Unhappy about the VT Announcement.

[malraux]

snip

Actually I'll agree with pretty much all of that, and that's why the announcement of the VTT now has me really annoyed. For the VTT to have real value, it needs to have a bunch of other pieces in place first. The VTT in isolation from most other things is pretty pointless. I could be a capstone product.

In more detail, here's what my preference would be. First step is a good character builder, and obviously WotC is working on that.

Step two is a good monster builder, and the advantage of the MB is that it leverages all the value of Monster Manuals, adventures, fluff books, etc. That is, work done on a monster for an adventure module also counts as work done for the MB, since that use those. Starting with a mapping tool doesn't do that nearly as well (especially back when the mapping program was a 3d concept). In fact, adding monsters becomes an additional cost to design the model; though if they are just going 2d then its much much less of a problem. Regardless, the monster builder makes more sense as a starting point than the mapping tool (at least to me).

From there, having a good monster builder means that the next step is a good encounter builder/manager. And then to either a robust campaign manager or a VTT as those would both leverage the tools of the encounter builder/manager.

So perhaps my point isn't that I think the VTT is a bad idea, just that I think its a bad idea before tackling other issues.

 

[denzoner]

Back to the OT. I think it is awesome that WotC is finally going to deliver the much promised VT. But to announce it before a Monster Builder and the Campaign Builder? That's just weird. I don't play RPGs online, I play a weekly D&D 4e campaign on the very table I'm sitting at right now, and I would have preferred Campaign Tools before a VT, in a heart beat. The meat of the D&D community doesn't care about a VT, I still use lead figures (yes, I call them figures) and I still use the same dice from over 30 years ago.

To be reminded of that poll, which I do remember taking, tells me that WotC has chosen to ignore them. THAT SUCKS.

 

[WalterKovacs]

It should have been the first thing finished. Especially if they took that poll seriously.

That assumes the only factor is the poll. Business doesn't work that way.

It's quite possible that in addition to demand, they also looked at feasibility. If they estimate that it will be much harder, or take much longer, to do the first item on the list, does that mean they cannot do anything else on the list?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Actually I'll agree with pretty much all of that, and that's why the announcement of the VTT now has me really annoyed. For the VTT to have real value, it needs to have a bunch of other pieces in place first. The VTT in isolation from most other things is pretty pointless. I could be a capstone product.

In more detail, here's what my preference would be. First step is a good character builder, and obviously WotC is working on that.

Step two is a good monster builder, and the advantage of the MB is that it leverages all the value of Monster Manuals, adventures, fluff books, etc. That is, work done on a monster for an adventure module also counts as work done for the MB, since that use those. Starting with a mapping tool doesn't do that nearly as well (especially back when the mapping program was a 3d concept). In fact, adding monsters becomes an additional cost to design the model; though if they are just going 2d then its much much less of a problem. Regardless, the monster builder makes more sense as a starting point than the mapping tool (at least to me).

From there, having a good monster builder means that the next step is a good encounter builder/manager. And then to either a robust campaign manager or a VTT as those would both leverage the tools of the encounter builder/manager.

So perhaps my point isn't that I think the VTT is a bad idea, just that I think its a bad idea before tackling other issues.

Yeah, I think it is sort of like the problem with electric cars. You can't build the car unless you also build all the charging stations to go with it and the charging stations are worthless without the electric car. At some point someone has to bite the bullet and make some part of it all and hope they can get enough buy-in to bootstrap it to usefulness.

I think they mostly have followed a sensible strategy. First they put the magazines online and then they made a CB that is useful to pretty much any player. That established a framework for the data representations for everything in 4e and let them build a test bed for that. Same with MB and the Compendium. They are useful ENOUGH on their own to make it worth building them and they establish the data formats and presentation that can be used (as well as the core database of most game elements itself).

Now they can build a basic VTT that at worst they can beta test with and experiment with and probably pretty soon tie in with the other tools. The last component really is the whole "Online Experience" element, the meetup place where you can find games, the "store" where you can get extra content, the integrated campaign Wiki where you can put together adventures and describe your homebrew world and present it to the players, etc.

I think they are trying to build enough of each piece in steps to get to a point where it is all really maximally useful. I think at first they had grandiose ideas that it would be pretty easy and they could just build one "Gleemax" that would do it all and it would be done in 6 months or whatever. I'm not really sure why the CB and MB were EVER stand-alone apps frankly. While those could be used as a source for stuff to drop into the other tools it really makes more sense to have them all online where everything is captured into your account and you can work with it more easily. Probably it was what they could afford to do at the time and knew how to do, so they did it. Probably as well they didn't have the entire 'vision' of where they're going all in one minute either.

