Froogleyboy

Being an old school gamer I have a great fondness for 3.5 and back (especially 2nd edition). I am part of an active group that plays 4e and it does have its charm. However what I see is in essence what you described as 4e being a table top version of an MMO. WW made the game to be that way to appeal to a younger audience, one who grew up on the PC and is now looking for something more. There isn't a thing wrong with that. It's a clever marketing strategy to sell product (which helps the industry overall) and it gets a new generation involved in the venerable hobby we call roleplaying. Everyone is entitled to what they like best and to game in their own comfort zone. So aguing about which versoin is best is silly and counterproductive. If you don't like it, don't play and stick to what makes you happy.

I pay in steel, because I play on Krynn...

imo, we dislike the new feel of 4th edition because it's trying to take away from what the game used to be about, tolkienesc fantasy archetypes doing things we wish we could, and changing the world in the ways we always wanted to.

WoW, and other videogames are great. they bring people together, they allow people to all be 'even' and they have specific, linear, quests. But they are the opposite of what we look for on a tabletop, because in those videogames, no matter how many times you kill the dragon it'll still respawn to threaten the village again tomorrow, or the instance will re-fill. gear will be regenerated. In short you aren't a part of the world, you're just experiencing it. and it fosters not a sense of teamwork, solid and true, but thinly veiled competition for the gear, and the drops.

I've had a character kill hordes of marauding Githyanki on the fields of battle to save a hamlet that was in it's path to a larger settlement.

My character on eve, kills the same NPC pirates, and mines the same asteroids every day. but it's fun cause my friends are there and we're trying to all get better gear. but we're not really changing the world.

I know guilds and alliances in big MMOs have their political intreagues, but I'm not a guild. I'm just an elf, whose got four buddies, and 6 hours to find a way to get into this castle before a gate to the undreplanes opens and demons storm out and ravage the riverland towns. ant I know, they this adventure won't respawn in 12 minutes.

It's funny that you mention that 4E is like an MMO. I've never played an MMO personally but I think I understand them pretty well. The campaign I'm running now (please see my blog) includes 2 characters (Tuan and Phal'dara) whose players are big MMO fans. They happen to be our most zealous players. In fact when speaking with one of them the other day and talking about my perspective of 1ED he stated that probably wouldn't interest him. I find that I like 4E because of the combat. I got into the original D&D because of the Tolkienesque fantasy but I always had trouble enjoying the combat. I feel a lot better about it now that I can see where everyone is but I also must note that I spend so much time on combat that my plot references are often lost and the role-play definately takes a back seat. In fact, when we did do a little role play one of the MMO guys was quite perplexed. Still, given that I can reconcile combat, I won't go back other than to convert the classic modules to 4E. Thanks for starting the blog, Froogleyboy.

I have not played the 4E. I just got back in to playing I started on 2E. So I went and got a 3.5E in the hopes of playing again to find out that there is now a 4E, but i have not given up yet because I am willing to try the 4E

Originally Posted by MarshamSane

I pay in steel, because I play on Krynn...

imo, we dislike the new feel of 4th edition because it's trying to take away from what the game used to be about, tolkienesc fantasy archetypes doing things we wish we could, and changing the world in the ways we always wanted to.

WoW, and other videogames are great. they bring people together, they allow people to all be 'even' and they have specific, linear, quests. But they are the opposite of what we look for on a tabletop, because in those videogames, no matter how many times you kill the dragon it'll still respawn to threaten the village again tomorrow, or the instance will re-fill. gear will be regenerated. In short you aren't a part of the world, you're just experiencing it. and it fosters not a sense of teamwork, solid and true, but thinly veiled competition for the gear, and the drops.

I've had a character kill hordes of marauding Githyanki on the fields of battle to save a hamlet that was in it's path to a larger settlement.

My character on eve, kills the same NPC pirates, and mines the same asteroids every day. but it's fun cause my friends are there and we're trying to all get better gear. but we're not really changing the world.

I know guilds and alliances in big MMOs have their political intreagues, but I'm not a guild. I'm just an elf, whose got four buddies, and 6 hours to find a way to get into this castle before a gate to the undreplanes opens and demons storm out and ravage the riverland towns. ant I know, they this adventure won't respawn in 12 minutes.

I don't really think that much of this actually has to do with D&D4 you basically say that D&D4 is like an MMO, then without saying how, you go on to say how MMO's are linear, enemies respawn,etc.
I have been playing since 3.0 and did a bit of dabbeling in AD&D 2ed. Speaking from this experiance, I have never had a dragon respawn in any game of D&D wether it be AD&D, 3.x or 4e. Also if your D&D 4e adventures are linear that probabily has something to do with the DM and not the system you are playing.
I think that 4e did some good things. I really like having powers for all the classes so people can do more than just swing their sword. I think skills may have been oversimplified a little bit, but I like how the mechanics focus on battle and they leave the roleplaying up to you. Who really needs to be told how to roleplay?
By no means is 4e perfect, but I enjoy it. I also plan to continue to play 3.5, and if my buddy ever get in gear I will be playing in a 2ed campaign here shortly.