Can we please stop calling D&D Insider an MMORPG

[Fobok]

Ok, I've never posted here before, but I've just been reading since finding out about 4th edition. I will say this: DI is *nothing* like a MMORPG. Most crucial, MMORPGs have no DMs! Having played many MMORPGs, I can assure you that that makes all the difference in gameplay experience. That's not counting all the other things that make MMORPGs what they are, including thousands of people playing at once in the same game, getting different groups every time you play, forming guilds, and many other such things.

Did they take design elements for the game itself? Sure. But that's a good thing. It allows us who're trying to recruit friends to play to have a common frame of reference.

Finally, for those of us who have no current groups locally to actually find a place to play, this is a dream come true. I love RPGs, but I haven't even looked at a D&D book since shortly after Monster Manual II came out, since I have nobody to play it with. Sure, there's other options to play online, but none supported in the same way as DI.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

That said, all indications are that the Dungeon and Dragon equivalents are going to be web-based, so it's simple enough to click File -> Save and have the contents of any article you like forever on your hard disk, with all the images and everything.

Yeah. If I can print it, I can make it into a PDF.

 

[carmachu]

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

Hate to say it, its not that simple. When you hear this line from them:

"Will the D&D Insider authors be considered "canon"? Yes, it is our
intention to treat this material as integral to the game and to the
campaign worlds."

It may not be as quite "optional" as you think.

Time will tell.

 

[jdrakeh]

Hey now, dirty pictures didn't just go online... Dirty pictures made online. The adult film industry's always been pushing the edge of technology, and chances are everything that you take for granted today was, if not innovated, perfected by porn.

Well, almost everything... AFAIK they've never given DRM a serious look.

Actually, they pioneered DRM, as well (though I don't think they implemented an effective version until recently). I worked from late 1998 to early 2000 digitizing film and movies for some of the better known adult entertainment publishing houses (e.g., Totally Tasteless Video, Vivid Entertainment, etc). And you're right -- dirty pictures made online (or online commerce, anyhow).

 

[I'm A Banana]

"Will the D&D Insider authors be considered "canon"? Yes, it is our
intention to treat this material as integral to the game and to the
campaign worlds."

If DDI breaks some people of this incomprehensible strict adherence to canon, it will have done the game a greater service than can ever be measured.

Though I think that question is more that DDI material will be "official." It will be stamped with WotC's seal of approval, just as Dragon and Dungeon were.

 

[king_ghidorah]

Hate to say it, its not that simple. When you hear this line from them:

"Will the D&D Insider authors be considered "canon"? Yes, it is our
intention to treat this material as integral to the game and to the
campaign worlds."

It may not be as quite "optional" as you think.

Time will tell.

Canon does not equal required.

Dragon magazines, various supplements, online FAQs... all this is considered FAQ now. And none of that is required. If you believe so, then to play 3e, you needed to subscribe to Dragon, buy all supplements, and regularly check the WotC site.

But, of course, that isn't true now, and there's no reason to believe that the addition of an official set of online play tools and an moving Dragon content to a for-pay web site will change that.

 

[Pants]

could you explain what you mean by this, because I'm just not seeing it

I was just being sarcastic about the furor over this whole 4e thing.

I HAVE seen people compare the new rules (what little we do know of them) to being videogamey for whatever reason.

Ok, I've never posted here before, but I've just been reading since finding out about 4th edition. I will say this: DI is *nothing* like a MMORPG. Most crucial, MMORPGs have no DMs! Having played many MMORPGs, I can assure you that that makes all the difference in gameplay experience. That's not counting all the other things that make MMORPGs what they are, including thousands of people playing at once in the same game, getting different groups every time you play, forming guilds, and many other such things.

Did they take design elements for the game itself? Sure. But that's a good thing. It allows us who're trying to recruit friends to play to have a common frame of reference.

Finally, for those of us who have no current groups locally to actually find a place to play, this is a dream come true. I love RPGs, but I haven't even looked at a D&D book since shortly after Monster Manual II came out, since I have nobody to play it with. Sure, there's other options to play online, but none supported in the same way as DI.

First off, welcome.

Second off, your well-meaning, rational post is wrong, wrong, wrong! It's played on the Internet, which is a series of tubes, thus it is a MMORPG!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It may not be as quite "optional" as you think.

Official stuff was always optional.

Stuff in Dragon and Dungeon was official, but I didn't use it, and if someone at my table wanted to, I was more than capable of saying no.

The existence of some crunch (or worse yet, some fluff) on the DI in no way makes it mandatory.

It's ALL optional.

 

[Dykstrav]

Official stuff was always optional.

Stuff in Dragon and Dungeon was official, but I didn't use it, and if someone at my table wanted to, I was more than capable of saying no.

The existence of some crunch (or worse yet, some fluff) on the DI in no way makes it mandatory.

It's ALL optional.

QFT.

In eighteen years of play, I've allowed material from two issues of Dragon into my games. Not because I didn't like the material or thought that there was anything "wrong" with it, but because there has to be a line somewhere. For me, that line is bringing a stack of indexed magazines to the table in addition to the stack of books. I peruse my stack of issues at my leisure. I never made time to study D&D like homework to "stay current" to the game- the really good stuff usually saw print in a supplement later anyway.

I might subscribe to the DI, but it certainly isn't going to be so that I can make a chore of reading every nuanced character or campaign option conceivably available. I never felt like I missed anything major by being selective about the material I allow at the table.

 

[Asmor]

Funny true story on the whole "canon=required" front...

A few sessions ago, I had some Vivisectors airdrop in some Carnage Demons (both from MM5), which doesn't make much sense at all for them to be working together based on the fluff... I actually felt a twang of guilt about it. My players didn't care.

Then I read that MM5 design article, and one of the things the guy said is that he specifically avoided some things, like naming one creature a Spawn of Juiblex, because he didn't want people to feel bound by the fluff. For example, he didn't want someone to feel like they shouldn't use a Spawn of Juiblex just because there was no Juiblex in their homebrew.

So, consider this:

Anything WotC says is canon.
Anything canon is required.
WotC says canon is not required.
Therefore, you are required to not require canon.
(Unless you choose not to follow that last bit of canon, in which case you are required to follow canon and therefore are required not to require canon).