I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I daresay, if the log-in system is borked, it could bork the entire endeavor.
If I can't have all my players play for free, it's not worth it.
I'd be confident that WotC is aware of this, though.
VT/CB/AT integration coming soon to beta testers
- Thread starter mudbunny
- Start date
I daresay, if the log-in system is borked, it could bork the entire endeavor.
If I can't have all my players play for free, it's not worth it.
I'd be confident that WotC is aware of this, though.
Mithreinmaethor
First Post
I would be surprised if the VT will be free to use.
Bagpuss
Legend
It would probably be the most sensible root to get a large player base. Then you charge for the integration with the other tools to make playing and running easier.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I would expect it to be included in my DDI subscription (ie: one subscriber can host their group).
Because if it's going to require 6 DDI subscriptions to get a basic D&D party up and running, that's a paywall I don't think I'll be willing to jump for anything short of an exemplary, amazing, jaw-dropping way to play D&D online.
From what I've heard, the VT is fine, even nice. Which is good. But it's hard to see that competing with something like MapTool if they're going to make everyone shell out $10/month to play D&D.
But we'll see. They haven't said anything one way or the other yet, and while I wouldn't put it past WotC to stick a paywall up for everyone, I do think the smarter brains over there realize how that will mostly just shoot themselves in the foot. They need a player base first and foremost. As-cheap-as-possible is the way to do that.
abyssaldeath
First Post
1: Many, if not most, of the beta testers are in fact insiders.
2: Given that the offline version is "broken" the online version is bound to be broken as well. Wouldn't it be smart to test it out with a small subset of your customers and test it before rolling it out to everyone as a feature of DDI?
3: If the non-DDI beta testers get used to using the software while beta testing they are more likely to become insiders when the software goes live.
They do not seem to know at this time how they are going to market the VTT. I think the smart move is to make it free and use the integration tools to sell DDI subscriptions.
At the moment it is not as good as maptools but since it is server hosted it does not appear to have the connection issues that Maptools and the like can have,
A modest improvement in the drawing capabilities could bring it on a par with maptools. That alone would not be enough to sell it.
If the make it free then it has a better chance of adaption and would encourage people to get DDI later.
I am also pretty sure that they can datamine the stored table data on the server side for marketing purposes.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I dunno from experience (I don't have an invite) how the VT compares, but what "sells" MapTool to me is the drag-and-drop mapping. There's a 2-gig image repository of tokens and mapping images that they have distributed, and being able to plop down any old picture and use it as a map is a great feature that allows me to use things like online random mapping software and Google Image Search while drawing lines to design my dungeons.
Macros and library tokens also come in handy. I'm no coder, but the community over there does AMAZING things that help all sorts of games run very, very smoothly.
The lack of Voice doesn't phase me much, since Voxli does the job admirably and for free. No voice-changers, but those won't sell me a thing.
The pain of it is that it's a hassle to add in stats for everything. Since MT isn't run by WotC, you've gotta hand-add in everything. Now, the Compendium helps with copypasta, and I would not be surprised if a parser doesn't exist to help quickly add in things from a Character Builder file, that's certainly not one of the major focuses of the community.
It's also sort of catch-as-catch-can when arranging a group. Visiting random message boards and hoping for the best.
WotC certainly has the possibility to vastly improve on BOTH of these. Being THE website for D&D makes the community obviously interested in gaming, and being able to interface with the CB and Adventure Tools should make adding creatures and characters a simple thing.
From what I understand, the mapping isn't quite to the MapTool level at the moment, and there's no macro automation.
The two products seem like they might be competitive, that each has give and take.
What edges out MapTool at the moment is that it's free. The minor hassles are enough to deal with when the group doesn't need to invest $1 in anything extra.
WotC needs to compete with free.
The higher they make a group's entry price ($10 for the DM to have a sub? $60 for everyone to have a sub? free for anyone, but DDI for integration?), the less it will be able to compete, and the more MT's minor failings won't seem so bad, especially given the edges they have.
But, anyway, that's something for the project directors and upper management to fiddle out. That's why I've got some lingering trepidation. I trust the low-level folks at WotC fairly broadly. It's the upper-level direction that sometimes seems completely narmed to me. It's entirely possible some manager somewhere looks at a possible $60/month group buy-in, and hasn't heard of MapTool, so doesn't think that there's any real competition. That would be a mistake, I feel. But they could also be good at their job and entirely aware that they need to compete with a very solid free program.
Time will tell!
Macros and library tokens also come in handy. I'm no coder, but the community over there does AMAZING things that help all sorts of games run very, very smoothly.
The lack of Voice doesn't phase me much, since Voxli does the job admirably and for free. No voice-changers, but those won't sell me a thing.
The pain of it is that it's a hassle to add in stats for everything. Since MT isn't run by WotC, you've gotta hand-add in everything. Now, the Compendium helps with copypasta, and I would not be surprised if a parser doesn't exist to help quickly add in things from a Character Builder file, that's certainly not one of the major focuses of the community.
It's also sort of catch-as-catch-can when arranging a group. Visiting random message boards and hoping for the best.
WotC certainly has the possibility to vastly improve on BOTH of these. Being THE website for D&D makes the community obviously interested in gaming, and being able to interface with the CB and Adventure Tools should make adding creatures and characters a simple thing.
From what I understand, the mapping isn't quite to the MapTool level at the moment, and there's no macro automation.
The two products seem like they might be competitive, that each has give and take.
What edges out MapTool at the moment is that it's free. The minor hassles are enough to deal with when the group doesn't need to invest $1 in anything extra.
WotC needs to compete with free.
The higher they make a group's entry price ($10 for the DM to have a sub? $60 for everyone to have a sub? free for anyone, but DDI for integration?), the less it will be able to compete, and the more MT's minor failings won't seem so bad, especially given the edges they have.
