Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#42 Seeker95 Aug 08, 2011 18:41:11	WoTC basically trash talked their own system (3.5) in order to sell 4th ed. The fans trash talked it, but the closest WotC came to trash talking 3/3.5e was in acknowledging that they were not blind to the things that some of the fans found frustrating. (This is not intended to undermine or disparage anything in the rest of your post. I disagree with most of the opinions you voiced, but my disagreement is merely a different opinion. The above was the only point that seemed to be presenting facts for which I saw no evidence.)
#43 Zardnaar Aug 08, 2011 20:10:06	Its probably a matter of perception in comparing the changeover form 2nd ed to 3rd ed and from 3.5 to 4th ed. Maybe it was just me as I went out of my way to not read various 4th ed spoliers in the dying days of 3.5 ed as i wanted to judge it with no preconceptions. The only one I really remember reading was the Elf preview they posted in 2008 or so.  I didn't switch over to 4th until this year as I thought it was very lacking on release . Not because it was bad but some classes were missing powers for certain builds at various levels along with things like the human 3rd at will being lackluster etc.  Neither PF or 4th ed at the time really gave me what I wanted which was probably a fixed 3.5ish game. PF is more fixed than 3.5 but not fixed enough if that makes any sense.
#44 beaverduck Aug 08, 2011 20:15:52	Thats what I meant with Paizo slaughtering WoTC in the fan relations part. WoTC basically trash talked their own system (3.5) in order to sell 4th ed. People liked 3.5 alot despite its massive balance problems. PF powered up the non spellcasters, nerfed the spellcasters and got the fans into an open playtest. Combined with Paizos excellent reputation back when they had Dungeon and alot of people jumped ship. There has always been a few holdouts who have stayed behind when D&D has gone to a new edition but I suspect PF drew off a reasonably large % of players.  Enough players that I suspect 4th ed may be the 1st edition of D&D to sell worse than the previous edition but I'm not sure if 2nd ed out sold 1st in that regard. Maybe outsold in an equivilent time period. Eric Mona and Lisa Stevens also post on their own forums alot. You may not like their responses but you will probably get one if you are polite enough. It would be like WoTC letting the fans do a large part in designing new powers or rebalencing or supporting classes like the artificer. The forums here are a polluted mire of negativity and they are the worst I have seen here in a decade. Paizon also seems to be slaughtering 4th ed in the fluff department and adventure department. As a general rule I think 4th ed is probably better than Pathfinder but 4th ed is like owning a high end sports car that needs special fuel you can't buy (in terms of adventures). WoTC is mostly incapable of designing a good adventure for whatever reason. I really miss my dead tree format Dungeon magazine with adventures dsigned by that other company. This pretty much sums up my feelings as well.  I think Paizo's adventure focused approach to their game has done wonders for them in terms of bringing on more players.  A lot of the times rules - good or bad - can take a long time to really come to to grips with and decide whether you like or not. Paizo's model has been along the lines of:  Show off excellent art and trot your new campaign. 'Play a pirate - work your way up from being crew to control of maybe more then one ship - you'll be the scourge of the seven seas in a fantasy pirate campaign!' has a way of just grabbing peoples attention and some of those people are going to be saying to themselves 'Play a pirate!?! - I always wanted to be a pirate!...where can I sign up please?' Pirates not your thing - well they'll try again with you in six months.  Maybe you like classic D&D, or a horror campaign or running a kingdom or the drow or a city based adventure or...or...or... Once they hook you in they have managed to keep up with the excitement and quality of their products that they seem really quite good at retaining their costumers.
#45 dropthembones Aug 08, 2011 21:56:19	That was their deep analysis. Paizo got the fans to help fix it. I am not 100% sure on the numbers but I remember reading that somewhere around 50k people submitted ideas. That is a lot of spin (and is one of the few things that Paizo has done that annoys me).  About 50K people downloaded the free rules PDFs prior to the release and every one of them got counted as a "playtester."  For example, I was counted since I downloaded the Alpha rules release even though I barely looked at it and never participated in any discussions. Ok wanna look at it that way...gimme a reasonable # of people that were like you....hell I'll say 60% to take a high percentage...that is 30+k...remainder is 20+k....I am fairly certain it will still be the largest playtest in history. The idea is that they went to the source of the income...the fans. the people that will buy it, that are gonna, as a previous poster said, vote with their wallets, these are the people that were asked to help make fixes to the game.
