Show
DDI Letter to the Players #2
by Randy Buehler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lots of stuff to talk about this week … I’m just going to dive into the updates in no particular order:
Compendium Update
Within the next week, hopefully by Gen Con and possibly before you read this, we’ll be pushing live an update to the D&D Compendium. The two highlights, in my opinion, are the addition of the Monsters tab and the inclusion of data from Dragon and Dungeon Magazines. In addition there are now more search options plus a “show all” button, both of which should make browsing the data easier. (Look for full patch notes to show up in the forums once the update is live.)
With this update, the Compendium now provides a convenient way to look up all of the following rules elements: Races, Class, Powers, Feats, Items, Skills, Rituals, Paragon Paths, Epic Destinies, and Monsters. The functionality is still pretty basic at this point and we have lots of our own ideas about how to continue to improve things, but we’re also very interested in hearing your ideas about what we could do to make things even better, The current Free Trial is designed both to allow you guys to see whether Insider is worth paying for and also for us to get feedback from you about what else you would like to see. We’ve started this thread in our forums in order to centralize this conversation.
As far as the data that feeds the D&D Compendium goes, here’s the plan: Once we are charging for Insider subscriptions we will be updating the Compendium once per month. Near the beginning of the month we will add in all of the relevant rules elements from whatever physical products went on sale the previous month (typically one book during the third week) plus all the rules elements from the just-released full-issue compilations of Dragon and Dungeon Magazines.
In the mean time, during the Free Trial of Insider, we’ll be updating the Compendium data as we find it convenient and appropriate. For example, there are currently no monsters from the Monster Manual in it. They will definitely be there when we start charging and we’ll probably have at least one data update which includes them between now and then.
Gen Con
I will be at Gen Con all weekend – feel free to look me up and say hi. Among other things I will be conducting the D&D Insider seminar at 6pm on Friday evening. We’ve got the room for two hours, but I know a lot of folks will want to leave early to go to the Ennies so I’ll make sure we get through all the prepared stuff (slides and demos) and into the Q&A period within the first hour.
As I mentioned last week, we’ll be showing off Insider (including the Character Builder and Visualizer) at kiosks both in our booth and also in the Sagamore Ballroom. If you can’t make it to Gen Con you can look for coverage of the event online or you can visit us at PAX in Seattle in two weeks.
Pricing Questions
Most of the questions generated by last week’s Digital Insider column seemed to center around the pricing structure that I announced there. I’ll do my best to clarify some things:
What happens to my year-long subscription when the price goes up?
The $4.95 / month price covers Web content only (Dragon and Dungeon Magazines, the D&D Compendium, and the Bonus Tools). We will be charging more for access to the Character Builder, Character Visualizer, Game Table, etc. Our previously announced pricing for the full package (including both Web content and client applications) is $9.95 if you sign up for a full year (going up to $14.95 if you pay one month at a time).
The details of how transitions from one subscription package to another will work will be announced later, but you can safely assume that a) we will honor the terms of the package you signed up for and b) you won’t be charged more unless you choose to pay for more services.
What about free trials of client applications?
We will be making demo versions of the Character Builder and Character Visualizer available so that folks can sample those applications for free. Our plan for the demo version is to have full functionality, but only a small amount of data. So, for example, you might only have access to levels 1 - 3 or you might only be able to build a human. These demo’s will be a permanent fixture of the D&DI website (in other words: the free trial never ends).
How long will the free trial of the Web content last?
At least one more month.
Bonus Tools
We cleaned up some aspects of our D&D Insider webpage last week and pushed live the first two Bonus Tools. They are Flash applications, which means they should work whether you’re on a Mac or a PC, but you will need to have Adobe Flash Player installed. We’ve got a third Bonus Tool halfway built right now and have also decided what the fourth one will be. Look for more information as those projects as they near completion.
If you have any questions, comments, or even just the need jump onto our forums and discuss this article, head right here. I’ll be back next week with tales of Indianapolis and answers to more of your questions.
Randy Buehler
Vice President of Digital Gaming
Wizards of the Coast
DDI Letter to the Players #2
by Randy Buehler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lots of stuff to talk about this week … I’m just going to dive into the updates in no particular order:
Compendium Update
Within the next week, hopefully by Gen Con and possibly before you read this, we’ll be pushing live an update to the D&D Compendium. The two highlights, in my opinion, are the addition of the Monsters tab and the inclusion of data from Dragon and Dungeon Magazines. In addition there are now more search options plus a “show all” button, both of which should make browsing the data easier. (Look for full patch notes to show up in the forums once the update is live.)
With this update, the Compendium now provides a convenient way to look up all of the following rules elements: Races, Class, Powers, Feats, Items, Skills, Rituals, Paragon Paths, Epic Destinies, and Monsters. The functionality is still pretty basic at this point and we have lots of our own ideas about how to continue to improve things, but we’re also very interested in hearing your ideas about what we could do to make things even better, The current Free Trial is designed both to allow you guys to see whether Insider is worth paying for and also for us to get feedback from you about what else you would like to see. We’ve started this thread in our forums in order to centralize this conversation.
As far as the data that feeds the D&D Compendium goes, here’s the plan: Once we are charging for Insider subscriptions we will be updating the Compendium once per month. Near the beginning of the month we will add in all of the relevant rules elements from whatever physical products went on sale the previous month (typically one book during the third week) plus all the rules elements from the just-released full-issue compilations of Dragon and Dungeon Magazines.
In the mean time, during the Free Trial of Insider, we’ll be updating the Compendium data as we find it convenient and appropriate. For example, there are currently no monsters from the Monster Manual in it. They will definitely be there when we start charging and we’ll probably have at least one data update which includes them between now and then.
Gen Con
I will be at Gen Con all weekend – feel free to look me up and say hi. Among other things I will be conducting the D&D Insider seminar at 6pm on Friday evening. We’ve got the room for two hours, but I know a lot of folks will want to leave early to go to the Ennies so I’ll make sure we get through all the prepared stuff (slides and demos) and into the Q&A period within the first hour.
As I mentioned last week, we’ll be showing off Insider (including the Character Builder and Visualizer) at kiosks both in our booth and also in the Sagamore Ballroom. If you can’t make it to Gen Con you can look for coverage of the event online or you can visit us at PAX in Seattle in two weeks.
Pricing Questions
Most of the questions generated by last week’s Digital Insider column seemed to center around the pricing structure that I announced there. I’ll do my best to clarify some things:
What happens to my year-long subscription when the price goes up?
The $4.95 / month price covers Web content only (Dragon and Dungeon Magazines, the D&D Compendium, and the Bonus Tools). We will be charging more for access to the Character Builder, Character Visualizer, Game Table, etc. Our previously announced pricing for the full package (including both Web content and client applications) is $9.95 if you sign up for a full year (going up to $14.95 if you pay one month at a time).
The details of how transitions from one subscription package to another will work will be announced later, but you can safely assume that a) we will honor the terms of the package you signed up for and b) you won’t be charged more unless you choose to pay for more services.
What about free trials of client applications?
We will be making demo versions of the Character Builder and Character Visualizer available so that folks can sample those applications for free. Our plan for the demo version is to have full functionality, but only a small amount of data. So, for example, you might only have access to levels 1 - 3 or you might only be able to build a human. These demo’s will be a permanent fixture of the D&DI website (in other words: the free trial never ends).
How long will the free trial of the Web content last?
At least one more month.
Bonus Tools
We cleaned up some aspects of our D&D Insider webpage last week and pushed live the first two Bonus Tools. They are Flash applications, which means they should work whether you’re on a Mac or a PC, but you will need to have Adobe Flash Player installed. We’ve got a third Bonus Tool halfway built right now and have also decided what the fourth one will be. Look for more information as those projects as they near completion.
If you have any questions, comments, or even just the need jump onto our forums and discuss this article, head right here. I’ll be back next week with tales of Indianapolis and answers to more of your questions.
Randy Buehler
Vice President of Digital Gaming
Wizards of the Coast
We will be making demo versions of the Character Builder and Character Visualizer available so that folks can sample those applications for free. Our plan for the demo version is to have full functionality, but only a small amount of data. So, for example, you might only have access to levels 1 - 3 or you might only be able to build a human. These demo’s will be a permanent fixture of the D&DI website (in other words: the free trial never ends).
I'll tell you where you can shove your crippleware.....
What is the point of trying to create a character sheet for only a human. You have already made humans in the game the least likely to be played with 4th, so people don't want to only see the first few levels. You realize there are already programs out there that will do ALL levels with the core rules for all races to create a character sheet.
What happened to the non-subscribers would be able to always use this fully functional software, but not get the full rules data on the sheets? Now you are saying that this crippleware is supposed to showcase something about the Character Builder? Like what? This should have been one of your bonus tools, as it is what will draw people to wanting insider in the first place. These things have always been free from fans. You may allow some blog related style hosting of the character created with the builder on WotC servers ala Magelo for EverQuest, but who cares?
You can't offer the basics for the game for free to everyone? I mean it is a character sheet form maker is all it is. You still need the books to play since there is no full SRD like 3rd edition. What the hell do you think can be done by having the terms listed on a character sheet? What is next WotC suing people for posting screenshots or scans of physical character sheets online?
Let's get a bit real for a change. The character sheet maker software should be the most available thing to all people for as little cost as possible. This is what will help new players come to the game with the ease of being able to quickly figure out exactly how the shet works by seeing it in action.
Why try to charge anything for it?
WELCOME new player. Our crippleware will give you little to nothing to show off our game form our website, but once you buy your $100 worth of books, and then pay us $20 per month we will help you learn to play it. Some colleges cost less for books and tuition!
The visualizer I will discuss in a post below.
