Are we going to continue to release new versions of product? You bet. If we stop doing that, I'm out of a job, and so are a lot of other people, and we do like our jobs. No one at this company is ever going to say "Well, we've done all we can! Time to call it a day!"
Are we making valid changes to the product when we release new versions of the product? You bet. I can see a HUGE difference between 4.0 and 3.5 (and I HATE 3.5, but that's because I'm not combat-happy, and my experience of 3.5 is that you have combat, you walk, you have combat, you walk, you have combat, you walk.) and I think 4.0 addresses some needed changes - 3.5 is ALL crunchy stuff. My joke is that with 3.5, there's a table somewhere to roll initiative (vs toilet paper) on whether you walk out of the bathroom with toilet paper on your shoe, and you can fail that roll. With 4.0 you get a better balance of crunchy and fuzzy, and since I hated 3.5 for that, I'm much more pro 4.0. I can even see the point for the 3.0/3.5 revision, and it's part of why 4.0 has been in development since 3.5 hit the street. This is not something we decided to do last week to get more money.
So. I can see why people are pissed at throwing down money for something that becomes obsolete, or at least harder to use, and as we do say here, we're not planning to listen to the people who are still playing 1.0 because they're not paying our salaries, but at the same time - there's NEVER no room for improvement, especially not when a product is as fundamentally fucked, in my opinion as a consumer and only as a consumer as 3.5 is. (Emphasis because this is not a locked post.) On balance, I think that 4.0 is going to be a good thing for the game, especially as we have some changes in how we think (inevitable as turnover in the department happens) and I hope it's going to bring some currently underserved groups into the game and into our sights - you would not believe how hard it is for me as a woman to get people in this company to hear me say that I play D&D (or have in the past). But if people want to view it as a money-grubbing grab...well, that's a position that's impossible to be bullet proof from.
Re: Rant
Are we going to continue to release new versions of product? You bet. If we stop doing that, I'm out of a job, and so are a lot of other people, and we do like our jobs. No one at this company is ever going to say "Well, we've done all we can! Time to call it a day!"
Are we making valid changes to the product when we release new versions of the product? You bet. I can see a HUGE difference between 4.0 and 3.5 (and I HATE 3.5, but that's because I'm not combat-happy, and my experience of 3.5 is that you have combat, you walk, you have combat, you walk, you have combat, you walk.) and I think 4.0 addresses some needed changes - 3.5 is ALL crunchy stuff. My joke is that with 3.5, there's a table somewhere to roll initiative (vs toilet paper) on whether you walk out of the bathroom with toilet paper on your shoe, and you can fail that roll. With 4.0 you get a better balance of crunchy and fuzzy, and since I hated 3.5 for that, I'm much more pro 4.0. I can even see the point for the 3.0/3.5 revision, and it's part of why 4.0 has been in development since 3.5 hit the street. This is not something we decided to do last week to get more money.
So. I can see why people are pissed at throwing down money for something that becomes obsolete, or at least harder to use, and as we do say here, we're not planning to listen to the people who are still playing 1.0 because they're not paying our salaries, but at the same time - there's NEVER no room for improvement, especially not when a product is as fundamentally fucked, in my opinion as a consumer and only as a consumer as 3.5 is. (Emphasis because this is not a locked post.) On balance, I think that 4.0 is going to be a good thing for the game, especially as we have some changes in how we think (inevitable as turnover in the department happens) and I hope it's going to bring some currently underserved groups into the game and into our sights - you would not believe how hard it is for me as a woman to get people in this company to hear me say that I play D&D (or have in the past). But if people want to view it as a money-grubbing grab...well, that's a position that's impossible to be bullet proof from.