Sooo, that's my players certain not to be subscribing to DDI...

[broghammerj]

$140 a year ADDITIONAL to other entertainment expenses, just to play D&D across the net with your buddies once a month, isn't going to appeal to many players.

No you are forgetting something....To play with my buddies is going to cost 140 x5= $700 for the group. Thats a lot of sourcebooks, beer, pizza, minis, and dice, for the collective.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Also, I am stunned by the number of posters who talk about how $120 is too much for them to spend. Maybe you need less time posting and more time getting a better job. If you live in the USA and can't toss out $120 for your fun, then there's a career problem happening.

Considering how little you know about 99.9% of the people who post here, I'm stunned that you feel that a blanket generalisation like this is in any way helpful or appropriate.

You may be fortunate in having that $120 spare; please do others the courtesy of accepting that people know their own situation.

Thanks.

 

[Beckett]

No you are forgetting something....To play with my buddies is going to cost 140 x5= $700 for the group. Thats a lot of sourcebooks, beer, pizza, minis, and dice, for the collective.

Cheaper than plane tickets, though. I don't plan on using the virtual tabletop to play with my regular gaming group. But, I've been talking with some online friends about doing a game. With one in Texas, another in Chicago, and a third in New Jersey, $120 each is pretty cheap to connect us.

 

[Gort]

Of my group, I am the player who is most "into" D&D. Thus, I end up GMing most of the time, due to my enthusiasm. But even I can't see this being worth any money at all. The interactive game board thing has an open source equivalent which is free, it's not like the community won't do the same for character generators within a few months of 4e being released, I never bothered with Dungeon or Dragon because all the rules in them tended to be unbalanced and unplaytested, and splatbooks tended to be so narrowly focused as to be almost worthless.

I do all my gaming for free (hooray for cardboard standup miniatures), bar the big three books (and a copy of Libris Mortis I picked up for some reason) and WotC really haven't given me a decent reason to change.

That's just my opinion - you may love the mags and splatbooks, in which case I'd say sign up for a month a year, grab all the content and wait another year. The content is the only bit that's worth it, as the gameboard is nothing we haven't seen before besides being ugly and 3d, and the "pay us extra for virtual miniatures" thing is such a blatant money-grab it repulses me.

 

[delericho]

I have no problem with the prices. Although my preferred option would be some sort of month to month rolling subscription, like Paizo offer with Pathfinder. I don't like having to renew. (Of course, it would need to be priced at the 12-month price point; a 12-month minimum lock-in would be fine.)

I also don't have a problem with that being per person. For me, the DI is not really about getting together with my group to play online. It's more about being able to play online whenever I want, almost certainly as an addition to my regular game (and with the added advantage that I might actually get to play once in a while). So that's fine, too.

I have three big concerns with the DI:

1) Will it actually work? If the features aren't up to scratch, it's worthless. If the bugs are too noticable, it's worthless. Frankly, I find Neverwinter Nights 2 a pale imitation of the real thing, being either destroyed by time lag (in the internet game), or destroyed by the lack of interaction (if played solo). The virtual tabletop has to be much much better for it to be worthwhile. (To be honest, I'm happy with a 2-dimensional 'chessboard' representation of the battlemap if it makes the thing run faster. I certainly want fast high quality multi-way audio, though.)

2) Way back when, WotC talked about various limits on the use of the functionality. You could only store 10 characters, you could only use the Virtual Tabletop 3 times per month (might not have been 10 and 3). These limits have to go, or it's a no-deal. (Okay, that really shouldn't be an absolute statement. If they become 100 and 20 respectively, for example, that's as good as removing them entirely. Or, if they offer an 'unfettered' package at, say $5 per month more, that would also be fine. But the existing limits, especially on the VT, are far too tight.)

3) I'm very concerned about the quality of eDragon and eDungeon. Although I was never going to subscribe to get the magazines, I have been using them as a barometer for the health of the online venture as a whole. And what I've seen so far has been shockingly bad. Wizards now have four months to turn this around, because if things continue as they have been, I am simply not interested.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I'd like to subscribe, I really would. Given I'm living off of a research grant though, it's hard to justify. I would echo the posts asking for a piecemeal system, since I'd like to read Dungeon/Dragon issues that I think are awesome (that may not be all of them) and I'd like to get bonus content, the rules database, errata in a convenient place. I don't really think I'll use the online game table, character generator and such though, I'm too much a back-of-an-envelope player/DM. So I guess for that access, I want something more like $5/month, and PLEASE don't scale that to Europe/UK in the same way some companies scale. I can't afford £5/month. Our currency is better than that!

 

[Aeolius]

No you are forgetting something....To play with my buddies is going to cost 140 x5= $700 for the group. Thats a lot of sourcebooks, beer, pizza, minis, and dice, for the collective.

I see a lot of other VTTs, such as klooge.werks, doing well after this announcement. Paying a one-time charge of $15 per player ($30 per DM) is a lot easier to swallow.

 

[Belorin]

There will be a variety of payment options according to this;

From Xath's interview with The Rouse and Andy Collins

Question: What can you tell us about D&D Insider?

Answer: The original “.pdf with every book” plan changed. Now, WotC has the Rules Database, which is incorporated into the D&D insider. Initially the plan was that D&D insider would know what books you own, and give you access to the corresponding rules in the database. They soon determined that that plan was too complicated. In an effort to really embrace the community, they decided on a much simpler plan. D&D Insider assumes that a subscriber owns every product that WotC has published. As long as you subscribe, you’ll have complete access to everything in the rules database. WotC will still offer .pdf’s of 4e books for sale.

The D&D Insider E-commerce will have about 14 different payment options. The price of D&D insider won’t change with the edition. The prices are currently listed as:
- 1 month = $14.95/mo
- 3 months = $12.95/mo
- 12 months = $9.95/mo
With membership comes unlimited access to rules database, use of the full suite of character creation tools (with 50 save slots for character sheets and virtual miniatures). You will also receive all Dragon and Dungeon magazine content as released, and a compiled monthly .pdf. Members will also have unlimited access to the D&D virtual game table and other community features. As a limited time offer at sign up, members will get complete set of online minis and dungeon tiles. In a combination of the ‘subscription’ and ‘microtransaction’ models, individual minis and tiles will be available for separate purchase. However, you don’t need to purchase D&D minis to play. All members will have included access to the entire WotC collection of 2d tokens.

Bel

 

[Nebulous]

Ok, so this orc here, he's really a hellhound. And this halfling, he's a goblin.

I do it all the time on the tabletop. But I agree... the cost for v-minis is nothing but a tax on potential DMs. That will be one of the first things they change once they figure out nobody is going to buy them if they are too much money. If it's a couple bucks for the entire set and can use as many of each fig as I want, I don't mind that. If it's a buck or two per mini I intend to use I won't use it at all.

This potentially bothers me too. Really, $120 for a year of Dungeon/Dragon/The Table/ online resources, that's not a bad deal, especially if you're a regular gamer. Casual, not so good.

However, if the digital minis and the actual battle maps start racking up the costs...well, i don't know. The onus will be put on the DM to buy this stuff probably. I also worried about how their servers are going to handle a bumrush of ten million nerds hitting it all at once.

 

[DaveMage]

The rules database will certainly have value....in four years or so when there are 50 or so books out.

This year? Not so much....