D&D GOES FOURTH - The official announcement of Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition was made at the Gen Con Game Fair on August 16th, precluded by numerous subtle hints (such as putting 4s in the place of the letter A in web banners and MySpace messages - INDI4N4POLIS, 4DVENTURE, etc., and displaying dice with the 4 on top).

Early reports seem to indicate that the new version will be faster, easier to run, and more attuned to online play - possibly through the recently unveiled GLEEMAX social networking section of Wizards' site. No word has been given yet on how compatible it will be with the large collection of published 3.x and d20 material.

As of this writing, the D&D section of www.wizards.com is down, possibly due to heavy internet traffic of fans looking for more information on the update..

The new books are planned for a May, 2008 release date. Apparently, that release date has been considerably tightened up since the 2001 announcement of April 1st, 2011 - and the "revolutionary d30 system" appears to have been scrapped entirely...