D&D (2024) New leak looks real bad

[Remathilis]

All of this is why these sorts of vague, partial, unverified leaks are bad: people just spin out their own theories and narratives with nothing but hunches and feelings to go on. It is counterproductive.

And worse, these teased "I know something bad, find out more at the world premiere of my next video!" just invite conspiracy to bloom.

 

[Umbran]

You're saying 100% there won't be an option to keep your homebrew content set to private?

Nobody should be making such specific claims at this time. Even if that's the current intent, doesn't mean that's how it'll end up in the months to years it takes to write the software that's rumored.

Especially when WotC has such a crummy history with software projects.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I mean it's expected people will be willing to pay something for a VTT the believe to be meaningfully superior to anything else out there.

All of this reminds me of the old quote from Churchill- "We have established what you are. Now we are haggling about the price."

Some people will never use the VTT (like me).

Others will use it, and the number who will ... this will depend entirely on price. All those people who are saying they will, or won't, without seeing the product? Seems weird.

Basic economics. The product will be priced in a way to maximize revenue. If the product is priced too high (for what people want), then it will fail as not enough people will get it (and/or be discounted).

 

[Velderan]

You mean like now. That's how "now" works. You make something on D&D Beyond, you can share it with the whole community. For free. And if you have a subscription, you can use any homebrew that the community has shared. At worst, the new tier will remove the custom homebrew you make yourself from the free tier.

Nobody should be making such specific claims at this time.

I get people's frustration with WotC is at a pretty high level right now, but some of this sounds like people who have never used the current DDB service and therefore don't understand how it works being outraged. As @Remathilis noted, they CURRENTLY charge you to use community homebrew and that's up to each person creating it to decide if they want to share or not.

 

[mamba]

This is why I predict they will never back down on deauthorizing 1.0a: they believe 1.0a is an existential threat to the transformed business model they envision for the brand.

probably, personally I see that business model as the existential threat however

 

[mamba]

I mean it's expected people will be willing to pay something for a VTT the believe to be meaningfully superior to anything else out there.

if it is so superior, there is no need to lock all the other VTTs out…

 

[Velderan]

Some people will never use the VTT (like me).

Same. For me, I currently play using Roll20 and the charm of it to me is how crude the whole thing looks. I feel like the DM still needs to narrate and describe what's going on, where that (to me) is less of a thing in a 3D VTT. But 100% agree, $30 might be fine for enough people for it to be profitable if the service has enough offerings. We won't know until the entire service offering is finalized.

 

[Dausuul]

I mean it's expected people will be willing to pay something for a VTT the believe to be meaningfully superior to anything else out there.

I was speaking of the value for me personally. I play in person, so I have very little use for a VTT -- I mean, it might be handy every once in a while when somebody can't physically be there, but even there, would it really be worth the effort to move everything online for a one-off session?

And I'm fairly sure I'm not alone here. A lot of people play D&D in person. And a lot of people play theater of the mind. The value proposition of a VTT is quite limited for those two groups. If you take us out of the equation -- and then, of the remainder, take out those who can't or won't shell out the asking price for the VTT -- how big a subscriber base is left? This ain't an MMO where online is the only option.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Yeah, $30/year actually is reasonable. $360/year... that'd be a hard no from me.

And homebrew banned at base tiers? You have to pay extra to homebrew? WTF?

I was planning to boycott Wizards until they quit trying to kill the OGL. If this is where Wizards-D&D is headed... I guess that'd be the end of my boycott. It isn't boycotting if you weren't going to buy it anyway.

Oh come on. This is Master Thespian levels of drama now.

$30/ month would be twice the cost of a current WoW subscription (which hasn't moved up in quite a while). It's high, but at $15-$20, we are in the competitive and reasonable zone for a monthly MMO game subscription.

DDB doesn't offer "homebrew" on its lowest tier right now. You don't get that feature without a paid subscription right now. That has been the case for years. Absolutely NOBODY complained about this or suggested it was patently unreasonable.

I have been saying all along this is about WoW money. WotC sees WoW money as "their money" and something they should be able to earn with this IP. They aren't wrong about that.

But this is a crappy way to roll it out.

 

[Reynard]

Also, those of you worrying about $30/month have never had a kid with a Fortnite habit... And that game is "free."