4th Edition?

Lusipher · Post by **Lusipher** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 3:02 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m20AJvdzAdo

Check out the YouTube video of how the Virtual tabletop will run and the new virtual character creator.

Mulu · Post by **Mulu** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 3:42 am

I was getting excited until I saw that video. Ugh....

I used to call NWN "animated miniatures" but that video really was nothing more than laboriously doing virtually what can be done effortlessly at a table top.

No thanks. You can keep your almost certainly even more dumbed down and munchkinized 4th edition rules too.

Lusipher · Post by **Lusipher** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 4:01 am

Their doing to D&D what they did to Magic. Their making it so more players can get into it. Its like the WoW of D20. Make it so its so easy a caveman can do it

Rotku · Post by **Rotku** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 4:04 am

Wow, that video was horrible. 7 minutes to show what could have been done in 2.

Mulu · Post by **Mulu** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 4:08 am

Danubus wrote:Their doing to D&D what they did to Magic. Their making it so more players can get into it.

That's what I used to say about *Third* edition.

Dove de Domus Phoenix · Fri Aug 17, 2007 5:22 am

Danubus wrote:
Their doing to D&D what they did to Magic. Their making it so more players can get into it.
That's what I used to say about *Third* edition. Wink

There is a theory out that all things travel in cycles, combine that with the dropping of the "A" in AD&D and what we have is a sharp decline into the original D&D Where Demi-humans were a class not a race and everything was so simple my cat could play it. And we true players will move on to other things as much as we can much like magic players moved on to L5R.

NickD · Post by **NickD** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 9:26 am

Rotku wrote:Wow, that video was horrible. 7 minutes to show what could have been done in 2.

...

I liked it.

Swift · Post by **Swift** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 10:05 am

Mayhem wrote:
Thangorn wrote:bah.. I still play 2nd Edition PnP. Sif I care if they bring out a new edition..
Clearly you are some kind of masochist...

***

The important question is what will this mean for NWN2 / ALFA ?

Have we ever carried out a survey to see how many ALFANS come from a PNP background, and how many from a CRPG background? The latter presumably wouldn't give a monkeys about 4th Ed, but a dedicated PNPer arriving in ALFA ony to discover we are behind the edition curve would be put off, if there is a significant difference...

Likely won't mean a thing, as the rules are hard coded and horribly difficult to change.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 10:24 am

It would make recruitment of new PNP players much harder for ALFA, I think.

If we are stuck in 3.5 and new people are coming into the hobby at 4th, they are not going to want to have to learn different rules for ALFA.

Especially since 4th is specifically aiming to let people plkay D&D together online. I prefer PNP to NWN2, and I would choose playing a PNP campaign by remote with a regular group of good roleplayers over NWN2 - and thus over ALFA.

****

Love that virtual tabletop and portrait maker

Swift · Post by **Swift** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 11:45 am

An interesting perspective that i had not really thought about before, taken from the Slashdot thread about this subject:

I finally understand D&D. In D&D the rules are the content. They need to change them frequently because you run out of content. If you're actually interested in stories and "role-playing" (vs. leveling up and trying out new spells and magic items), then D&D's rules get in the way and you play something else... You also prefer your rules not to change constantly.

fluffmonster · Post by **fluffmonster** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 1:40 pm

We are tied to the game engine of a video game based on 3.5 DnD. The learning curve isn't so high because the computer automates a lot of stuff, and you can get a good RP fix without having a really solid grasp of the rules, so I'm not so sure that 4th is going to matter a huge deal to our membership numbers. If anything, if it increases curiosity about DnD, that's likely to increase the odds somebody tries to get into NWN/2

Mord · Post by **Mord** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 1:50 pm

fluffmonster wrote:We are tied to the game engine of a video game based on 3.5 DnD. The learning curve isn't so high because the computer automates a lot of stuff, and you can get a good RP fix without having a really solid grasp of the rules, so I'm not so sure that 4th is going to matter a huge deal to our membership numbers. If anything, if it increases curiosity about DnD, that's likely to increase the odds somebody tries to get into NWN/2

Mulu · Post by **Mulu** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 2:09 pm

Swift wrote:An interesting perspective that i had not really thought about before, taken from the Slashdot thread about this subject:

I finally understand D&D. In D&D the rules are the content. They need to change them frequently because you run out of content. If you're actually interested in stories and "role-playing" (vs. leveling up and trying out new spells and magic items), then D&D's rules get in the way and you play something else... You also prefer your rules not to change constantly.

That's brilliant.

Yeah, what Fluff said. I certainly didn't bother to learn 3rd edition rules to play NWN, and to this day all I know of 3rd edition is the Bioware version, though I did buy the core rules out of curiosity.

It is going to be fun reading all the Third editioners talk trash about Fourth edition. Makes me want to look up the old threads on the Bioware Boards where I trashed Third edition in favor of AD&D. Ah, memories.

Grand Fromage · Post by **Grand Fromage** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 5:11 pm

NickD wrote:
Rotku wrote:Wow, that video was horrible. 7 minutes to show what could have been done in 2.
...

I liked it.

It was a badly made video, but what it showed was very cool. I'm looking forward to it. Plus I hear gnomes were removed as a core race, thus 4E is automatically good.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 5:32 pm

fluffmonster wrote:If anything, if it increases curiosity about DnD, that's likely to increase the odds somebody tries to get into NWN/2

Except 4th Ed wil lbe all packaged up with its own computer-based content, so somebody that wants to get their D&D RPing fix will be able to do so using the material promoted by WOTC, and so will be extremely unlikely to come our way.

Especially (I assume) as its hardware reqs and load times will be considerably less than NWN2.

Whilst WOTC's support for their past foray into computer-aided tools was extremely poor, this time they are looking to make it part of the business model, rather than a freebie add on. Assumng WOTC support this, adding content continuosuly with their new sourcebooks etc, its going to way outstrip what any volunteer community can bring to the table in terms of playing D&D with friends in remote locations.

Especially for those folks who like their combat to be games of small unit tactics rather than a mad real-time clickathon where your INT 20 wizards miscasts a spell because you clikced the wrong button.