Or will each of my members have to sign up for a subscription (at $120 a year) so that we can all play together? Clearly option a) is reasonable and option b) is flat-out not gonna happen before the Nine Hells freeze over (well, the eight that aren't frozen...)
Any insight into that? The usability and flexibility of having each of my gamers put in $20 a year is great. Each of them needing to shell out full MMO subscription costs so they can log into my virtual gaming table, on the other hand, is craptacular.
If you plan on running two seperate suites (tools and digital content) and make them both $60/year, that would be fantastic (as some users only want the game table, etc).
If nothing else, it's good to see some progress, even if you tease us with a mention of two more tools (bad,bad Randy!).
My main question about the pricing wasn't really answered here, which is this: how specifically will they be handling payment. Is it only credit card, because I don't have one. I am someone who is completely convinced by 4e, and by the promise of DDI, the kind of sucker that some on the forums cry "shill" at. I plan to purchase a full subscription as soon as they become available, and to continue reading Dragon and Dungeon until then, so I need to know what the deal is re: payment options, and I hope to the Six and the Nine that PayPal is an option.
I am looking for the quote, but WotC will be partnering with Digital River, an e-commerce company that specializes in internet payment.
Looking at Trend Micro's store information page (who uses Digital River) they (Digital River) accept
- Visa;
- MasterCard/EuroCard;
- Discover
- American Express;
- Diner's Club;
- JCB;
- Cheque cards or cash cards, so long as they are connected with one of the major credit card companies listed above; and
- PayPal.
My only question is for the $9.95 monthly for the year; does the entire amount have to be paid up front? Thank you!
Typically, if there are discount prices for longer time periods, they entire payment must be made up front.
Randy
PS: I like military discount:D :D :D
- The addition of the Monster tab and search options to the Compendium sounds great. I already use the Compendium quite a bit for reference when I'm surfing the forums or playing in my online group, so further improvements to it are definitely an incentive for me to consider subscribing to the web-only D&DI features. (That and I like Dragon magazine so far.)
- Free trials of the visualizer and character builder clients sound good, but it's kind of a bummer that we still don't have any idea when they'll be released.
- More bonus tools sounds cool too, although he didn't actually say what they were going to be. The encounter generator seems like a handy little tool of sorts, considering that it looks like it includes all the official monsters.
- My final thought after I read the article was a slight tangent. I realized that, personally, had the D&DI game table come out and worked as intended a month or two ago, there's a good chance I would have signed up for it to try joining an onling group in it. But at this point I'm already playing in two 4e D&D groups, one a local tabletop group and the other an online group using Maptool. So even if D&DI immediately released the gaming table today, I'd probably have to leave my existing groups to play in a group in it. Even if I assume that the D&DI gaming table works better than Maptool, I couldn't justify subscribing to it since I have no intention of leaving either of my weekend groups and have no time to play during the week. Heck, it's possible I wouldn't even use it if it were free at this point if the other players in my current groups didn't!
Therefore it dawned on me that the delay in releasing the D&DI gaming table has, at least in my case, cost WotC a potential $10-15 a month subscriber (at least for a while). Which makes me wonder how many other players are like me and would have played on the D&DI gaming table two months ago but now have other conflicting groups?
Mind you, I'm not saying WotC should have released a buggy product at 4th edition's launch. Releasing a buggy client would have been far worse than simply delaying it for a fiscal quarter or two. But it wouldn't surprise me if the delay on the tabletop did in fact cost D&DI a non-trivial chunk of subscribers who went elsewhere to play 4th edition online. Which would be a shame because the table is probably the feature I was most eager to check out.
a) i hate yearly payments. any chance there will be even longer subscriptions available at probably further reduced prices? (3 or 5 years comes to my head, i really don't care paying upfront but i dislike the yearly "ah, i have to pay this, and this, and this...")
b) will there be any possibility to keep the subscription to dungoen, dragon+compendium, without the download programs? Seeing that they don't run under lots of operating systems i'd rather use, this must be an option or it'll be a dropout reason for me.
c) what exactly happens if i let my subscription run out? will i still have access to the pdfs and articles i could have downloaded, will I have to archive them before?
1) as a fan of printed books, i'd love to see some kind of gift-certificates for dnd insider when you buy one. Since it looks like you'll be getting the print products as a part of the insider as well, this looks like a fair compensation for purchasing things twice. (like 5$ for a 30$ book) It probably could help to increase interest in insider as well.
yeah throw some silly flash applications at us to distract us further from the fact that the game table still isn't ready. excellent use of programers.
There are only so much programmers who can work on one project. Graphic and animation design can be speed up as much as you want by just hiring more people, but debugging can't. You can only have two, maximum three people work on one problem, and most of the time one person is more effective. Also usually, if the application is complex enough you can't solve too many problems at once, since you have to take care of side effects where one "fix" could ruin the work of others (this is a big problem of open source development, where sometimes one fix causes a regression in an other part of the software...)
If the team gets too huge, coordination becomes a daunting task. And also flash programmers don't work on C++ 3d applications.
So I think they just want to give us something to play with while we are waiting. While this is of course not what we want, it's probably the best they can do at the moment.
I am not sure if this is the correct thread for my question but when the Character Builder goes "live", where will the character data file reside? Will it reside in my own private spot on the DDI server farm or will it reside on my PC's disk?
Okay, I just now plowed through the D&DI FAQ and I found the answers that I wanted. The posted answers to GQ22, GQ23 and GQ28 were sufficient.
In another thread, I had wondered if there would PDF versions of the PHB prepared so that people could simply buy the updated PDF version when yet another update to PHB was posted, instead of having to find another unused margin to scribble the latest update into the book.
Why am I suddenly thinking of Fermat's math book?
What are the pricing options for people who only want the Char visualizer and gaming table(want to use it for a 3.5 game I'm running with friends that are now in other stats). Will you be including a military clause (when i get deployed for up to 6 months and already paid am i just out of luck for the time I'm gone). Just an idea you should break it all up that way people can pay for what they need and you can give a discount on the size and length of the plan.
PS: I like military discount:D :D :D
At this time there isn't a "Game Table Only" version - just the "Web-Only" version being offered soon, and the "full access" version once the tools are done.
While others have requested a military discount, there's been no indication from WotC that this is something they intend to implement.
I am not sure if this is the correct thread for my question but when the Character Builder goes "live", where will the character data file reside? Will it reside in my own private spot on the DDI server farm or will it reside on my PC's disk? When I need to update my character, such as adding more weapons, more armor, more class powers, more money, more XP, will I be able to pull the data file out of storage or will I have to re-input all of the relevant data for the character? Also, assuming that my character data file is stored on the DDI server farm, will I be the only one able to access it or will some other player be able to "borrow" my character without my permission or my knowledge?
You'll have the option of saving your character locally (to your Hard Disk, Flash Drive, etc) or using one of the slots in your Character Vault* to store the data.
*The Character Vault hasn't been mentioned much of late, either because nobody is asking, or with the loss of gleemax this feature might (in my opinion, no data to back this up) be changing the way they're considering these sorts of options. Only time will tell.
You'll be able to progress your character(s) (add new weapons, armor, XP, Powers, etc).
Characters saved to the vault will have the option of being published for others to borrow or copy.
In another thread, I had wondered if there would PDF versions of the PHB prepared so that people could simply buy the updated PDF version when yet another update to PHB was posted, instead of having to find another unused margin to scribble the latest update into the book.
There are PDF versions of the books available at www.drivethroughrpg.com and www.rpgnow.com.
There's been no word about these PDFs receiving Errata updates, however many people have been suggesting it as a "value-add" for the PDFs. Keep your fingers crossed.
My only question is this: For my $120 a year, will I be able to purchase a subscription and use that for my regular gaming group? ie. Use it to make 6 characters, build a virtual dungeon, and DM a game?
Or will each of my members have to sign up for a subscription (at $120 a year) so that we can all play together? Clearly option a) is reasonable and option b) is flat-out not gonna happen before the Nine Hells freeze over (well, the eight that aren't frozen...)
As another example, in a group of four, two of us DM and want to pay for the full-blown subscription. What will the other two have to pay simply to play online with us? If it is the same amount, they've indicated that is too much for them and in the end none of us may subscribe.
A final example: What about within the household? Will both my son and I have to pay for the full subscription to use the online gaming table together?
...continued from this post....
The visualizer also cannot be just humans. I could go play the Sims If I want to dress-up a bunch of humans.
I think people are not understanding what can be free that people would not be able to take too much from,and what they would pay for from these services.
Housing the mini made formt he visualizer for use in Game Table, that people could pay for.
Making a character portrait from the visualizer to save as an image or print people do NOT need WotC for. There are programs out there already that make wonderful character portraits for FREE.
You need to be offering things other people cannot IF you really expect people to pay you for what you are giving. The D&D name is not really worth paying for anymore.
You also neglected, Mr. Buehler, any mention of a free trial for Game Table.
Do you really expect people to shell out the extra money for the Visualizer, Builder, Table, and...oh you didn't mention the Dungeon Builder either!.... by only getting to see HALF of the tools?
I mean you are wanting people to use Game Table over the 7 or 8 (some free) VTTs currently on the market and are not offering any free trial to that or the dungeon builder?
Also the dungeon builder was supposed to have a free component like visualizer and character builder that non-subscribers could always use. I guess everything is crippleware to the extent that it is useless to non-subscribers. Have 400 megs of software for IBM only machines that you can do little with.
What happened to the ability to make and print maps for non-subscribers?
Let me guess. You get 4 tiles to use right? ;) ;)
That is enough for free use.
Stop trying to force people to pay for the Game Table that they don't want anyway. Wasn't that the idea behind the "Web-content only" subscription model?
