WotC's Electronic Thingy

[mattcolville]

I now do most of my work online using google, so the notion of having my campaign data online doesn't bother me one whit. I know other people feel differently, I'm not trying to negate that.

I'd pay quite a bit to have an electronic solution for the D&D Ruleset. By which I mean; I buy the E-support, I get to make characters and edit them and advance them and enter my own house stuff on the web and save it and access it from any computer. I'd pay...a tidy sum for that.

As it is, I have about 40 books and there's simply no way I can gain the benefit of even half of them in a given prep session, without spending about 6 hours on a handful of characters many of whom will die soon after being met.

 

[EricNoah]

D&D does have an interesting "information flow" problem that could be solved nicely by an interlinked set of electronic rules, number-crunching utilities, databases, and all that.

And yet they also want to sell paper books.

I am not convinced they can do a good job with the former. They seem to do a decent job with the later.

 

[Nightfall]

Eric,

That makes two of us.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I have less than a zero interest (i.e. actively oppose) online character tools.

Put me down for "zero interest," but not "actively opposed." I don't even have that much concern...

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'm expecting it to cost a hell of a lot more than $5 a month. I'd be surprised if it were less than $10 and I'm expecting more like $15. With Dungeon and Dragon axed, if they're planning to fill that content void I'm betting they think they can get away with charging around the price of Dungeon and Dragon mags combined. Remember, this is the company that still charges a full $40 for pdfs of books you can get hard copies of for $27 from Amazon.

With no updates or errata! That's the part that makes me laugh. I mean seriously, if you want to charge a premium price to discourage use and keep pepople buying hardcopies, okay, but at least have some sense and update the books in a timely fashion with the errata provided to you for FREE by John Cooper eh?

 

[KB9JMQ]

Is this wonderful end all be all Digital Initiative supposed to start when the magazines stop?
If so how?
WoTC isn't able to keep their website running smoothly and I am suppose to believe they can sell me tons of online content and keep track of and manage characters online?

MasterTools: The Electronic Support that keeps on sucking.

Thank the gods for Heroforge.

 

[GreatLemur]

Honestly, I've been thinking for a while that they needed to do something like this.

Ideally, I'd like them to see online versions of every hardcover they produce . . . which, of course, you only get access to if you buy the actual book. Then all the books in your account can be collated together so you've got one list of classes, one list of feats, one list of spells, etc. And it should all be interlinked as conveniently as the information on d20SRD.org.

But, failing that, I sure would love to have online character tools that raised-on-World-of-Warcraft newbs can use to create PCs quickly and easily. DMs could create databases of NPCs in a unified format, and either print 'em out or take their laptops to the gaming table (hell, don't they do that already?).

I have less than a zero interest (i.e. actively oppose) online character tools. I want my gaming software on my PC so I can mod the snot out of it and distribute the mods to my group. I'm not talking about distributing closed IP. I mean my own house rules. I don't think I've ever, in all my years and years of gaming, played fully RAW.

I can't say this isn't a good point. I'll be extremely annoyed if these tools are hostile to house rules and third party content. I'm hoping for a really wiki-like approach where we can each edit our own copies of the rules. The hackability of d20 is one of the best things it has going for it, right after the giant load of existing modular content. The WotC's online resources don't support that, they're kinda shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[Nightfall]

KB,

Yeah if they actually had TRUE IT people working it AND better stuff to keep it up and running...well it would improve my opinion. So far, I don't see it.

 

[Delta]

This is a "core competency" issue for Wizards/Hasbro. They cannot do both (paper & digital gaming) successfully. Trying to find a middle ground will get them the worst of both worlds.

 

[Nightfall]

Delta,

No they just can't do electronic well since they haven't got the right guys in place. The management of WotC needs to change and I think we'll see that thanks to "New Coke."