Contempt for the customer is widespread everywhere.

Here's an article about how rock star Bon Jovi and his handlers think their fans are stupid schmucks.  (Especially the VIP ticket holders).

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2010/05/23/e-mail-of-the-day-23/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/arts/music/23VIP.html?emc=eta1

They believe a fool and his money SHOULD be parted, with no qualms about laughing in the fools' faces.  They even tell their fans that they're compete idiots for paying in the first place.

Quote from: Seanchai;384921Do you honestly think the criticisms here, from this bunch, are worth listening to?

If you were a business owner, who would you listen to: the person who doesn't buy your products but froths at the mouth and makes wild personal attacks every time he opens his mouth or the person who buys from you regularly, is interested in your product, and can complain in a calm, rational manner?

Moreover, what does WotC get from listening to the frothing at the mouth non-customer? They're not going to become customers. Or, supposing they might be, is it worth the time, energy, and money to convert them? Won't they pretty much always be nit-picking, dissatisfied loudmouths because that's their personality?

Who would bother being negative about an edition of D&D if they didn't really want to like D&D and cared about the brand - the best-known, shorthand-for-RPGs brand in the world?  If 4E had been released by a different publisher, or by Hasbro under a different title, the people who like what it is would be playing, and D&Ders wouldn't give a shit.

That's why Hasbro does give a damn about the widespread and trenchant criticism of 4E, and why marketers don't default to your now-standard defence that criticism of the game derives from a personality defect.  Really, when people do that they just come across as uncritical trend-slaves with nothing to say but "Waaah!  Haters!".

Despite the incessant fingers-in-ears screaming of Trollman's 20%ers, the 4E train has slowed down since its release and the height of the edition wars.  There are many, many blogs and posts out there from people who tired of 4E after a year or so of play, and that's a big deal for a publisher that survives on a relatively slim profit margin.

Shout about it all you like, but the extensive, accurate criticism of 4E has more significance for a publisher than the reflexive support of people who'd buy a dog turd if it had "Wardark Hellhound Log, for use with Dungeons & Dragons 4E" on the label.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;384954...tact...

Quote from: FrankTrollman;384954...tacts.

"Tack".

Quote from: FrankTrollman;384933The Man needs to appeal to swing voters. And you aren't going to find a lot of those guys on their dedicated fan sites.

The people who were psyched about some of the 4e design principles but turned off enough to not buy by others, those are the people that WotC wants to hear from. Not the people who already bought, and not the people who never seriously considered buying.

Since the regime change of musical chairs is so regular and expected at WotC, I doubt they even give a shit about the "swing voters" anymore.  They just give the middle finger to the "swing voters" too.

As far as the D&D designers/writers are concerned, they're probably not going to be around by the time 5E D&D is being designed.  So why should they even give a damn anymore, when they'll be fired anyways by then?  Their successors will deal with the mess they left behind in their wake, after they're fired in several years.

With such a system in place at WotC, Mearls and company can just tell all the customers to fuck off with a proverbial, "It's my way or the highway".

As to whether anyone at WotC is listening to criticism of 4e on internet forums, it's certainly likely, especially if 4e's performance is disappointing. And for that we just don't have the metrics, as Donald Rumsfeld would say. At any rate, I would think that earlier edition holdouts (and Pathfinder players) are indeed a significant part of the equation these days. Of course, they would take the "hate" with a grain of salt, but they would have to factor it in, especially if it lined up with other market research.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;384906Fuck your black swans.

In the context of tabletop rpg games, black swans are probably not of much significance.

The only places where black swans may have a significant impact, is outside of the game, when it bankrupts an rpg company suddenly overnight without any writing on the wall or warnings.

Quote from: Benoist;384941I'd argue that the game already is more complex than RoleMaster ever was.

Heh.  Maybe I'll pull out my old Rolemaster books from storage, and compare.

Quote from: ggroy;385031Heh.  Maybe I'll pull out my old Rolemaster books from storage, and compare.

Well, I got mine here, the French boxed set with Character Law, Arms Law and Spell Law, and total page count of the three softcover books isn't anywhere close to anything ressembling 3e or 4e, for that matter.

The "complexity" of Rolemaster is IMO highly overrated. It's a matter of having a minimum of organization in actual play, particularly when using Hit and Critical tables in combat. If you've got a binder with the PCs weapons, organize yourself with stickers and bookmarks and shit like that, it's not anywhere near as complicated as people think it is.

It's a myth propagated by word-of-mouth ever since the glory days of RM.