Can you offer no tools that function for non-subscribers to even bother looking at that might entice them into wanting to subscribe in part or whole to DDI?
Everything offered can be gotten for free elsewhere....so why should someone looking at this severely crippleware choose DDI over the other things?
...
Everything offered can be gotten for free elsewhere....so why should someone looking at this severely crippleware choose DDI over the other things?
Off-hand I can think of a couple of possible answers:
- The D&DI tabletop tools are supposedly integrated, but the third party tools aren't. For instance, the dungeon builder and game table are supposed to be integrated to allow for easy transfer from one to the other. The character builder is integrated with the compendium and possibly the visualizer so that it always contains updated rules and could maybe allow for your visualizer portrait to be linked to your character data from the builder. And the dungeon builder and game table could incorporate actual game rule information and macros to make it easier to specifically play 4th edition, and you can presumably directly import character data straight from the character builder into the D&DI game table.
By contrast, third party tools that do those indivdual tasks aren't integrated. I can make a dungeon map in Campaign Cartographer, for instance, but it doesn't directly translate into a grid map for a tabletop client like Maptool. The best I can do is make my map a jpg background and try and overlay a Maptool grid over it, which may or may not fit right. And flipping it around, I can try and draw rough maps in Maptool using its editing features, but those features are very primitive compared to an actual dungeon mapping tool like CC. And in neither case can I directly import character data from a character builder like Heroforge straight into my Maptool client.
- Another advantage of D&DI is that it will probably have a wider potential audience than third party programs. Not everybody who owns a 4th edition Player's Handbook Maptool, but everybody who owns a PHB has seen the ad in the back for D&DI. Plus the D&DI game table has been and probably will be reviewed and previewed by the major computer gaming review sites shortly before release. So with a larger pool of potential players using it, it could mean a greater chance of being able to match yourself up to an online D&D group using D&DI.
- And finally note that the odds are that the D&DI game table and other tools will look very professional compared to most of the third party programs. WotC has a bigger budget and probably a bigger development team working on them, and the snapshots they've had already look quite nice. So graphically the programs will probably look better than, say, Maptool.
I would say that the above things combined could entice people to pay the subscription fee for the game table. In fact, were I not already committed to two groups on the weekend, I'd seriously consider subscribing.
My only question is this: For my $120 a year, will I be able to purchase a subscription and use that for my regular gaming group? ie. Use it to make 6 characters, build a virtual dungeon, and DM a game?
Or will each of my members have to sign up for a subscription (at $120 a year) so that we can all play together? Clearly option a) is reasonable and option b) is flat-out not gonna happen before the Nine Hells freeze over (well, the eight that aren't frozen...)
Any insight into that? The usability and flexibility of having each of my gamers put in $20 a year is great. Each of them needing to shell out full MMO subscription costs so they can log into my virtual gaming table, on the other hand, is craptacular.
Ya I really like to know if a subscribe, can I play all the caracther of all player on my computer for using the software only has a visual support for my game?
By the way, I really apreciate that they have made more update in the d&d insider. Keep doing the update every week and a will by confident that they really care of us.
But look at it this way... if I was a previous subscriber to both Dungeon and Dragon magazines for one year I recieved about 60% off the cover price. Now those printed magazines were $8.00 each... or $16.00 which I recieved for the low price of $6.50ish a month. If those printed magazines could be shipped to my door for that low amount then why shouldn't digital subscription be $5.00 a month if I subscribed for a year? You would get the product out to a lot more people and the work load on WotC's end would remain the same. After all once the information is written and uploaded does it cost WotC anything extra to have 100 people access it over 10000?
Just a thought
Ya I really like to know if a subscribe, can I play all the caracther of all player on my computer for using the software only has a visual support for my game?
Yes. From what WotC_DM has said, the DM will be able to control all the players. There is also suppose to be two separate windows one for the DM's view and a player's view.
I just wanted to make a suggestion on one of the bonus tools. The encounter generator is a great concept. Is there any thought of taking it to the next level? Possibly making it so that when you are done and want to print it not only prints the names of the monsters but also their stats? It would be a great tool in helping make adventure encounters if it had all their stats and powers in a nice layout, almost like you have in your adventures. Then you could just add the story text and poof you have an adventure.
... if I was a previous subscriber to both Dungeon and Dragon magazines for one year I recieved about 60% off the cover price. Now those printed magazines were $8.00 each... or $16.00 which I recieved for the low price of $6.50ish a month. If those printed magazines could be shipped to my door for that low amount then why shouldn't digital subscription be $5.00 a month if I subscribed for a year?
WotC is a step ahead of you. The subscription for D&DI Dragon/Dungeon is going to be 12 Months = $59.40 ($4.95 per month). And that $5 per month is BOTH magazines combined. In the above quote they were $6.50 EACH.
The visualizer also cannot be just humans. I could go play the Sims If I want to dress-up a bunch of humans.
When he was talking about just humans, or just levels 1-3, he was not talking about the visualizer completely, he was talking about the demo version.
Demo versions, by their very nature, are designed to give only a small sampling of what can be done with the program. Some programs reduce functionality, some programs have a limited time. With games, having it limited to a specific level is also fairly common. Pay the full price (or subscribe, as is the case here) and you get the full version.
I have started a thread here for people that would like to discuss suggestions on how the programs could be limited for demo versions.
You also neglected, Mr. Buehler, any mention of a free trial for Game Table.
Do you really expect people to shell out the extra money for the Visualizer, Builder, Table, and...oh you didn't mention the Dungeon Builder either!.... by only getting to see HALF of the tools?
No, he didn't mention a demo version of the GT. However, he also didn't say thatthere wouldn't be a demo version. Personally, I think that it is a safe bet to say that WotC would *not* release the GT without there being a demo version available and a free trial period after it is ready.
Also the dungeon builder was supposed to have a free component like visualizer and character builder that non-subscribers could always use. I guess everything is crippleware to the extent that it is useless to non-subscribers. Have 400 megs of software for IBM only machines that you can do little with.
What happened to the ability to make and print maps for non-subscribers?
He didn't say anything about the Dungeon builder. You are reading far, far too much into the lack of mention of the Dungeon Builder in this issue of Digital Insider.
Again, It cannot only show humans, as there is little to showcase there in regards to D&D, as every MMO on the market has humans.
Have you guys ever worked in a customer service job when you were younger (or now) and a customer comes in ranting and red in the face, going off on everything, insulting you, and generally just being a jerk? It is human nature to take that person less seriously than someone who comes in and treats you with respect and makes a legitimate request of you. After hearing all of the ranting and freaking out on these boards, I have a hard time taking some of you guys seriously, and I am on your side with some of the issues!
I know that the internet has the tendency to strip away all tactfullness from conversations and makes the discussion unpersonal and faceless. Try to pretend like you are talking to someone face to face, and not in a dark alley. Someone actually said they will tell them where they can stick their software?! C'mon! I wan't to get my changes implemented too, and want them to listen to us. I don't want to (well..won't) pay extra for V-minis. Let's be civilized so we can discuss this and they will hear us out.
- Roc
So for future insiders issues maybe putting a line at the bottom that states no further information about "x" product available at this time. So people can stop making stuff up about things not being able to be done.
Thanks mudbunny, I am surch a retard that I do not know what a demo version is with all the beta testing I have done in the past three decades. Thanks so much for pointing that out as I must have missed what a demonstration model was for my entire life.
Again, It cannot only show humans, as there is little to showcase there in regards to D&D, as every MMO on the market has humans.
It's OK, you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. People make mistakes all the time.
Again, It cannot only show humans, as there is little to showcase there in regards to D&D, as every MMO on the market has humans.
That should be "It *may* only show humans..." The article was pretty explicit in the fact that they haven't fully decided what the limitations will be.
I don't think many people will want to pay as much as $14.95 to play D&D when they could just as easily do a massively multiplayer online game which will have x10 the development than the visualizer/builder/game table took to create for the same price.
Sorry, you don't speak for me. I have zero desire to play an MMORPG--I want an online environment to run adventures that my friends can play and allow us to play when we can't get together. I (can't speak for others) want the environment to augment our tabletop experience, not replace it.
My personal experience with the third-party RPG collaboration products out there is that I spend a lot of time configuring and tweaking them to get them to do what I want (or even work), they ain't all that cheap (except when they are ), and they lack important features. I don't know yet if DDI will solve that large problem, but I'm willing to keep an open mind.
I've been a frequent, usually negative, commenter on the progress of the trial for Dungeon and Dragon. I'd like to comment specifically in this case to say thanks Randy for providing informative, coherent updates to the current state of the digital environment. This type of easy conversation would have really helped along about December or January when people started getting edgy over the progress.
I will most likely be a full subscriber of the various tools, and I wish you and your team all the best in making this a success.
Regards,
Aaron
Again, It cannot only show humans, as there is little to showcase there in regards to D&D, as every MMO on the market has humans.
As cautiontap said, the decisions on how to limit the demo versions haven't been made yet. Limiting it to just humans was one of the possible ways that the program might be limited. It wasn't the way that the program would be limited.
I don't think many people will want to pay as much as $14.95 to play D&D when they could just as easily do a massively multiplayer online game which will have x10 the development than the visualizer/builder/game table took to create for the same price.
Between minis and publications, I'm already spending more than $14.95/mo on D&D. I have no issue with the pricing discussed so far. Regardless of the number of people who keep making the D&D/MMO comparison, they're totally different to me. I play D&D. I have never played (nor wanted to) an MMO. The tabletop experience is completely different than the computer or console experience for me. So I don't even make the comparison. What's been discussed so far seems totally new and interesting to me, and I wouldn't compare it to what I've seen of WoW or other MMOs.
