D&D 5E What’s next for DDI

[mudbunny]

OK, I may be a little on the thick side but it took me four minutes or more to actually find the page, and i presisted only because you had assured me as to its existance.
When I got there it is not quite what I really want, though in the absense of nothing it will do for now.
However, it brings up my main problem with the WoTC site.
Its is hard to find things, the search engine requires exact spelling. I know search is hard but they need to do better here or buy in a decent search engine. I do not spell well.

Thanks, now that I know I will definitly make more use of it.

My apologies. I misread what you were looking for. Alsoplustoo, I have the link to the group bookmarked.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

My apologies. I misread what you were looking for. Alsoplustoo, I have the link to the group bookmarked.

Of course it is possible that hte page I found was not the one you were directing me to

 

[mudbunny]

Of course it is possible that hte page I found was not the one you were directing me to

I was thinking of this page:
DDI Adventure Wiki

 

[tuxgeo]

(This is a constructive thread, please if you want to complain take it to another thread)

< List snipped >

Any other interesting ideas of what they might make next?

Here's one that I haven't seen expanded upon yet in this thread (not a tool, but a development):

A revised and more accommodating pricing structure.

As already mentioned in another thread, WotC has hired Jerome Lalin to be their new Marketing VP. He has worked on the free-to-play model for DDO.
What this indicates to me is that Wizards is at least entertaining the idea that there could be more than one price: perhaps free (I'm guessing, here) to build up to 20 characters per registered user (or 50? or 100? this may change over time), but more to use their eventual VTT and character visualizer. Perhaps micropayments. Perhaps more for Online Compendium, but Dungeon and Dragon free.

Many combinations are possible. They might even try several of them.

 

[ki11erDM]

Here's one that I haven't seen expanded upon yet in this thread (not a tool, but a development):

A revised and more accommodating pricing structure.

What about something like a printed coupon in the box sets or a scratch off code in an open book that would give you a free 30 days? So if you bought 12 books a year you would have it for free…

 

[Festivus]

What about something like a printed coupon in the box sets or a scratch off code in an open book that would give you a free 30 days? So if you bought 12 books a year you would have it for free…

Wasn't that something Rouse suggested long ago? I think that would be a win / win / win. Retail wins because people will buy books. Consumers win because they get more function from the books. WoTC wins because they get new subscribers to try their services, and if they like them, keep them as ongoing subscribers.

Another thing I saw suggested, which becomes a possibility is a DM account having a different rate than a player account, which allows a CB only access versus the whole enchilada.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Wasn't that something Rouse suggested long ago? I think that would be a win / win / win. Retail wins because people will buy books. Consumers win because they get more function from the books. WoTC wins because they get new subscribers to try their services, and if they like them, keep them as ongoing subscribers.

Another thing I saw suggested, which becomes a possibility is a DM account having a different rate than a player account, which allows a CB only access versus the whole enchilada.

Those are both great ideas, I'll get right on that!

All kidding aside, an ala-carte type of service and coupons really do both sound like pretty winning ideas. Heck, if I'm going to be buying DDI anyway and I can buy a book a month for $5 off it seems like a pretty good win. I might not do it every month, but it would make me a lot more likely to pick up a book I might otherwise be tempted to pass on.

Ala-carte pricing really does make a lot of sense for plenty of people. Most players probably don't really need access to the DM focused tools. Mostly they really just need CB, especially if it has good enough search capability in it to basically function as a Compendium. If that could exist at say a $5 price point I think it would garner a good bit more subscriptions. I know my players would go for that. Free VTT access or as part of the low-cost player option (say with only "player level" access) would also work. I really like Maptool, but a slicker better VTT that was web based and had a lot of built-in 4e functionality would rock.

 

[evilref]

There are major problems with the coupons/scratch-off system which were expressed back some time after the Rouse mentioned it.

Companies A+B that i've worked for in mainstream publishing have both looked at the same idea, and both dropped it for the same reasons.

You cannot guarantee that the person using the code is the person who bought the product. Add in the increase in costs yes they're low, they're not negligible though and the customer service headache 'I bought X book and the code had already been used' etc. and there's a reason it's not taken up widely.

Some small companies offer similar, such as pre-order the hardback and get the pdf for free, or send a photo of your receipt and get it for free. Typically though these are dealing with sales in the hundreds to low thousands, not the tens of thousands.

It would also become a net loss financially. At the momenty 40k+ people pay X month by month through to year by year for the DDI account. With the changes above then that drops to <more people> paying nothing. And with no real evidence available to show more people would be buying books as a result.

Edit: Ballpark figure, they'd need to sell 87k more of the product(s) containing the code to make up for the lost revenue. Not $87k, another 87,000 sales each month.

 

[Festivus]

There are major problems with the coupons/scratch-off system which were expressed back some time after the Rouse mentioned it.

Companies A+B that i've worked for in mainstream publishing have both looked at the same idea, and both dropped it for the same reasons.

You cannot guarantee that the person using the code is the person who bought the product. Add in the increase in costs yes they're low, they're not negligible though and the customer service headache 'I bought X book and the code had already been used' etc. and there's a reason it's not taken up widely.

Some small companies offer similar, such as pre-order the hardback and get the pdf for free, or send a photo of your receipt and get it for free. Typically though these are dealing with sales in the hundreds to low thousands, not the tens of thousands.

It would also become a net loss financially. At the momenty 40k+ people pay X month by month through to year by year for the DDI account. With the changes above then that drops to <more people> paying nothing. And with no real evidence available to show more people would be buying books as a result.

Edit: Ballpark figure, they'd need to sell 87k more of the product(s) containing the code to make up for the lost revenue. Not $87k, another 87,000 sales each month.

Who cares if the person redeeming the scratch off isn't the person who bought the book? It's not for a PDF version of the book, it's for a discount to DDI. Revenue lost from people buying a copy of the physical book to get one month of online service? If everyone did this and bought a book every month to keep an online account I should think that would be a ideal for both
retailers and WoTC.

Scratch off codes might not be ideal solution, but there must be some way to do it... even World of Warcraft gives you a month of online play when you buy an expansion of the game, so it's been done before.

 

[rjdafoe]

(This is a constructive thread, please if you want to complain take it to another thread)

What do we think they are working on for the other tools? Here is my list I am expecting to come out over the next 12 months.

Offline character viewer built in Silverlight that allows tracking of combat stats during games.
Online monster builder with offline viewer.
Online CAMPAIGN tools to share with your game group.
Mobile apps for iPhone and Windows Phone 7 (and I assume Android) to view characters.
Customization tools integrated into the different packages, so can change feats and make items.
Online mapping tool based around dungeon tiles that you can print off or project at the table.

Any other interesting ideas of what they might make next?

The problem with the offline viewers are that you would only have the name of the power, not the content. They have said that the CB files will export into .dnd4e format.

I assume the same for the MB. They don't want content on your computers anymore.

So offline viewers would not really give any advantage that I see.

I have been waiting for a Campaign Tool forever. Although I am not as excited about it being online.