Another one?
But 3.5 is so nice! Why do they have to bring in a new system?
Or will it just be a minnor modification of the current system like 3-3.5 was?

And there'd sure as hell better not be a return of THAC0!

-B!

The official word is that the changes will include but are not limited to:
-Core classes going up to 30 levels rather than 20 in regular rules.
-Rules will be introduced which will cause character race to be relevant at all levels, with abilities unique to each race for certain classes.
-Half-elves, elves, and dwarves have been referenced in official text, and a tiefling appears on one of the book covers. There seems to be some disagreement as to whether there will be more or fewer races. The official forums are full of people asking for kobolds to be written in as a playable race.
-Vancian "fire and forget" magic will be retained, but there will be more options for spellcasting "power sources" to prevent isssues like parties which nap in dungeons ever couple encounters.
-Character creation and combat are "streamlined", whatever that means. They seem very proud of the changes to the grappling rules.
-There will be more active online content. All the books will have codes linking them to special content which can be accessed for a minor fee. The Dragon and Dungeon Magazine names will be used for supplemental online subscriber-only material. There will also be a program/site devoted to facilitating long-distance playing with a virtual miniatures board, voice chat, etc.

A film shown during the announcement of the new edition explicitly mocked THAC0, so they probably aren't bringing it back ;)

I lucked into a little more information lately on LJ, from a game designer type who'd been at GenCon and liked it. Also, WotC's site lets you log in as a guest right now for what's about to be their subscription-only thing, and there are a couple of articles, which give you a teeny amount more information.

I've heard that skills could work like Saga Edition Star Wars - which I haven't read or gmed or played. It sounds okay.

There's some sort of Martial Power pool for fighter and rogue types analogous to the divine and arcane magic pools, which sounds interesting - and WotC made a lot of noise about how the weapon you choose to fight with. I have no earthly idea how either one works.

Supposedly race is going to really influence play in levels 1-10, but I have no idea about how it works after that, and so on. I wonder whether that's basically a Star Wars influenced thing too?

I wish they'd tell us how they were handling armor and saving throws!

Casters are supposed to have stuff they can cast once per day, per encounter, and per round to give them more flexibility. So that sounds cool.

I dunno. It sounds like it could be a really good game. I'd like to see more of it sold as itself rather than most of what WotC is saying, which basically is "you'll love it! And we have all these great online options!" Tell me what the game's like, and I probably WILL like it.

You have seen this, right? Keith Baker's (Eberron's Creator's) Joke announcement of 4th ed. Like all of his announcements, there's like a real one hidden amongst the gags.

http://www.bossythecow.com/BD032607.htm