Interesting Tweet

[IronWolf]

(does the DDI VTT have a built in means of comunication - like texting or skype, or something???).

It has voice built in.

 

[havard]

I'd love to see products that were designed with multiple editions in mind. Especially if it could be done without countless pages of conversion notes. I think adventures is one type of product where this could work...

-Havard

 

[Reynard]

I'd love to see products that were designed with multiple editions in mind. Especially if it could be done without countless pages of conversion notes. I think adventures is one type of product where this could work...

-Havard

The easiest multi-edition material would be setting material, I think. You could take something like Saltmarsh from the 3.5 DMG2 and provide all the stats at the end based upon the purchasers edition of choice. You could probably pull it off as both PDF and POD.

Adventures would be similar, but not quite as easy. Different editions have different adventure and encounter design perameters. A 1st level party versus a half dozen orcs is not the same from AD&D to 3.x to 4E.

Crunch books are almost a non-starter. You might be able to pull it off with spells and/or magic items, but even those would require so much edition specific work it would hardly seem worth it. Character option type books would be right out.

All of this points to multi-edition materials servicing DMs, which would be a major change ( or more accurately, change back) for D&D.

 

[Sonny]

You're looking at it the wrong way round. WotC is sitting on the back catalog of official D&D work that only they have the rights to sell. iTunes has shown us that, if you make getting something legally cheap and convenient enough, most people will do it.

All of the pre-4E stuff WotC is sitting on is making them zero cash right now. If, on the other hand, they could produce good quality PDFs (new ones, in other words), they could turn property that makes them nothing into property that makes them money. And, the best part is, once the labor's done once, it becomes a profit center from then on.

The big concerns they'll have will be about piracy, with some arguing that it could ruin the whole enterprise, and others saying the pirates are already out there, and this would at least offer the people who want to pay a way to do it.

And as digital books grow in popularity -- and for every person who screams that they'll never use PDFs, there's a bunch more people buying all their new books in Kindle format -- that legal audience will just keep growing and growing.

Very true. At this point Wizards is doing themselves a HUGE disservice by not selling digital copies of older material again. I'm sure there is some service they can use that would deter at least basic piracy. As long as the protection is easy enough to use and it doesn't hamper the buyer, most people will be fine with it.

A good example is Steam. It's not like you can't crack a game that uses it's system. But the service is easy and ultra convenient to use and they have tons of sales which allows for impulse buying.

At this point I have over 100 games on Steam. I know a few other people with around the same amount or even (much) more games on Steam. And I'm one of those people who until 5 years ago abhorred the very Idea of their system and not having hard copies of my games. Until I actually used it. Now I get cranky if I can't get a game I want from Valve's service.

 

[delericho]

All of the pre-4E stuff WotC is sitting on is making them zero cash right now. If, on the other hand, they could produce good quality PDFs (new ones, in other words), they could turn property that makes them nothing into property that makes them money. And, the best part is, once the labor's done once, it becomes a profit center from then on.

First and Foremost, I want to be able to legally purchase older edition materials, in a downloadable electronic format, that I no longer have, never had but wanted (just hadn't gotten to them yet), and have access to them for new players coming into the game. (Yes, people can and do come into the game as new players through older editions...)

In addition to just offering PDFs of the old catalog items...

Okay, granted, they should make the PDFs available for sale again. These probably represent tiny levels of sales, but given the cost relative to the goodwill it would generate it seems an obvious thing to do.

(I don't see them making up new scans to replace existing, low-quality ones. That they so casually pulled the sales, and that they've been in no rush to bring them back suggests to me that the existing scans weren't selling much, which suggests there is little value in improving the scans.)

But beyond that?

[*]If the above happened, then I would buy a DDI sub in a New York minute if it had older edition support. WotC could offer me, and I would most definitely pay for:

- Dungeon and Dragon with occasional older edition support or included conversion info with articles.