#46 Seeker95 Aug 09, 2011 7:15:27	Ok wanna look at it that way...gimme a reasonable # of people that were like you....hell I'll say 60% to take a high percentage...that is 30+k...remainder is 20+k....I am fairly certain it will still be the largest playtest in history. I suspect the "downloaded and didn't use" percentage is much higher than 60%. "Free download" attracts attention in the RPG community faster than a chainmail bikini at GenCon. In my current 4e regular group (nine of us), five downloaded the Pathfinder Beta. NONE used it. In my summer 4e campaign (seven players and I DM), three of those seven downloaded, and NONE used it. I would guess that the PF beta had about 5000 people who "played" Pathfinder. Of those, maybe half actually played "PF beta" rather than "3.5 with PF supplemental". 2500 is still a good number. But the number that gave feedback? Perhaps 500 hundred at most. A playtest is a contract, with two-way communication, monitored and assessed. Paizo did NOT have thousands of people giving them feedback. They didn't even have the NDA process in place for the beta. They released a product for free and invited folks who wanted to give them feedback to do so. The real "playtesting" occured before the beta, and we have no clue how many that included. Pathfinder was well done. It did involve the fans as playtesters. But the 50,000 playtesters claim is marketing, not R&D. (By the way, the PHB lists 630 4e playtesters by name on page 316. These folks signed NDA's and gave feedback on their experiences.)
#47 Zardnaar Aug 09, 2011 8:03:05	Alot o the feedback was forum based and probably wasn't as formal as WoTC. I actually liked some of the PF more but some didn't make it tothe final PF product. How dare WoTC and Paizo not design RPGs to exactly what I want.
#48 XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek Aug 09, 2011 9:10:57	Ok wanna look at it that way...gimme a reasonable # of people that were like you....hell I'll say 60% to take a high percentage...that is 30+k...remainder is 20+k....I am fairly certain it will still be the largest playtest in history. I suspect the "downloaded and didn't use" percentage is much higher than 60%. "Free download" attracts attention in the RPG community faster than a chainmail bikini at GenCon. In my current 4e regular group (nine of us), five downloaded the Pathfinder Beta. NONE used it. In my summer 4e campaign (seven players and I DM), three of those seven downloaded, and NONE used it. I would guess that the PF beta had about 5000 people who "played" Pathfinder. Of those, maybe half actually played "PF beta" rather than "3.5 with PF supplemental". 2500 is still a good number. But the number that gave feedback? Perhaps 500 hundred at most. A playtest is a contract, with two-way communication, monitored and assessed. Paizo did NOT have thousands of people giving them feedback. They didn't even have the NDA process in place for the beta. They released a product for free and invited folks who wanted to give them feedback to do so. The real "playtesting" occured before the beta, and we have no clue how many that included. Pathfinder was well done. It did involve the fans as playtesters. But the 50,000 playtesters claim is marketing, not R&D. (By the way, the PHB lists 630 4e playtesters by name on page 316. These folks signed NDA's and gave feedback on their experiences.) This is just speculation.  Just because your group or people you know didn't use it that doesn't mean many many others did not as well.  I think you are trying your best to downplay what Paizo did in order to make your argument go outside the realm of opinion. The fact of the matter is Paizo actually got it's fans involved with the changes to the game because that's who actually spends the money to buy the game.  Nobody actually knows the numbers either way but like I already stated, Paizo got it's customers involved and it has done wonders for them.
#49 Herrozerro Aug 09, 2011 10:55:22	Nobody actually knows the numbers either way but like I already stated, Paizo got it's customers involved and it has done wonders for them. Im pretty sure seeker just stated how many there were, the 316 given credit.
#50 Seeker95 Aug 09, 2011 13:26:01	This is just speculation. Yep. Sure is. Which is clear and evident from my entire post, including the parts where I preface with: "I suspect..." "I would guess..." and "Perhaps..." I'm pretty good at making it clear when I am offering opinion. Just because your group or people you know didn't use it that doesn't mean many many others did not as well. True. But it is sampling -- the process of applying actual observations of a smaller population to the larger population. Incidentally, if I were saying that what is true for my group is true for ALL, I would have concluded that NOBODY actually playtested Paizo. I did not make such a claim. I think you are trying your best to downplay what Paizo did in order to make your argument go outside the realm of opinion. You are free to think that, and I appreciate you acknowledging that it is what you think, and not simply accusing me of doing that. (You are also wrong, but that doesn't change the fact that you think it.) I am NOT trying to downplay what Paizo did. Paizo had an open playtest. That is great. But I AM trying to debunk the ridiculous claim that Paizo had 50,000 playtesters. Nobody actually knows the numbers either way Somebody does. Paizo knows exactly how many people gave them feedback. It is my opinion that that number will turn out to be around 500, tops. Quite respectable. (And no, I am not demanding that Paizo release their list. I trust that they had as much playtest feedback as they felt they needed.)
