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3 years ago ::
Nov 18, 2010 - 12:06PM
#51
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Date Joined:
May 11, 2004
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I half expected to go to the announcement and find that I had been Rickrolled.
Nice to get some good news for a change.
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3 years ago ::
Nov 18, 2010 - 12:07PM
#52
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- Dragon Slayer
- If only he would apply himself
- Dammit Jim, this is Star Trek, not D&D!
Date Joined:
Jan 31, 2006
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It would be cool if someone would start a proactive thread of functionality desired for the VT. I started one for the MB, but I don't have the time to do that for the VT. Any volunteers?
Follow my blog and Twitter feed with Dark Sun campaign design and DM tips! Dark Sun's Ashes of Athas Campaign is now available for home play (PM me with your e-mail to order the campaign adventures).
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3 years ago ::
Nov 18, 2010 - 12:07PM
#53
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Date Joined:
Oct 12, 2010
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I would be a lot more confident if the answer had been "we are going to try and have integrated tools, but it's not quite working yet."
Honestly, given that this thing is looking at closed beta, and given that the CB came out 2 days ago, and the MB is still in production, these all had to be in developement at the same time. With a little planningand communication, they could have all been set for integration at the moment. Maybe they are, and nobody wants to say anything in case something breaks. I don't know. However, it is starting to sound to me like maybe there are some major intra and inter departmental communication problems at WOTC.
That being said, I am glad they seem to have learned their lesson from the CB, and decided to run a beta test. I hope to see a somewhat polished and great product come out of it. We'll see.
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3 years ago ::
Nov 18, 2010 - 12:16PM
#54
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Date Joined:
Jun 13, 2008
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This will be interesting to see, and I hope it works out. I have a few distant friends I'd love to get a regular game with. Next: WotC kills tabletop D&D by making online virtual version DOOM. 
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3 years ago ::
Nov 18, 2010 - 12:16PM
#55
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Date Joined:
May 22, 2009
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If you aren't going to have feature parity with third party apps, many of which are developed by a single person with no direct access to your backend having to scrape with homebrew software, then don't bother releasing.
(Specifically, if I have to type "I'm making a melee basic attack" and then choose the appropriate dice and modifiers instead of clicking a "Melee Basic Attack" command that does it automatically for me, you're wasting your time.)
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3 years ago ::
Nov 18, 2010 - 12:28PM
#56
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Thanks for the announcement. ^_^ I'll be looking forward to checking it out.
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3 years ago ::
Nov 18, 2010 - 12:43PM
#57
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Date Joined:
Jun 25, 2008
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No integration? Oh my... hahah. Even in MapTool you can COPY AND PASTE a statblock for a monster, click ok and boom, you have a fully fleshed out monster with buttons for all their attacks. WotC is seriously on the biggest fail train ever. They should have thrown money at the people working on MapTool.
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3 years ago ::
Nov 18, 2010 - 12:48PM
#58
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Date Joined:
Jan 29, 2005
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I have Fantasygrounds2, which with the current 4e ruleset, blows every other VTT out of the water right now. It basically does all of the bookkeeping for you. That being said, this VT looks good. In any case, I have a wonderful VTT right now, so this part of DDi hasn't really been a big deal to me. However, due to the large number of DDI subscribers, I suspect that finding a group will be a lot easier with it.
Hopefully, they'll integrate some type of looking for game options with it.
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3 years ago ::
Nov 18, 2010 - 12:48PM
#59
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Date Joined:
Jan 29, 2005
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No integration? Oh my... hahah. Even in MapTool you can COPY AND PASTE a statblock for a monster, click ok and boom, you have a fully fleshed out monster with buttons for all their attacks. WotC is seriously on the biggest fail train ever. They should have thrown money at the people working on MapTool.
It isn't even in closed beta yet. Relax. It says there's no integration right now.
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3 years ago ::
Nov 18, 2010 - 12:49PM
#60
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Date Joined:
Jun 25, 2008
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I have Fantasygrounds2, which with the current 4e ruleset, blows every other VTT out of the water right now. It basically does all of the bookkeeping for you. That being said, this VT looks good. In any case, I have a wonderful VTT right now, so this part of DDi hasn't really been a big deal to me. However, due to the large number of DDI subscribers, I suspect that finding a group will be a lot easier with it.
Hopefully, they'll integrate some type of looking for game options with it.
MapTool does it better and you get your choice of 4e rulesets.
And integration should have been their #1 priority before announcing this. As one of several people that have painstakingly written frameworks for their D&D games to be used in MapTool, I know just how much work is involved in scripting the D&D rules into a usable format. It's a real pain in the ass and if you don't plans things out properly from the very, very beginning, it'll be a clusterfrock later. Integration of the three tools (VT, MB, and CB) should have been done already.
Here's the reason why... and it's an old maxim... measure twice, cut once. IN other words, plan and plan again and then code once. The CB and MB datafiles should be in an easy to import format for the VT, that then regex parses through it and sticks that data into neat and tidy variables for the tabletop user to have access to.
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