# Status of D&D Game Table?



## Ogrork the Mighty (Jan 4, 2009)

What's the status of the D&D Game Table? I haven't seen anything in months and months. Has this crashed & burned? It's the one thing more than anything else that would get me to play 4E...


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## Shroomy (Jan 4, 2009)

Ogrork the Mighty said:


> What's the status of the D&D Game Table? I haven't seen anything in months and months. Has this crashed & burned? It's the one thing more than anything else that would get me to play 4E...




I haven't seen a recent update, but most of the DDI resouces seem to be going towards the Character Generator.  I would think that the Visualizer would be next, followed by the Game Table.


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## guivre (Jan 4, 2009)

Ogrork the Mighty said:


> What's the status of the D&D Game Table? I haven't seen anything in months and months. Has this crashed & burned? It's the one thing more than anything else that would get me to play 4E...





Simple answer: It's currently vaporware. There's a chance it could pull itself out of that classification. Whether you are optimistic or pessimistic about the chances of that probably depend largely on how much stock you put into WotC's past failures with digital products.


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## Zulithe (Jan 4, 2009)

I think it is really strange how they pimped the Game Table so much early on, and now they never talk about it. I understand they have focused efforts onto some other products... but come on... the Game Table is what people really want.

They showed off a very early version of the Game Table a full year before D&D 4e launched. Even at that very early state it looked like the progress was coming along VERY well. Most of the essentials looked in place. Sure, it was unpolished but I'd say it looked halfway to beta status. Here we are all these months later (how long? 18 months? more?) and they never say so much as a word about it. It's very discouraging.

Do what I did: buy Fantasy Grounds II.


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## Shemeska (Jan 4, 2009)

I don't believe that they're working on it at the moment anymore. Given the resources over there, they've mentioned that they're _focusing_ on one part of the DDI at a time, which I took as stating that they're only _working_ on one piece at a time. Likewise the character builder as I understand it doesn't have the code fully in place to handle updating in any major way at this point.

Given that the character builder doesn't look to be out in full till February at this point, the Game Table is still vaporware, and they've given no timetable at all for when to expect it even as a public Beta.


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## Ogrork the Mighty (Jan 4, 2009)

Zulithe said:


> I think it is really strange how they pimped the Game Table so much early on, and now they never talk about it.




Exactly. Which is why I'm thinking it's never going to happen.


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## darjr (Jan 4, 2009)

Speak for yourself. I don't need the game table, though I do want it (i'm unreasonable that way). I want the cb to get a thorough polish.

It's still listed as an upcoming feature, and since they got so far on it, if DDI is doing OK it only makes sense to finish it.

I think they've been pretty clear as to what is going on.


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## Charwoman Gene (Jan 4, 2009)

I'm actually more confident now than I was earlier, just I don't expect it before 2010.


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## Aeolius (Jan 4, 2009)

Given the prevalence of viable cross-platform virtual tabletop applications, I wonder why WotC even bothers to compete in this arena. Instead, they should throw their support behind a handful of the more successful such as maptools.


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## Wisdom Penalty (Jan 4, 2009)

Call me crazy, but I'm of the belief all those tools (Visualizer, Game Table, Character Builder, etc.) should have be released along with the new edition in some format - even an early alpha.  

If I'm a business (WotC) that has failed repeatedly in one area (digital initiatives) then I make dang sure when I next foray into such areas (DDI) I do it damned well (simultaneous release with the new edition of D&D) to comfort those folks who think I perpetually suck at such digital endeavors (e.g., Wisdom Penalty).

WP


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## Ogrork the Mighty (Jan 4, 2009)

Wisdom Penalty said:


> If I'm a business (WotC) that has failed repeatedly in one area (digital initiatives) then I make dang sure when I next foray into such areas (DDI) I do it damned well (simultaneous release with the new edition of D&D) to comfort those folks who think I perpetually suck at such digital endeavors (e.g., Wisdom Penalty).




Over the years I've gotten the impression that the people at WotC may be great fantasy game designers (i.e., creative people) but when it comes to business acumen, well, that's a whole 'nother story. I mean, all the missed deadlines? It's just sad that the mediocrity is put up with.

The video launch of 4E was downright laughable in its presentation. Reminded me of a (painfully bad) presentation we put together in high school.


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## DevoutlyApathetic (Jan 4, 2009)

Aeolius said:


> Given the prevalence of viable cross-platform virtual tabletop applications, I wonder why WotC even bothers to compete in this arena. Instead, they should throw their support behind a handful of the more successful such as maptools.