 

[Someone]

It'd be great if the VT is free to use (and of course good, specially if it's useful enough to be used in normal, face to face games) but with added functionality for importing characters from their online character and monster builder and campaing tracker. I think that'd increase subscriptions in the long run.

 

[Bagpuss]

Not to mention a VTT program may quite very well be able to:
-create and manage campaign info(I mean, this is like what, a spreadsheet? a notepad document at best?)

You seem to have pretty limited vision of what computers can do. Take a look at Masterplan, and that just keeps getting more and more features. Now imagine something like that actually tied into the Compendium database (like it use to be before the C&D letter).

That's the sort of thing they should have been working on. Notepad at best really? Even a wiki would be better.

 

[Zaukrie]

They say in the announcement that this is the next thing they are working on, don't they? That implies, to me, that it comes out before any other tool. I hope I am wrong about that, as I don't want this all that much. I'm not opposed to it, but there are other things I want more.

monster builder
encounter builder

 

[Bagpuss]

The OP is wrong on two counts:

1 "People don't want a VT": They do.

Yeah, the lowest proportion of responders however.

Plus the VT might bring in an entire *new* generation of players.

Less than half on none-subscribers were interested. Behind virtual everything else they could have offered.

2 "Because they're working on a VT that means they've abandoned all of their other projects": They're clearly working in parallel here. Just a few days ago they released a new CB and now we know they were also working on the VT for several months.

We also know that they a several months behind updating the MB, or putting the Dark Sun Creature Catalog into even the Compendium, seems they are spread a little thin if they can't even meet their existing commitments.

Also as Zaukrie pointed out above...

"t’s time for a look at the next digital product we’re working on for D&D – The Dungeons & Dragons Virtual Table! "

Might not be the only but it seems to imply it's the most advanced and the one they are more focused on.

 

[bbjore]

I'm going to second (or third or fourth, I didn't keep track) the opinions of people that the other stuff (campaign manager, customizable adventures and the like) are probably in the pipe. To me it just makes sense to make a virtual table top first. Then when you roll out a campaign manager and customizable adventures, you're able to provide a product that already integrates with the table. For instance,

Hey, here's a new adventure with online components that can be customized by your gm, and if your a subscriber, we already have the maps ready for you to plug into our virtual tabletop.

As for the rest, I'm pretty sure the monster builder is fairly close to heading online, as it'd be far simpler than even the character builder, and even if it wasn't, there's so many monsters in the compendium, it's definitely not necessary.

Also, the virtual tabletop is something that can certainly increase revenue, as it doesn't detract from their pen and paper offerings. Whereas things like the monster builder force wizards to add stuff to their paper line in order to convince subscribers to buy it as well. I never bought a monster manual because I had the compendium. I will buy the monster vault because it has the tokens, which provide additional value for me.

 

[Felon]

Yeah, the lowest proportion of responders however.

....

Less than half on none-subscribers were interested. Behind virtual everything else they could have offered.

If the reasoning here is that WotC should simply look at the poll results and then proceed to fast-track whatever rates highest while backburnering whatever rated lowest, then that's just a rather facile way to interpret the data. This isn't "Dancing with the Stars".

Looking at Bagpuss's two remarks quoted above, we can easily see how the results of a poll can be skewed without even really trying. In the poll of subscribed players, 67% of voters showed an interest in the VTT. That's two out of three subscribers. Not too shabby, really. So, Bagpuss emphasizes that "it's the lowest proportion", i.e. focusing on overall ranking and dismissing proportion.

In the poll of unsubscribed players, OTOH, Bagpuss's response focuses on the fact that it's "less than one-half", which is placing an importance on proportion that was previously dismissed. It also mentions that it came in "behind virtually everything else", so ranking is still a big deal, but the small margin of difference within the ranking (10% between the highest-ranking and the VTT) is not.

What the results of this poll really say to a team of marketing guys is...well, foremost it says that they gotta figure out a better way to do polls, because "over 4,000" doesn't represent much of their audience, particularly the unsubscribed.

But so it goes with many polls, and that is why the inferences drawn from them need to be broad. In this case, there's really nothing hands-down clobbering anything else, with only a 16 and 15% margin, respectively, separating the highest from the lowest. What they can tell from this is that amongst subscribers there's a general interest in getting any and all of those features, and that many of the non-subscribers aren't that interested in subscribing regardless of what they have to offer.

And this data is just one factor that bears into consideration. It shouldn't be sole element defining their mission statement even if it actually had broad indicators.