D&D 5E (2014) Dungeonscape Lives!

[Morrus]

Wow, this community really turned suddenly nasty against Trapdoor the moment the licensing agreement with WotC ended. I wouldn't blame them if they never posted here again.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Wow, this community really turned suddenly nasty against Trapdoor the moment the licensing agreement with WotC ended. I wouldn't blame them if they never posted here again.

I hope it is just the disappointment of the news, not lack of support.

 

[DaveMage]

No doubt it's disappointment. But it's also compounded by vague promotion.

If they make an RPG product people want, they'll no doubt have plenty of fans here.

If all they do is cryptically promise that "something special is coming", well, what would you expect? Vague promotions from a company that hasn't produced anything for the fantasy RPG realm is (for me at least) annoying. Reminds me of the Master Tools fiasco.

 

[Loki-lie-Smith]

I think the nastiness comes from the fact that, here in the D&D 5e side of the forum, people would like a 5e product, while they are acting all cryptic and at the same time is highly probable that whatever they end up doing won't support 5e.

Basically they are taking a free ride on the 5e bandwagon but aren't supporting it and at the same time making the other side the bad guys (the seaweed thieves in their story).

For my part I hope they are successful and the best but they should star courting their future costumes and not those that, for whatever reason, aren't their target audience anymore (players invested in 5e).

 

[Ramius613]

http://theiddm.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/undone-the-dungeonscape-song/

This blog entry really covers a lot of why I think people are upset. Once again WotC has scrapped a digital tool set that wasn't even able to see the light of day, with no mention of what they plan to do after or what why they cancelled it.

 

[Umbran]

It would make sense that they would need a Kickstarter. Dungeonscape was internally funded, and I'm guessing they were expecting to be pulling in revenues from Wotc by now to offset their expenses and be able to finish development.

If it is internally funded, then it is internally funded. You don't get revenue until you start selling, and that means you've finished at least some phase of development and have a product folks will buy.

So, given the blog post that Ramius pointed out, the most likely story seems to me to be, "We didn't get to a sell-able point before the holidays. We'd run through our funding, and WotC wasn't willing to provide further funding. So, the agreement was terminated. Now, if we wish to continue, and get some return on the money and effort we already sank in, we need a kickstarter."

It wouldn't be the first time a blown deadline made business agreements go south.

 

[wedgeski]

Good luck to the team at Trapdoor, but really, the 5E connection was to my mind the only USP. I hope they find something cool on which to pin a new KickStarter, but pushing a new product into a sea of already-pretty-good, community-backed RPG tools is going to be a tough sell. They must be chewing on the desks at letting a chance to be THE 5E digital tools people slip through their fingers, no matter how hard WotC were to satisfy.

 

[lkj]

I truly hope my post wasn't an inadvertent addition to apparent nastiness. I like what I've seen of the trapdoor folk and really do wish them the best. Was just expressing my disappointment that there's no news on a 5e tool. I hope it didn't come across as a slam on Trapdoor. That wasn't intended at all.

AD

 

[ExploderWizard]

Without ease of use with 5E content, they need another popular game to support and then actually say what it is. What they are producing (supposedly) are TOOLS. Tools are used for a purpose, in this case to support tabletop rpg play. The utility of tools for this purpose are heavily dependent on what system(s) is supported. If the tool doesn't save you time and effort it is of little use.

So being vague with respect to what games the tools will support is not the best way to generate support. Support will come from the devoted fans of whatever system the tools are for. A generic tool, much like systemless generic adventure content, will not get much support.

So if the trapdoor folks have a system to support, getting the word out about it sooner rather than later would be to their benefit.

 

[iwarrior-poet]

Well... All I can say is that after 15+ years of waiting for a good, comprehensive digital game aide with full WoTC backing and data access (Forgotten Realms), I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed. Although I wish Trapdoor well---I cannot help but also feel angry at them. They promised a product they did not produce---and that is unacceptable. Certainly some of my frustration is held-over from E-Tools/CMP, and the deeply flawed implementation of 4e digital tools---but that does not change the fact that WoTC and its partner(s) have blown it again. I would have been ready to put serious $$$ into a good, official iOS game aide. And I am willing to bet that such an aide would have been VERY appealing to tween/teen potential players. WotC has shot itself in the foot, yet again. I won't buy into this edition or any other unless it is accompanied by a great digital aide.