I'm still confused why they didn't simply pile money in front of Maptools and then reskin and touch up the UI.  That all could easily be done by now.


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## w_earle_wheeler (Jan 5, 2009)

Right now, WotC doesn't seem to have the resources to put into developing a game table with virtual 3-D customizable minis, 2-D terrain or any kind of minor rules implementation (such as light radius).

They seem to be in an even worse state in this regard than they were when the DDI was announced.

In my wildest dreams, a company like Blizzard would develop a virtual game table for Microsoft Surface... something you could actually use at a social gathering with people in the same space, but also with capabilities for online play.


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## Festivus (Jan 5, 2009)

Aeolius said:


> Given the prevalence of viable cross-platform virtual tabletop applications, I wonder why WotC even bothers to compete in this arena. Instead, they should throw their support behind a handful of the more successful such as maptools.




Amen.  Maptools with all the macro powers behind it are really nice.  We recently switched to it over Fantasy Grounds and find it a much better fit for 4e.


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## Glyfair (Jan 5, 2009)

guivre said:


> Whether you are optimistic or pessimistic about the chances of that probably depend largely on how much stock you put into WotC's past failures with digital products.




Honestly, besides hitting our expected deadlines, I think WotC has done a fine job with the DDI subprojects.  The early mihor "bonus tools" were fine for what they were.  The DDI Compendium went from limited usefulness to being possibly the best D&D online tool ever.  The character generator exceeded almost everyone's expectations.

Will WotC hit the mark with the game table?  Time will tell (and probably more time than the average online D&D player wants to wait).  However, if you go by the DDI track record, we will likely be pleasantly surprised.  If they revert to old form....well, it might only be used because people will subscribe for the other DDI tools (Dungeon, Dragon, Compendium, CharGen program).



w_earle_wheeler said:


> Right now, WotC doesn't seem to have the resources to put into developing a game table with virtual 3-D customizable minis, 2-D terrain or any kind of minor rules implementation (such as light radius).




Excuse me if I missed this before, but since you seem to know, how many people does WotC have working on DDI now?


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## barrowwight (Jan 5, 2009)

Glyfair said:


> Excuse me if I missed this before, but since you seem to know, how many people does WotC have working on DDI now?




I think I read that WOTC has no people working on DDI. Just one evil monkey that spends most of his time in a fat kids closet. Sad thing is, he wasn't always evil...


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## Monkey Boy (Jan 5, 2009)

They should buy Fantasy Grounds 2 or one of the other better virtual tabletops out there. They would save time and money that would be wasted on developing their own platform. 

I think there is a demand for the virtual tabletop. I'd suscribe for it.

There is money just lying on the table all they have to do is take it.


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## Monkey Boy (Jan 5, 2009)

Glyfair said:


> Honestly, besides hitting our expected deadlines, I think WotC has done a fine job with the DDI subprojects.






They missed every deadline, including the most important one, launch. Then they sacked a bunch of people pulling resources from the project. That's how it looks to me.

I don't need a compendium, I have the books. I don't need a character generator, I write up my own characters, it isn't hard. I desperately want a virtual tabletop. It will allow me to get the band back together and game with friends overseas and interstate. A Virtual tabletop would see me playing 4e. The other tools, while nice, don't let me play with friends.

Virtual tabletop > DDI tools.


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## Glyfair (Jan 5, 2009)

Monkey Boy said:


> They missed every deadline, including the most important one, launch.



Yup, that's a big flaw.  One that's pretty typical of electronic products though (especially from companies that don't focus on them).



> Then they sacked a bunch of people pulling resources from the project.




Comments I read seem to have indicated that most of the people released were not working on DDI.  Most were working on Gleemax and the Facebook project.  Correct me if there are statements to the contrary from sources with WotC contacts.



> I don't need a compendium, I have the books.



Perhaps you don't need it.  I find it incredibly useful.

I am not buying all the books (already plan on missing the Draconomicon for quite a while).  Even if I were, it's much easier referenced (especially when I need a monster for an encounter).  Plus, it has things that are in RPGA adventures (especially monsters).  



> I don't need a character generator, I write up my own characters, it isn't hard.




My hand writing is horrible, so I definitely get lots of use out of a character generator.  I also find my players who handwrite their power notes tend to miss huge bits that have them digging out books and wasting time looking things up instead of having them handy.



