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<blockquote data-quote="Lord Zardoz" data-source="post: 4798610" data-attributes="member: 704">I am not in any way informed about the internal development process at Wizards.&nbsp; But as&nbsp; a reasonably experienced game developer, I think I have a good idea about what happened.The Virtual gaming table is at least as complicated as a video game, and the customer base that Wizards expects to use it would be people who play D&amp;D and are comfortable playing games over the internet.&nbsp; It is a safe assumption that this customer base also plays Videogames, and would expect the graphics to be at least competitive with that.&nbsp; So to make the Virtual game table a success, they need to have several things.&nbsp;- At least adequate 3d graphics, including models for players, monsters.&nbsp;--- This includes basic animation unless they are ok with supporting static 'minis'.&nbsp;- Networking code that allows online multi-player, and a 'matchmaking' mechanism for a DM to create a table and for the players to find it (same as finding any other online multi-player game, be it an FPS or RTS, etc).&nbsp; &nbsp;- The ability to tie into the Rules compendiums&nbsp;- A means of adding new content for monsters, magic items, new classes, etc&nbsp;- A powerful map editor tool that can support dungeons and outdoor environments&nbsp;- The player editor to create charactersAll of this is not easy, and that just gets people into the gameAnd if they wanted the tool to satisfy the expectations of customers used to playing World of Warcraft&nbsp;- A means to 'save' a game&nbsp;- An interface to allow DMs to track the health and abilities of multiple monsters&nbsp;- An interface to allow DM's to create adventures&nbsp;- the means to run D&amp;D combats in a turn based manner.I suspect that Wizards grossly underestimated the difficulty of the project, and did not give the developers the time or the budget to do it right.&nbsp; I suspect that someone got their hands on the 'finished' version and realized that releasing it in its current state would be a failure.Right now, I suspect the tool is in Development Hell.END COMUNICATION</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lord Zardoz, post: 4798610, member: 704"] I am not in any way informed about the internal development process at Wizards. But as a reasonably experienced game developer, I think I have a good idea about what happened. The Virtual gaming table is at least as complicated as a video game, and the customer base that Wizards expects to use it would be people who play D&D and are comfortable playing games over the internet. It is a safe assumption that this customer base also plays Videogames, and would expect the graphics to be at least competitive with that. So to make the Virtual game table a success, they need to have several things. - At least adequate 3d graphics, including models for players, monsters. --- This includes basic animation unless they are ok with supporting static 'minis'. - Networking code that allows online multi-player, and a 'matchmaking' mechanism for a DM to create a table and for the players to find it (same as finding any other online multi-player game, be it an FPS or RTS, etc). - The ability to tie into the Rules compendiums - A means of adding new content for monsters, magic items, new classes, etc - A powerful map editor tool that can support dungeons and outdoor environments - The player editor to create characters All of this is not easy, and that just gets people into the game And if they wanted the tool to satisfy the expectations of customers used to playing World of Warcraft - A means to 'save' a game - An interface to allow DMs to track the health and abilities of multiple monsters - An interface to allow DM's to create adventures - the means to run D&D combats in a turn based manner. I suspect that Wizards grossly underestimated the difficulty of the project, and did not give the developers the time or the budget to do it right. I suspect that someone got their hands on the 'finished' version and realized that releasing it in its current state would be a failure. Right now, I suspect the tool is in Development Hell. END COMUNICATION [/QUOTE]

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