Can we please stop calling D&D Insider an MMORPG

[Asmor]

Seriously, I don't know who started it, but it's getting old.

D&D insider is nothing like an MMORPG. NOTHING!

"Bu-bu-but you gotta pay for a subscription!" you say? Well, I had a subscription to Dragon magazine, and I know lots of others did as well. By this logic, every magazine is an MMORPG.

"Bu-bu-but it's a subscription that's related to playing a game!" Right... and? For an MMORPG, you pay to play. For D&D insider, you pay for content related to the game, and for tools to play the game online if you wish. The vast majority of 4th edition games will still be played on real tables with real dice.

It's kind of like arguing that your ISP is an MMORPG, since you need to pay for a subscription to them if you want to play any game online.

So in conclusion, please stop spouting off this ignorant rhetoric. Thank you.

 

[EricNoah]

if you wish

A very important phrase. All of this online stuff is optional. Don't want it? Don't buy it! It really is that simple.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

A very important phrase. All of this online stuff is optional. Don't want it? Don't buy it! It really is that simple.

I think a lot of the worry is coming from just how optional it is.

While I don't see the DI as anything that would be a problem to NOT have, with the little information we've got right now, I can understand why some are worrying that it will be much less optional than is being said right now.

Its a problem of a lack of information more than anything.

 

[Sunderstone]

Woot, new version of D&D! Awesome!

Want more neat web enhancements???

Sure! Just sign up for the MORPG (you can leave out the first M for "massively"). Even if you dont play the hip, new "multiplayer online roleplaying game" sidecar (which it basically is) we will let you download web enhancements anyway for a low monthly fee!!!

MORPG... hmm... D&D is multiplayer, now its online, and its a roleplaying game. Egads!™ it is an MORPG!!!!!!!!

 

[smootrk]

If it looks like a duck, and sounds like a duck, then it is likely a duck!

Pay for online access to games (and other content), play games online, gotta pay subscription rates to play... sounds a lot like the model for MMORG to me.

 

[Alan Shutko]

"Bu-bu-but you gotta pay for a subscription!" you say? Well, I had a subscription to Dragon magazine, and I know lots of others did as well. By this logic, every magazine is an MMORPG.

A yearly sub to Dragon wasn't $120, and you got paper that didn't go away if you cancelled.

It remains to be seen exactly what the DI turns out to be. But they are positioning it as being "a way to play online", since that would be a reason to pay so much more than the mags.

 

[WhatGravitas]

MORPG... hmm... D&D is multiplayer, now its online, and its a roleplaying game. Egads!™ it is an MORPG!!!!!!!!

But then, most so-called MMORPGs have not that much RP in it and should be called MMOG - Massive Multiplayer Online Game!

And... it still misses major implications of MMOGs: You still have normal players and a DM without pre-scripted behaviour.

After all, WotC-SWAT will NOT break into your home and burn your books, if you play it offline.

It is D&D with the optional implementation of a Virtual Gametable. If that is a MORPG, mkay. Then I call current MMORPGs MMOGs. Fun with semantics.

Cheers, LT.

 

[scruffygrognard]

A yearly sub to Dragon wasn't $120, and you got paper that didn't go away if you cancelled.

It remains to be seen exactly what the DI turns out to be. But they are positioning it as being "a way to play online", since that would be a reason to pay so much more than the mags.

As a guy who has never and will never play a MMORPG, the new version of D&D looks to be heavily influenced by World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs (30-level progression, character "power-ups" that sound more akin to Mortal Combat than D&D, moving away from Greyhawk and other D&D sacred cows).

Sure the subscription is optional BUT, if I'm buying WotC's books I think it's only fair that e-versions of the books and online tools related to books I purchase should be free, bonus material.

If the online subscription were only for virtual character creators, virtual dungeons and tools to play via the internet I'd be happy (but wouldn't pay D&D Insider). The fact that supplemental (and not necessarily optional) game content is bundled with D&D Insider is what rankles.

I think WotC will wind up choking the life out of the goose that laid the golden eggs this time around. I just hope that someone with a passion for the game and its roots, and with a deep respect for those who have enjoyed the game for many years winds up taking up the mantle before D&D morphs into something that no longer resembles the game I loved back in 1980.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If it looks like a duck, and sounds like a duck, then it is likely a duck!

Pay for online access to games (and other content), play games online, gotta pay subscription rates to play... sounds a lot like the model for MMORG to me.

By that logic, my TiVo is an MMORPG. (Yes, TiVo has games.)

 

[RigaMortus2]

A yearly sub to Dragon wasn't $120, and you got paper that didn't go away if you cancelled.

It remains to be seen exactly what the DI turns out to be. But they are positioning it as being "a way to play online", since that would be a reason to pay so much more than the mags.

Pay more? Actually, it is less. Going with your estiamte, Dragon was $120 a year. Now throw in Dungeon mag as well (since that content is also part of DI) and that is another what, another $120? So that's $240 a year if you subscribed to both mags. D&DI is reported to cost $9.95 a month (or, $120 a year). So not only are you getting the content of BOTH Dragon and Dungeon mag at a smaller price than you would be paying for them, you also get all the other content (character creator, the online map/grid, etc.).

Not only are you NOT paying more fpr D&DI vs. the mags, you're actually paying less.