> I desperately want a virtual tabletop. It will allow me to get the band back together and game with friends overseas and interstate. A Virtual tabletop would see me playing 4e. The other tools, while nice, don't let me play with friends.




Eventually you will get it (I would bet by the end of the year).  

Even if you don't, why aren't you using the many 3rd party table tops?  It's not like the 4E rules are even going to be referenced in the virtual table top.  We know for a fact they won't.  Since you seem to have no interest in the other DDI bits, why bother to subscribe when you can get what you want elsewhere?


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## Asmor (Jan 6, 2009)

Monkey Boy said:


> I don't need a compendium, I have the books.




I've got the books. I've got the PDFs. I've got my own databases. Books are good for the table or reading away from the computer, PDFs are good for reading at the computer, and the compendium's good for just looking something up, not to mention the fact that it basically gives every DDI subscriber complete access to all the crunch they release without spending an extra dime.



> I don't need a character generator, I write up my own characters, it isn't hard.




Having helped all but one of my players make 10th and 11th level characters, I can not wait until I can just guide them through the character creator.



> I desperately want a virtual tabletop. It will allow me to get the band back together and game with friends overseas and interstate. A Virtual tabletop would see me playing 4e. The other tools, while nice, don't let me play with friends.




You can already do that. For free. Skype + virtual tabletop of your choice (Maptools and GameTable are popular free ones; Fantasy Grounds is a popular non-free one).

Personally, I'm looking forward to the virtual tabletop because of the community that I'm expecting to spring up around it.


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## Monkey Boy (Jan 6, 2009)

Glyfair said:


> Even if you don't, why aren't you using the many 3rd party table tops? It's not like the 4E rules are even going to be referenced in the virtual table top. We know for a fact they won't. Since you seem to have no interest in the other DDI bits, why bother to subscribe when you can get what you want elsewhere?




You are right of course. A friend interstate called up all excited about the DDI wanting to know if the tabletop was live. He was keen to get the old group back together. I told him it was vapour ware but that there were some other tools I that might do the trick. I emailed him a link. He seemed unimpressed holding out hope for an official D&D tabletop, he'd seen the demo with the torch radius and figures and was very impressed. The demo promised a lot of things existing virtual tabletops didn't. As he was our old DM he held alot of sway with getting the old gang back together. 

I need to download map tools and have a tinker. Maybe if I know what I am doing I can convince him to give it a go. If its not too resource hungry we should be able to get the expat in the group joining in.

Thanks Glyfair and Asmor, you've made me reconsider the 3rd party tabletop idea.


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## Spatula (Jan 6, 2009)

Glyfair said:


> Eventually you will get it (I would bet by the end of the year).



I wouldn't count on it, and I don't see anything to base such optimism on.  Their track record is, to-date, awful (you cite the character generator as a success - it isn't even released yet!), and the last Ampersand column makes it sound like they may be abandoning some projects.

"In very short order, the D&D Character Builder goes live... After that… well, we’re working on that. We had grand plans and we were overly ambitious in what could actually be accomplished in the time we had. We don’t want to overextend or overpromise anymore. We’re going to finish the D&D Character Builder, then take stock of where we are and what we can and should concentrate on next."


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## malraux (Jan 6, 2009)

Spatula said:


> I wouldn't count on it, and I don't see anything to base such optimism on.  Their track record is, to-date, awful (you cite the character generator as a success - it isn't even released yet!), and the last Ampersand column makes it sound like they may be abandoning some projects.
> 
> "In very short order, the D&D Character Builder goes live... After that… well, we’re working on that. We had grand plans and we were overly ambitious in what could actually be accomplished in the time we had. We don’t want to overextend or overpromise anymore. We’re going to finish the D&D Character Builder, then take stock of where we are and what we can and should concentrate on next."



I personally am skeptical that the virtual table top makes good business sense.  It doesn't synergize well with the rest of the DDI offerings (ie, the compendium works well as a portal for previously published monsters, feat, etc; the Character builder looks like it will do the same for characters).  The work done to develop a race, feat, item, etc gets used in several locations.  The character visualizer and VTT don't share in that.  At best, it might pull from work already done for the dungeon tiles and minis lines, but I'm not sure about that.

