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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 7710405" data-attributes="member: 6704184">Unless they have a way of stopping folks from using the "create x" feature to effectively copy and paste phb options into the program, I rather doubt it. I really liked the 4e VTT. I feel like they could have dominated the VTT market if they'd found someone to finish it and make it compatible with other systems. At this point, I don't use a VTT, because none of them are as convenient and easy as the DDI one, and I'd have to pay extra for modules to plug official DnD content into them, which I'm not all about. For me, without the full suite of integrated tools, I'd rather use a webcam and Google hangout or skype or something to play over video chat, with the DM's camera viewing the table from above. Enough that I literally never logged on during normal hours to see an empty lobby. Ie, I always found a group or players. Sometimes I would play with a group for a few hours just to test out a new character idea I'd just built in the CB, or gather players to play a 2 hour adventure to test out some concepts for an adventure I was going to run later for my regular group. I'm lucky enough that a VTT is, for me, purely a bonus, so it doesn't hurt my game to not have it, but I completely get CT's desire to return to the integrated simplicity and convenience of the 4e tools, and disappointment that to get the full set of features and services with the 5e tools, he has to use multiple suites of tools. I mean, seriously, if I'm paying for Beyond, I'm sure as hell not going to also pay for roll20 or Fantasy Grounds, and none of the free VTTs, IMO, are worth the time investment to master the use of. Especially since the main appeal to me, is to import from a CB and encounter builder, rather than having to input the info manually, or track it outside the VTT. I get why wotc is going this way, but I would rather they buyout fantasy grounds or something, or get FG to integrate with Curse's tools so that users can pay a subscription that covers both, buy content packs once, and import/export seamlessly between the vtt, character builder, and encounter builder tools, all connected to a virtual lobby that is tied to the official community service(s) for the game. For me, at least, a VTT by itself, without any of that, or even without most of that, just isn't worth any money, ever. about dev costs and subscriptions: When the 5e playtest was fairly new, and the last final decline of DDI subs hadn't happened yet, DDI had around 80k subscribers. Even if we assume most 5e users won't sub, there are enough that it should be fairly easy to get around that number. At 10$/mo, that's 800k a month. 9.6 million a year. Even if they make the baseline 10$, and let you do a year sub for less per month, I doubt Beyond subs will be as low as DDI subs were in the early days of the Next playtest, so this should be a very profitable venture. As long as they don't screw it up somehow. What I'd like to see is something like how Dungeons and Dragons Online works. You can sub for 15$/mo, getting access to all content and most of the major account upgrades, plus some free turbine points. Or you can purchase specific content and account upgrades individually, and there are often sales and bundles, and if you play for free, it's still a pretty full featured game, you just don't get all races and classes, but there is plenty of content for months of free play, and the upgrades that don't come free aren't particularly necessary. the equivalent here would be 10/mo for all content, and all features, then a la carte purchasing of content packs and account feature upgrades, and finally a free version that works fine, and has the important features built in.Edit: oh, and DDO has a yearly sub that works out to like 10$/mo, rather than the normal 15. I'd like to see something like that. DDI had the same deal, IIRC.</blockquote>

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