Gale Force 9 is late with all products, and there are issues with the cards. Dungeonscape is vapor ware. The two modules are good, but not great. And, imho, if you are not running the big arc, there are no other licensed adventures. How would you rate WotC and their partners so far? I would give them a C or D.
D&D 5E Licensing so far....
- Thread starter Zaukrie
- Start date
I have not ordered anything from Gale Force 9, so no comment except the whole "concentration" thing on the cards would have been a good idea they sorta dropped the ball there.
Dungeonscape is FAR from vaporware, I am in the beta and so far so good. Is it perfect, no but it is still being developed and from what I have seen the company has not once failed to deliver on a promise or date, and they are very open with the public about all that is going on. You can not ask for more when they are delivering and being this transparent in their process.
The two adventures from Goodman Games are very well done, and were updated to use Monster Manual stats as soon as that book was released, I have run both of them and thumbs up all around.
As far as Horde goes, well it is not my kind of adventure but I am playing through it and having fun despite the fact it is not a great flagship adventure path.
So no grade for Gale Force 9, Solid A for Trapdoor Tech and Dungeonscape, A+ for Goodman Games and the two adventures, and a C for Kobold Press and the Horde adventure.
WoTC gets a B+, I wish somethings would be done differently but in the end I am having fun playing and running 5e.
Dungeonscape is FAR from vaporware, I am in the beta and so far so good. Is it perfect, no but it is still being developed and from what I have seen the company has not once failed to deliver on a promise or date, and they are very open with the public about all that is going on. You can not ask for more when they are delivering and being this transparent in their process.
The two adventures from Goodman Games are very well done, and were updated to use Monster Manual stats as soon as that book was released, I have run both of them and thumbs up all around.
As far as Horde goes, well it is not my kind of adventure but I am playing through it and having fun despite the fact it is not a great flagship adventure path.
So no grade for Gale Force 9, Solid A for Trapdoor Tech and Dungeonscape, A+ for Goodman Games and the two adventures, and a C for Kobold Press and the Horde adventure.
WoTC gets a B+, I wish somethings would be done differently but in the end I am having fun playing and running 5e.
Dungeonscape is buggy at the moment and not even a true alpha (it is not feature complete). I would have hoped that the cards would be out by now, I don't know much about the minis but what I have seen does not interest me. The first module is OK but a little too much railroading IMHO.
So for D&D 5e itself I would give an A+ while the partners would get the following
Dungeonscape: D
Gale Force 9: C-
Kobold Press: C+
So for D&D 5e itself I would give an A+ while the partners would get the following
Dungeonscape: D
Gale Force 9: C-
Kobold Press: C+
Of course it is buggy! It is under development!
Feature complete for alpha is an old, waterfall-style concept. In the modern, agile development world, you don't wait to be feature complete before putting things in front of users.
Just the net version, and I at first was overly judgemental about the program, but took a step back and realized they are doing a great job at listening to the playtesters and they never said we would get something and not delivered. So sure it has some issues and doesn't do everything I want it do do at the moment but I am giving them a good grade based mostly on public relations.
The modern agile development system still calls an alpha an alpha*. One of their own people said it is more alpha than beta so why not call it alpha?
Perhaps the problem lies with Android playing second (or third) fiddle to iOS. But they are talking about being almost ready to deploy iOS, but I would hazard a guess that the Android version is about 1-2 months off.
At the moment the only way I find it useful is to quickly look up spells for my character. It is far easier to use a real character sheet at the table. Perhaps when they implement the printing of character sheets it will become more useful. Once they fix the crash bugs and laggy input.
*
http://learnaccessvba.com/application_development/agile_development.htm
Astrosicebear
First Post
WOTC - D&D has a very, very tumultuous relationship with digital tools.
I am excited to see how far Dungeonscape can go before either blossoming into a useful tool, or being sidelined. When 4e was announced there was a massive amount of hype over the online 4e tools. And it fizzled completely and really dejected people. Dungeonscape has proven proof of concept to me... now I wait.
I am excited to see how far Dungeonscape can go before either blossoming into a useful tool, or being sidelined. When 4e was announced there was a massive amount of hype over the online 4e tools. And it fizzled completely and really dejected people. Dungeonscape has proven proof of concept to me... now I wait.
Whizbang Dustyboots
100% that gnome
[video=youtube;G2y8Sx4B2Sk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk[/video]
I guess I have less of kind view of their public relations ever since someone complained that it felt like an alpha (not me) and a developer replied that yes it is more like an alpha and it you don't like it you can leave. Which is not the best way to handle a frustrated user. The post has since been removed.
But I don't have any ill will towards them, I want them to succeed, it is just that this is looking like WoTC's standard digital tool release. I would like them to create multiple license agreements with multiple companies and let the best tool win.
But I don't have any ill will towards them, I want them to succeed, it is just that this is looking like WoTC's standard digital tool release. I would like them to create multiple license agreements with multiple companies and let the best tool win.
Whizbang Dustyboots
100% that gnome
Android doesn't play second fiddle. Android is more difficult to support because there are so many (theoretically infinite) hardware configurations to support. Even with the two new iPhone sizes, there's still a relatively small number of configurations to worry about for iOS. It's not hard to find app developers being candid about the fact that while they produced for both platforms, just keeping the Android side up to date and bug-free quickly became too much for them to manage, as much as they might wish otherwise. (In many cases, they're Android users in their personal lives.)
An open platform is a double-edged sword.
But an open platform would also solve this: There's no shortage of D20 apps, for all platforms (I'd bet even Nokia and Windows Phone are set for them). If WotC would open up their material with a new OGL license, the marketplace would quickly create all the tools needed. Premium packages like Dungeonscape would still have an audience, but other niches would get filled very quickly, at at a variety of quality and price points.
Gargoyle
Adventurer
The best thing about 5e is that I don't feel I need Dungeonscape or spell cards or even adventure modules. The core system is very streamlined, it's easy to prepare an adventure and easy to run. But as the thread isn't about that, I'd give WotC a B regarding licensing. Horde of the DQ is far from perfect, but isn't bad, especially for a product released at the same time as the PHB. Gf9 dropped the ball a bit with spell cards imo from what I've heard. The miniatures are decent, about what I'd expect, I don't regret purchasing a few boxes. Dungeonscape seems good for an alpha, and I have to agree that it's not bad so far. I'll have to reserve judgment on it.
Whizbang Dustyboots
100% that gnome
Developers likely spent their college years learning coding, not PR. And a small team may not have a PR person to manage their forums. It's not ideal, but hardly an inexplicable scenario.
SilverfireSage
Explorer
Uh, we don't even have the DM's guide. It seems that they aren't even done making the game itself yet, so why should digital tools be out already?
Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Yeah, this. And even then, a couple months doesn't seem like a very long time to wait for digital support. Then gain, I come from a generation where you had to wait 6-8 weeks for delivery, so I guess I'm more patient than the new generation
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