DnD on Microsoft Surface Update

[DaveMage]

Still seems to slow down combat more than if one didn't use the table for the PC/NPC actions, but as I said the last time they had the demo, I think the best potential for this is the map features, such as the ability they showed early on with the campaign map and the "fog of war/line of site" features.

I also like what could be the ability to see the potential area of effect for a spell, so that if a PC wants to know if they can "get everyone in an area" with a certain shaped spell they could tell using this device.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Why would anyone do this?

Because there IS potential to make money with these sorts of devices.

Microsoft itself certainly has other things in mind for Surface than to make it a D&D prop.

That is entirely irrelevant. Microsofts involvment here is buliding hardware and software to run it. What ANYBODY does with it beyond that is all but beyond Microsoft's control. And why would MS care at that point WHAT people use it for? What it's used for doesn't affect their profits - that they use it for as much as possible DOES.

And wizards likely won't support it as it is much too expensive for the average D&D gamer to buy, so its a bad investment.

Are you kidding?! This has been Wizards HOLY GRAIL of gaming since 2000 and the release of 3E. Yes it IS too expensive right now, but this sort of thing is called Research & Development. It's only a bad investment if they were to sink money into it (and right now it's not costing them a CENT) and nothing ever came of it. If this were able to fully run 4E right now I have no doubts that WotC would integrate it with DDI and arrange for people to pay for the hardware on installments along with their monthly D&D subscription. With multiple surfaces linked over the internet DM's wouldn't even have to have players in the same room - or even have a surface of his own since it's an application run from a laptop, not the surface itself. This combination for D&D could stand a solid chance of finally knocking over the 800# gorilla that is World of Warcraft. Get FLGS's to invest in Surface tables to run games at the store or in concert with other stores if the hardware initially remains too expensive for reasonable home purchasing. Etc. etc.

You are NOT seeing the bigger picture here. You're looking at what can be done right now, but this is all about what can be done a year, 2 years or 5 years down the road. It DEFINITELY seems to me that this could be the Next Big Thing and the bad investment would be instead of putting money into this to put it into... say, designing another collectible card game.

It looks cool, but from a economic standpoint its crap. Maybe in 10 years or so if it is a big success (imo unlikely).

Now there's nothing wrong with healthy skepticism. Virtual Reality, for example, was being touted as "just around the corner" TWENTY years ago and it never amounted to squat. But - and I honestly don't mean to be insulting about this - you have no vision, and it's a good thing YOU are not in charge of R&D funds or our gaming computers would still be Commodore 64's, Atari's and Apple II's.

It may indeed be 10 years before it REALLY has an impact but WotC was right - even though they havee failed at achieving their dreams for 10 years. THIS is where the future of tabletop RPG's is at, and quite probably the future of gaming in general. If you can't see that you're blind.

 

[Morrus]

But - and I honestly don't mean to be insulting about this - you have no vision, and it's a good thing YOU are not in charge of R&D funds or our gaming computers would still be Commodore 64's, Atari's and Apple II's.

Let's not use the old trick of telling someone you don't mean to insult them immediately before you insult them, eh? Let's keep the personal comments out of it.

 

[Derren]

Your "Vision" makes you blind.

Untill this form of technology is ready and common there will be 5E, maybe even 6E. So all investment now for 4E surface would be for naught.

And you are vastly overestimating the size of the PnP business. Why would any LGS shell out thousands of dollars for just one surface table to play D&D on it? This thing will hardly increase the profit of the shop. If the software could run many RPGs, not just D&D and there are a lot of customers in area willing to rent the table the there would be some use for it. But such a thing is more wishful thinking than realistic.

Also this would hardly attract more players to D&D. MMOs still ahve better graphics. A bigger touch screen will hardly make MMO players switch to PnP RPG if they had no interest in them before surface.
WotC might do something for surface when the technology is cheap and already widespread. They certainly won't waste money on it while it is rare and expensive and rightfully so.

There is potential in Surface, but that does not include D&D.

 

[DMfromdimensionX]

My first thought seeing that was "wow cool, i gotta have one of those".

My second thought, "lets see how much it costs"

My third thought would have been " 15k is grotesque for a home computer" except i had already fainted after seeing the price tag.

 

[Scribble]

My first thought seeing that was "wow cool, i gotta have one of those".

My second thought, "lets see how much it costs"

My third thought would have been " 15k is grotesque for a home computer" except i had already fainted after seeing the price tag.

