NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 9412232" data-attributes="member: 8461">Even a casual review of the thread shows that this isn't true.I've pointed out quite a few times that speculation about the future isn't an evidentiary-based exercise. The best that can be done is to look at what seems likely to happen, and in this regard everything I've outlined is well within the realm of plausibility.There's a ubiquitous "citation needed" notation here, along with the fact that "wanting to" suggests an aspirational tone, as opposed to a declarative "(absolutely) will."As an aside, I'll note that I've removed the numerical formatting here because it kept defaulting to "1" in the quotes. That said, I've noted multiple times that it's expected that you'll be able to do things manually; it's a question of the VTT's capabilities incentivizing the option to not bother to do so. Most people, I suspect, will turn the spell animations on because why not? They look fun and make things more visually impressive, by which token things which aren't animated are less impressive, including things which can only be manually input, like custom content. Hence the disincentivation.Again, even assuming that we take this at face value, there's no assumption that this is going to allow users to play whatever they want. It's entirely possible that this is in reference to forming licenses with other game companies to allow for content specific to their RPGs. So we might be talking about a Call of Cthulhu specific application of WotC's VTT. That's entirely speculative, but the point is that it's not outside of the realm of possibility in accordance with WotC's actions over the last two years or so.Which, again, is still more work than using what's there. Now, unto itself that's no different from the tabletop, except now you still have an added technical aspect (and I'll note that the simplicity is relative; don't assume that "easy for me" means "easy for everyone") in addition to game balance, all for a creature that can't be animated as its own thing.Which is an imperfect solution to the issue at hand, which is entirely the point of what I've been saying. When certain options become an issue of workarounds and substitutions, they become less preferable, which in turn shapes both expectations and modes of engagement.Again, holding yourself up as the exception isn't saying anything about the rule. The major point I'm concerned with is new players who are funneled into the VTT as the primary method of play, since WotC keeps telling us how their player base is growing younger even as it gets larger. People with decades of experience aren't who I'm talking about.See above. You've also omitted several other salient facts, such as WotC's having confirmed that they're going to treat individual applications (such as virtual minis) as points of transaction, hence the gold dragon promo.No, they don't. They want to do what makes them as much money as possible, and see the customers as barriers between them and their money, according to what was leaked during the OGL scandal.See above. WotC wants to make the VTT something captivating, I'm sure, but we shouldn't assume that they think that a "commitment to quality" is how they plan to go about it. Quite the contrary, based on recent happenings. The result of that carries a not-inconsiderable possibility of hurting imaginative play for people who come into D&D the way WotC wants them to, via the VTT.No, it's not. Pointing out that the medium becomes the message for the majority of people is a simple truism; if you're reading more into it than that, then that's entirely on you.Again, I'll point you to their actions in the last thirty-odd months. We've seen them lie, we've seen them act incompetently, and we've seen them be nefarious. Any sort of appeal to their goodwill is, at this point, completely empty.Or I could just be painting them in a light that's entirely commensurate with how they've been acting.I'm just enjoying having a fun conversation. Or are you, who decries what you see as the assumption of nefarious motives, assigning nefarious motives to me?</blockquote>

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