Quote from: Windjammer;384951These factors - the prospect of freelancing more extensively, of running the organized format at a much more influential position - are huge to determine one's excitement over a new edition. It feels -rightly- like a change at a huge scale, the change of an era, and there's the tremendous excitement to be part of it, to be standing right there in the centre of where it's happening.

In hindsight, my initial excitement about 4E was largely due to me being really burned out from playing a lot of 3E/3.5E.  4E seemed like a breath of fresh air and a new start back in the summer of 2008.  At the time, it seemed a lot easier to DM than 3E/3.5E.

After a year and a half of playing 4E, I eventually got burned out from it too.  It turns out this time around, I burned out even faster with 4E than I did with 3E/3.5E.  Not entirely sure why.

Quote from: The_Shadow;385021As to whether anyone at WotC is listening to criticism of 4e on internet forums, it's certainly likely, especially if 4e's performance is disappointing. And for that we just don't have the metrics, as Donald Rumsfeld would say. At any rate, I would think that earlier edition holdouts (and Pathfinder players) are indeed a significant part of the equation these days. Of course, they would take the "hate" with a grain of salt, but they would have to factor it in, especially if it lined up with other market research.

Hasbro/WOTC appears to have a lot of marketing people calling the shots. A significant part of the marketing mindset is that you can get people (or at least a substantial proportion of people) to believe what you tell them - otherwise they don't have a profession. So, since social media and word of mouth is all very trendy these days so there's almost certainly someone measuring it and blaming teh internets for poor sales. - whether or not this is actually the case.
I'm more inclined to believe that people are capable of forming their own opinions and that its the intrinsic quality of the product that discourages repeat sales, but I doubt they'd want to think of that.  Sales people don't get to pick their products, and having a 'new' product isn't about improving it as much as being able to say that its new.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;385040Hasbro/WOTC appears to have a lot of marketing people calling the shots. A significant part of the marketing mindset is that you can get people (or at least a substantial proportion of people) to believe what you tell them - otherwise they don't have a profession.

The advertising part of marketing seems to be less and less effective, as time goes on.

These days kids and teenagers are almost literally immune to advertisements of almost every sort.  Very difficult to get their attention for anything.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;385040I'm more inclined to believe that people are capable of forming their own opinions and that its the intrinsic quality of the product that discourages repeat sales, but I doubt they'd want to think of that.

Without doubt.  Part of forming an opinion, though, is defining what the positives and negatives of a game are, and criticism helps refine that.  It's unlikely that Hasbro would have gone to the trouble of rejigging skill challenges, for example, if the marketing was sufficiently counteracting the online criticism which articulates what so many people intuitively feel is wrong with them.

Quote from: ggroy;385042These days kids and teenagers are almost literally immune to advertisements of almost every sort.  Very difficult to get their attention for anything.

I'm getting closer and closer to being immune to advertising these days. I mean, you get used to people lying enough, you pretty much expect it.

When Dominos' had their recent ad campaign about how they improved their pizza recipe, I pretty much assumed it was a lie. They've been telling me marketing lies for years, telling me their pizza is great when actual experience shows it to be one step above shit on a shingle. Why should I assume they have changed now?

I was actually surprised to learn by word of mouth that they had improved their pizza.

That's how conditioned I am to the thought that marketers are lying.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;385058I'm getting closer and closer to being immune to advertising these days. I mean, you get used to people lying enough, you pretty much expect it.

In eastern bloc communist countries during the cold war, lying from any and all government sources was expected.  Back then the easiest way to figure out the truth, was to assume the opposite of what the government way saying.  If that didn't work, a roundabout way of determining the truth was to figure out what exactly the government was not saying.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;385058I'm getting closer and closer to being immune to advertising these days. I mean, you get used to people lying enough, you pretty much expect it.

When Dominos' had their recent ad campaign about how they improved their pizza recipe, I pretty much assumed it was a lie. They've been telling me marketing lies for years, telling me their pizza is great when actual experience shows it to be one step above shit on a shingle. Why should I assume they have changed now?

I was actually surprised to learn by word of mouth that they had improved their pizza.

That's how conditioned I am to the thought that marketers are lying.

*eyes frog warily to see if its a spy for Domino's
*wants pizza.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;385073*eyes frog warily to see if its a spy for Domino's
*wants pizza.

Palpatine's empire didn't suspect the calamari.  Beware the marinara!  It's a trap!

BTW, great thread title, Benoist.