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

[schporto]

Most of the ideas are good. A few tweaks though.
While it would be nice to have 'searchable rules up to date with latest prints of books', I think it would be key to pick and choose which books to apply. So I don't use MIC yet, therefore the items in my campaign are still their original costs, not the new costs in MIC. If I don't click the 'include MIC' check box, use the old cost.
I'd also like an online Sage. Quicker feedback, discussions. Then again, this is something I don't think you should pay for either.
I'm probably not willing to pay a ton of cash either. My Dragon subscription was what ~$40 a year? So about $4 a month? And now I get more content, but no physical object? I'd say that's a wash. Call it $4 a month.
Of course that's contingent on it being good.
-cpd

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Contents: A combination of the existing Wizards D&D site and Dragon, plus short adventures. The one thing that would almost certain sell me on it, even way above the price below, is if they covered d20 Modern and Star Wars Saga edition (and the two d20 minis games, D&D and Star Wars) as well as D&D. Dragon-like content that touched on those games would be worth its weight in gold to me.

Services: Searchable database of all feats, monsters, PrCs, classes, races, items - everything - WotC publishes. DragOnline content linked directly off this database, much like the excellent Autocard service on Magic the Gathering's site. Ideally, the database would include pre-online back issues, but I would understand if that's too much to ask.

Pricing: $5/month or less. They have greatly reduced expenses, and equivalent services like IGN Insider are priced much lower than this despite having more applicable content (primarily in the form of videos and demos). However, for d20 Modern and Star Wars Saga content I would go as high as $8-10.

 

[Zaukrie]

Player and monster generation tools. Maps I can print in proper scale.

For any static content:

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

If I don't own the static content I pay for, but only license it, I'll opt out of this pretty much right away.

 

[Razz]

I want what everyone else here wants. I want material that used to be published in Dragon and Dungeon and I want that material to be just as good, if not better.

---I want Realms stuff, being a Realms fan
---I want Demonomicon to come back
---I want material for non-core products like Psionics, Epic, Incarnum, Tome of Magic/Battle
---I want good crunch material like feats, prestige classes, spells, psionic powers, epic spells, epic feats, and others and I want them to be thoroughly proofread, edited, and interesting
---I want good fluff material (not some of the fluff crap I've seen in, for example, Cityscape and Races of Destiny)
---I want old articles to revive like Epic Insights, Monster Mayhem, Fey Feature, Spellbook, The Mind's Eye, Portals of Faerun, Magic Books of Faerun, and other favorites of the past

 

[thedungeondelver]

I want them to, no-holds-barred, drag D&D into the abyssfuture and make it nigh-impossible to play the game without a laptop and internet connection. I want DM's to need to have some kind of pay subscription to "digitally enhanced" parts of the DUNGEON MASTERS GUIDE. I want it to be impossible for "pick up games" to be done without having the online (and I mean on-line only) DRM-protected content available. I want the game to leap forward to being 3/4ths massively multiplayer. I want advancing your character or ratcheting up your campaign a level of difficulty to be part of a "premium cost" section of the game, so you'll have to break out that Visa card (because they won't take American Express).

I want people who's first experience with D&D is this new "digitial initiative" directive to look at pen-and-paper only versions of the game in absolute bafflement when they're told that the people playing them are playing D&D.

When someone says "Poly" I want the next crop of D&D players to think "-gon", not "hedron".

 

[Zaruthustran]

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.

Hmmm... I've always been impressed with the rules knowledge of the community--it far exceeds the rules knowledge of even the designers. Take Hypersmurf, for example. He is far, far more proficient in the minutiae of D&D than the Sage.

So how about leveraging the power of the Rules forum members into something like a user-editable D&D Wiki? Not open to anyone, but something edited by guys like Hyper and overseen by a WotC overlord?

I mean, the instant a new book is released the community responds with pages upon pages of found editing errors, inconsistencies, unclear rules, and flat-out errors. Wouldn't it be great if all that content was quickly acted upon, and a whole/corrected product presented to the user base?

-z

Also: I'd like to see something like this for D&D Minis Online: http://www.poxnora.com/index.do . Ideally made by the same guys.

 

[Corinth]

I'll take "Epic Failure" for $1000, Alex.

 

[Ravellion]

Interactive adventures, based on a floorplan of a dungeon or city. Hover your mouse over a door or chest or monster icon, and a tooltip will say what and how it can be interacted with. Ie. hover over the chest and it will say: wood and steel chest (break DC 22), locked (open lock DC 25). No traps. Contains 300 sp.

This could minimise the text you'd have to scroll up and down for, hence making the DMing job more laptop friendly.
(edit: $2 per adventure, perhaps $3. edit again: downloadable, not just avaible on the page. I want to bring the adventure on a USB drive)

 

[thedungeondelver]

(edit: $2 per adventure, perhaps $3)

Per adventure? I wanna see that per hour.

 

[Ravellion]

Per adventure? I wanna see that per hour.

WotC is sure to like your thinking? Would you like to work as the Assistant Brand Manageer?