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2 years ago ::
Aug 12, 2011 - 5:11AM
#31
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Date Joined:
Jan 29, 2008
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As I see it, the WOTC has one major suite of competitors in Hero Lab and D20Pro in terms of having a functional, integrated virtual table top experience. The main issue being that Hero Lab and D20Pro are both supported by single purchase long licenses versus the monthly subscription fee that WOTC desires.
I'm going to be blunt, the subscription based model fails utterly for the VTT for a variety of reasons. First off, as an entry point to your product it prohibits users from playing and you need to get them playing to get their money. Second off, if you are going to charge a monthly subscription fee for a product its going to have to be better than D20pro, or at least OpenRPG and while you might get equal I doubt that VTT will be vastly superior to either. Third off, and quite bluntly, you make more money in a micro transaction level than on a subscription based because you can get more players which is what their objective seems to be.
To maximize profits, I'd start with the VTT being free and fully functional... for players. I'd let you manually enter in a character from your book, I'd even help you out by calculating some of the numbers for you. However, I'd make it far easier to import a character from the character builder. The character builder would charge a one time fee for character slots, rather being subscription based as well. Dungeon, Dragon and the rules compendium would all remain subscription based.
Then I would have a Dungeon store where you bought adventures with Dragon points. Heck, I'd even set it up that users could put adventures in there and I'd have a system that if they were downloaded enough times WOTC would review them for possible sale.
You see, the main issue with using a virtual table top is that building an adventure takes forever and is annoying. If you built an adventure that I could run in a week and offered to sell it to me for $10, I'd buy it every weekend because the hour plus I save not building an adventure is worth it to me, especially if that adventure is built with all the monsters pre done, fog of war enabled and with a reasonable deal of spit and polish.
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2 years ago ::
Aug 12, 2011 - 5:36AM
#32
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To maximize profits, I'd start with the VTT being free and fully functional... for players.
Then I would have a Dungeon store where you bought adventures with Dragon points.
Wow, so you are saying that DM's should be charged and players should not be.
This sounds more and more like the real table top each and every day...
WOTC has one major suite of competitors in Hero Lab and D20Pro in terms of having a functional, integrated virtual table top experience.
Hero Labs/D20Pro is not a fully integrated VTT. Maybe for the players, it is.
Oh wait, I think I see the trend now. You're not a DM, are you?
Reflavoring: the change of flavor without changing any mechanical part of the game, no matter how small, in order to fit the mechanics to an otherwise unsupported concept.
Retexturing: the change of flavor (with at most minor mechanical adaptations) in order to effortlessly create support for a concept without inventing anything new.
Houseruling: the change, either minor or major, of the mechanics in order to better reflect a certain aspect of the game, including adapting the rules to fit an otherwise unsupported concept.
Homebrewing: the complete invention of something new that fits within the system in order to reflect an unsupported concept.
Default module =/= Core mechanic.
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2 years ago ::
Aug 12, 2011 - 5:52AM
#33
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Date Joined:
May 12, 2009
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Maybe Agonar could link where he got this from but never the less, stating that they are working on pricing issues does SPECULATE that either the COMPONENTS of the vt will be priced separately, the USE of the vt will be priced separately, or BOTH will be priced separately to your DDI Insider account. Either way, we'll be paying for SOMETHING when the vt finally goes live.
You forgot one posssibility. That they also simply make it part of DDi at no additional cost (except a little increase on next price revision). In your speculation, they will inevitably charge. Its not necessarly the outcome of every possibility. For your link:
From the Virtual Table FAQ: wizards.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/...
Q: What is the pricing going to be on the finished product?
A: We have not finalized any pricing decisions at this time.