In addition, I'm not sure that the marginal dollar chasing is worth it (relative to better fleshing out of the magazines, updates to the compendium, etc or even in other DnD product lines).  The cost of DDI would have to go up if they offer the VTT (as wotc has hinted several times).  But the VTT's extra revenue will only be from people who won't use Maptools but will use an official WotC product minus the subscribers for whom the extra cost is too much.  Are there that many people who won't use maptools but would use the VTT?


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## GMforPowergamers (Jan 6, 2009)

Shemeska said:


> Given that the character builder doesn't look to be out in full till February at this point, the Game Table is still vaporware, and they've given no timetable at all for when to expect it even as a public Beta.



 what makes you say Feb...I see them on track for the Jan relase date...



barrowwight said:


> I think I read that WOTC has no people working on DDI. Just one evil monkey that spends most of his time in a fat kids closet. Sad thing is, he wasn't always evil...




man now they have an evil monkey...see that is getting better



			
				& said:
			
		

> "In very short order, the D&D Character Builder goes live... After that… well, we’re working on that. We had grand plans and we were overly ambitious in what could actually be accomplished in the time we had. We don’t want to overextend or overpromise anymore. We’re going to finish the D&D Character Builder, then take stock of where we are and what we can and should concentrate on next."



that tells me they are aware of the problmes and taking baby steps...not that they are shutting anything down.


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## Festivus (Jan 6, 2009)

malraux said:


> I personally am skeptical that the virtual table top makes good business sense. It doesn't synergize well with the rest of the DDI offerings (ie, the compendium works well as a portal for previously published monsters, feat, etc; the Character builder looks like it will do the same for characters). The work done to develop a race, feat, item, etc gets used in several locations. The character visualizer and VTT don't share in that. At best, it might pull from work already done for the dungeon tiles and minis lines, but I'm not sure about that.
> 
> In addition, I'm not sure that the marginal dollar chasing is worth it (relative to better fleshing out of the magazines, updates to the compendium, etc or even in other DnD product lines). The cost of DDI would have to go up if they offer the VTT (as wotc has hinted several times). But the VTT's extra revenue will only be from people who won't use Maptools but will use an official WotC product minus the subscribers for whom the extra cost is too much. Are there that many people who won't use maptools but would use the VTT?




That is unless they make it so that you can only play things like Living Forgotten Realms online using their VTT or something, using characters generated using their character generator.

I love Maptools, but I wish it had some stuff like what they are promising with the WoTC VTT, like tight integration with the other online products (e.g. characters from the char gen, monsters from the dungeon magazine, etc) so that there is little to no data entry.

I just subscribed to DDI after reading that the compendium lets you access ALL monsters, not just those in the books.  Even LFR monsters are listed... very handy.


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## malraux (Jan 6, 2009)

Festivus said:


> That is unless they make it so that you can only play things like Living Forgotten Realms online using their VTT or something, using characters generated using their character generator.
> 
> I love Maptools, but I wish it had some stuff like what they are promising with the WoTC VTT, like tight integration with the other online products (e.g. characters from the char gen, monsters from the dungeon magazine, etc) so that there is little to no data entry.




As far as I know, there was never any talk of integration of any sort.  At best, your info from your character sheet would let you roll the dice and add up the numbers.  But wotc said that the VTT did not adjudicate any rules, thus, no tight integration.


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## Shemeska (Jan 6, 2009)

Spatula said:


> "In very short order, the D&D Character Builder goes live... After that… well, we’re working on that. We had grand plans and we were overly ambitious in what could actually be accomplished in the time we had. We don’t want to overextend or overpromise anymore. We’re going to finish the D&D Character Builder, then take stock of where we are and what we can and should concentrate on next."




I don't subscribe to the DDI so I didn't hear about the above till now, but... *wince* That sounds like they're setting folks up for a let down when for when they start dropping aspects of the originally promised DDI. 

It's sad that they're even in this sort of position with the late/unreleased portions. There were members of the old admin WizO team that could have coded the DDI themselves, given their background, and WotC let them go (or they resigned during the Gleemax drama).


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## Glyfair (Jan 6, 2009)

malraux said:


> As far as I know, there was never any talk of integration of any sort.



The character visualizer is supposed to be integrated with both the CharGen program and the VTT.  However, that is as far as the links were supposed to go.


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## Mistwell (Jan 6, 2009)

For those recommending alternatives, please don't forget about the excellent Klooge.Werks!


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## tomBitonti (Jan 6, 2009)

What I wonder about re: The Game Table ... is ... why?

