New Digital Games Studio announced by the president of Wizards of the Coast

Interesting. I look forward to seeing what comes of this - some thrilling ideas, no doubt, but I'm keeping myself reserved so as not to be let down should those thrilling ideas be brought into less-than-thrilling existence.

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

Jeffrey Steefel looks like a good choice to head a team


Probebly best known for his work at Turbine as Executive Producer of The Lord of the Rings Online
But also did some work on Asheron's Call 2: Legions.
He has been working in the games indutry for a long time having also worked on projects like Raymond E. Feist's Return to Krondor (1998), by Sierra On-Line

 

[slygeek]

Um, funny how nobody is commenting on a MTG MMO, that sounds pretty awesome lol.

***

Anyway, I really don't understand why we can't have a "AAA" Baldur's Gate 3. Especially considering they can just go to an established company like Bioware and have them spend the millions.

Its just a matter of convincing the right company that its a worth-while investment. D&D is the heart of releplaying, most RPG fans know that. And the Forgotten Realms has many New York Times best selling novels. This is an easy win win.

It baffles me that with such an established IP backed by Hasbro, Wizards, we still get under-performing products like Sword Coast Legends and that Morningstar app that never worked properly.

I don't get it, but seeing this announcement gives me hope.

 

[Queer Venger]

Im really liking this announcement, sounds like Cocks is really immersing into the culture of table-top and its potential in digital media. I give him props for supporting this move.

 

[Azurewraith]

Um, funny how nobody is commenting on a MTG MMO, that sounds pretty awesome lol.

***

Anyway, I really don't understand why we can't have a "AAA" Baldur's Gate 3. Especially considering they can just go to an established company like Bioware and have them spend the millions.

Its just a matter of convincing the right company that its a worth-while investment. D&D is the heart of releplaying, most RPG fans know that. And the Forgotten Realms has many New York Times best selling novels. This is an easy win win.

It baffles me that with such an established IP backed by Hasbro, Wizards, we still get under-performing products like Sword Coast Legends and that Morningstar app that never worked properly.

I don't get it, but seeing this announcement gives me hope.

I think the issue there is Hasbro are just trying to milk as much cash out of the IP as possible without having to put any effort in. This is possibly due to DnD not having a real marketable brand out side of tabletop and lets face it, were all 40yr old, overweight and balding men living in our mother's basements! Jokes aside it f
does look like an attempt at a brand is starting using the realms and its heroes so I'm hopeful the future is bright.

 

[Parmandur]

Um, funny how nobody is commenting on a MTG MMO, that sounds pretty awesome lol.

***

Anyway, I really don't understand why we can't have a "AAA" Baldur's Gate 3. Especially considering they can just go to an established company like Bioware and have them spend the millions.

Its just a matter of convincing the right company that its a worth-while investment. D&D is the heart of releplaying, most RPG fans know that. And the Forgotten Realms has many New York Times best selling novels. This is an easy win win.

It baffles me that with such an established IP backed by Hasbro, Wizards, we still get under-performing products like Sword Coast Legends and that Morningstar app that never worked properly.

I don't get it, but seeing this announcement gives me hope.

Same reason pretty much all move based games suck: any established company is going to want their own IP, like Bioware making Dragon Age once they were established. Not Hasbro, just the reality of the video game industry: the companies willing to use somebody else IP are out to prove themselves: so we end up with Sword Coast Legends.

 

[L R Ballard]

You can also very quickly create what you want in FG. The ruleset is drag and drop to build encounters so if you wanted to enter it yourself you could.

I downloaded the FG demo in 2009 before it was as robust as it is now. It looked like the direction combat tracking would take. Probably the route I'd take today.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

I downloaded the FG demo in 2009 before it was as robust as it is now. It looked like the direction combat tracking would take. Probably the route I'd take today.

The 5e ruleset has the most automation and drag and drop ability and the best character creator right now. There are more players that use it and lots of DLC so it gets more love. The other rulesets that see a fair amount of use (Pathfinder/3.5, Savage Worlds and Call of Cthulhu) also are pretty robust and a few new rulesets have come out recently, even an AD&D one (community ruleset). One big recent change is in the layout of materials - they look much more like a book when opened in a reference manual way.

What neither Fantasy Grounds nor roll20 has right now is a very robust character generator. The ability to use tables and story templates has given FG a pretty good random encounter generator and it has an ever growing amount of 3PP DLC as well, so lots of options.

If you have not seen FG in a while, here is an example of some of the things being added:

http://www.dmsguild.com/product/202734/Random-Encounter-Creator

 

[L R Ballard]

If you have not seen FG in a while, here is an example of some of the things being added:

Thanks. This thread has given me a better understanding of the digital products available. FG has developed well. I'll probably ask some questions about FG in another thread.

 

[Remathilis]

While they're at it, can they fix Dragon+ ?

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Same reason pretty much all move based games suck: any established company is going to want their own IP, like Bioware making Dragon Age once they were established. Not Hasbro, just the reality of the video game industry: the companies willing to use somebody else IP are out to prove themselves: so we end up with Sword Coast Legends.

That really depends on the IP. Even EA has no problem making Star Wars and FIFA games. If a company like say Ubisoft was looking to get into AAA CRPG market, they could do a lot worse than licensing the D&D brand. It all depends on the kind of deal that can be made, to good businessmen anything is negotiable.