[UPDATED] CODENAME: MORNINGSTAR: Watch the UI Overview

Trapdoor Technologies, who are running the Codename: Morningstar Kickstarter for the electronic tools suite (launching with Pathfinder) has created a short User Interface Overview. This 2-minute silent video quickly shows you some of the functionality in the product, including character generation, party messaging, adventure browsing, product shelf, store, dice roller, and adventure creation and publishing.

The full Kickstarter is here. It has currently raised $19,000 of its $425,000 goal.

The below video has been updated with a new one which contains a soundtrack.

[video=youtube;QwHmy-J6l-0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwHmy-J6l-0&feature=youtu.be[/video]
​

 

[iwarrior-poet]

Does that matter, though? You don't need to fully understand the production costs of a product to buy it. Surely the evaluation is whether or not the pledge level is worth the reward to you? Heck, I don't care if they factoring in a bonus holiday in Hawaii as long as the cost-reward ration works for me!

I am not about to disagree with you, Morrus. You and EN World have opened up the door for me to enjoy gaming again after a long hiatus. If you are behind these guys---that is good enough for me. I will head over to their kickstarter, give a pledge, and hope for the best.

 

[Dausuul]

What this fails to take into account is that Trapdoor, according to their blog posts, had a release-ready iOS app waiting to be submitted, pending only a pricing agreement. They had a deliverable product, but couldn't release it. Nobody seems to understand that, because all they saw was the, admittedly bad, web program.

The iOS app had been in development since at least march, and the core software (The Story Engine) for longer than that. The showed off the product at GenCon, and even at that stage, as I understand, it was far ahead of as far as the web platform ever got. They had people actually using it to play 4-hour game sessions. They showed it off to several podcasts. Virtually nothing bad was written about the project, from people who actually used it, prior to the opening of the web beta.

More likely, I think. Is that Trapdoor expected to have revenue from the iOS version by early to mid-October. When that didn't happen it caused personnel issues within trapdoor (I remember rumors of one of their developer's quitting - probably because he/she wasn't being paid), which stalled the development of the web and android platforms.

If lack of development progress was the primary reason WotC pulled the plug, I think that can be directly attributed to a lack of expected revenue from iOS sales. However, I think it's more likely that the real reason was an inability to reach an agreement on pricing.

So, you think the whole "Wizards wanted a character builder, we wanted a content management system" business really meant "Wizards wanted the software priced like a character builder, and we wanted it priced like a content management system?"

That could certainly be the case. I agree it's weird that they had an iOS app ready to go, yet it never went.

 

[Ramius613]

So, you think the whole "Wizards wanted a character builder, we wanted a content management system" business really meant "Wizards wanted the software priced like a character builder, and we wanted it priced like a content management system?"

That could certainly be the case. I agree it's weird that they had an iOS app ready to go, yet it never went.

They planned on releasing Dungeonscape in tiers, first the character builder in September, and they were mainly waiting on pricing from WotC, and approval from Apple. I think that with the revenue coming in from that, it would have allowed them to move on to the campaign module, and party module, which was slated for late Oct/ early Nov. Finally, The Forge, was scheduled for December.

IMHO, I think WotC saw the potential that this whole sweet of tools had, and could not figure out a way to capitalize on the cloud sharing of adventures, monsters created in the Forge and everything else. So instead, they just cut the ties.

 

[Adammar]

Does that matter, though? You don't need to fully understand the production costs of a product to buy it. Surely the evaluation is whether or not the pledge level is worth the reward to you? Heck, I don't care if they factoring in a bonus holiday in Hawaii as long as the cost-reward ration works for me!

Huh - Part of the reward valuation is the also valuing the risk. If I did a Kickstarter asking for 1 Million for you to save a seat on a working spaceship for a round trip to the planet of your choice, would you kick in a couple hundred bucks? The reward is easily worth that.

Here trying to Judge management deciscions from a company that appears in the best of light to have managed the management side of the product seems to matter. (Including the kickstarter - Which everyone pretty much agrees is going to fail but they have boxed themselves in by their "grand experiment" speeches about funding or taking the ball and going home.)

 

[Morrus]

Huh - Part of the reward valuation is the also valuing the risk. If I did a Kickstarter asking for 1 Million for you to save a seat on a working spaceship for a round trip to the planet of your choice, would you kick in a couple hundred bucks? The reward is easily worth that.

But that's where the beauty of Kickstarter comes in. The funding total isn't part of the risk assessment. If they don't make the total, you don't pay anything; it's risk free!

Now, other things might constitute risk in your eye, of course; but those are other things. The funding total itself, though, is designed by Kickstarter to be the risk-free part of the equation.

 

[Nylanfs]

I'm not really sure why they can't seem to put a project team together to make it happen (especially when third parties like Roll20 and PCGen have been able to manage it with less resources and capital), especially with Hasbro behind them

PCGen's resources are the volunteers time and what ever little donations the users choose to send in.

 

[Grimstaff]

Stalled at 39k?

 

[Hollow Man]

For a bit it was trending towards getting to 1/3rd of it's goal, but it's been declining lately, and now is heading towards a bit over a quarter. They need to ramp up the visibility, but it may be that there's too few new people left to pledge. I'm sure they'll get people to up their current pledges as time goes on (especially at the end), in a mad dash to try to save the project, but it's likely not going to be enough. They're simply too far away right now.

-HM

 

[trancejeremy]

Most stall out sooner rather than later, than pick up near the end. This had more initial steam than I expected, usually it's only the first 3-4 days that are robust.

But it's not a well run KS. They have only 1 update and it's 10 days in.

 

[Hollow Man]

Yeah you have to keep active on the Kickstarter page itself, Facebook, and Twitter. It's been pretty quiet the last few days, and now that they're trending towards 25% of the goal, that's not recommended. Without regularly engaging people, the public loses interest.

I still keep hoping they redo it with scaled back goals.

-HM