Instead, I compare it to what I do spend money on. A few magazine subscriptions. The occasional annual donation to online forums I frequent. A monthly subscription fee to an Internet radio service I love. 3D objects and assets I purchase for use in my 3D modeling and animation programs (some free, others paid). The amount of money I spend each month on things like Netflix, going to the movies, purchasing a videogame. And finally, the number of hours I spend weekly or monthly indulging in the hobby.
In comparison to the time and money I spend on other things - physical or digital product - I haven't seen anything yet in the pricing discussion that makes me want to shout "Inconceivable!"
I don't think many people will want to pay as much as $14.95 to play D&D when they could just as easily do a massively multiplayer online game which will have x10 the development than the visualizer/builder/game table took to create for the same price.
DDI is not designed to compete with MMOs.
They provide two completely different services. As such, while a cursory comparison of the prices may be done, once you start getting into *any* amount of detail, the comparison rapidly breaks down.
DDI is not designed to compete with MMOs.
But it is. The very product that is 4th edition is designed to resemble and heavily compete with MMOs. Anyone that says otherwise is deluding themselves.
They provide two completely different services. As such, while a cursory comparison of the prices may be done, once you start getting into *any* amount of detail, the comparison rapidly breaks down.
And thus where many have been trying to show the price does as well. MMOs offer a lot more than the DDI can ever chance to offer for the same price. With the majority of the cost of DDI based around something akin to an MMO environment...why take for less than what a full MMO can offer?
Not to mention this time last year the idea was:
"Somewhere between the price of a cup of coffee and a monthly subscription to an MMO."
I don't know what the heck kind of coffee people pay $5 a cup for, but I could get quite a few pots and then some for that!
The MMO reference was made at GenCon 2007 by a WotC employee and is in one of Gamer_Zer0's videos. WotC first brought people's attention to the pricing in relation to MMOs so they have no reason to complain when the price is not the only thing compared between DDI and an MMO.
But it is. The very product that is 4th edition is designed to resemble and heavily compete with MMOs. Anyone that says otherwise is deluding themselves.
4E is not designed to compete with MMOs. It took some ideas from MMOs, but that does not mean that it is designed to compete with MMOs. They are designed to serve two completely different markets. Some of the population of those markets will overlap, but they are different markets.
And thus where many have been trying to show the price does as well. MMOs offer a lot more than the DDI can ever chance to offer for the same price. With the majority of the cost of DDI based around something akin to an MMO environment...why take for less than what a full MMO can offer?
MMOs don't have a DM that can change things on the fly. MMOs don't have the human interaction and joking that will occur around the game table. MMOs do lots of things that DDI cannot do and vice versa.
Not to mention this time last year the idea was:
"Somewhere between the price of a cup of coffee and a monthly subscription to an MMO."
I think that you are combining two quotes.
The cup of coffee quote was for the expected price for people who bought dead-tree versions of the books to purchase the .pdf version of the book.
The Monthly subscription price for an MMO was talking about the expected cost for a full subscription to DDI.
The MMO reference was made at GenCon 2007 by a WotC employee and is in one of Gamer_Zer0's videos. WotC first brought people's attention to the pricing in relation to MMOs so they have no reason to complain when the price is not the only thing compared between DDI and an MMO.
People can make comparisons between MMOs and DDI, that is not a problem. However, there are so many differences between MMOs and DDI (many more than the similarities), that anything beyond a very basic comparison will be, IMO, severely flawed.
In any case, we are taking the thread severely off-topic. Should you wish to discuss this, I would recommend starting a new thread.
But it is. The very product that is 4th edition is designed to resemble and heavily compete with MMOs. Anyone that says otherwise is deluding themselves.
And thus where many have been trying to show the price does as well. MMOs offer a lot more than the DDI can ever chance to offer for the same price. With the majority of the cost of DDI based around something akin to an MMO environment...why take for less than what a full MMO can offer?
Not to mention this time last year the idea was:
"Somewhere between the price of a cup of coffee and a monthly subscription to an MMO."
I don't know what the heck kind of coffee people pay $5 a cup for, but I could get quite a few pots and then some for that!
The MMO reference was made at GenCon 2007 by a WotC employee and is in one of Gamer_Zer0's videos. WotC first brought people's attention to the pricing in relation to MMOs so they have no reason to complain when the price is not the only thing compared between DDI and an MMO.
So, by your logic, people should be complaining that they're being charged more than they would be paying for a cup of coffee and they "don't even get any caffeine!!!"
Oh, and in New England, people pay $5+ for a cup of ("very subpar"|"Dunkin Donuts") coffee. Or even in most places in the country if they go to Star*ucks.
Coffee aside. DDI is offering something *different* from MMOs. At the very least, there's a chance that the people you'll be playing on the virtual table (the most MMO-ish aspect of DDI) will have enough influence on what's happening that you're not simply playing the same quest you did last time you made a Mage and now you're level 5 so it's time to do the level 5 dungeon... People can, and, most likely, will, develop their own adventures. I'm not a WoWer, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen there... What DDI offers is flexibility.
Maybe DDI won't hold a candle to WoW when it's all said and done. It doesn't have to. It's not the same thing.
Now, that being said, will I be paying $15/month for DDI? Probably not. Doesn't work on Macs, first off... I've also been doing data sets for PCGen long enough that I can make it work for me for 4e. I'd still like to see what DDI is going to offer, and will probably pay $5/month for the magazines (assuming they keep the $5/month deal after they release all the other tools).
Everything offered can be gotten for free elsewhere....so why should someone looking at this severely crippleware choose DDI over the other things?
soooooo mabey you should just go use those other tools.... sounds like your pretty unhappy about all this change anyway.
some how I don't think this rant of yours is going to change much in how Wotc is going to do things...
Constructive criticisim might go alot further to getting things changed.
*Stuff*
Oh, and in New England, people pay $5+ for a cup of ("very subpar"|"Dunkin Donuts") coffee. Or even in most places in the country if they go to Star*ucks.
*More Stuff*
Please excuse my irrational need to respond to this one part of this one post, but I'm from Mass, have been my whole life, and if you're spending $5 for a cup of coffee at Dunkin' Donuts you've accidentally walked into Starbucks. Even a big ol' ridiculous coffee at Dunkin' Donuts is not $5, even at Logan. Now their Coffee Coolatas, which are criminally addicting, the large ones of those can cost a lot. But for $5 at Dunkin' Donuts I can have breakfast, so please take your lies and mocking of fine Dunkin' Donuts coffee and your Starbucks viral marketing paycheck right back across the street to their overpriced yuppie coffee shop; and I and the proud ghost of the 'Time to make the donuts' guy will stand firm against your overpriced west coast yuppie oppression. We defeated Krispy Kreme good sir, and you shall be no different!
(This slightly comical yet honestly fact filled post brought to you by a proud lifelong Dunkin' Donuts paladin, champion of tasty & affordable breakfast items.)
Also by having the monsters I'm saved a crapload of work. No longer do I need to search through the articles for monsters of an appropriate level, or cross reference the index in the MM as well as my own personal list. And finally by having the compendium I can copy and paste the data into a file and then print the file, giving me a hardcopy reference.
Despite what I said before, I think they've made me a believer and so I'll be getting it. Especially if they include the Races and Classes from the Player's Guide to the Forgotten Realms.
Ok I went to Gencon last year and have been waiting for this thing to go live seance then. So when will it go live. I have family on the other side of the country and for 3 months now we have been ready to play a campain together.
I'd say start without it. Either using aim (I don't recommend it) or openRPG (highly recommend it).
making it so that when you are done and want to print it not only prints the names of the monsters but also their stats? It would be a great tool in helping make adventure encounters if it had all their stats and powers in a nice layout, almost like you have in your adventures. Then you could just add the story text and poof you have an adventure.
Its pretty much useless until it does this IMO.
I find it interesting people are mostly discussing what hasn't yet happened, rather then what has. I guess what has been released just doesn't interest them and they won't be subscribing to it.
The very product that is 4th edition is designed to resemble and heavily compete with MMOs. Anyone that says otherwise is deluding themselves.
Thankyou for saying I'm deluding myself. I DM D&D because:
* It has a turn-based battle system.
* People who play it actually roleplay.
* People can do anything and everything within their imagination.
* I can create stories for others to play with nothing limiting me except my imagination.
MMOs can't do any of this (well they can do the first point but very rarely do), and I'm sure there are billions of reasons people play MMOs instead of D&D. Completely different mindsets are involved, completely different modes of play. But of course the 4e == WoW crowd won't believe this.
I don't know what the heck kind of coffee people pay $5 a cup for, but I could get quite a few pots and then some for that!
As mudbunny says this is a different quote, but I went into a coffee store the other day and was appalled to find the price at $5 for a basic cup of coffee.
Thankyou for saying I'm deluding myself. I DM D&D because:
* It has a turn-based battle system.
* People who play it actually roleplay.
* People can do anything and everything within their imagination.
* I can create stories for others to play with nothing limiting me except my imagination.
MMOs can't do any of this (well they can do the first point but very rarely do), and I'm sure there are billions of reasons people play MMOs instead of D&D. Completely different mindsets are involved, completely different modes of play. But of course the 4e == WoW crowd won't believe this.
Hear hear. Say it loud!
Please excuse my irrational need to respond to this one part of this one post, but I'm from Mass, have been my whole life, and if you're spending $5 for a cup of coffee at Dunkin' Donuts you've accidentally walked into Starbucks. Even a big ol' ridiculous coffee at Dunkin' Donuts is not $5, even at Logan. Now their Coffee Coolatas, which are criminally addicting, the large ones of those can cost a lot. But for $5 at Dunkin' Donuts I can have breakfast, so please take your lies and mocking of fine Dunkin' Donuts coffee and your Starbucks viral marketing paycheck right back across the street to their overpriced yuppie coffee shop; and I and the proud ghost of the 'Time to make the donuts' guy will stand firm against your overpriced west coast yuppie oppression. We defeated Krispy Kreme good sir, and you shall be no different!