#51 Gunthar Aug 09, 2011 13:45:32	In theory Pathfinder should not exist. It's a grognard world and people are naturally resistant to change. 4E is a better game but that doesn't mean people will prefer it. It's like people who want to drive classic sports cars. They don't handle nearly as well as modern ones but they still like the old ones more.
#52 Gunthar Aug 09, 2011 13:57:03	WoTC basically trash talked their own system (3.5) in order to sell 4th ed. The fans trash talked it, but the closest WotC came to trash talking 3/3.5e was in acknowledging that they were not blind to the things that some of the fans found frustrating. Exactly!
#53 XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek Aug 09, 2011 15:20:59	In theory Pathfinder should not exist. It's a grognard world and people are naturally resistant to change. 4E is a better game but that doesn't mean people will prefer it. It's like people who want to drive classic sports cars. They don't handle nearly as well as modern ones but they still like the old ones more. 4th edition being a better game is purely a matter of opinion.  It's better per the individual, not as a whole.
#54 XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek Aug 09, 2011 15:22:20	Nobody actually knows the numbers either way but like I already stated, Paizo got it's customers involved and it has done wonders for them. Im pretty sure seeker just stated how many there were, the 316 given credit. And Seeker knows the exact numbers how?????
#55 Herrozerro Aug 09, 2011 15:28:11	Nobody actually knows the numbers either way but like I already stated, Paizo got it's customers involved and it has done wonders for them. Im pretty sure seeker just stated how many there were, the 316 given credit. And Seeker knows the exact numbers how????? Unless I was mistaken he counted the playtesters given credit in the book.  you know those credits in the back of the book are not just for show. if i was mistaken he might have been speaking about the 4e phb and in which case I was wrong.
#56 XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek Aug 09, 2011 15:32:46	This is just speculation. Yep. Sure is. Which is clear and evident from my entire post, including the parts where I preface with: "I suspect..." "I would guess..." and "Perhaps..." I'm pretty good at making it clear when I am offering opinion. But you do have a habit of trying to pass off an opinion as fact. Just because your group or people you know didn't use it that doesn't mean many many others did not as well. True. But it is sampling -- the process of applying actual observations of a smaller population to the larger population. Incidentally, if I were saying that what is true for my group is true for ALL, I would have concluded that NOBODY actually playtested Paizo. I did not make such a claim. If that wasn't what you meant then you shouldn't have even said what said to start with.  You were trying to use a flawed argument about your own group's limitation in numbers in order to justify your argument. I think you are trying your best to downplay what Paizo did in order to make your argument go outside the realm of opinion. You are free to think that, and I appreciate you acknowledging that it is what you think, and not simply accusing me of doing that. (You are also wrong, but that doesn't change the fact that you think it.) There you go with the dismissing.  Saying I'm wrong doesn't mean anything unless you have a way to prove that I am wrong unless it comes down to matter of opinion. I am NOT trying to downplay what Paizo did. Paizo had an open playtest. That is great. But I AM trying to debunk the ridiculous claim that Paizo had 50,000 playtesters. And you failed to do so. Nobody actually knows the numbers either way Somebody does. Paizo knows exactly how many people gave them feedback. It is my opinion that that number will turn out to be around 500, tops. Quite respectable. No s@$t Sherlock.  (And no, I am not demanding that Paizo release their list. I trust that they had as much playtest feedback as they felt they needed.) Never said you did.
#57 XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek Aug 09, 2011 15:43:06	From the Pathfinder Core Rulebook: This game would not be possible without the passion and dedication of the thousands of gamers who helped playtest and develop it. Thank you for all of your time and effort.
#58 18DELTA Aug 09, 2011 21:57:22	Paizo had entire FORUMS set up for the Pathfinder playtest.;)
#59 Garthanos Aug 09, 2011 22:08:58	Paizo had entire FORUMS set up for the Pathfinder playtest.;) Almost certain that is true but sometimes it just seems they must be a breeding ground for green warty types...