Yan
Montréal, Canada
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2 years ago ::
Aug 12, 2011 - 5:58AM
#34
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let's not turn this into debate at how good/bad the VTT wil. I just wanted to know what was up with it
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2 years ago ::
Aug 12, 2011 - 6:01AM
#35
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Date Joined:
Aug 18, 2003
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Problem with quotes is 8 months of forums to hunt through, and the search feature is not the best of tools here.
per WOTC_Josh We've got a few ideas for allowing non-subscribers access, and we know it's something that has been requested a few times. Nothing has been finalized yet though, so there's nothing to share.
And in response to a question about selling tokens/tiles,
3 - Pricing is still something we are debating on. As the product is not live, nor have we announced it going live any time soon, we've still got a lot of time to figure out what would be best for us, for the table, and for all of you.
And, back when they turned off passes, as per a Blog Post -
Starting on June 1st, we will be turning off the pass code requirements for regular session tables; however, pass codes will continue to be required for paid events. We have not yet decided if this is a permanent change and more information will be forthcoming regarding any final decisions.
So comments like these have led a lot of people into speculating that the VT will be relesed as part of DDi, and that there may be micro-transactions (12hr passes anyone?) in use for non-ddi members so that they can play as well. No one is really certain what these "Paid events" are going to be, or anything like that.
For all we know, the VT could be an addition to DDi at no extra charge. Tiles may be an addition at no extra charge. Dungeon Magazine adventures/maps may be included at no extra charge. Or, more memory, tiles, tokens, and like could all be 1 time fees, or additional fees added to your monthly DDI sub price.
They just aren't saying anything for sure yet. There has been a lot of "we're not ready to announce anything" posts, and a lot of speculation by the membership at large. There are options I would like to see for free, there are options I would be willing to pay for. I know what I want for free, others would be willing to pay for, and vise versa
"Five million Cybermen, easy. One Doctor? NOW you're scared!" - Rose Tyler
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2 years ago ::
Aug 12, 2011 - 6:52AM
#36
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Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2009
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Too late Rian ... sit back and enjoy the ride  Thx for the linked quote Plaguescarred ... you're a better man than me for finding it ... and true, they could just include the vt in the subcription cost, but I find this highly unlikely based on the number of hours spent developing this and tailor making it to a select audience. I truely hope I'm wrong. Thx for the quotes Agonar. You're right in say that 8 months of searching back through forum posts is difficult and cuedos to to for doing it ... with their indexing system, I prefer to rely on memory. I do believe I read somewhere that they did trial the use of credit cards deductions for an Event, where they deducted $0.00 for the trial, to ensure it worked. I'm sure they listed that this was in preparation for non-subscribers (?) to be able to play in the Events. Trialling this sort of system is paramont to charging someone for something in the vt ... but then again, my assumption 'could' be wrong ... again. I can say that should they charge for this, based on the number of uses I have got out of this (1 hr of total play time / several hours of Dm time over a 6 month period), unless something changed, I don't think I'd pay above my subscription to play on the vt.
Moderated by
ORC_Loki
on Aug 12, 2011 - 01:08PM
GMT +10 (Aussie, Aussie, Aussie ....)
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2 years ago ::
Aug 12, 2011 - 10:57AM
#37
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Too late Rian ... sit back and enjoy the ride
Thx for the linked quote Plaguescarred ... you're a better man than me for finding it ... and true, they could just include the vt in the subcription cost, but I find this highly unlikely based on the number of hours spent developing this and tailor making it to a select audience. I truely hope I'm wrong.
Thx for the quotes Agonar but unless you supply the links (not needed here), I'm afraid Jharii won't accept them. You're right in say that 8 months of searching back through forum posts is difficult and cuedos to to for doing it ... with their indexing system, I prefer to rely on memory.
I do believe I read somewhere that they did trial the use of credit cards deductions for an Event, where they deducted $0.00 for the trial, to ensure it worked. I'm sure they listed that this was in preparation for non-subscribers (?) to be able to play in the Events. Trialling this sort of system is paramont to charging someone for something in the vt ... but then again, my assumption 'could' be wrong ... again.
