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Aug 13, 2011 -- 7:21AM, AbdulAlhazred wrote:

Aug 12, 2011 -- 5:11AM, RTRimmel1 wrote:

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.

I don't see it either. Pay to play works for stuff like World of Warcraft. Outside of that it's hard to keep people paying month to month. Especially if it's bare bones in it's implementation. Hell look at what Bioware did with Neverwinter Nights near a decade ago to see what a virtual table could have been like.

Gentlemen (or ladies) ... keep the subject on course (how is the vt coming along) before 'someone' comes on and moderates you back on subject.

If you want to discuss the CB outside of it's place in/on/around the vt, then move the subject matter to a general CB thread.

As for the  reply by malcapricornis referencing Pay To Play, I can not see people paying for something that they will only get to use 'IF' the manage to get a game 'WHEN' they want to play. Online mmo's allow you to log on and play when you want to (save when they are doing maintence, etc). If I have 3 free hours now and I want to play a game of VT DnD, and there is no game, then where am I getting value for money.

I have logged on many times to get a game, but never anything runningwhen I have the time to play. 1 x 1hr play in 5 months is not what I can getting value for money. For me to get a game, I either have to log on at 2am or take the day off work as the game starts at 12 noon.

Leave it as part of the subscription and 'most' will be happy (except for those who don't have an account).

Aug 16, 2011 -- 3:50AM, frothsof wrote:

10 bucks for a module on the vt? no thanks. im already paying a subscription. that has to be the most egregious 'price point' ive ever heard

just let us go back to sharing adventures

Here, Here!!!!

Aug 16, 2011 -- 3:41PM, Agonar wrote:

Aug 16, 2011 -- 1:52AM, Lawnikky wrote:

I have logged on many times to get a game, but never anything runningwhen I have the time to play. 1 x 1hr play in 5 months is not what I can getting value for money. For me to get a game, I either have to log on at 2am or take the day off work as the game starts at 12 noon.

Leave it as part of the subscription and 'most' will be happy (except for those who don't have an account).

Yes.  this isn't an MMO.  Just as in Real Life, games do take some time and effort to set up, map out, run, etc.  I can understand how it might not have any value for you, or for those in other countries, or with weird work schedules.  Unlike an MMO, you are pretty much SOL if you don't have a compatible schedule with 3-5 other players.  MMOs you can always just log on in the small hours of the night and do some solo questing, not possible with D&D.

No where in my comment did I say that I did not value the VT, just that 1 x 1hr game is not value for money. I have run several successful games within the VT but if this is the only way I can get a game, then paying for the VT may not be worth additional to the subscription I'm already paying.

In addition, comparing my situation with others in other countries is slightly unfair to those in other countries as their situation may differ from mine. I'll leave it to others to say what their situation is.

At the very least we agree on 1 thing ... even though 'I' don't 'think' that WotC will allow it (for whatever reason, be that business, finacial, etc), one can always hope that they will bring back the shared adventure ability.

Aug 12, 2011 -- 1:15AM, Jharii wrote:

Your original post stated:

I know this would go against what WotC have in plans to gain some financial benefit out of tokens and tiles

That's a far stretch from what you are back pedalling to now, and is definitely not the same (although you somehow believe and say it is the same) as what Wizards says:

we are still working out pricing details and will announce more as we know more

Your original claim is quite specific.  What WotC has said is quite generic.  If you don't see the difference...  well, obviously you don't see the difference, otherwise you would not have said that was the same as what you had said before.

I won't discuss this any longer with you.  It's obvious that your latest stance is infinitely more generic than your first, but you claiming that it was somehow the same statement just means to me that you're more interested in not being wrong than actually discussing the topic.

I know what he is referring too. Can I draw your attention to the bolded and underlined above reply from you. Pls keep it that way so I won't get thumped by the ORC for baiting. Thank-you.