(This slightly comical yet honestly fact filled post brought to you by a proud lifelong Dunkin' Donuts paladin, champion of tasty & affordable breakfast items.)
I apologize for any misquoting of price... It's been some time since I last bought coffee at a Dunkin, and certainly meant no disrespect. I was under the impression that a large coffee, certainly of the "Iced" variety was in the order of $5/cup. However, I'm not a coffee drinker (preferring, instead, Coffee Milk).
I apologize for any misquoting of price... It's been some time since I last bought coffee at a Dunkin, and certainly meant no disrespect. I was under the impression that a large coffee, certainly of the "Iced" variety was in the order of $5/cup. However, I'm not a coffee drinker (preferring, instead, Coffee Milk).
NP, and thanks for tolerating my comical rant :D So you know though, iced coffee is no more than a regular coffee at most DD shops, and even where it is different it's only by a few cents.
The very product that is 4th edition is designed to resemble and heavily compete with MMOs. Anyone that says otherwise is deluding themselves.
Thankyou for saying I'm deluding myself. I DM D&D because:
* It has a turn-based battle system.
* People who play it actually roleplay.
* People can do anything and everything within their imagination.
* I can create stories for others to play with nothing limiting me except my imagination.
MMOs can't do any of this (well they can do the first point but very rarely do), and I'm sure there are billions of reasons people play MMOs instead of D&D. Completely different mindsets are involved, completely different modes of play. But of course the 4e == WoW crowd won't believe this.
Yet again many people seem to be failing their reading comprehension skill check. Look at the part bolded from me in what you quoted above.
Now tell me what that has to do with anything in your little list?
Now tell me if 4th edition does either of these things:
Resemble an MMO style play?
Made to compete with MMOs?
Resemble an MMO style play?
No. For all the reasons I listed above. But please, keep throwing around the insults.
Made to compete with MMOs?
I'd say it was made to get money from players of pen-and-paper RPGs, both new (like myself) and old.
Yet again many people seem to be failing their reading comprehension skill check. Look at the part bolded from me in what you quoted above.
Now tell me what that has to do with anything in your little list?
Now tell me if 4th edition does either of these things:
Resemble an MMO style play?
Made to compete with MMOs?
As much, or possibly a tiny bit more, as Campaign Cartographer is made to compete with MMOs, yeah. It's an online resource for a pen and paper RPG, and that's about it. It doesn't resemble an MMO that I know of. Name me one turn-based MMO where you use statuesqe figures on stands instead of animated avatars. Or even an MMO with any of those three components: turn-based, static figures, solid discs that they stand on. There are also no quests, no ability to solo unless you want to DM yourself through something, and perhaps the thing that it resembles MMOs the least in is the massive part of massive multiplayer online game. It's not "everyone who buys this is always on the same server." it's "three to seven people, on average, are in a game" and I believe there's even an upper limit. I could be wrong, but I think fifty players would be out of the question, and even the deadest MMO (aside from those who have actually had the plug pulled completely) have more than a hundred players on any given server at any give time. Likely more than a thousand.
So any heavy competition and resemblance I just can't see.
Resemble an MMO style play?
No. For all the reasons I listed above. But please, keep throwing around the insults.
It doesn't?
In what prior edition did Fighters get some per combat special attack?
Do MMOs not have it where each time you level you get some named special attack?
The entire powers system is taken from MMOs. It is made to look like MMO style play for the sake of taking players from that environment and bringing them over to D&D so they can more easily relate to the game wherein past editions were less compatible in terms and function and the very way the mechanics worked with the game.
4th edition specifically has those CRPGs in mind as part of the target audience.
Made to compete with MMOs?
I'd say it was made to get money from players of pen-and-paper RPGs, both new (like myself) and old.
If D&D stands ANY chance of existing in this day and age it MUST compete with the largest gaming market, which is MMOs. Be that WoW style RPG games, or Second Life and its reality style gaming, or even the Sims. It doesn't matter. It MUST compete with these and try to somehow be on even terms with those type of gamers. It was NOT made with just PnP gamers in mind.
Go look at any of this past years posts and press releases and news about 4th edition FROM WotC and you will see clearly that it is trying to compete with MMOs.
WotC knows it must, just many people around here seem to have blinders on and looking through their rose-colored glasses to think that MMOs in no way affect the D&D market, or its latest edition design.
It doesn't?
In what prior edition did Fighters get some per combat special attack?
Do MMOs not have it where each time you level you get some named special attack?
The entire powers system is taken from MMOs. It is made to look like MMO style play for the sake of taking players from that environment and bringing them over to D&D so they can more easily relate to the game wherein past editions were less compatible in terms and function and the very way the mechanics worked with the game.
4th edition specifically has those CRPGs in mind as part of the target audience.
Again delusion to think otherwise.
If D&D stands ANY chance of existing in this day and age it MUST compete with the largest gaming market, which is MMOs. Be that WoW style RPG games, or Second Life and its reality style gaming, or even the Sims. It doesn't matter. It MUST compete with these and try to somehow be on even terms with those type of gamers. It was NOT made with just PnP gamers in mind.
Go look at any of this past years posts and press releases and news about 4th edition FROM WotC and you will see clearly that it is trying to compete with MMOs.
WotC knows it must, just many people around here seem to have blinders on and looking through their rose-colored glasses to think that MMOs in no way affect the D&D market, or its latest edition design.
Stop thinking so small and close-minded.
Ok, still don't appreciate any of your talking down or antagonistic language, but just wanted to say I had thought you were talking about the DDI, not 4e. If you are talking about 4e, I see your point. They clearly took from MMOs for the game elements you described, to entice newer audiences.
However, I don't think the DDI is meant to compete with MMOs, nor do I think 4e is meant to. Obviously they want people buying their products, and they want people to spend time playing on their game table, but I don't think they're trying to take that time share away from MMOs anymore than they are from gardening or going to the theatre.
In what prior edition did Fighters get some per combat special attack?
Considering I only know about 3e and 4e, I will say it is new to 4e. However this is also the first edition I've seen where Fighters don't overshadow Wizards at low levels and Wizards don't overshadow Fighters at high levels.
Now is that one single thing reminiscent of an MMO? Sure. But I'd hardly say the game as a whole resembles an MMO. And I highly doubt that
It is made to look like MMO style play for the sake of taking players from that environment and bringing them over to D&D
Because giving fighters a daily power or encounter power doesn't suddenly make the whole game an MMO style of play.
But then again I'm clearly delusional.
It was NOT made with just PnP gamers in mind.
Now who lacks reading comprehension? I didn't play PnP games before I found out about 4e and yet 4e is what drew me in. I also would never play an MMO. So like I said, it was designed to draw in new and old players alike. I don't think WotC cares if I play WoW or have never touched a console game in my life.
people around here seem to have blinders on and looking through their rose-colored glasses to think that MMOs in no way affect the D&D market, or its latest edition design.
Wait a minute. Are you arguing that MMO affected 4e or that 4e was built to play like an MMO? Because the two are quite different.
Also I will not be replying to any more of your posts that continues in this tone. You aren't some magical person who knows THE TRUTH and that anyone who might disagree with you is wrong. All of your posts in this thread have been nothing but antagonistic.
I certainly don't. and your not going to convince me with insults...
anyway, I think Wizards is on to something here, I just hope they don't price their customers right out of the game. I have a group I run and I'm willing to front the price for all the tools since I'll be using them all but I don't think my players will... hence, that makes it tough for me to acutally use the tools.
I think they should have like a GM package and an Player Package. Price the GM package at what they are now and give you full access.... price the player package at 1/5 the cost and just give you like the game table and the character stuff. And the Game table can be a dumbed down version so you can control your character but nothing else.
Just a thought.
My only question is this: For my $120 a year, will I be able to purchase a subscription and use that for my regular gaming group? ie. Use it to make 6 characters, build a virtual dungeon, and DM a game?
Or will each of my members have to sign up for a subscription (at $120 a year) so that we can all play together? Clearly option a) is reasonable and option b) is flat-out not gonna happen before the Nine Hells freeze over (well, the eight that aren't frozen...)
Any insight into that? The usability and flexibility of having each of my gamers put in $20 a year is great. Each of them needing to shell out full MMO subscription costs so they can log into my virtual gaming table, on the other hand, is craptacular.
This is THE key question. For a whole group, its a no-brainer. For each player . . . might make the decision to stay with eTools and 3.5.
The $4.95 / month price covers Web content only (Dragon and Dungeon Magazines, the D&D Compendium, and the Bonus Tools). We will be charging more for access to the Character Builder, Character Visualizer, Game Table, etc. Our previously announced pricing for the full package (including both Web content and client applications) is $9.95 if you sign up for a full year (going up to $14.95 if you pay one month at a time).
$5.00 a month should be the year long subscription price for the full suite of tools not $10.00 a month. Honestly our group consist of a lot of minors that can not afford $120.00 up front... so you are saying they need to pay $15.00 a month... or $180.00 a year on a subscription service... that is a bit excessive.
Once the work is done... the price for one person to access it shouldn't be much different than if 1000 people access it. Therefore... spread the cost around and make it accessible to more people. Do away with a magazine only subscription since everything is online have one DDI subscription package which includes the magazines and the suite of tools for $59.40 for 1 year or $9.95 a month. That atleast sounds reasonable. Afterall, more people that use the service will only help generate more revenue in the future.
