WOTC's possible virtual tabletop

[Hussar]

Just because you can get the books for free illegally, doesn't mean that WotC is going to throw away it's publishing sales. They make most of their money off selling books. If they were to sell $5 monthly subscriptions instead, the company would be out of business faster than you can say, "dumb idea."

I envision the virtual tabletop as simply being a system for people to play online together. It doesn't need to have rules content per se, but merely needs to be able to allow players to connect with each other and play RPGs online. If every resource had to be incorporated into the system, it would take forever to get it done. There's simply too much material coming out. And there's no business reason to do so (unless you're willing to pay $30-40 per expansion book; and I don't think too many people are). I understand why it would be nice to have everything in the system, but if you're waiting for a pipedream you'll be waiting an awefully long time...

See, the thing is, for a WOTC pay program to succeed, it would have to do more than OpenRPG already does.

OpenRPG already links to the Online SRD so that if I type "I bullrush the orc", both bullrush and orc show up as hyperlinks that I can click through to get to the SRD. If I'm going to pay 5 bucks a month, I want something that does a heck of a lot more than simply links to the SRD. After all, I ALREADY have that.

I already have a map that works with fog. For free.

I already have voice chat. For free.

I already have die rollers that autocalculate. For free.

If they want me to pay for the service, then that's what they have to compete with. A program like OpenRPG that is updated nearly monthly, very stable, and 100% free.

They don't need to put the material in a PDF. They need to have it hosted somewhere so that when I type, "Duskblade", I get the relevant link to the material.

Otherwise, if it's just a game table with voice chat, why would I pay for it?

 

[delericho]

See, the thing is, for a WOTC pay program to succeed, it would have to do more than OpenRPG already does.

Agreed 100%.

At the very least, the character creator must allow you to create any character that can be created using any book for 3.5e. I would be very surprised if this was the case, at least with the initial release.

Even better would be to have the entire text of the books available online, but I have to agree with those who have said this will never happen - concerns about piracy are well-founded.

The problem is, I don't know what they can really offer that would compete with the free software, except for the D&D logo. Except one thing...

Otherwise, if it's just a game table with voice chat, why would I pay for it?

Network externalities. If they have a wide enough subscriber base, it might be possible to place a post saying "I'm starting a game in setting X in five minutes..." (at any given time) and have a group of players assemble.

If they can offer that, even without any facilities beyond what OpenRPG offers, that I would consider it worth paying for (provided they remove the "3 games per month" limit).

Without that, no. I don't see what they'll be able to offer beyond what the free software allows.

 

[Quartz]

I've yet to game online, but I use online chat (Notes Sametime), voice conferencing, etc at work and I've found that having multiple monitors helps a lot. I have the presentation or whatever on one monitor, and Sametime and other utilities on the other.

 

[JVisgaitis]

I've never played over the net. I was really looking forward to Ghost Orb, but that fell through. If they do this right, it could be huge. This is the laundry list of what I would like to see:

• VOIP
• A large library of sound effects, music, and graphics. Even if they don't come as part of the package the ability to import my own would suffice
• Chat
• A good die roller
• Sponsored tournaments by WotC like monthly themed campaigns, one shot games, etc.
• A really good character generator that calculates skills and everything correctly. Ideally, John Cooper gets to test drive to make sure it works.
• Pay to play. Sometimes I want to play in one shot games with my friends online. I'd happily pay to play like I do at cons.
• Integration with the Living Campaigns. This would be cool.
• Virtual battlemat. I don't want Gears of War quality graphics or anything like that. It should look pretty, but it is a game of the imagination and should stay as such.
• It must work on Mac!!!!
• Access to the core rules.
• Combat tracker.

A lot of these things are probably a no brainer, but like I said, I never played online before and would love to try it out.

 

[JVisgaitis]

Does anyone have a link to the old thread that had all of the survey questions in it?

 

[Xyanthon]

Hussar,

I totally agree with what you'd be looking for in a premium virtual tabletop. I see no reason that it can't be done either. I especially like the idea of having a reference library availiable at all times. O'Reilly has Safari Bookshelf which makes all of the technical books in their library availiable online. You can even download chapters as part of the subscription. I see no reson why WotC couldn't do the same for all of their books. I also like the idea of being able to participate in tournaments and the like. As I live in Japan and frequently travel and have a growing family; having a regular gaming group is just not in the cards for the time being. However, I'd be very interested in online play (I'm going to look into OpenRPG) and would be willing to actually pay if the service had valuable freatures that I couldn't get elsewhere for free (such as access to all game books online).