BBC News Website covers D&D Insider

[meomwt]

Linked here

Includes a quote from a Mr Ryan of this parish (and Esdevium).

 

[Bagpuss]

Should WotC be really seeking publicity when the product still isn't even out of Beta. Again it's sold in the report like this is already available, but we know it is at the least still months away.

 

[Kithran]

Well this was filmed at Gen Con UK back in August.

Kithran
(who is briefly in the background on one shot)

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I swear this thread wasn't here when I started mine...

Just as a note - I saw this video first linked at UK Role Players, if any UK D&D players are interested in another forum for gaming talk. They've got some nice big forums for specific conventions, including the upcoming Dragonmeet, if you're looking for more information.

 

[Glyfair]

Should WotC be really seeking publicity when the product still isn't even out of Beta.

I've seen plenty of things that are heavily advertised when they haven't been completed. I've seen video games advertised that aren't even to beta. I've seen movies advertised when they haven't even completed filming. That's really nothing unusual.

Now, if it does sell it as being completed, that's another thing. I can't really view it now to judge, perhaps later today.

 

[Bagpuss]

Now, if it does sell it as being completed, that's another thing. I can't really view it now to judge, perhaps later today.

From the article that accompanies the video.

The electronic extras for D&D are collectively known as D&D Insider and give players a variety of digital tools to aid and abet that formerly paper-based play.

"The idea is that you can play it as 100% table-top experience, or 100% electronic or somewhere in between," said Mr Buehler.

The most ambitious part of D&D Insider is the game table - a virtual space where players can join and in which they can play out an adventure overseen by a human DM.

Other elements include online character generators that take novices and veterans through the bewildering array of choices that confront anyone creating a D&D character and taking it on several different adventures.

Also available is a character visualiser, access to all the D&D rulebooks ever printed and a few online tools to help get characters going.

No mention is made that the Game Table and Character visualiser are not available at all or that the character builder is in beta.

And later....

His comments were echoed by Mark Brown, a player who only took up D&D in October 2007 and is keen convert to playing it face-to-face.

Convert from what? He can't be playing on the Game Table at the moment, which this article seems to imply.

 

[CharlesRyan]

Hi, all--

If you're reading a story in the news and getting worked up about whether little details (like, does the product actually exist or not) are accurate, boy, you're barking up the wrong tree.

I've been dealing with the media for five or ten years and have been interviewed for or covered in hundreds of news stories. What makes this story a rarity isn't the number of errors it contains--it's that it's an actual, written story, not a word-for-word regurgitation of a press release or the first semi-relevant quote the writer stumbled upon.

Don't get too hot and bothered about journalistic accuracy--it frankly doesn't exist, even at the higher-end institutions like the BBC. And, truthfully, the finer points don't matter to the vast majority of this article's readers. What does matter is that D&D got a high level of largely positive, level-headed exposure that points out how the property is continuing to grow and remain strong in the current age.