I mean, if WOW wanted to create a game table, couldn't they put together something that would be light years ahead of what WotC was considering?

They could probably put together a table of abilities and icons and animations along with a table of creatures (and _their_ animations) that would seriously kick butt.

They should also be able to create a "tile set" usable for creating dungeons rather quickly.

(As an aside, I've wondered what Blizzard would do if D&D ever really started having an online presence ... that would seem to be a strong motivation for Blizzard to simply squash WotC out of the online gaming market.)


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## Kishin (Jan 6, 2009)

tomBitonti said:


> (As an aside, I've wondered what Blizzard would do if D&D ever really started having an online presence ... that would seem to be a strong motivation for Blizzard to simply squash WotC out of the online gaming market.)




Ignore them, like it does with the other MMO companies?

I can't imagine Blizzard ever feeling remotely threatened by WoTC. They've probably made more off WoW since its release than the last ten years of D&D.

With regards to the actual release of the Tabletop.... Well, after Chinese Democracy managed to actually get released (albeit after 14 years...) I guess anything's possible.


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## Glyfair (Jan 6, 2009)

tomBitonti said:


> I mean, if WOW wanted to create a game table, couldn't they put together something that would be light years ahead of what WotC was considering?



Sure.  They have the money.  They _could_.

However, since they would have no hope of getting the money invested back, or even part of it.   I know it's traditional to assume that WotC is skimping and not giving us even part of what we are "owed."  However, we really aren't a blip on their radar, except as patrons of their game model.  They don't want to delve into ours.


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## Mythtify (Jan 6, 2009)

Didn't the makers of Fantasy Grounds file suit against WotC over some element of the game table?


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## Glyfair (Jan 6, 2009)

Mythtify said:


> Didn't the makers of Fantasy Grounds file suit against WotC over some element of the game table?



Some research shows it was just a cease and desist letter because WotC apparently used an image from the Fantasy Grounds website (the dice roller program).  Not an actual part of the program.


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## Stoat (Jan 6, 2009)

Mistwell said:


> For those recommending alternatives, please don't forget about the excellent Klooge.Werks!




I really, really wanted to love Klooge.  It has exactly every function that I'm interested in in a 2d VTT.  But my group found it to be terribly unstable.  We had continued problems getting it up and running, and it frequently crashed out during our games.  Eventually, we had to give it up.

I'm using d20pro now, and it fulfills my needs.

I'm counting the WotC VTT as vaporware until I've actually played a game with it.  It looks to me like they wanted to leap ahead of the existing VTT's by going 3D, adding light effects and adding some animation.  In retrospect, they bit off more than they could chew, and would have been better off going with a less-ambitious product.


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## Scribble (Jan 6, 2009)

malraux said:


> I personally am skeptical that the virtual table top makes good business sense...
> 
> In addition, I'm not sure that the marginal dollar chasing is worth it (relative to better fleshing out of the magazines, updates to the compendium, etc or even in other DnD product lines).




One of the biggest "flaws" tabletop RPGs have compaired to MMOs is that you need to have a group willing to play the game with you.

By offering a VTT someone who just got the game can log on and get into a game in almost no time. 

They won't have to spend a lot of time looking for a group, convincing peple to play, or any other number of things that could cause said future player to say: "Screw this Warcraft is easier."

Works for any gamer looking for a game as well. You could live in east bumbleschmuk and still find gamers willing to game.

The two biggest elements I see in it';s favor are:

1. The lobby- Most (all?) of the online game tools I;ve seen so far seem to need everyone involved to already know eachother. Someone is a host and everyone logs into his game etc... A lobby means you can simply log on, and say: "hey lets game." 

2. It's on the WoTC website- Since the game is made by WoTC thats probably the first place someone will go looking for more info on the game. Which means more people seeing the fact that you can get into a game almost instantly.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Jan 6, 2009)

Glyfair said:


> Eventually you will get it (I would bet by the end of the year).




I can't remember where I read it, but I believe someone at WOTC said specifically not to expect it in 2009.  From memory, I believe it was said that although the game table was mostly working, that it had severe stability issues.  There was something about the fact that it was programmed by a 3rd party company without any sort of DRM and that there was an attempt by WOTC to add that feature into the program.  It was causing large amounts of stability issues.  WOTC wanted to verify that you were "authorized" to access each mini, stat block, map, and object on the screen.  The idea is that they might want to sell minis or maps(either 2d copies or 3d copies), plus they wanted to allow you to search the compendium for information and attach stat blocks to minis.  This would be allowed if you were paying for DDI but not if you were a "guest" user.

