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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CleverNickName" data-source="post: 4144264" data-attributes="member: 50987">I <a href="http://trav_laney.blogspot.com/2008/03/me-and-4e.html" target="_blank">blogged</a> about this a few weeks ago, now that I think about it.    [SBLOCK=Quote from my blog]A while ago, I posted a blog entry about the development of the 4th Edition to the Dungeons and Dragons game. One of the features of the new system that they mentioned was something called "D&D Insider," which was an internet interface that would allow a game to be played over any distance, using an internet connection.Now, my friends and I had been playing D&D under the 3.0 and 3.5 Editions since their release. Then our cleric and barbarian moved to California, our druid and monk moved to Florida, and the DM and his wife the fighter (that's us) moved to Oregon. The rogue and the ranger stayed behind in Colorado.Needless to say, gaming has been difficult ever since.We have tried gaming online a couple of times...our first attempt was a disaster, using a webcam and Ventrillo to communicate. After a while, we started using some special software called FantasyGrounds, which was pretty much just a virtual tabletop, and it worked out a lot better...but there was no voice chat support and Ventrillo was too unreliable. So we tried adding Google Talk to the mix, but it did not support multi-user chat. Now, whenever we game together, we use Fantasy Grounds and our telephones (conference calling, free long distance). It works for us.So when we heard that Wizards of the Coast was developing an online tool for its users, we were very excited indeed...while we never really had any particular problem with 3.5E, we jumped on the 4E bandwagon just because it promised to make gameplay faster and easier...especially for us online gamers who don't like MMORPGs.Over the next few months since, the details started to trickle in about 4E. Most of the news was neither good nor bad, just different...more focus on demons, no more elemental planes, strange new races in the core, and so forth...these were not "deal-breakers" for us, but they would take some getting used to. It is a new game, after all.As for D&D Insider, the eye candy looked great (3D character "miniature" generators, animated tilesets)...not something we really needed, but nice to have. Other than these bells and whistles, it looked like it did a lot of the things that Fantasy Grounds could do.Then it started to get sour.Rumor suggested that the druid, the monk, and the barbarian did not exist in the new edition. They would be released at a later date, we were told, probably in a second Player's Handbook or an online enhancement. I know that sounds minor to most people, but those three classes constitute half of my adventuring party. I suppose we could crib together a "barbarian" flavored fighter or a "druid" flavored wizard by writing up a couple dozen new powers and tweaking the base classes, but who has time for that?Monsters that were critical to my campaign would not be included in the initial release either...even iconic ones. As with the missing character classes, the popular rumor was that these monsters would be released at a later date, perhaps in a second MM or an online enhancement. In the meantime, I suppose I could just substitute another type of monster or modify a similar one on the fly from those provided, but again...who has time for that?It looked like this new edition wasn't going to make things easier for us at all. It looked like it would be generating a lot of extra work for all of us.The killing blow for us came when the cost of D&D Insider was announced. Fifteen dollars per person per month, to use their online chat and virtual tabletop service. Doing the math, ($15)(6)(12)=$1080, over a thousand dollars a year. I realize that a subscription to DDI is much more than just a license to play online, and I realize that even if it were, $15/month is comparable to many MMORPGs out there. Be that as it may, absolutely zero out of six players at my table were willing to pay for a subscription at any price.So, D&D Insider was out. And while it was still possible to play 4E over FantasyGrounds, it would take a lot more work on everyone's part to convert characters and monsters, update XML databases, rebuild the online character sheets, and so forth...all of this on top of learning the new rules. As the DM, it was my decision...and I decided to stay with the 3.5 Edition. It is a good system, it is fun to play, everyone is familiar with it already, and we already own everything we need.I'm sure that 4E will be quite popular, and WotC will make a fortune in book sales and online subscriptions. I have already preordered my copies of the 4E books, so it's not like I am in denial about it or staging some kind of boycott. 4E has some great ideas; it just isn't for us. Not right now, anyway.[/SBLOCK]Anyway, I wouldn't go so far as to say that DDI or Fantasy Grounds are "crude tools."  They both seem to be professional-grade products designed with the computer-gaming nerd in mind...but I can't vouch for DDI just yet, not having used it before.  And I wouldn't call any ongoing fee "trivial," either, because dollars can add up quickly when you increase the timeline and number of players.</blockquote>

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