Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dire Bare" data-source="post: 7660934" data-attributes="member: 18182">You keep saying WotC has no clear intentions of producing D&D tools, and yet you are still wrong. They haven't said anything like, "Q3 of 2015 is the release of the new supercool virtual tabletop. Really, we mean it this time!" But to take the lack of that sort of announcement as WotC having no clear plans is ridiculous. They haven't shared their plans with YOU, but why should they? If their plans change, you will complain about that! (and I don't mean "you" as in Shidaku, but "you" as in the average overeager D&D fan angry with WotC for not doing what THEY feel is right IMMEDIATELY) You mention there is no competing product, as if that would be a reason for WotC to allow folks to create one by infringing on copyright. That's insane! Why would WotC want a competing product?You act as if your own knowledge of "how to make money" is clearly superior to the fools running WotC who are *just leaving money on the table*. You "question their motives"? Huh? While I feel WotC is run by humans prone to error (and they have certainly made some), I trust the folks who work there who have done market research and who have lived through past mistakes . . . I trust their experience, their skill, and their desire to grow the D&D game.I doubt we are going to convince each other of anything, but I really can't see the difference between WotC producing a D&D movie and producing D&D online tools. WotC isn't going to contact some fans working on a D&D fan movie and say, "Hey, you're infringing, but why don't we LICENSE you to make an official movie?" And WotC isn't going to contact some guy making an online character generator and say, "Hey, you're infringing, but why don't we LICENSE you to make an official D&D character generator?"WotC has struggled to produce D&D online tools since the release of 3E fifteen years ago. It's a comedy of errors at this point, although not all of the errors are of WotC's doing. But that doesn't justify third parties, fan or profit, to infringe on WotC's copyrights, and it still makes sense for WotC to police those copyrights. And when WotC does license somebody to create the next attempt at online tools (and they will, if they haven't already), they aren't going to choose somebody who doesn't understand how to properly use and respect copyright and trademarks. And then there is the quality issue. All of the D&D tools I've seen so far, are cool fan projects. But their quality is leagues away from something I would pay real money for.EDIT: Oh yeah, I just remembered . . .WotC HAS licensed character generation tools to fan groups in the past! When the 3E character generator first failed, WotC contracted with Code Monkey Publishing, the guys behind PCGen at the time. The resulting official character generator, e-Tools, created by a group of fans was AWFUL. I don't really blame Code Monkey, or even WotC, for the mess e-Tools became, but I also don't blame WotC for learning that lesson and not deciding to go down that rabbit hole again.</blockquote>

Verification