I can say that should they charge for this, based on the number of uses I have got out of this (1 hr of total play time / several hours of Dm time over a 6 month period), unless something changed, I don't think I'd pay above my subscription to play on the vt.
Yes but it can stop being one
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2 years ago ::
Aug 13, 2011 - 7:21AM
#38
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As I see it, the WOTC has one major suite of competitors in Hero Lab and D20Pro in terms of having a functional, integrated virtual table top experience. The main issue being that Hero Lab and D20Pro are both supported by single purchase long licenses versus the monthly subscription fee that WOTC desires.
I'm going to be blunt, the subscription based model fails utterly for the VTT for a variety of reasons. First off, as an entry point to your product it prohibits users from playing and you need to get them playing to get their money. Second off, if you are going to charge a monthly subscription fee for a product its going to have to be better than D20pro, or at least OpenRPG and while you might get equal I doubt that VTT will be vastly superior to either. Third off, and quite bluntly, you make more money in a micro transaction level than on a subscription based because you can get more players which is what their objective seems to be.
To maximize profits, I'd start with the VTT being free and fully functional... for players. I'd let you manually enter in a character from your book, I'd even help you out by calculating some of the numbers for you. However, I'd make it far easier to import a character from the character builder. The character builder would charge a one time fee for character slots, rather being subscription based as well. Dungeon, Dragon and the rules compendium would all remain subscription based.
Then I would have a Dungeon store where you bought adventures with Dragon points. Heck, I'd even set it up that users could put adventures in there and I'd have a system that if they were downloaded enough times WOTC would review them for possible sale.
You see, the main issue with using a virtual table top is that building an adventure takes forever and is annoying. If you built an adventure that I could run in a week and offered to sell it to me for $10, I'd buy it every weekend because the hour plus I save not building an adventure is worth it to me, especially if that adventure is built with all the monsters pre done, fog of war enabled and with a reasonable deal of spit and polish.
Yeah, my thoughts are along the same lines. I have players that I play with on Maptool. We would use VTT, but the other players aren't going to keep paying extra for a dubiously better VTT. Even if it was clearly somewhat superior I think I'd have trouble getting the whole group putting up money.
It seems like they have no great pricing options. If they have "basic VTT with added fees for the DM to use more tiles etc" then they're dinging their best audience, DMs. If they charge players or require everyone to have DDI then they're making it pretty tough for most groups to play together as someone won't be keen to pay to play.
Honestly I think their best bet would be to make the VTT free to play, DDI to DM. Note that this means you pretty much can have a few characters in the DM's account, but a lot of players will pay for DDI just so they can get CB and do their own characters.
They can charge for 'special events' and/or 'celebrity games' etc. They can also charge for pre-made 'premium' adventures (for instance VTT versions of published adventures). That would make them some money from the thing, allow it to be a nice added reason to get DDI, and still let pretty much any group play using the thing so it can act as a nice DDI loss leader.
I just don't see any kind of setup where Joe Player has to pay every week to play in a normal game working.
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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2 years ago ::
Aug 13, 2011 - 7:36AM
#39
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let's not turn this into debate at how good/bad the VTT wil. I just wanted to know what was up with it
There has been a lot of refinement of the VT. However, it's still a very basic VT.
You can import characters and monsters. YOu can't export charcaters back out, but honestly, I don't know why you would need to, it's not like you can level or give out magic items or anything like that. So, what you would need to export I don't know.
But you can't share adventures, because WoTC wants to make money selling adventures (Nothing wrong with that). But why would you buy adventures, when players can make them faster, and then give them out for free?
So, the VT has improved some of it's features, hasn't really added anything, and now is working on getting the pay to play aspect working. Once that happens, it will most likely move into open beta, and then be released.
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2 years ago ::
Aug 13, 2011 - 10:06AM
#40
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Forum policy states that we are not to discuss moderation. When we do perform moderation we either post an educational warn (like this one) or send an email to the address registered to the forum account.
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