Eh... My parent back in the day paid over 10k for their plasma TV... Expensive it is, but not too far outside the realm of early adopter price.

What I think is the thing needs to find its niche before it really catches on though.

I mean what can this thing do aside from stuff computers can already do but more flashy?

Once it gets smaller, yeah I can see people paying enormous amounts for the thing, but right now? It's still too close to prototype stages in my opinion.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I mean what can this thing do aside from stuff computers can already do but more flashy?

Isn't that enough? (Reference: Plasma TV)

But actually, it can do all that stuff while acting as a point of social gathering. A single computer is bad at that, which is why people gather through MMOs and other networks.

A dining room table is already a gathering place. Now that dining room table can play video, music, board games, act as an intuitive and ergonomic remote control for your media devices, and probably several dozen other things.

Ye gods, I'm thinking about when my wife and a couple bridesmaids were picking out designs for the bridesmaid dresses... if they had a giant tabletop to move images around on instead of a computer monitor.... it would have been 10 times easier for everyone to see and comment and about 100 times more natural and ergonomic to do so. And all you need for that is multiple browser windows and multitouch, which we already have.

Untill this form of technology is ready and common there will be 5E, maybe even 6E. So all investment now for 4E surface would be for naught.

Not so. The basic UI would be the hard part, and that wouldn't be much different for running OD&D, 3e, 4e, or any number of D&D cousins.

Also this would hardly attract more players to D&D. MMOs still ahve better graphics. A bigger touch screen will hardly make MMO players switch to PnP RPG if they had no interest in them before surface.

Is attracting MMO players the point? I think making the game easier and less fiddly to play is the point.

Right now, fiddliness is a canalizing factor. People who continue to play D&D, complicated board games, etc are people who like fiddling with lots of bits of plastic, metal, and wood. They also like fiddling with numbers. If only the DM has to do that, and everyone else just has to make decisions and maybe roll dice.... I could get at least a dozen people I know to play who currently won't go within 20 feet of D&D.

Case in point, I know at least a half dozen people who love Settlers of Catan on Xbox who won't even contemplate pulling out the physical game. We have a lot of selection bias here. People who are here like board games and other tabletop games. For a lot of people, that sort of thing is synonymous with playing Candyland with their nieces until they (blessedly) grow out of it or with awful marathon Monopoly games that never end.

But you get them used to using a tabletop touch screen for all sorts of things and I bet you can suddenly get them playing all kinds of games on it.

People who play because of the rules systems or the fiddly bits are not the target here. People who like the genre but don't play because the experience is clunky to them are the target audience.

There are a lot of those people. 80% of my friends are in that category.

That's why they need to speed up their dice or enable rolling real ones. That slow bouncing around the edge of the table will kill games from sheer clunkiness for both experienced gamers and new people.

 

[Festivus]

Untill this form of technology is ready and common there will be 5E, maybe even 6E. So all investment now for 4E surface would be for naught.

Actually, the interface looks very similar to that of Temple of Elemental Evil, which I thought was a really slick interface for an RPG... and that's 3.5.

I think that the interface skin, once developed, will support any number of rule systems.

The die roller sucks and should be taken out or sped up and/or replaced with real dice. There is something about rolling real dice that is far more gratifying than virtual dice. Just having the numbers show up is anti-climactic.

 

[kenmarable]

If you look at graphics and price tags and such, I agree with others that you are missing the point. Back in the late 90's what would be the cost of having a computer nearly always connected to the "information superhighway" without a modem line plus multi-touch full color screen plus digital camera plus complete phone capabilities that can fit in your pocket???

10 years ago it would have been either impossible or so outrageously expensive only James Bond would be carrying one. Now, you can get it for under a hundred dollars. 5 or 10 years from now they will be giving them away for free with new cellphone plans.

Technology advances and becomes not only better but dirt cheap over time if useful enough.

Another example - back in the early-90's I had a friend working on his PhD in astronomy. He had to get a government grant in order to buy a couple gigabytes of data storage. Now I carry more than that on my keychain.

Will surface computing catch on like mobile computing did or stall like virtual reality? No one knows. However, unless people push the limits and see what's possible, no one will know!

 

[Derren]

10 years ago it would have been either impossible or so outrageously expensive only James Bond would be carrying one. Now, you can get it for under a hundred dollars. 5 or 10 years from now they will be giving them away for free with new cellphone plans.

And? Maybe in 10 years this technology will be consumer ready, but till that there is still a lot of time. Its no use for WotC to start developing for that technology now.