 3rd, never played Pathfinder but a friend of mine loves it so I'll eventually try it. 4th have some deep flaws (like balance between classes), but overall I feel like is a way better experience then previous D&ds. An example? Unlike 3rd, all the classes are NOT FORCED to pass their turns auto-attacking, every class have some interesting and unique actions\powers (a LOT of em) that makes character creation thousands times better and more engaging. One more thing I love about 4th is that they cut most of the rules from the *core* roleplay experience, leaving Master and Players a lot more freedom out of combat.

 

I may be biased, but just go to any D&d forum and you'll find out that D&d 4th is deeply respected and loved by most.

[Monte Carlo]

^ It's tanking. 5th Ed has come around with indecent haste.

[Uomoz]

So? It's known that PnP is dying, they are desperately trying to make money.

 

EDIT: Merin, stand strong.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Uomoz

[metiman]

Some people only like new things. I've noticed this when Microsoft releases a new OS. These types of people *always* like Microsoft's new OS. No matter how bad it is. And these same people always argue that everyone who doesn't like it is just opposed to all change.

 

There is another possibility. That some new things just suck. I would be quite happy playing computer games by hooking some kind of wires directly into my brain or using some kind of lucid dreaming system or any other innovation that is actually cool and not a form of going backwards. I was very excited anticipating the Emotiv EPOC for instance. At least it's a first step in the right direction. I've also been following a form of computer display that uses a laser to paint an image directly on your retina. Can't remember what it's called. Looks like it hasn't made much progress. I love change when it is change for the better. I just don't like it when it is a change for the worse. A lot of people seem to believe that 4E is a step back and was designed to appeal to more casual gamers who don't like having to read so many tables and numbers. For me the tables and numbers were part of the fun of PnP, but ultimately I would support any system that was more strategic and challenging instead of streamlined, simplified, and easier.

Edited October 7, 2012 by metiman