D&D 5E Dungeonscape no more?

Keldryn · Oct 30, 2014

Piratecat said:
Because, in my opinion, it was awful. I'd get annoyed about every 30 seconds while trying to use it. Good riddance to Silverlight and the slow, bloated platform it created.

Silverlight itself was actually a very good technology. The terrible performance of the character generator can be attributed to the fact that every action you took triggered a call to the web services on WotC's servers. Every time you selected an option, the program had wait for a response from the server. Had the data and the rules to apply them been stored locally, the app would likely have been quite responsive.

But yes, the inability to run on the dominant mobile platforms was the nail in the coffin.

SilverfireSage said:
My point is this: this app is very functional and looks good. It was (apparently) made by one person in his free time. So it strikes me as very odd that a team of 2-5 professional programmers working on this for 20ish hours or more a week wouldn't be able to make a similar but much more expansive product.

It's not a question as to whether or not they are capable of doing this. It comes down to the weighing the costs of developing, testing, maintaining, and supporting the application against expected revenue. A desktop application designed for one user to access locally-stored data is an entirely different and more complex beast than an application in which many users access a shared remote data store. You can't just write an application, call it done, issue an occasional patch, and have one guy answering support calls/emails between 9 and 5 PST on weekdays. You need a full-time team dedicated to maintaining and supporting it (even if it is a small team). Customers will expect it to be available 24/7, which means that you need that 24-hour monitoring and support.

Once you allow the datafiles to be stored locally, it is only a matter of time before any encryption is broken and the files get distributed on torrenting sites. Unless those making the decisions at WotC are prepared to accept this, then they have to go with the more complex online application.

It's an apples to oranges comparison. On the surface, it appears to be a difference in degree, but I would argue that it is a difference in kind.

mxyzplk · Oct 30, 2014

Hate to hear another grand e-tools plan has disintegrated.

Just as a point of interest, I play a lot of Pathfinder. It's got like a quarter ton of books for it now. But:

1. Since I subscribe, I get PDFs with everything
2. All the rules are in the online PRD
3. The Hero Lab character generation for Pathfinder is very good, and while it's expensive to buy all the content for it, you can.

Between those three things, GMing doesn't make me tear out my hair. I can do a quick rules lookup at the table off my laptop or iPad for some weird feat or spell someone has on the PRD. While game-prepping I don't have to spread out literally 100 books, I have the couple main ones I'm using and then go look in the relevant PDF for "that ship captain from the NPC Codex, I'll use him in this adventure." And when prepping a level 14 NPC it's not a hour-long exercise in math and pain, even if I'm not using one of the stock NPCs I can level one up and add the right number of feats and make sure all the numbers are right very quickly.

The electronic support in the form of PRD, PDFs, and Hero Lab are the difference between me not GMing at all, or GMing and saying "if it's not in this prebought adventure here then screw it," and me being able to run a full custom campaign on top of job and family.

I'm not saying "WotC bad Paizo good;" Paizo's been trying to have their web store guy write a VTT for like three years now and they launched two good iPhone apps and then foundered on any followthrough - they are in somewhat the same boat. But by being less paranoid about their content and by doing at least some smart licensing (now even Obsidian etc.) they make the game a lot more accessible. It could be considered a "nice to have" - if a company considers my money just "nice to have."

Zaukrie · Oct 30, 2014

People are surprised wotc has not communicated? They are terrible at communication.

AntiStateQuixote · Oct 30, 2014

WotC has communicated. They said they are no longer working with Trapdoor on the e-tools. What more do they need to say? Until they have something substantive to say about a new partner or plan, it would be silly for them to say anything else.

Dannager · Oct 30, 2014

The community has proved pretty conclusively over the last decade or so that "communicating" is a sucker's bet, especially for anything planned but not assured. If WotC says something is planned, it's taken by the community as a promise. If they drop those plans - regardless of reason - the community sees it as a broken promise and therefore a betrayal. And the pitchforks come out. WotC's learned its lesson, and you can bet that the only reason we heard as much about Dungeonscape as we did is because it was a licensed product. If the community once again decides to direct its outrage at WotC for this event, we may see them decide that even letting license partners control communication is too much leeway.

You don't get to complain about a lack of communication when you've shown that the only memorable outcome of that communication in the past has been internet rioting.

mcbobbo · Oct 30, 2014

Ninja'd

DaveMage · Oct 30, 2014

Morrus said:
Yeah. They got a 30-40% conversion rate, from what I've been told.

If true, that actually matches the numbers for EN World polls that often asked how many were switching to 4E.

Go EN World!

DaveMage · Oct 30, 2014

As for the tools, I'm surprised Hero Lab wasn't used. Pathfinder is an incredibly complex game and the folks at Lone Wolf have done an amazing job at keeping up with the new releases. The only drawback to it is that it's rather pricey if you get data from all the sourcebooks.

Koloth · Oct 30, 2014

I gave up on WOTC when they announced D&DV4 and yanked the licenses for 3.5 away from Code Monkey Publishing, who had rescued WOTC's rear end from the MasterTools failure dating back to the introduction of V3.0. WOTC wouldn't even let CMP sell a completed data set for 3.5 that was ready to release. This dataset was for a physical book I had already purchased. I watched as first Gleemax(how many remember that?) flopped, then the much advertised Digital Initiative followed suit after much redefinition of goals and changing of directions. It is little surprise to me that this pattern continues with D&DV5 or Next or whatever they are calling it.

I think the main problem WOTC has is they are convinced they can create a profit stream from an online subscription model much like WOW is for Blizzard. The problem is most D&D players that buy the books want the around the table experience and the online model is counter productive for that. Not to mention the time lost getting the non-computer literate folks at the table connected to the network and then to the on-line tools.

If we want an MMO experience, we will and probably already have, purchased a computer game for that purpose.

For play aids, I prefer what Steve Jackson Games has released for Gurps. Their character generator is a one time fee($15 when I purchased) with updates that cover new books and errata for the life of Gurps 4.0. No online connection required to use. Even my computer illiterate friends can use it. My gaming group largely converted to Gurps 4 as a result of the D&D 3.5 licensing foobar after D&D4 was announced.

Selkirk · Oct 30, 2014

why would lack of communication be a good strategy? or worse yet 'understandable'? they could just do things like tell the truth. 'we put all our eggs in one basket...that failed...this is what we are working on now'. if people want to hate for telling the truth then that's the way it is. but wotc hasn't said anything about anything...they don't communicate at all. no blogs, nothing on website.

the game was launched with numerous declarations that they wanted to capture a big audience (gamers, 'non geeks' etc...)...guess what those people don't buy 50 dollar books. but they do buy apps. wotc failed on digital...blown opportunity. but still they haven't blown it completely...start fresh and be honest and open. embrace digital (i mean the grogs are gonna buy the print books) . it isn't unusual to see people with tablets these days

. some of them might like digital char sheets/content.

this quote from another forum :heh:

is spot on...(rpg net http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?740929-DungeonScape-s-Current-Form-is-Dead/page2 )

'I suspect the issue has less to do with not taking digital utilities seriously and more to do with WotC, as an organisation, having a fundamentally dysfunctional approach to project management.

(To be fair, in my experience, most tabletop RPG publishers have a fundamentally dysfunctional approach to project management. It's just more apparent with WotC owing to their comparatively high profile.)'

david j. prokopetz