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<blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 8672412" data-attributes="member: 5948"><p>Yeah, the Quora thing above is pretty clearly written from an anti-4e point of view. I mean, I didn't like 4e either, but stuff like this, I mean really...</p><p></p><p></p><p>It's pretty commonly known these days that due to instructions from on high from Hasbro, D&D had to find a way to become a $50m business if it were to continue to be supported as an active and significant product line. Otherwise it'd likely have been shelved completely and all the IP sat on forever, or maybe shuffled off into some low-budget bureaucratic backwater in the strata of the company where one contractor would be brought on every 5 years to pump out a new edition of the 3 core books (betcha today's Hasbro is glad they dodged THAT bullet...). It wasn't a matter of 'bwhahahaaaa lets ruin D&D for the filthy lucre!,' it was a matter of 'ok, if we can use a lot of ONLINE buzzwords and convince head office that we can somehow tap into the vast amounts of nerd money floating around in the MMORPG market, we might actually be able to convince Hasbro to keep the D&D lights on'</p><p></p><p>So the concept of the VTT integration was built into 4e's business case from its very earliest days. There's been occasional comments from designers etc about how it was intended to be easily computerisable (and I honestly believe them) given the enormity of the shift from the wild and wooly 3e spell lists with all sorts of DM adjudication required for any number of spells with lasting or environmental effects to 4e very strictly codified and limited power list, just to give one example. But to me it looks like inside WotC, once they'd gotten the go-ahead from Hasbro, the tabletop game got all the attention and the VTT languished as kind of an afterthought. Who knows, maybe it'd served its intended purpose by getting D&D funded and WotC never reeeaaally took it all that seriously in their heart of hearts? I mean, if the above quote is anything like accurate they handed the whole project over to one new hire who'd have hardly been out of his probation period, and then utterly failed to manage him properly. The crimes that derailed the VTT project were mid 2008 after all, roughly the same time as the 4e core books came out. The VTT should have almost been release-ready at this time (or maybe within 6 months, I'm in software dev, I know ALL about delivery delays...) but it was so far off complete that it was easier to scrap the whole thing than finish it.</p><p></p><p>But a VTT is not the same as an MMO. 4e definitely borrowed a load of MMO concepts and ideas (I mean, World of Warcraft was the most popular fantasy game in the history of ever, in any media, at the time - why WOULDN'T you borrow ideas from them?), but I don't think creating an MMO was never the intention.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="humble minion, post: 8672412, member: 5948"] Yeah, the Quora thing above is pretty clearly written from an anti-4e point of view. I mean, I didn't like 4e either, but stuff like this, I mean really... It's pretty commonly known these days that due to instructions from on high from Hasbro, D&D had to find a way to become a $50m business if it were to continue to be supported as an active and significant product line. Otherwise it'd likely have been shelved completely and all the IP sat on forever, or maybe shuffled off into some low-budget bureaucratic backwater in the strata of the company where one contractor would be brought on every 5 years to pump out a new edition of the 3 core books (betcha today's Hasbro is glad they dodged THAT bullet...). It wasn't a matter of 'bwhahahaaaa lets ruin D&D for the filthy lucre!,' it was a matter of 'ok, if we can use a lot of ONLINE buzzwords and convince head office that we can somehow tap into the vast amounts of nerd money floating around in the MMORPG market, we might actually be able to convince Hasbro to keep the D&D lights on' So the concept of the VTT integration was built into 4e's business case from its very earliest days. There's been occasional comments from designers etc about how it was intended to be easily computerisable (and I honestly believe them) given the enormity of the shift from the wild and wooly 3e spell lists with all sorts of DM adjudication required for any number of spells with lasting or environmental effects to 4e very strictly codified and limited power list, just to give one example. But to me it looks like inside WotC, once they'd gotten the go-ahead from Hasbro, the tabletop game got all the attention and the VTT languished as kind of an afterthought. Who knows, maybe it'd served its intended purpose by getting D&D funded and WotC never reeeaaally took it all that seriously in their heart of hearts? I mean, if the above quote is anything like accurate they handed the whole project over to one new hire who'd have hardly been out of his probation period, and then utterly failed to manage him properly. The crimes that derailed the VTT project were mid 2008 after all, roughly the same time as the 4e core books came out. The VTT should have almost been release-ready at this time (or maybe within 6 months, I'm in software dev, I know ALL about delivery delays...) but it was so far off complete that it was easier to scrap the whole thing than finish it. But a VTT is not the same as an MMO. 4e definitely borrowed a load of MMO concepts and ideas (I mean, World of Warcraft was the most popular fantasy game in the history of ever, in any media, at the time - why WOULDN'T you borrow ideas from them?), but I don't think creating an MMO was never the intention. [/QUOTE]
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