And, from what I heard, there were some fundamental issues with the way the program was written that made it easier to rewrite almost ALL the underlying code in order to get these rights working rather than attempt to fix it.  Since it appeared to be such a large amount of work, they felt that it was best to put their effort into the character generator and visualizer.

So, the current plan appears to be Character Creator in "very early" 2009 with the implication that it'll be in the last 2 weeks of January.  Then the visualizer appears to be mostly completed and likely it'll come next.  After that, WOTC appears to be making no promises at all, except that we shouldn't expect the Game Table in 2009(in any form at all, including beta).


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## Aeolius (Jan 7, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> And, from what I heard, there were some fundamental issues with the way the program was written that made it easier to rewrite almost ALL the underlying code in order to get these rights working rather than attempt to fix it.




Then why not fix the REAL problem and make it cross-platform compatible from the start?


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## Asmor (Jan 7, 2009)

Aeolius said:


> Then why not fix the REAL problem and make it cross-platform compatible from the start?




They have enough trouble coding for one platform as it is. Do you want this thing released in time for 5th edition?


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## wedgeski (Jan 7, 2009)

I see the game table as an investment for Wizards that they need to make good on before 4E is too deep into its life-cycle. In any case, they're designing it system-neutral so once it's up and running it should pay dividends through this edition and beyond.

I will expect it when I see it. I agree with the earlier poster who said that the GenCon and subsequent videos showed an app that seemed solid; the fact we haven't heard anything more about it could simply mean that they've diverted resources to other parts of the insider package. In any case, I've got what I really wanted out of the digital initiative, in the form of the compendium, the character builder, and the magazines, all of which are currently supreme value for money. If the VTT comes along, works well, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg, I might dabble in another online game, but I won't lose any sleep over it if I don't!


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## Charwoman Gene (Jan 7, 2009)

Bill Slavicsek's latest D&D Insider column basically says...

"We admit we screwed up and overpromised.  We have produced a good character generator.  We are now rethinking the rest of the project.  All promises are now off."

Digital Insider #20


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 7, 2009)

wedgeski said:


> I will expect it when I see it. I agree with the earlier poster who said that the GenCon and subsequent videos showed an app that seemed solid;



That what got my hopes up, too. But then... Duke Nukem Forever also had a few screenshots and videos that promised a lot. 



Charwoman Gene said:


> Bill Slavicsek's latest D&D Insider column basically says...
> 
> "We admit we screwed up and overpromised.  We have produced a good character generator.  We are now rethinking the rest of the project.  All promises are now off."
> 
> Digital Insider #20



I am afraid I share this interpretation. I don't like the message, and hope I am wrong, but I think that's the core of it. 

Well, at least the character generator gives me hope they can actually get it done, even if not this year.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Jan 7, 2009)

Aeolius said:


> Then why not fix the REAL problem and make it cross-platform compatible from the start?




Because the reason they gave that it wasn't going to be cross-platform was that they cut development time dramatically by recycling a Direct3D engine that Hasbro owned due to being created for another project.  They needed to make some modifications to it, but a 3D engine is not something that is easy to code from scratch.  Direct3D is also not porting friendly.  Which means they'd pretty much have to start from scratch in order to make it cross-platform friendly.

And when you can save maybe a year of development time and all the money that goes with it, you take it.  Especially when the people you lose are such a small percentage of the market.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Jan 7, 2009)

wedgeski said:


> I will expect it when I see it. I agree with the earlier poster who said that the GenCon and subsequent videos showed an app that seemed solid; the fact we haven't heard anything more about it could simply mean that they've diverted resources to other parts of the insider package.




Yeah, it looked pretty good.  The couple of things I've read tell me this:

-One of the GenCon previews mentioned that there would be a dedicated "Game Table" area in the RPGA room at GenCon where WOTC reps would be demoing actual games of 4e using the Game Table for the entire con.  It would be 7 computers all around a table specifically for this purpose, but it was mentioned that it would be running only in select slots.

-The Game Table area never appeared at GenCon and they only let people play with the Character Visualizer and Character Creator

-I read one blog where someone asked the WOTC rep at GenCon about where the Game Table was, since he had read the preview.  The WOTC rep told him they were allowed to let people look at it if they specifically asked, but they were not supposed to bring it up.  The WOTC rep mentioned that it was because a number of the features didn't work yet and there was a lot of things that would cause it to crash, so a rep was supposed to watch someone using it the entire time.  He said he tried it out and it was really cool, but after a short while it did crash and the WOTC rep put the character creator back up on the screen.