How occasional? An article that's intended to support multiple editions will require at least three different versions (pre-3e, 3e, 4e), significantly increasing the development costs. They could also do articles for specific editions, of course, and then face complaints from the majority (4e players) about 'useless' articles. Given the problems they've recently had with just getting a full raft of 4e articles out there in the month, is this really feasible?

- Older Edition rules support on the VTT.
- Houserules support on the VTT

My understanding is that the VTT is going to be almost rules-neutral. I'm not sure if this just means there an "old edition" option that turns off the built-in rules support, though.

- Older Edition Compendiums
- Older Edtion Character Builders, Monster Builders, and Encounter Builders with Houserule capability.

These would be nice, but the old editions are different enough that they would be entirely new tools for each edition. Even the 1st Edition and 2nd Edition character builders may well have to be different tools.

If they're different tools, they're expensive to develop. Can WotC really expect 1st Edition players to sign up for their VTT in sufficient numbers to make it worthwhile? More to the point, even if they believe the players are out there in sufficient numbers, are they willing to take the risk in building these tools?

- A Character Visualizer (from the original plans for DDI)
- A 3D VTT (also from the original plans for DDI)
- Virtual Minis for the VTT (based on the minis that only WotC has copyright to)

These would all be great... but I'm not sure what they really have to do specifically with supporting old editions, though.

In addition to just offering PDFs of the old catalog items I think they could do some short run high quality updates of the larger adventure arcs. They could keep the adventures the same, but do better and larger maps. Come up with side adventures and better ways DM can link the adventures together. Imagine taking the Desert of Desolation series and adding color maps, better over all descriptions of the area, DM advice on how to handle certain rooms and NPCs. They place it all together in a hard bound book or box set print just one or 5 thousand of them and then sell it at a slightly inflated cost.

That all sounds nice... but would people buy it? You're talking about a very niche item (a deluxe adventure), sold to a niche within a niche (1st Ed D&D players), who either don't have the original version or who are willing to pay for the updated version. And then there are those who will inevitably declare that WotC ruined a classic adventure with their update.

I can see a bit more traction for a new adventure (and thus one that nobody has), but then we're back to the problems that WotC don't have experience designing for 1st Edition, they don't have a good reputation for adventures, and there are others out there doing compatible adventures.

I think that's the key problem I'm seeing with this. There are things that WotC could produce that might entice old edition players to buy... but producing those things is going to be expensive, the old edition players have shown that they don't need WotC, so are WotC really willing to take the risk?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I don't think it necessarily supports older edition play, as in you can use it for older edition play as just a basic virtual battlemat with no specific rules support. You'd have to do most of your own bookeeping, each player would need to have their character sheet, the DM would have to have copies, and most info other than visual representation of position would have to be done through some form of communication (does the DDI VTT have a built in means of comunication - like texting or skype, or something???).

thanks, it was just some mentions here in the forums seemed to imply there was menu support for different versions of D&D and I was wondering if I was going blind or what. Or at least more blind than what becoming middle ages and too much sitting in front of monitors induces.

 

[Crothian]

That all sounds nice... but would people buy it? You're talking about a very niche item (a deluxe adventure), sold to a niche within a niche (1st Ed D&D players), who either don't have the original version or who are willing to pay for the updated version. And then there are those who will inevitably declare that WotC ruined a classic adventure with their update.

Goodman Games did 1e limited runs on some of their modules and from what I've seen it was a huge success.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Goodman Games did 1e limited runs on some of their modules and from what I've seen it was a huge success.

Well, a "huge success" for Goodman is a different animal than what it would have to be for WotC.

 

[Crothian]

Well, a "huge success" for Goodman is a different animal than what it would have to be for WotC.

That doesn't matter. All the matters here is that other companies have had success with 1e products. The question was would anyone buy it and from what has happened people will.

Not that I expect Wizards to do it. But this is idle internet speculation, reality doesn't really concern us.

 

[Lordhawkins9]

Plastic Miniatures support all editions. Bring those back.