Ok, still don't appreciate any of your talking down or antagonistic language, but just wanted to say I had thought you were talking about the DDI, not 4e. If you are talking about 4e, I see your point. They clearly took from MMOs for the game elements you described, to entice newer audiences.
However, I don't think the DDI is meant to compete with MMOs, nor do I think 4e is meant to. Obviously they want people buying their products, and they want people to spend time playing on their game table, but I don't think they're trying to take that time share away from MMOs anymore than they are from gardening or going to the theatre.
Well when people stop twisting words, then I don't have to keep repeating the same thing from previous posts over and over. Whne looking at DDI, as mudbunny has pointed out to me on more than one occasion; it is made with 4th edition in mind.
The corollary between 4th<>MMOs<>DDI is not that far fetched.
DDI stands as a counterpart to 4th edition. It is in fact close to an MMO without being one. As NWN was able to be with its abilities. You could either make a MMO style world that ran on its own, but like DDI and Game Table, you could have a game with it that was directed by a DM.
The Dragon and Dungeon prices are not that bad. They push the line for the quality I think they lack, but the other parts of DDI that push the price up to the same as an MMO must make you look at what you are getting for that price.
I still think the value for DDI is much less than an MMO, even though you have somewhat more control over DDI. You also lose the software capabilities that an MMO can offer like sped up combat and number crunching as the VTT for DDI does not have these functions.
If you were to try to advertise the two side by side and you were trying to sell DDI and the other guy was trying to sell ANY MMO, how would you justify to the consumer that getting less for the same price is worth it?
That is what I think so far the information presented about the DDI has failed to do.
Many people are on board with what they want, and will pay WotC for anything, that is there choice. WotC must get the other people interested.
How does DDI offer anything to draw in those $$$?
The talks about the limited functionality of the "demo" versions seems even more likely that someone would not get interested in DDI if all they see from these tools, is the same things they have seen for years, and probably already have. Everything is in some fashion integrated, but does it even need to be? Is all the Dragon or Dungeon content going to be worth the price to have it integrated, and will you use it all when using the other tools that are primarily functions for creating games within Game Table?
On top of that it has been said v-Mini will be microtransactions, and then not all the monsters from the core products, here I mean PHB, DMG, and MM rather than everything in 4th = core; will not even be in the Game Table.
So you have to ask what are you being asked to pay for. The Web-only content seems to have stemmed from the outcry from the forums about not everyone wanting all the other tools, or the fact that Mac users wouldn't even be able to use them, so why pay for things that you could never use? This was a GREAT choice. But still I think some things are missing, and the MMO comparison of the price point and the quality you get from the tools will be looked at very closely when people think about DDI.
Again IF D&D is to survive, both 4th edition and DDI have to compete for the MMO market shares and $$$$.
I am sure Randy, Scott Rouse, and quite a few others understand this. James Wyatt and Andy Collins surely know as I think they both play WoW or some MMO from their blogs. The designers know what they are competing with as well does marketing and others. While you and others on the forums may deny this, I still think it so; and the similar prices will ALWAYS be compared to an MMO. When that happens I can only see that an MMO offers more than DDI. Also the other choices for playing on VTTs are much cheaper.
Take for example a single person in the group that gets web-only content. They are the DM lets say. They make the game in one of the other VTTs and are ready to go.
6 player norm for 4th edition (1 DM, 5 PCs):
$5 per month for all the D&D you would ever need.
That is $300 per year from the other people WotC will not even get because the relation of price to quality of DDI means they don't even need web-only content to upgrade to full. Which means none of the 6 pay the extra for the other offerings of DDI.
I am not one to throw my money away on something that seems fishy or overpriced, and seem not to be the only one of the forums that feels that way.
While the new [insert name here] Compendium is shaping up nicely, it still needs some work. The Dragon and Dungeon are unacceptable formats for some that would prefer standard portrait over the new landscape format. Also they are mostly previews of later products, so why even pay for them and later have to pay for the books that holds the final non-playtest versions of the material within?
The other tools, sorry WotC_JoT (Jonathan Tweet), but those bonus little flash tools are trash and all they do could have ben done in simpler fashion without the focus on trying to use flash for its semi-ability to lock down the scripts inside it. They are "Bonus" as in I doubt anyone would pay to use them. They also cost more for WotC to mess with as you cannot, or couldn't last I worked with flash, alter a locked file and must work with a FLA versus altering the SWF directly then recompile it, where JavaScript lets you work on the fly.
I still think the prices are a bit off.
The corollary between 4th<>MMOs<>DDI is not that far fetched.
Granted, but that does not make them equal. The sum total of the conversation on this thread proves that. I don't play MMOs, but I play DnD and do so online as well. Until MMOs allow my friends and I the flexibility to create and play *anything* we want, they will not replace the tabletop.
I still think the value for DDI is much less than an MMO, even though you have somewhat more control over DDI. You also lose the software capabilities that an MMO can offer like sped up combat and number crunching as the VTT for DDI does not have these functions.
See below, it seems you are the only one that equates the two.
Again IF D&D is to survive, both 4th edition and DDI have to compete for the MMO market shares and $$$$.
Sorry, this shows (IMO) the lack of an understanding of the long tail and business in general. The existence of both expands the market--they do not necessarily compete. I know many people that play both or just DnD and I'm sure there are those that only play MMOs. There is no evidence (and it certainly does not logically follow) that consumers of one cannibalize the market for the other.
If you truly believe this, do you believe that fantasy novels and role-playing games compete for market share and $? I would also argue that would be a fallacy. They are complementary goods, not necessarily competing.
However, I won't. I have a family and far too little time to devote to this hobby. I want to play not configure and fight with tools. To me, this market is screaming for a quality online toolset. Whether or not this will be DDI remains to be seen. WotC has certainly bungled this opportunity in the past (rewind to 2001-2003 and the originally promised toolset).
I still think the value for DDI is much less than an MMO
Of course it is. That's why its used as replacement for D&D software or tools like AIM. That's why it ISN'T a replacement for WoW or any other MMO. Or is openRPG supposedly a competitor to WoW as well?
I could easily argue that the story, daily/encounter powers, healing surges and minions are all tropes from movies (ranging from Rocky to Lord of the Rings). I could then say that 4e was designed to compete with movies and that IF D&D is to survive, both 4th edition and DDI have to compete for the MMO market shares and $$$$.
The only validity to that argument would be D&D is entertainment and thus needs to compete with other entertainment venues in order to succeed.
It is in fact close to an MMO without being one. As NWN was able to be with its abilities. You could either make a MMO style world that ran on its own, but like DDI and Game Table, you could have a game with it that was directed by a DM.
I'm sorry, but NWN may have been a fun 3rd Edition game, but it was not the same as online D&D, and I was never able to get into it as that. While some people may have made modules that were more D&D-like, I found the game itself very different from D&D. There really is no comparison between a video game like NWN and an open ended tool like DDi (although I admit, the potential of Aurora came close). You are comparing different types of products here. This makes about as much sense as comparing DDi to WoW in function. DDO is an MMO, DDi is a hosted tool set packaged with a subscriber service.
The Dragon and Dungeon prices are not that bad. They push the line for the quality I think they lack, but the other parts of DDI that push the price up to the same as an MMO must make you look at what you are getting for that price.
Fortunately, the magazines have their own subscription now, you don't have to compete with an MMO share for them anymore...
The talks about the limited functionality of the "demo" versions seems even more likely that someone would not get interested in DDI
That's right, I've been turned off of so much software because the demo was crippled...dude, all demos are limited functionality, and guess what...the limited function doesn't turn people off. The fact is, if you want someone to get a taste for software, without giving away the product for free, you make a crippled demo. It's a proven and time-tested promotional tool in software.
Again IF D&D is to survive, both 4th edition and DDI have to compete for the MMO market shares and $$$$.
D&D doesnt' compete with MMOs, they don't necessarily have the same market. D&D has held its market as a tabletop game, with numerous 1-time expenses for decades, as opposed to the more recent MMO market, based on long-term subscription. Whereas a WoW player needs to maintain a subscription to pursue the game, a D&D player needs only buy certain items at certain times, and can go for years on just buying the core rulebooks. Thus, there is an immediate difference in spending habits between the markets. The fact that D&D survived without a subscription or online component for so many years testifies to that. I will admit that DDi, like any subscription service, will compete with other online subscriptions. For example, I recently D/Ced my TotalFark to pay for LOTRO, there was competition in money there. So I fully expect people will be forced to make choices based on their budget, so in a sense, DDi will compete with MMO money, however D&D itself will continue to make sales as one-time expenses. If DDi fails, D&D will continue to make money off of the old market model.
And just a personal pet peeve and word of advice, if you're going to argue on the internet, do check your typing.
Well when people stop twisting words, then I don't have to keep repeating the same thing from previous posts over and over. Whne looking at DDI, as mudbunny has pointed out to me on more than one occasion; it is made with 4th edition in mind.
*Sigh*
Certain parts of DDi were made with 4E in mind. The Character Generator, The Compendium and (possibly) the Character Visualizer. The Game Table is *completely* system independent as it has no rules adjudication at all.
The corollary between 4th<>MMOs<>DDI is not that far fetched.
Yes, there are some similarities, but nowhere near enough to say that DDi is an MMO. Comparing the finctionality of DDi to *any* MMO, even the first generation MUDs, will result in DDi have much less functionality.
I still think the value for DDI is much less than an MMO, even though you have somewhat more control over DDI. You also lose the software capabilities that an MMO can offer like sped up combat and number crunching as the VTT for DDI does not have these functions.
If you were to try to advertise the two side by side and you were trying to sell DDI and the other guy was trying to sell ANY MMO, how would you justify to the consumer that getting less for the same price is worth it?
sigh
DDi Is. Not. An. MMO.
