D&D General Is DnD being mothballed?

[mamba]

Honestly @mamba, and this isn’t directed at you, it’s the never ending stream of negativity. It just never, ever stops. Nothing is ever just ok. Everything has to be a mistake.

as I said, they have a huge, diverse audience, nothing they do will ever please everyone, that is simply impossible

Add to this that people that are unhappy are more likely to say something than those that like it, and you get this constant stream of complaints about everything.

Just because that exists does not mean anyone who complains about a certain topic will also complain about all others (although those people exist too).

Mine wasn’t even really a complaint, more an observation. It does not matter to me at all how WotC develops their VTT. I might care about the end result (tbd), but I do not really care how they get there.

It just gets so tiresome after a while. You’re right and I shouldn’t have pointed at you for this. You just happened to be the fifteenth caller so you won.

I get it, it can all blur together, but as I said, I am not just here to bash everything they do, I simply do not praise / defend everything they do either - and just like there are people bashing everything, there are people that do that too

Is going all in on the vtt a good idea? Dunno. Going to wait and see.

same, I have no idea how many people even want a 3d VTT. Going by Youtube D&D comments not many, but I do not trust those guys

All I am saying is that 1) if it flops, this will be the biggest monetary loss that D&D ever had, 2) it has the potential to win big, 3) I do not really know the likelihood of either.

Maybe it is enough to get those that play WotC APs, and not get the homebrewers, maybe it isn’t. I certainly see most of the uphill battle with supporting homebrewing in a way that makes it simple enough to use. Anyone can come up with a simple 2d battlemap, but 3d…

Otoh, considering the years of people crapping on WotC for vapourware promises, I’m kinda happy they are going full throttle on this. Can’t say they’re half assing this. They are diving in with both cheeks.

that they are, into what I consider relatively uncharted water… that is why I am curious about their info that led to this / what number of users constitutes a success

 

[UngainlyTitan]

that they are, into what I consider relatively uncharted water… that is why I am curious about their info that led to this / what number of users constitutes a success

Wouldn't we all love to know that. I also think that their move is high risk, though I am inclined to believe that a substantial set of their hires are to rebuild bits of D&DBeyond. It has been obvious, ever since D&DBeyond stopped putting up UA material that there was an issue with their tooling.
Their obvious move would have been to upgrade D&DBeyond and produce a map tool like the one recently issued.
I suspect that the 3D VTT is in response to something outside. I am not sure what?

 

[darjr]

Wouldn't we all love to know that. I also think that their move is high risk, though I am inclined to believe that a substantial set of their hires are to rebuild bits of D&DBeyond. It has been obvious, ever since D&DBeyond stopped putting up UA material that there was an issue with their tooling.
Their obvious move would have been to upgrade D&DBeyond and produce a map tool like the one recently issued.
I suspect that the 3D VTT is in response to something outside. I am not sure what?

The 3D VTT was started with in WotC before Hasbro/wotc acquired DnDBeyond. The vtt builders were surprised at the acquisition of DnDBeyond.

I suspect the map tool was also started at DnDBeyond before the acquisition. Though I’m not sure how long ago, I suspect it was mothballed by DnDBeyond for a while, before the acquisition too.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The 3D VTT was started with in WotC before Hasbro/wotc acquired DnDBeyond. The vtt builders were surprised at the acquisition of DnDBeyond.

I suspect the map tool was also started at DnDBeyond before the acquisition. Though I’m not sure how long ago, I suspect it was mothballed by DnDBeyond for a while, before the acquisition too.

Accepting your word for the 3DVTT starting before the formal acquisition of D&DBeyond, companies like that are not bought like a car is bought. There would have been an offer, time for D&DBeyonds's owners to consider the offer and negociate the details. Lawyers to do theri due diligence and so on. Would the 3VTT have got the go ahead before the time senior management decided to make an offer for D&DBeyond?

 

[darjr]

Accepting your word for the 3DVTT starting before the formal acquisition of D&DBeyond, companies like that are not bought like a car is bought. There would have been an offer, time for D&DBeyonds's owners to consider the offer and negociate the details. Lawyers to do theri due diligence and so on. Would the 3VTT have got the go ahead before the time senior management decided to make an offer for D&DBeyond?

No idea.

Also I have no idea bout when the VTT folks found out about the acquisition. I doubt it was the same time as the rest of us.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

No idea.

Also I have no idea bout when the VTT folks found out about the acquisition. I doubt it was the same time as the rest of us.

Fair enough, I don't know either, but I think it is close enough that senior management probably knew even if the teams did not.

 

[Nikosandros]

The 3D VTT was started with in WotC before Hasbro/wotc acquired DnDBeyond. The vtt builders were surprised at the acquisition of DnDBeyond.

I suspect the map tool was also started at DnDBeyond before the acquisition. Though I’m not sure how long ago, I suspect it was mothballed by DnDBeyond for a while, before the acquisition too.

My understanding was that the 3d VTT team is different and separated from the DDB team. Perhaps someone can confirm or deny?

 

[darjr]

My understanding was that the 3d VTT team is different and separated from the DDB team. Perhaps someone can confirm or deny?

Yea.
I didn’t mean to imply that they were. Is that not clear?

I mean how would the WotC 3D vtt team work on wotcs 3d vtt if they were part of DnDBeyond before WotC acquired it?

 

[Hussar]

If this were still 2010, I'd be all for WotC simply putting out a functional VTT. To be honest, I've always been utterly astonished that they never did. It always seemed like a missed opportunity to me. But, in any case, it's not 2010 anymore. There are already 3D VTT's on the market - Talespire for example. And it's not like Bouncyrock Entertainment is a huge studio. It's got what, a dozen or so people listed on staff?

If a dozen people can do Talespire, how sad would it look if WotC, with Hasbro money backing it, put out something that was basically just warmed over Roll20. Integrated with DDB, sure, but, still, just a standard, 2D map tool that isn't all that terribly different from OpenRPG from 2002?

I understand where people are coming from, but, I wonder if people are looking at this as if VTT's are a new thing. I mean, I've been using VTT's since 2002. I've got a pretty decent sense of what a 2D VTT can do and what it's limitations are. I've used a lot of them. Most of them are not terribly different really. You've got a chat window, maybe (now) voice and video support, a die roller and some sort of browser that can share images. This is all pretty bog standard for a VTT.

If WotC actually wants to stand out from the crowd, they can't just rehash what's already there. Why would someone choose the WotC VTT if Fantasy Grounds, or Roll20, is right there, fully integrated already, with a HUGE library of add ons and options? Integration with DDB is a lot less important when you can buy the books on Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds already.

While I get that this is an enormous investment, I think that WotC is looking over at the Magic side of things and realizing that virtual play might be a great way to break free of the bottleneck of finding a DM in your area to play with.

Or, to put it another way, what's the point of investing in something just to be "as good as" everyone else?

 

[Nikosandros]

Yea.
I didn’t mean to imply that they were. Is that not clear?

I mean how would the WotC 3D vtt team work on wotcs 3d vtt if they were part of DnDBeyond before WotC acquired it?

I'm sorry, I was actually agreeing with you, but I didn't write clearly...