Negative Creationism

When the new edition of D&D hit, I had been expecting a lot of negative feedback since every new edition or update of a game garners quite a bit of initial negativity.  Its people’s nature to resist change especially when it comes to hobbies they have supported for a large portion of their lives.

Firing off negative reviews is also quite a bit easier than writing anything positive, such reviews also garner more views since its more sensationalist to hate something than review what you enjoy about it.

Lately, however, its starting to get incredibly worn out, sad, and surpassing the great nerd war topics such as Kirk vs. Picard.  I’m not saying people shouldn’t be critical of what they believe is going on with their beloved game, but droning on about the same subjects ad nauseum is starting to border on the pathetic lately.

“Well, if they would only support the older editions.” is one gem that gets dragged up to the surface and paraded around like some utopian literary messiah.

Sure, it would be nice if every company would never outdate any of their products ever.  If they could count on enough of a customer base to actually hire the staff and writers to continuously update every old work, program, or car, we’d have this wonderful singing paradise where birds would land on our shoulders and children would grow up behind white picket fences.

The reality is that no company I can recall – outside of archival services – actually does this.  Microsoft isn’t going to update Windows 3.1, no matter how much you hate Vista.  Adobe isn’t going to put out a new version of Photoshop 2.0, the original AMC Gremlin isn’t going to suddenly start rolling off production lines any more, and as far as I know Bic won’t be going back to feather quills with bells on them as the hot new writing tool.

Sure, I loved the older versions of D&D as well.  There are things I still miss about first and second edition.  I was one of those that didn’t care for third edition in the end, finding it to be an utter nightmare to write campaigns for (Seriously, having your big evil boss die due to one spell is asinine), and while I did air a few complaints, I didn’t groan on an on about it like a child being forced to go shoe shopping with mom.

I don’t think I’d mind it as much, if I didn’t have to wade through heaps of this whining every time I found an interesting thread about a new edition.  Hell, I wouldn’t mind it if it was at least productive whining as that could lead to correction or innovation, but having to climb past the ‘Version x is homogenous’ or “Version x doesn’t promote roleplay” (The latter of which is utter bullshite, by the way) on boards dedicated to the version of the game I’m looking at doesn’t help.  That’s just being bitchy for the sake of being heard.

We get it.  You won’t change.  If you have suggestions to make things better, by all means lets hear it.  And for those who do play 4e, lets stop being jackasses and showing up on threads dedicated to older versions of the game only to whine about how inferior they are. (Yes, the fanboys are just as bad as the Eeyore types).  I’d like to get to a point where every second topic on a discussion board isn’t about what version is ‘best’.

A bit more of a rant today, I guess.