Not even close. The fact that you persist in believing that it is, when even the most cursory examination of how DDi will work and how MMO works shows incredible differences between the two is astonishing.
The talks about the limited functionality of the "demo" versions seems even more likely that someone would not get interested in DDI if all they see from these tools, is the same things they have seen for years, and probably already have.
For someone who has said that they have years and years of testing software, you really don't understand what a demo version is.
Again IF D&D is to survive, both 4th edition and DDI have to compete for the MMO market shares and $$$$.
No. As stated before, they (MMOs and DDi) serve two very different purposes.
I am sure Randy, Scott Rouse, and quite a few others understand this. James Wyatt and Andy Collins surely know as I think they both play WoW or some MMO from their blogs. The designers know what they are competing with as well does marketing and others.
Competing with does not mean the same as.
TV shows compete with movies which compete with books which compete with video games. By your logic, they are all the same.
While you and others on the forums may deny this, I still think it so; and the similar prices will ALWAYS be compared to an MMO. When that happens I can only see that an MMO offers more than DDI. Also the other choices for playing on VTTs are much cheaper.
MMOs offer *different* things than does DDi.
Bonus Tools:
I just wanted to make a suggestion on one of the bonus tools. The encounter generator is a great concept. Is there any thought of taking it to the next level? Possibly making it so that when you are done and want to print it not only prints the names of the monsters but also their stats? It would be a great tool in helping make adventure encounters if it had all their stats and powers in a nice layout, almost like you have in your adventures. Then you could just add the story text and poof you have an adventure.
This would definitely make this tool worthwhile, as I already have an Excel tool I got for free somewhere out on the Net that does most of what this tool does. The only part it doesn't include is the listing of monsters of the appropriate levels. Therefore, I see no reason, currently, to subscribe to these tools. As I've said before, all I want is the e-zines for a reasonable price I can pay month-to-month.
MMOs offer *different* things than does DDi.
More important, it's a completely different experience. Do people who play fantasy MMOs play them for the same experience, to scratch the same itch, as they do when they play D&D itself? Do players using RPTools, FG or BG look for that "WoW experience" when they play using one of those VTTs? No? Then I fail to see how the features of DDI, in whole or in parts, would be expected to satisfy the MMO urge, or directly compete for the same dollars. If they did, then why are people always shouting "Go play OpenRPG! It's available now!" rather than "Go play Wow! It's the same thing as DDI!!!"?
More important, it's a completely different experience. Do people who play fantasy MMOs play them for the same experience, to scratch the same itch, as they do when they play D&D itself? Do players using RPTools, FG or BG look for that "WoW experience" when they play using one of those VTTs? No? Then I fail to see how the features of DDI, in whole or in parts, would be expected to satisfy the MMO urge, or directly compete for the same dollars. If they did, then why are people always shouting "Go play OpenRPG! It's available now!" rather than "Go play Wow! It's the same thing as DDI!!!"?
the fact is as a software subscription product it will have to compete several of my players are not willing to pay the same price for DDI that they pay for WOW. All it takes to lose 5-6 players is having one that won't pay I have 7 that won't pay an outrageously high monthly fee + v minis, and I'm sure I'm not alone. I might have been able to convince them at the release without the V mini charge but at this point theres no hype left. We are playing TT and my 2 friends in NM are just stuck out. Were the price to come down that could change Quite simply this whole suite just isn't worth the price they want.
the fact is as a software subscription product it will have to compete several of my players are not willing to pay the same price for DDI that they pay for WOW. All it takes to lose 5-6 players is having one that won't pay I have 7 that won't pay an outrageously high monthly fee + v minis, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
I think this is the crux of the concern. Most groups I imagine have those that are deep hobbyists (those that invest heavily in the content and supplements), those that just want to play with their friends, and probably a spectrum in between. I hope that the pricing will avoid introducing a schism into the average group with a tiered pricing structure. Otherwise, groups will be faced with two choices--don't game or stick to the tabletop and/or cobbling together other toolsets.
It's not reasonable to assume that the consumer markets are homogeneous within each gaming group--in fact it is exactly the opposite.
First off why is it that you have apparently done a complete BACK FLIP on your own Comments and Advertising?
What do I mean by this? lets see for a start you have stated in the past that the Character Generator would be useable even if you where not Subscribed, just you would not have Access to UPDATED material once your subscription ran out.
Now instead your saying it's basically going to be 'Half working' software (hey this sounding familar to any one? Remember that CD in the back of 3rd Edition?).
Along with this is the Game Table Map Maker, so far you have given zip information on it, yet you have stated in MANY posts and MANY interviews that this would be useable even IF you did NOT have a current Subscription, to make maps for use outside the Game table.
The character Visualiser: Honestly Couldn't give a damned about it.. don't plan on using it.
What I think is upsetting a lot of people including me is the way you Wizards of the Coast are saying one thing and then doing another and making out that is what you said all along. It's Bad Business practice and honestly your starting to come across as a bunch of:
A. Politicians.
B. Liers.
C. People who had no real plan to begin with.
Now I know some people will say that I am being harsh there, given you have had a guy recently suicide and the like, but that's honestly not our (your customers) issue. What we want is firm HONEST answers, that are not suddenly going to change next month. What we want is also some questions that should be easy for you to answer answered clearly.
1. Exactly What/How much function will the Programs retain after your subscription runs out.
2. Exactly what is being offered with EACH program (seems hey not even your own website agree's with itself anymore).
3. IS the Character Builder Aka Character Sheet Generator:
[INDENT]A web based application?[/INDENT]
[INDENT]A Stand alone program that connects to your database?[/INDENT]
If it's the first then what's the point of most people paying for it when you know you kinda don't have your laptop connected to the net at say... the Local Gaming Club?
4. Is the Map Builder/Dungeon designer/ What ever still going to have all the functionality you promised (The ability to make printable maps etc) WITH OUT having to subscribe?
5. Are you going to at least come clean and admit you have dropped the ball and messed up, appologise for it publically and try and rebuild the trust you have lost with if you read the forums here and else where a good size of your Customer base?
--------------------------
That being said I'd like to add the following.... I'm not bagging out 4th Edition, I honestly like a lot of it.. I don't think people are right in saying that D&D has to contend with a MMOG, honestly it does not.. D&D has it's OWN MMO for crying out loud if you want to play Dungeons and Dragons online in a MMO go and Play D&D Online.
What I do think Wizards has to compete with is the growing demand for game systems that are flexable, easy to learn, while still maintaining depth. 4th edition is close to this.. I won't say it's perfect because it's not, there are a large number of things I don't like about it.. HOWEVER Wizards did all this hype and advertising about their grand (and now 'infamous') Dungeons and Dragons Insider, they talked about how it would 'Revolutionize' the way you played your Table Top RPG's and allow you to connect with friends all over the world to enjoy that good old D&D experiance No matter WHERE you are.
Yet now a good few months after the release of Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition.. and what should have been the Release of Dungeons and Dragons Insider the Tools that Wizards themselves Promised for the new edition.. We have ZIP NADA in the way of Tools.. What is worse is that WOTC has STOPPED any one else from putting out their own Tools.. Do I have a nice Character Generator in .exe form programmed in vb.net 2.0 that is fully extendable, does everything that you need to make a Character Sheet? Yes actually I do.. I programmed the damned thing myself and me and a close group of friends use it.. Can I allow any one else to use it? NO because Wizards have happly changed there licenses to STOP us programmers from being able to do just that.
A lot of us where happy to hold off wait give D&D Insider a chance to get on it's feet but instead we have seen nothing of them.. and you know the sad part.. It took me less then a week in my free time to program that Character Generator, which like Etools exports to fully customisable sheets.. includes all your spells in nice card form on sheets after etc etc etc.. So if I can do it in that time with relatively few bugs and I've not had an inch of Teaching other then self taught programming.. Why is it taking Wizards so long when they supposably are PAYING people to produce these applications.. WORSE if it's a WEB application it should be Even easier because it'd be pulling all the data from their OWN SQL databases rather then say like mine XML files.
Rant over.. take it for what it is a Rant from some one who's getting a bit jacked at Wizards and their constant flipflopping.. which is worse then John Howard durring his Last term or from what I Saw of the last US Election (the one before the one coming up) your Presidental Candidate's.
Yet now a good few months after the release of Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition.. and what should have been the Release of Dungeons and Dragons Insider the Tools that Wizards themselves Promised for the new edition.. We have ZIP NADA in the way of Tools.. What is worse is that WOTC has STOPPED any one else from putting out their own Tools.. Do I have a nice Character Generator in .exe form programmed in vb.net 2.0 that is fully extendable, does everything that you need to make a Character Sheet? Yes actually I do.. I programmed the damned thing myself and me and a close group of friends use it.. Can I allow any one else to use it? NO because Wizards have happly changed there licenses to STOP us programmers from being able to do just that.
So it sounds like your real beef is not that the all the tools are not yet available. Doesn't sound like you'd use them anyway, as you built what you wanted. And you say you dont' care about the Visualizer. It seems to me that your complaint is that you're not allowed to give away (or sell?) your tool as a freely licensed D&D4E Character Generator.
And again with the "You promised it would all be free, you liars!!". I have yet to have been shown an example where there has been a contradiction. You talk about the "Game Table Map Maker" and complain it's not free... I'm sorry, but where in Randy Buehler's letter did he talk about it at all?
BTW, very classy touches to reference the recent tragedy, and to ignore that fact that they have admitted they dropped the ball and are trying to make amends. This very thread is an example of that, not sure how you missed it. But by all means, stay classy!
