D&D 5E Dungeonscape no more?

[dd.stevenson]

This occurred to me as well. The statement is that TT and WotC would not be working *together*. It sounds a bit like WotC has decided to stop funding development, but isn't *disallowing* development. So, they need a new source of funds...

Edit: Except, stupid me, they say that it was internally funded.

I had seen that.

I'm assuming (I doubt incorrectly) that TdT missed a major launch(?) milestone, which gave WotC the chance to cancel the agreement and go with plan B. Obviously Wizards' Plan B is anybody's guess. Under what I called my "best case" scenario, Trapdoor thinks they can recoup their investment because they've been told to expect an open-ish license.

Probably I'm just building air castles though. Like as not wotc will announce tomorrow that Plan B is a cow clicker facebook app, and dungeonscape will launch quietly and then die as yet another dice roller for the iphone.

 

[SigmaOne]

I had seen that.

I'm assuming (I doubt incorrectly) that TdT missed a major launch(?) milestone, which gave WotC the chance to cancel the agreement and go with plan B. Obviously Wizards' Plan B is anybody's guess. Under what I called my "best case" scenario, Trapdoor thinks they can recoup their investment because they've been told to expect an open-ish license.

I hope this is right; they did lead with "sobering but hopeful" and made it clear they're planning to continue moving forward in some way... that means ..well, there is hope. Ultimately more openness would make more fans happy. And if TDT gets out a good and useful product, then I'll still be quite happy to pay for it. Like I said, the beta has seen serious improvement, and its still a promising project.

It's my understanding that the iOS app was much further along (months) in development than the Android and Web versions and that it was the iOS app that was waiting on final approval (I don't recall from whom approval was waiting...apple, wotc, or both). Maybe more was bitten off than could be reasonable chewed with developing for three platforms concurrently with a small team and the final product was pushed out to far.

Yeah, I had interpreted earlier statements from TDT to mean they were waiting for Apple's Play Store approval, but I might have been wrong.

 

[Osgood]

This is disappointing. I was in the iOS beta and I can say it was much closer to a finished product than the web version. I know a lot of people were very displeased by the state of the web version, so I would not be surprised if the vast difference in progress between apps was the deciding factor for WotC. The slower progress of the web version (and was there any progress on Android?) may have made them fear another PR fiasco like DDI.

Even with the most favorable outlook on the iOS version, it was still only a character builder. The DM and party tools were was intrigued me the most. Those tools may have still been a long way off... sounds more than a bit like the situation with DDI where the character builder is the only completed part of an announced suite of tools.

Unfortunately now WotC is likely starting from scratch. It will likely be months before we even hear another app is in the works... I be shocked to see anything released before Gencon 2015.

 

[SkidAce]

If I remember correctly however, Trapdoor said the focus on iOS was at the behest of WotC.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

WotC should just throw some money at the guy that did the fan-created tools for FFG's Star Wars game. Better than Hero Lab, much less anything WotC or their contractors have ever managed.

 

[Nebulous]

WotC should just throw some money at the guy that did the fan-created tools for FFG's Star Wars game. Better than Hero Lab, much less anything WotC or their contractors have ever managed.

That's how i feel about the guy who made the Brutal Doom mod for DOOM 1 and 2. He did it alone, and it was far better than any of Doom 3.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

That's how i feel about the guy who made the Brutal Doom mod for DOOM 1 and 2. He did it alone, and it was far better than any of Doom 3.

Yea, contact the guy that did masteplan for 4e, give him a team to work with and a budget...

 

[Wolfskin]

I have a hunch WotC will rehash DDI for 5e.

 

[TDarien]

If I remember correctly however, Trapdoor said the focus on iOS was at the behest of WotC.

I'm pretty sure that WotC wanted a priority on tablets in general. The decision to go with iOS first was Trapdoor's (Not that it was necessarily a bad one) because they already had iOS developers in-house.

 

[billd91]

But if WotC never releases an electronic version or an app or any such tool, are you unable to play D&D? That's more to my point. Folks who say they can't (or won't) play without electronic assistance have a flaw somewhere in their approach to D&D.

No, I don't think they do. Their approach is different from yours, but there's no flaw. Let's look at PF. There are a lot of useful apps and other electronic format tools out there from hyperlinked PDFs from Paizo, to apps on the iPad incorporating the open game info and indexing it in different ways, to character builders, to searchable websites. The convenience of being able to access all of that from a mobile computer is very high. If someone prefers to run PF rather than get into 5e because of those tools, even if they'd probably enjoy 5e, I'm not going to knock that. They've got a method of accessing the game that works well for them.