DnD Game Table- Why doesn't WotC get it?

[Incenjucar]

Good Sir Rouse: Could you expand on the custom art angle at all? Particularly, will we be able to have digital "shrinky dink" minies and/or set pieces?

 

[Jorunkun]

Like many of the posters upthread DDI was one of the key things in 4e for me, since my party already plays online. And I do think that the overall offering of DDI is indeed pretty good value for money because of the content from Dragon and Dungeon, and access to the full rules database.

That said, I am very disappointed by what I have seen of the gaming table so far. The character builder may be convenient and the conversion to 3d minis is a neat trick, but the table tool itself seems very limited in terms of map creation and use compared to other, free tools already available. And the visuals on all the above components are just substandard.

I am pretty sure I will sign up to DDI - but it will be in spite of, not because of the virtual gaming table.

 

[the_redbeard]

In the dungeon builder (the free app) you can use tiles that are preloaded into the application or make your own maps with a combination of drawing tools and either preloaded elements like a stone texture and/or import your own images into the builder.

These can then be exported to the game table.

Ok - that is better that we can import our own images.

That is new information to me.

So, Scott, you're aware of how kick ass the competition is? You'll certainly have instant market share over them - no doubt. And I'm not complaining about the cost given the other features (though purchasing virtual minis... well, nevermind.)

I'd like to see a comparison of the DDI game table with maptool, battlegrounds and fantasy grounds.

 

[Irda Ranger]

WoTC said "10$/month by user (with a year contract)".

For all of us DM with a gf/wife at home that would consider playing, what can you offer ?

Not much. This is a topic of interest to me as well, and they answered the question at DDXP. "Well, you can share your login."

Oh boy. That may be passable for the rules database and Dragon/Dungeon, but it kills game table as an option. That right there is the reason I'll never use it, since the one person I always want to game with I can't.

 

[Fifth Element]

Because if WotC doesn't, someone else will. Because if you're afraid to innovate, you get eaten. Because it's dumb not to.

If you don't innovate you get to choose between out of business or belligerent and bullying. Who wants that choice?

Your comment about innovation is mostly true, but you're arguing they have to innovate in a specific way, which is not true. There are more ways to innovate than the DDI, though they are going that way. They're not "afraid to innovate", they're just not innovating in exactly the way you think they should.

If they believe their core business is strong right now (something you and I simply cannot know), then the need to innovate is lessened. So they can cautiously innovate, while minding that such innovation does not hurt their core business.


BTW, your GM story sounds like it's apocryphal/a fable. Can you provide linkage to a reliable source?

 

[kigmatzomat]

Which has me confused as that would seem to directly compete with selling print books of the same material. A disincentive to purchase expansion products.

Two things:

1) you have to pay to see the books. There's probably more profit for WotC from a person spending $15/mo on DDI than spending $20/mo on hardcopy books. Reductions in gross revenue are acceptable when gross profit increases.

2) hard copy is still vastly preferred to electronic. The correlary is that e-books tend to push the sales of hardcopy. Go check out Baen.com. They have empirical data where free ebooks push sales of books. (I suspect this preference may vanish in about 40 years when todays digital toddlers become the majority)

And if the math on 1 and 2 are wrong (sales of hardcopy tank and DDI profit margins aren't high enough) they'll just add a few new doodads to justify a price increase.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Which has me confused as that would seem to directly compete with selling print books of the same material. A disincentive to purchase expansion products.

I buy a lot of D&D books, but not remotely all of them; I didn't buy much Eberron or FR, hardly any of the Races books, only a couple of the environment books. I would love to pillage those books for ideas, and the money to buy them isn't that big a deal to me, but such a quantity just gets overwhelming in terms of space and my ability to use them. The online rules database is a big selling point for me.

Now a question for The Rouse: When you say:

Unlimited use of the character builder (char sheet) w/ 50 online save slots and local save

Does that mean I can save an unlimited number of characters locally, but only store 50 online at any time? This is what I'm hoping - I've got probably 200 PC's and NPC's created in E-Tools for 3.5; I normally created a new file for each PC each time I go up a level, so I'll have 12 files for a 12th level PC (in case I need to go back and modify things for some reason, or just want to use one of my PC's as a stat block for an NPC in one of my own games). I would blow past that 50 character limit pretty fast.

 

[Kraydak]

Not much. This is a topic of interest to me as well, and they answered the question at DDXP. "Well, you can share your login."

Oh boy. That may be passable for the rules database and Dragon/Dungeon, but it kills game table as an option. That right there is the reason I'll never use it, since the one person I always want to game with I can't.

I have played in several games where the players each ran multiple characters. This would be equivalent to a shared login being used in VTT. Is the any evidence that you can run only 1 character/login? (I haven't been paying attention to the DI, in part because I'm on a mac)

 

[Colmarr]

I am cross posting to much I will try to post something centralized at WOTC this week.

From here

Ok, I'm sold provided the imported maps can be overlayed with a grid that is the appropriate size for the v-minis.

Rousetastic!