You talk about the "Game Table Map Maker" and complain it's not free... I'm sorry, but where in Randy Buehler's letter did he talk about it at all?
That is the problem. He hasn't. Several things are being overlooked.
The very first of his "letters" should have told about ALL the tools, not just left blank areas and things left out.
X, Y, Z are ready and this is out plans for them.
A, B, C, D are not yet ready, and here are the changes to previous plans we have had to make about them.....
You don't just give half-assed information when you start. You should give something.
By now they should not still be deciding on how to make these things work, or what they are going to charge.
I has been a YEAR since DDI was announced. If they don't have anything substantial to show tot he customers or information to give, then they need to go back to making gamers and leave software to the professionals rather than WotC's amateur attempt at making some.
WotC has made it pretty clear from the beginning that they were never going to have one set price like a software programme. Why not then sit back and enjoy the programmes you have? Why are you so angry?
For myself, I'm happy to get the annual subscription that's been announced because my husband loves Dragon magasine. The bonus tools are merely an added perk to me. I'll check out the demos for the rest of the stuff when they come out, but it was never the reason I turned to 4e. I'm happy to RP by post online.
If the programme here falls through, it will not affect me, though I'll be sorry for all those who have been looking forward to playing with distant friends and relatives. For their sakes, I keep my fingers crossed.
It'd be great if the encounter builder included the stat chart of the creatures. What-ever happened to e-tools?
Hellmute, why do you care? You are able to make up programmes yourself and you have mentioned that there are many alternatives out there which you seem to be using yourself.
Because I get so sick and tired of seeing artsy-fartsy software that looks good, but doesn't function like somebody just got out of some community college with a degree, or bought the latest version of Dreamweaver or some other flash studio to create something to look at that doesn't work worth a damn like those stupid Bonus tools.
- Form Follows Function
- Keep It Simple Stupid
All I am seeing form WotC is GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. If the design of these tools is garbage, then the usefulness will end up being garbage.
If you are going to make software then make it functional.
If you want pretty pictures to look at when trying to manipulate data, then find a coloring book, and take breaks from the work at hand to doodle on the pictures or what have you.
The sheer number of BAD programs that I see make it to market today because some new hotshot wannabe designer with a new gimmick makes me sick.
The over-use of flash where it is not needed is another problem. These Bonus tools need little form flash-based software. There is no movement, the imagery is static. There is no audio. There is no reason to stream these tools that do nothing. The entire ability score thing is barely more than 1k worth of JavaScript, but WotC is streaming a flash file for more bandwidth, and having more requirements than JavaScript. Really does the pretty pictures impress anyone for such a low level application? You have an arrow.
It annoys the living **** out of me that these things still exist and people still makes them. You won't see people enjoying Numa Numa from these flash tools.
Don't use an environment that you do not need to use to get the job done. The use of flash is like using a steam shovel to eat a bowl of cereal. It is overkill.
Work smarter, not harder.
So don't waste money on developing something that costs more just to cost more, and dare try to pass your screw-up from using a more costly programming environment onto your consumer when you could have done the job for half the time and cost in another more stable environment.
What does the other tools offer, for looks and hype than serve no actual purpose of function once the novelty wears off? How much are people going to be expected to continue to pay for those things they stop using after a while just because it is embedded or bundled with the other parts?
Don't try to tell me I need to by a trailer when I only want to buy a car.
It is the entire philosophy of design of the software that bothers me. That is why I care. It can only breed bad design from other things from people thinking this is the best computers can offer. Which is not true. It is just the decision WotC made for its subpar software.
Sigh. I don't know what to say anymore. Randy and mudbunny, I hope you'll look beyond the hubris and vitriol to keep giving us meaningful and well-intentioned answers and updates.
I agree with Ceeje, their is not much else to say and that I think Randy and mudbunny are doing a much better jump of keeping us informed on the progress of DDI then in the past.
As was suggested before and ignored I think the discussion about DDI and MMO's should be in a different thread.
"There's a lot of decaffeinated brands on the market that are just as tasty as the real thing."
So anyways, let's all just not argue and try to have a discussion we can learn from. Those who want to tell the rest of the world what Wizards intentions are could start a new topic, like "Wizards of The Coast was on the grassy knoll" or something.
Meanwhile, keep doing what your doing Wizards and I'll buy your stuff. I am a D&D player from the 70's, 80's and early 90's who stopped buying D&D stuff because it was too difficult to get my friends together to play (we live in different states now for the most part) and because I didn't want to buy all 6,487 hardcover books so I could keep up with 3.5. (Yes, I realize I didn't need to buy them all, that was just a joke.) With 4th edition I bought the Core rule books immediately because of the promise of the game table. Why? Because everything I see about it says it will do EXACTLY what I want to do with it. Play D&D with friends who live far apart in a manner that looks well put together. Okay, I understand you don't like it. If you don't like Coke buy Pepsi. Move on. Thank you.
To continue my "shill" praise, I have devoured the Core Rule Books and love the new system. The way I see it (my opinion only), it simplifies the combat encounters in a way that makes it much easier to get through them and "role play" more. Thank you for that. I am so invested in this product that I am already in the middle of creating a trilogy of modules for my friends to play and I'm loving every minute of the creation aspect. I would like to see the Encounter Generator tool be a little more fleshed out to make it print out the stats and all, but as it is I find it useful. I look forward to the Dungeon Builder and Game Table. Thank you again to WOTC for bringing me back to a game I truly love.
With DDi, will there be any kind of "facebook" style site to find players and groups? Maybe places to create gaming guilds? Or will it just be a few forums with posts of people looking to play as there is now?
Thanks for any info.
Now, for my question, and please tell me to go somewhere else if it's already been answered.
With DDi, will there be any kind of "facebook" style site to find players and groups? Maybe places to create gaming guilds? Or will it just be a few forums with posts of people looking to play as there is now?
Thanks for any info.
If you have ever played any online game where you meet up randomly, maybe some Yahoo game, or MtGO...most have a lobby.
The Game Table application will have a lobby where you connect to the WotC servers, and can find other people that wish to play, or games that are already in progress to join or spectate.
IIRC.
The "facebook"/"MYSpace" style site was Gleemax, and it technically ends next month, but the forums have already been reorganized to make its exit less troublesome at that time. Were you looking for something more outside of the software itself for finding people to use the Game table application with?
EDIT: Cannot find the post from WotC_DM or whomever spoke about the lobby for Game table.
with the recent spate of updates to the PHB 4th edition, I have found myself wishing for something similar for the PHB and the other books
as for the small "crippleware" flame on this thread, I remember how lame version 1.0.0 of e-Tools was before Code Monkey Publishing took it over:
Wizards has set itself a tall order with the design and implementation of the D&DI suite and I eagerly await its debut
As far as I know, there hasn't been any information like that provided. It is unknown at this point whether there will be a lobby similar to the ones in the Gleemax Games or if it will be forums and sub-forums.
I hope there will be a lobby as well as specific DDI forums that are accessible by subscribers only. I can't imagine having to weed through "DDI Sux0r5!!" threads just to get support for the apps we're paying for, or to put games together with other subscribers. Hmm. I may have to post a new thread on this specific topic as it doesn't fit here.
Announcements a DM can post about open chairs if trying to fill in the party or to start a game.
Plans however are subject to change.
I hope there will be a lobby as well as specific DDI forums that are accessible by subscribers only. I can't imagine having to weed through "DDI Sux0r5!!" threads just to get support for the apps we're paying for, or to put games together with other subscribers. Hmm. I may have to post a new thread on this specific topic as it doesn't fit here.
Any technical discussion about the DDI tools, should be made in the open unless WotC would purposefully be trying to hide broken software from unsuspecting new subscribers.
Support for the apps themselves, that would not be found from other users on the forums, would probably best be handled by the customer service website.
That is just the nature of the beast.
Is there a reason some use "i" while other use "I" for D&D Insider?
If you have ever played any online game where you meet up randomly, maybe some Yahoo game, or MtGO...most have a lobby.
The Game Table application will have a lobby where you connect to the WotC servers, and can find other people that wish to play, or games that are already in progress to join or spectate.
IIRC.
The "facebook"/"MYSpace" style site was Gleemax, and it technically ends next month, but the forums have already been reorganized to make its exit less troublesome at that time. Were you looking for something more outside of the software itself for finding people to use the Game table application with?
EDIT: Cannot find the post from WotC_DM or whomever spoke about the lobby for Game table.
Thank you very much for the update. I didn't realize that was the plan for Gleemax. Yeah, I'm used to the lobbies for game sites and such, but for a long term campaign like D&D can often be I was looking for a system where people could post something like...
Umm yeah so Hi I'm Dan and I like battles with Scorpions and I available on Friday evenings and Saturdays all day.
Okay, that's actually a joke, but some sort of searchable database where you could select days of the week or gaming styles. It's gonna be odd to invite someone to your "virtual" table knowing nothing about how reliable they are about showing up or how much they "hate it when we talk to people in taverns, can't I just hit something with my sword". The forums will work, but you have to scan thorugh them and if there's any amount of people that might take a while.
Thanks for the response Hellmute.
Edit: just saw you specifically mentions forums being ok, but not your ideal..
Cart Sprinter... Sprinting Carl's would be just plain weird... :D
Hey it is a D&D forum so you will never know what kind of people you find. Sprint all the Carl's you want, Cart. ;)
If you read everything you should have seen this.
This answer does require all players of household in the same house, however guest passes might allow a remote access for household on road.
Yeah, I do remember seeing that. I prolly forgot it, as it seems like a hideous waste of money, to me. I'd rather play on a regular table top for the cost of a battle mat, dry-erase and minis, none of which I have to pay for on a monthly basis.
Thanks for the quote.
Please add Drow and Genasi. Please.