But, anyway, that's something for the project directors and upper management to fiddle out. That's why I've got some lingering trepidation. I trust the low-level folks at WotC fairly broadly. It's the upper-level direction that sometimes seems completely narmed to me. It's entirely possible some manager somewhere looks at a possible $60/month group buy-in, and hasn't heard of MapTool, so doesn't think that there's any real competition. That would be a mistake, I feel. But they could also be good at their job and entirely aware that they need to compete with a very solid free program.
Time will tell!
samursus
Explorer
I dunno from experience (I don't have an invite) how the VT compares, but what "sells" MapTool to me is the drag-and-drop mapping. There's a 2-gig image repository of tokens and mapping images that they have distributed, and being able to plop down any old picture and use it as a map is a great feature that allows me to use things like online random mapping software and Google Image Search while drawing lines to design my dungeons.
Macros and library tokens also come in handy. I'm no coder, but the community over there does AMAZING things that help all sorts of games run very, very smoothly.
The lack of Voice doesn't phase me much, since Voxli does the job admirably and for free. No voice-changers, but those won't sell me a thing.
The pain of it is that it's a hassle to add in stats for everything. Since MT isn't run by WotC, you've gotta hand-add in everything. Now, the Compendium helps with copypasta, and I would not be surprised if a parser doesn't exist to help quickly add in things from a Character Builder file, that's certainly not one of the major focuses of the community.
It's also sort of catch-as-catch-can when arranging a group. Visiting random message boards and hoping for the best.
WotC certainly has the possibility to vastly improve on BOTH of these. Being THE website for D&D makes the community obviously interested in gaming, and being able to interface with the CB and Adventure Tools should make adding creatures and characters a simple thing.
From what I understand, the mapping isn't quite to the MapTool level at the moment, and there's no macro automation.
The two products seem like they might be competitive, that each has give and take.
What edges out MapTool at the moment is that it's free. The minor hassles are enough to deal with when the group doesn't need to invest $1 in anything extra.
WotC needs to compete with free.
The higher they make a group's entry price ($10 for the DM to have a sub? $60 for everyone to have a sub? free for anyone, but DDI for integration?), the less it will be able to compete, and the more MT's minor failings won't seem so bad, especially given the edges they have.
But, anyway, that's something for the project directors and upper management to fiddle out. That's why I've got some lingering trepidation. I trust the low-level folks at WotC fairly broadly. It's the upper-level direction that sometimes seems completely narmed to me. It's entirely possible some manager somewhere looks at a possible $60/month group buy-in, and hasn't heard of MapTool, so doesn't think that there's any real competition. That would be a mistake, I feel. But they could also be good at their job and entirely aware that they need to compete with a very solid free program.
Time will tell!
Good points. The only thing I would beg to differ on is that the existence of, and the ability/desire to use, a tool like Maptools is not very well known relative to customer base. People forget that those of us who read and post on these forums are a merely a vocal minority. I can't prove this with numbers, but it makes sense. Anecdotally, out of the dozen or so people I know who play D&D (including 2 other DM's), I am the only one who frequents these or WotC's boards.
Wizards, however, by having a big banner ad on their homepage and with further judicious use of an advertising budget could pull in MANY more players...especially with the small learning curve of the VT (I am in the beta).
I agree they have to find a perfect balance with pricing, but I posit Maptools is only competition to a lesser degree than one might think.
At this stage, our group looks around at the massive stack of books on the table and the cost associated with aquiring. then there is the cost of the single DDI subscription we have gotten by on.
I love the idea of the integrated tools, but our group already has a pretty darn good electronic solution (nay, a rockin electronic solution) which the VT has to be better than. The integration is the cheese, but frankly, if WOTC sais we have to get extra accounts, they are not going to win us over, and we will continue as we do now.
To me, what they need are DM accounts, which every group will need at least one of, which is everything (...the current DDI account) and the cut price "player" account, which gives you access to play VT (cant do maps or anything else, just join a game) and maintain a minimal stable of characters (say...3 or so). Just enough that you can join a game, at a price that wont break the bank for multiple accounts.
I love the idea of the integrated tools, but our group already has a pretty darn good electronic solution (nay, a rockin electronic solution) which the VT has to be better than. The integration is the cheese, but frankly, if WOTC sais we have to get extra accounts, they are not going to win us over, and we will continue as we do now.
To me, what they need are DM accounts, which every group will need at least one of, which is everything (...the current DDI account) and the cut price "player" account, which gives you access to play VT (cant do maps or anything else, just join a game) and maintain a minimal stable of characters (say...3 or so). Just enough that you can join a game, at a price that wont break the bank for multiple accounts.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
That's a pretty fair point. The only caveat I'd add is that if WotC is expecting to snap up a section of the audience that already comes online for gaming fun, THAT section might be spoken for if the price point is redokulous.
If WotC is expecting to bring people online for gaming fun, they can make a dynamite first impression, but after that it's only a matter of months before they find out about MapTool (or other online mapping/gametable programs), and then it BECOMES a competition. Not that the first impression can't keep a lot of people, just that if it's costing the group $60/month and not doing what the people want it to do (like with drag-and-drop map editing from non-Dungeon Tiles images), a free alternative could sound very appealing.
It might not be a tremendous deal right out of the gate, but the higher the barrier to entry, the more likely people won't do it, or will quickly migrate to an alternative once they're aware of it (and they'll quickly become aware of it if they're playing online). Even if WotC recruits brand new people to play online, the early adopters need to buy in to a certain extent (or the people they bring on will quickly migrate away).
But yeah, WotC could get a nice few months out of everyone who's never tried online D&D before trying it with the VT. Their marketing reach is certainly more than even the paid programs readily available online.
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