Community

Eyeohn wrote:

Let the community create mini's. If they don't support fan made mini's, I doubt I will be able to stomach using the V-table top.

If they don't support fan made minis they're foolish. Someone above mentioned "The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion". I think that game owes its longevity more to the fans and fan-made content than anything else. The truth is, fans can make minis. They want to make minis. WotC doesn't have to pay fans to make minis. They just will. Granted, WotC can't really make any money on fan made minis, but they can still make money on their OWN minis if they're any good.

Allowing fans to make their own minis and tiles will greatly add to the popularity and longevity of WotC's products. Since people are already paying 10-15 dollars a month just to play, I don't think having some minis available for the public BY the public will break the bank. In fact, I think people will pay for the gaming table LONGER if this sort of thing is offered.

I, for one, am with you. If I can't control my own minis I'll find an online gaming table that can.

The microtransactions is what I hate about the new DDI model. Having official miniatures and tiles is what your subscription should cover. I mean what else does ther service offer that you cant get elsewhere for free?

Rules database?

Indexers will have similar services on the net for free.

Self Calculating Character sheets?

These also will be on the net for free (unless wizards no longer gives customers the right to print or reporduce the character sheets, but that would be a very poor business decision).

Character Visualizer?

This goes with the minis in my mind. Its like having your own official mini. I think the current subcription model covers this well. and this feature is fairly useless if you dont have any monster minis for your avatar mini to do battle with.

Dungeon and Dragon magazines.

They have been putting this stuff on the website for years for free, now you have to pay for it. Sure it costs less that buying the mags in the news stand, but in the news stand I have the option of not buying it if the material sucks. And it ought to cost a lot less than news stand prices as there are zero printing and distribution costs. In a subscription environment, you get it every month, if it sucks, thats your problem. Guess the free articles on the website will go the way of the dodo, as they will now be filling up your paid subscriptions.

Table top game app?

There are several solutions for this on the internet already that are free.

So for my 15 bucks a month I get the articles that I used to get for free on Wizards website, and several other services that I could get elsewhere for free. Im not seeing the value built into this package.

And IMO the miniatures is where they could have added that value. It would be pretty badass to have a set of ALL of the D&D minis to use in your virtual games. That is something that isnt offered elsewhere. I mean we are already coughing up 40 bucks a pop for rulebooks. We already have real D&D minis that we paid for. Now we have to buy them again to use them in a virtual able that we are paying monthly to use?

If you take the this subscription model and compare it to other online subscriptions (and im going to use MMORPGS here as it is a the favortie comparison to 4e right now by the folks who dont like 4e). It would be like me paying an online subscription for an MMO and then having to pay for the creatures I fight and the dungeons I enter on top of my monthly subscription. Do you think WoW would be so popular if you had to buy mobs to fight individually?

Dont get me wrong, I like the 4e rules ive seen and I am looking forward to playing the game. But I wont pay 10-15 additional dollars a month for a character visualizer and a bunch of other services I have been getting for free, or can get for free elsewhere. WotC needs to strongly look at the services offered in this package and compare them to what else is already out there and available for free. Either do subscription based content and give it all to us as part of a subscription or do microtransaction and let us choose piecemeal what we want. They will make more money with a subscription for sure. But to ask me to pay that subscription and then ON TOP of that price pay for the 3d image of a miniature to use with my subscription is for lack of a better word: insulting. Its like selling a Monopoly game and making people pay real money for the houses and hotels.

It would be different if it was an MMO type game based on randomly packaged minis. If that is thier goal then they should make a similar service to MTGO for consumers that are interested in buying randomly packaged minis and competing. Im sure it would be about as popular as MTGO. But dont just attack your customers wallets for extra cash just to make them be able to enjoy a service they are already paying a subscription to use.

I mean seriously, MTGO doesnt even have a subscription fee to play! It pays for itself with microtransactions. I wonder if all the players who play there would still do so if you started charging them 10-15 dollars more a month just to get the updates and strategies that you currently put on the MTG site for free, and offered them a designer to have a wizard avatar for thier mage. Im guessing that MTGO would lose a large portion of thier audience if they did that.

Microtransaction;Virtual Economy based pricing structure= sound business plan

Subscription based pricing structure= sound business plan

Subscription based pricing plan with microtransactions piled on top (for the only thing on the virtual gaming table product that sets it apart from its free competition)= Highway Robbery, that I think will ultimately keep your userbase from using (and in turn payinging for) your digital services. In other words, a very poor business plan.

I use

http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/rules/Dn … -Feats.pdf

It has the feats broken up by catagory,class,race, and by the class feature it enhances. It has a descritpion of the feats mechanics (not a direct reprint of the feat as that would violate copyright laws), and it has a a book and page reference number (or dragon magazine number and page number) so you can find the feat in your actuall books.

