There are numerous balancing issues that need to be reworked. Clerics are just way too powerful in the game as is. Fighters become useless, and have very few options. Run up, swing, swing, oh look a critical. Wizards have few spells and get little play early on, then zap zap zap everything gets fried.

What I'm hoping is they do not go to the awful Star Wars Saga rules.

Wizards of the Coast is announcing at GenCon today that it will release the 4th Edition of its category-leading Dungeons and Dragon roleplaying game in 2008, the first full new edition in eight years.  The three core books will be released next summer on a monthly schedule:  Player's Handbook in May, Monster Manual in June, and Dungeon Master's Guide in July.  Pricing and page counts of the new products will be consistent with current packaging.  Graphics have been updated, art will be used on the covers, and interior design has been opened up to make the books less intimidating to new players. 

Not in the slightest. It's not mandatory, it's a sexy extra option.

My every-other-Sunday group full of well-employed adults is drooling. We'll still continue meeting in meatspace, but we're planning to use laptops so we can still use the online tools. Think about having a map on which each player can actually only see what their character can see. In differing light conditions the humans and nonhumans actually see more or less of the map, and the DM doesn't have to say "everyone else close your eyes" while he shows the mage who case See Invisible where the bad guy is. And the scout who peeked around the corner down the hall is actually the only one who gets to see down there, as opposed to the DM just drawing it for everyone out in the open.

This is going to be sweet.

I didn't know you still played D&D.  A few guys from my high school group really want to start a campaign.  We were kicking around the logistics.  The first and third Sunday of every month seemed feasable.  We would not use computers, but I would love to use miniatures on the big hex-mats.  The one guy who said he would DM using his Forgotten Realms material is dragging his feet and the rest of us are chomping at the bit.  I designed a campaign (AD&D 2nd edition based) that used Middle Earth as the setting about 10 years ago, but that is the last time we played.  If this new edition is easier, I would like to get my hands on it to see if I can give it a whirl.  I remember seeing the new books, I guess it is 3rd edition, and they seemed to change the rules dramatically.  It looked like the d20 system was defunct and the stats were based on 100 scale.  Unless I am mistaken, it has been a while since I read any D&D material.  How many people are in your group?

http://www.athas.org/

A little clunky but there's some great material for 3.0 and 3.5 Dark Sun games.

hell, i called it good at 2nd edition. I found anything after that was just more of the same and really didn't do anything but convolute the game with silly specializations and uneeded traits.

gary gygax last had his input in 2nd edition. when he sold it off, D&D died for me. too much of the blue skinned elf with strength and abilities of a half ogre and the size of a halfling, who could breath fire and phase through walls and breath underwater.  that kinda crap killed D&D..  half-orc were a stretch, half-ogres, half=giants, and half-dragons went too far.

in my opinion, i humbly disagree. the redundant rules, the over expouding on combat etc. sure you can keep dumping money into new rule books and pick and chose what you want. That's an option. As with GW, it's a financial decision that change must be made to earn money.

In fact i think I remember seeing a WOC person quoted as saying, there must be constant change in order to keep money coming in.

for me, D&D stopped being fun when it was overweighted with specializations and 765 handbooks of theives and mages and all that. The expense wasn't worth the information in the books. So having said that, I stayed with what was fun and played 2nd edition exclusively. then once I tried 3.5.  and remembered why i played 2nd edition.  for me it was the most fun. 

that's why i stopped at 2nd edition too, in fact I think I mentioned that before (carmachu, if you care to reread my posts you might see that)..  and then gary turning it over to wotc just spoiled the already aging milk. 

it's fine carm, we hardly see eye to eye, I didn't really expect to see eye to eye with you here. I hated bloat. i hated it in 2nd edition thus why i got out) and 3rd edition, my reasons were valid carm, you just missed the forest through the trees i guess.