Miss 4e D&D

[glass]

From what I've read, 4e was developed with the intent of making D&D work much more like a video game. At a given level, all characters had much the same capabilities, just in different wrapping.

Then what you read is edition warring, and bore no resemblance to the actual edition as published and played.

If they kept their online support tools for 4e, than I’m sure there would still be a lot more players for the edition.

That was us - we stopped playing 4e when they turned off the tools which we had come to rely on. Although I would like to give Orcus a go one day.

Less streamlined than 4E...now there's a damning statement.

It really isn't. 4e is absolutely more streamlined than the editions on either side of it. It had a lot of content, but the rules framework that all that content fitted into was highly consistent and straight forward.

I mean, heck, look at the Playground. Right now, 4e has 3 posts, counting the stickied ones. The 3.5 board has four pages of posts. Now, some of that is Pathfinder, but even if it's 80-90% Pathfinder, 3.5 still has way more adherents than 4e.

This forum is attached to a 3e-based webcomic; the relative popularity of 3e and 4e here can hardly be assumed to be representative.