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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 6336171" data-attributes="member: 18">That doesn't seem accurate. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />The proposed VTT (which I was very interested in for playing with friends in other countries) didn't share any features unique to or originating with MMOs, nor even ones which are associated with MMOs beyond other games, and most of it's features weren't found in MMOs at all. It was basically somewhat akin to NWN in DM-run mode (the Bioware version of NWN), only with a persistent character between modules (which I believe NWN1 allowed), and turn-based, rather than real-time with pausing. It didn't have a "persistent world", or any "massive" elements.This is why I say canard - there was nothing in the proposed VTT which was "WoW-style". It was not a "WoW-style online game" on any level that I can see, and I am in no way being willfully blind or the like. On the contrary, I am straining to see similarities.I presume you were misinformed on this, and think that, perhaps, they were shooting for something akin to the current Cryptic NWN, which is most assuredly a "WoW-style online game". That was not true though.Also, if we're talking about the same thing, and I think we are, it was not cancelled for "technical and economic" reasons, unless we're talking in the most ridiculous euphemisms possible. It was cancelled because the lead developer and driving force behind it and the DDI in general killed his wife and then himself:<a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/the-murder-suicide-that-derailed-4th-edition-dungeons-dragons-online" target="_blank">http://www.examiner.com/article/the-murder-suicide-that-derailed-4th-edition-dungeons-dragons-online</a><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /> <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /> <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />That's a big part of why the DDI stuff ended up with another company entirely in 4E (5E's digital stuff is with yet a third company).Anyway, there's nothing "WoW-style" about what they were describing, unless you would, for example, describe all other VTTs as "WoW-style online games" (which would be fairly ludicrous). They hoped for a more polished, streamlined and branded experience than other VTTs, to be sure, but it was just a big fancy VTT they were aiming for.This is certainly broadly true, but has seemingly nothing to do with WoW or being "WoW-style", so I'm curious at seeing it connected to that.They didn't want it just more visually appealing, either - they wanted a more tactile experience (which again, WoW is absolutely not), and put a strong initial focus on miniatures, on cards to hold, on maps, and so on - stronger, I agree, than even 3.XE had been. There's no way the 4E tactical combat system could really work well without maps of some kind, in fact (I've seen interesting variants that avoid them, but they are rather different). "The whole game" is a very inaccurate overstatement, though. Certainly that wasn't the case, because there were no attempts to apply the same visual and tactile stuff to skills, to rituals, to skill challenges (which could have actually benefited from some success/failure counters or the like!) or anything of that sort, and frankly, that's a huge part of "the game" - often I've had 4E sessions where 90%+ of the session is those things."The whole of combat", though, I would agree with.So 4E definitely attempted to move D&D to a default of a more visual and tactile focus in combat. It wasn't the first edition to do that - 3E was and good god did I kick my little lets in the air and scream when I realized a battlemap was basically required for 3E play if a lot of abilities were going to work right, but with 4E I'd got over that, and 4E actually did a good thing here by not half-arsing it. 3.XE was in an awful middle-ground place, where TotM wasn't really viable for complicated fights, or when certain classes got involved in the mix, but the game didn't use the map enough to make the map actually fun - it was just a hurdle. Whereas 4E's abilities, terrain hazards, and general design ethos did make the map fun, and not just a hurdle.TLDR: 4E did want to make the table busier, to sell minis, maybe to sell cards (they gave up on that so fast I've never been sure if they were serious), and because they thought it appealed, I think, to a newly-recognised potential audience of people who didn't play RPGs, but did play fairly complicated boardgames. But none of that has anything to do with WoW. It has a lot more to do with Settlers of Catan.** = My experience is that they were dead right on this. I know a lot of people who will play any number of complicated Euro/German-style board games, deck-builders like Dominion and even the bloody complicated Game of Thrones boardgame (which once lead to me shouting "I WILL BREAK YOU!" at my wife - I banned myself from ever playing House Greyjoy again after that!), and most of those people had no interest in RPGs when seeing them played, and little in hearing them described (some were long-ex-RPG-players, too, and not keen to return), but when they saw D&D 4E, or even better, played it, they got it, and they engaged with it.</blockquote>

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