There indexes like this for every feature of 3.5 from prestige classes on down to magical items. And there are several different indexes up on the interwebs, from various sources. They are very grey area in my opinion. But they do exsist, and they will exsist for 4e. My group collectively owns about 2 copies of every 2nd ed- 3.5 rulebook, and the indexes are very handy.

And they dont have a subscription fee.

First off, thanks for the pleasant tone of your arguement

nice site. I knew about it already though and like you said it's not a direct reprint of the feat. And I'm sure there are some that aren't listed. What WotC is proposing is a comprehensive one stop shopping for ANY feat/rule/power/spell in a database format that utilizes dropdown menues and filters to find the feats you need/want. True sites like the one you mentioned can give you a good bit of the information but you have to spend a lot more time looking for it. I still think the rules database is going to be the selling point for a lot of people.

Aye, with the link I posted some of the feats are omitted (there is a list at the end of the table of contents) and it will be updated very slowly. But it is also a free page to visit. While I cant make a direct comparison to the rules database that Wizards will offer as I have not personally gotten a chance to sit down with it. Its not really a selling point for me as it is information I can get elsewhere (either fomr the books themselves or elsewhere on the internet for free) so its actual value to me as a consumer is drastically degraded.

Its not that it wouldnt be handy, as im sure it will be. Hell, even E-tools was handy (yes my group bought them and strruggled through that product to find some value to add to our games) in some ways. But as far as functionality, it is very similar in concept to free services that already exsist.

Also about the Game Table; while there are other virtual tabletop programs out there, this one seems more visually appealing. Yeah graphics aren't everything and they certainly aren't required for a DnD game but it's still nice to have em. The 3d aspect is what grabbed my attention and has kept it since GenCon.

I like the way the software looks, its not everything I would want in a virtual tabletop but its certainly a step in the right direction. My gripe isnt the software, its the pricing models ascociated with this portion of thier package.

This virtual table top is the star of the DDI initiative. Without this feature there is no reason for a gaming group to have more than a single subscription, if any at all, and a subscription for a product that will require further purchases on top of to work, just seems like a rip-off.I think the virtual table top product should have all of the tiles printed to date in it, and pieces for all of the traps detailed in the 4e DMG, and v-minis for every monster in the new Monster manual for 4e, at no additional cost as those are the books that the starting 4e DM will be using to make his dungeons with the v-table.

As far as adding new content I think subscribers to the service should get occasional v-table only e-adventures using the tiles and monsters from the core books at no additional cost. This could add value to the Dungeon and Dragon virtual subscriptions. Getting a few new tiles and or minis each month corresponding with the release of those magazines is chock full of win.

When you buy a new printed book you should be able to get some tiles and minis to use the content from the book on the virtual table. I know Wizards said they were not going to do unlockable content with the rules database, but this is an entirely different application of the concept, and it would add value to both the DDI subscripion AND the purchase of the printed material. Everyone wins

Now that being said, if WotC wanted to sell prestige e-content like big adventures, or really cool encounters, or unique mobs not appearing in printed material on top of that, and give us an option to buy that virtual table content additionally. I dont have an issue with that. But having to come out of pocket from the rip just to be able to functionally use something im paying MMO subscription prices for seems inane.

4E is supposed to be about options and telling the players yes. The only option the current v-table has is to buy everything and pay for it twice.

And yes as a whole the DDI experience could be worth a monthly subscription, but with like services available for free for most of its functions and the one thing that truely seperates it from the free services costing extra on top of the subscription. As a consumer, I have to ask myself what does my subscription fee pay for that I cant get anywhere else.

Assuming everyone in my group bought a subscription to DDI, that would be 80$ a month (assuming we all signed up for a year at a time). That money could buy 2-3 soruce books a month, or new mats, markers, printouts, miniatures, or junkfood that would all greatly add value to our gaming session.

Why should we invest that money in a service that really doesnt net us anything we couldnt get elsewhere for free? Heck, we even all have laptops and could pull of the everyone operate from the laptop kind of game. But it just wouldnt be worth it. Everytime we switched campaigns the new Dm would have to buy more minis just to be able to play. Sure we could use the tokens, but then again we could also use a free services tokens, or our actual real world minis and keep our 80 bucks.

Hobbys cost money, and im willing to spend my money on valueable additions to any hobby I have. But I will take the cheapest and most effective option, unless a particular service has a selling point that is strong or unique. DDI's strong and unique aspect is the v-table fully loaded with actuall D&D minis. Which you dont get for the subscription price. Which leaves the service looking pretty shabby.