WotC is going online. What do you want the digital initiative to be?

[naturaltwenty]

What he said...but I'm betting the 9.95/month pricepoint. I'm sure Hasbro has a failed MMORPG somewhere that they still have alot of hardware/bandwidth for or hope that they've got a good VMWare farm.

(snip) I would pay up to $5/month for all this.

 

[Relique du Madde]

I want all the previously posted matwerial to remain free and I would want all the new priced material to be easily be ripped stolen and distributed for free on the internet via a vast network of gamers who believe in the OGL ideals.

 

[Zaruthustran]

These are great ideas; keep it coming!

The "menu/pay for what you use" idea is interesting. Magazines bundle a ton of content, with not all of it useful to every individual reader (someone may love OotS and First Watch, but not care for the fiction)--all at one price. Online content is able to be easily broken out by subject matter. By pricing out each component of the DI, customers are able to pay for only what they use and WotC is able to very quickly (and concretely) see what's selling and what's not--and allocate future resources accordingly.

Very interesting!

I suppose for me, I'm mainly looking for services--rules, tools, map-makers, that sort of thing. Maybe the occasional map printable as both a single-page zoomed-out view and as a 1" = 5' scale, with selectable (and positionable!) gird overlay option.

I guess the danger is that without exposure to the other items, I won't know what I'm missing. Maybe the other content has a certain amount of sample/trial content each day/month/week, which is refreshed periodically. Those who add such content to their subscription get full access to all current and previous content.

-z

 

[Festivus]

Online site features:

1. An online character generator that is up to date with current produced books, including things like magic items and buffs, all printable in a ready for tabletop form

2. A campaign vault, where exp logs, treasure tracking, player and NPC character sheets, various notes could be stored and accessible regardless of where I am.

3. Searchable rules (a la D20SRD, something I presently use at the table), including all non-SRD content and expansion books.

4. Online battlemap / Chat system (don't need voice but if they toss that in too great) that allows me to upload my own maps for play.

5. Adventure modules included with the price of admission. Probably not as many as Dungeon did but at least one a month.

6. Articles of interest (e.g. Core Beliefs, Demonomicron, etc) written by the fanbase and WoTC staff members. I guess this would be the content section, there doesn't need to be as much as Dragon but it would be nice.

7. More support for Eberron (even though I don't play it, I suspect WoTC will be pushing it)

8. An extensive combat tracking system that handles everything, including spell effects, intiative, die rollers, and the like.

As for price, if it did all that above, $20 a month for a game master, $10 a month for a player level access (no access to the DM related stuff). If it only replaced the content of the magazines, $10 a month.

 

[Zaruthustran]

I want all the previously posted matwerial to remain free and I would want all the new priced material to be easily be ripped stolen and distributed for free on the internet via a vast network of gamers who believe in the OGL ideals.

Sigh. If no one pays for content, there is zero incentive to continue to produce content.

And the OGL ideal isn't "everything should be free". It's "let's make the basic mechanics free, so that independent creators can lawfully produce content." Again, the incentive for most independent content creators is that someone will buy that content.

If you believe in the actual OGL ideal, you want to pay for content--a diverse variety of content from many many producers.

-z

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I want it downloadable and available when/if I stop my subscription. No licensing crap.

Dungeon and Dragon were delivered to my door, printed. For about 6 bucks a month. I figure I might pay half that for the duty of printing it myself. 3-5 bucks a month is the most I could see paying.

The e-tool I want most is a character generator I can tinker with. If I give fighters d12 HP, 4 skill points, I want to be able to set that up. I want to be able to put prestige classes in it, and have their abilities appear on a well formatted character sheet. If I create a race for dire flumphs, I want to import that. Fully customizable, since I've never run a game without house rules and homebrew materials.

 

[Darrell]

There had bloody better be a decent amount of Eberron content before I even think of signing up.

But for others (me, for example), that sort of content would be a major reason for me NOT to sign up.

Of course, another would be exclusively 'on-line' material to begin with, because I am only interested in purchasing tangible physical product. I can count the number of pdfs I've ever downloaded on my hands without running through all the fingers; and I only have those few because they were free. I would (and will) NEVER pay for digital content.

As for "what do I want WotC's 'Digital Initiative' to be?" In a word, GONE.

Regards,
Darrell

 

[Deset Gled]

I would expect them to correct all of the glaring contradictions in the rules supplements they currently publish (FAQ, RotG articles, differences between the SRD and most recent printings) before I ever consider paying them for access to more of it.

 

[mattcolville]

What I'd like is a full featured character editor that supports all their 3.5 supplements and allows for the creation of user data.

However, this is an extremely complicated task and I don't see any way WotC could do it without screwing it up.

 

[caudor]

Online site features:

1. An online character generator that is up to date with current produced books, including things like magic items and buffs, all printable in a ready for tabletop form

2. A campaign vault, where exp logs, treasure tracking, player and NPC character sheets, various notes could be stored and accessible regardless of where I am.

3. Searchable rules (a la D20SRD, something I presently use at the table), including all non-SRD content and expansion books.

4. Online battlemap / Chat system (don't need voice but if they toss that in too great) that allows me to upload my own maps for play.

5. Adventure modules included with the price of admission. Probably not as many as Dungeon did but at least one a month.

6. Articles of interest (e.g. Core Beliefs, Demonomicron, etc) written by the fanbase and WoTC staff members. I guess this would be the content section, there doesn't need to be as much as Dragon but it would be nice.

7. More support for Eberron (even though I don't play it, I suspect WoTC will be pushing it)

8. An extensive combat tracking system that handles everything, including spell effects, intiative, die rollers, and the like.

As for price, if it did all that above, $20 a month for a game master, $10 a month for a player level access (no access to the DM related stuff). If it only replaced the content of the magazines, $10 a month.

Rather than restate everything...I'll just say this is what I want. Even if it was just #1 & #4, that would go a long way toward impressing me. D&D has needed some tools to make play easier for a long time.