Confidence Index: A D&Di poll on VTT and Char Visualizer

[Aberzanzorax]

Good point Malraux. I'll change it from:

Confidence Index: A D&Di poll
I'm curious what degree of confidence this community has in the completion of the full D&Di suite.



What percentage chance would you currently give to say that the entire D&Di group of tools (including character visualizer and virtual tabletop) will be complete ever (at any point in the future) by WotC?



What I mean (thanks for asking for clarification, and I'm using Harr's words here) is "being finished and playable in the manner in which they were advertised they would be during the 4e marketing push."

If they add more to them later (updates for new books, etc) then great, but that's not what I'm asking.

I'm asking about the basic level of what they said at one point would be available for us at the release of 4e.

to

"Give the percent chance you think WotC will ever release the VTT and Character Visualizer being finished and playable in the manner in which they were advertised they would be during the 4e marketing push?"

 

[Drkfathr1]

The poll would probably be better served by asking the real question then, "do you think WotC will ever release the VTT and Character Visualizer?" instead of some nebulous definition of complete.

If you read the OP he pretty much does. I mean, he even put those two items specifically in bold.

Edit: And now he's made it even clearer!

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

As in:

Which do you think you'll see first: 5e or the VTT?

 

[Aberzanzorax]

HA! Exactly Wulf Ratbane.

Never occurred to me to put an "edition limit" on this.


But yes, for fourth edition and not 5th, 6th, or umpteenth.

Thanks!

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I have 95% confidence that an extremely good suite of tools (on par with the character builder) will be finished. I have a 50% confidence that this will include the virtual tabletop within a few years, and 0% confidence that this will include the character visualizer -- and as far as I'm concerned that's a good thing. I would see the visualizer as a giant waste of resources, and would prefer more useful tools.

I agree with your first point, but I flip on the rest. I think the VTT is 0% as they will determine that it costs too much to create something used by a limited number of players where there are tools created by others already in existence. While the visualizer I put at 50% with a refocus on being able to print a custom portrait of your PC. I personally consider both tools to be a waste of resources as they are useless to me.

 

[C_M2008]

I think a VTT would be nice to have and would be mostly a one time expense, since minor upgrades aside it would also be fully compatible with future editions of D&D.

If they do finally make it, I think they should have a battlenet type gaming server where you can join games of a prescribed type and length as long as you have a character of an approrpriate level built in the CB. You could have 1, 2 4, 8 hour games (whatever there is demand for) and designate them based on the amount of roleplay/combat. Log on whenever you want and join a game that's starting soon for a length you can play.

Charge a steep one time fee(60$-ish) or a seperate subscription based service from D&Di, you'd have to include the character builder though.

That said getting both of these is about 20% IMO and I hope they don't waste any time on the vizualiser.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Personally I was looking forward to the VTT and would like a visualiser, or at least something that produces custom portaits. That said, I think the chances are about 30% as WoTC would be better off buying an existing VTT and building from there.

 

[Shemeska]

WotC spent an insane amount of money on Gleemax and the still vaporware portions of the originally promised DDI lineup. They appear to have fewer developers now than developed any of that material, or even developed the character builder, and are currently under a Hasbro mandated hiring freeze. The current people remaining on staff after the announced (and non-announced) layoffs have to continue to do updates on the CB and compendium on top of anything new. Only one developer remains on staff who was involved in any capacity with Radiant Machine (the outsourcing design studio who did the original work on the VTT). Given the status of the VTT, which in the opinion of one of those in-house developers I've spoken with would be best served by being scrapped and re-coded from scratch, IMO its not likely to be seen till late 2011 or 2012. And that's assuming that in light of having already broken the bank on the original outsourcing, WotC still feels it's worth the investment to actually finish it and release it years down the line.

As for the Visualizer, again they've spent a ton of money already, and it was already getting hammered for its visual quality in the preview images. Well, the art pipeline hasn't been active for a while, so any new models and artwork for it either won't happen, or will take more time and money to work on. So WotC is faced with either putting out a product that only covers the year 1 core material for 4e, or spending more money to add features. Again, I have to wonder if they'll decide to not release it at all, rather than release a product that might look cheap or substandard or dated, or require a ton of further investment. The revenue it would bring in might not offset the bad PR in that first instance, or the investment required in the second. I think this one will either be swept under the rug deeper than it already has been, or released to much criticism sometime in late 2010 or so.

I think the ship has already sailed on the programs they initially promised, and they're better off cutting their losses and letting them die in a void of no new news. They've already been scoured from the DDI pages, and unless specifically asked, nobody even mentions them any more. I increasingly suspect that WotC's phrase of "No longer under active development" is in line with the gulag-era "Imprisoned without right of correspondence". They both rather mean the same thing without coming out and saying it.

 

[naturaltwenty]

Like any prudent organization that is having financial issues (during the last year HAS has dropped from 35 to less than 25) cuts development on low hanging fruit that will take too much investment and not ever realize a profit, i.e. if it's not book related and making money it's not ever going to get done.

WotC planned on it's Digitial Initiative to be the one and only place for a 4e VTT and online resource but by pulling all licenses (Dungeon Magazine and Dragon Magazine from Paizo, character creation software from Code Monkey the redaction of the OGL and insertion of a no software policy in the GSL as it stands) they've effectively hamstrung other development companies to produce a legal 4e dedicated VTT (like Fantasy Grounds made for d20).

From a project management perspective I'd love to do an "lessons learned" session with WotC's software team (or what's left of it).

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I expect CV and VTT to never be published as advertised.

I fully expect something like CV and VTT to be published along with 5e. While the whole DDI thing is an add-on right now, I expect it to be an integral part of the next version.

The DDI-mission for 4e is probably something like "test development and deployment of digital stuff to the customers, test marketing a virtual product as subscription service."

The DDI-mission for 5e will be: "Make DDI a core part of the D&D product. Offer additional 'toys' via a subscription model so that as many customers as possible are willing to pay for the game on a monthly basis."