----------



## Lizard (Jan 7, 2009)

Zulithe said:


> I think it is really strange how they pimped the Game Table so much early on, and now they never talk about it. I understand they have focused efforts onto some other products... but come on... the Game Table is what people really want.
> 
> They showed off a very early version of the Game Table a full year before D&D 4e launched. Even at that very early state it looked like the progress was coming along VERY well. Most of the essentials looked in place. Sure, it was unpolished but I'd say it looked halfway to beta status. Here we are all these months later (how long? 18 months? more?) and they never say so much as a word about it. It's very discouraging.
> 
> Do what I did: buy Fantasy Grounds II.




Yeah, well, back around February or March of 2008, I said that if Game Table was in alpha in December of 2007 (which was when it was previewed and claimed to be 'in alpha'), no way was it going to be ready for launch, and Scott Rouse basically did the "Are you saying I'm a liar? You talking to me? I don't see anyone else here, you must be talking to me." routine, so I basically shrugged and said, "Fine, you're the one who sees the code every day, if you say it will be here by May, who am I to say otherwise?" (Well, I'm the guy with 20+ years experience working on complex software projects and who knows Cheops Law, but I wasn't going to bring that up.) And here we are closing on a year later, and it still doesn't look like it will be here any time soon. If it makes it by May -- a year late -- I'd consider that a triumph for WOTC.

I repeat what I said back then: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. The fact you can "show off" features -- or, as I am beginning to suspect was the case, have them "shown off" to you (management) by your development team -- is no evidence of a product anywhere near to shipping. The distance between "We have the program working for one set of data hard-coded into it so we can show it off" and "We have the program working for all the data it's supposed to work with, including full load/save/edit" is very, very, long. 

I do not think Scott -- or anyone at WOTC -- has ever lied about when the software would ship. I think they told the truth as they knew it. Problem is, they have very little experience with software development and did not understand just how much they needed to get done. Hasbro slashing staffing for DDI couldn't have helped matters. (And programmers ALWAYS lie to marketing. GOOD programmers lie by saying it will take longer than they think it will; BAD programmers lie by saying it will take less time than they think it will. The best software companies do not announce a release date until the program has pretty much gone gold. The worst software companies announce release dates before the spec has even been written.)


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## CharlesRyan (Jan 7, 2009)

Charwoman Gene said:


> Bill Slavicsek's latest D&D Insider column basically says...
> 
> "We admit we screwed up and overpromised.  We have produced a good character generator.  We are now rethinking the rest of the project.  All promises are now off."




Actually, that's not at all what he said. A more accurate interpretation would be:

"We admit we screwed up and overpromised. We are rethinking the timing on the rest of the project and don't want to make any more promises on release dates."

Specifically, he _actually_ added:

"I look forward to the day when the whole grand plan comes together."​
Reports of the DDI Game Table's death are greatly exaggerated.


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## Charwoman Gene (Jan 7, 2009)

Lizard said:


> Yeah, well, back around February or March of 2008, I said that if Game Table was in alpha in December of 2007 (which was when it was previewed and claimed to be 'in alpha'), no way was it going to be ready for launch, and Scott Rouse basically did the "Are you saying I'm a liar? You talking to me? I don't see anyone else here, you must be talking to me." routine, so I basically shrugged and said, "Fine, you're the one who sees the code every day, if you say it will be here by May, who am I to say otherwise?"




You accused him of lying when he said he had palyed a game on it.  He was challenging your assertion that he had played a game on it.  The release was not in question.


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## Lizard (Jan 7, 2009)

Charwoman Gene said:


> You accused him of lying when he said he had palyed a game on it.  He was challenging your assertion that he had played a game on it.  The release was not in question.




If that's how it was interpreted, I must have been unclear, and I am sorry. It was not my intent. My comments were entirely based on the claim it was going to be released in time for the 4e release, which seemed improbable to me based on the "It was at alpha in December" comment. Five months from alpha to release of a networked, 3-d game platform incorporating rules still under development just didn't make sense to me then, and it certainly seems that my instincts were correct. 

His statement about playing a game on it seemed, at least to me, to be evidence in support of the larger claim that the program would be good to go by the release of 4e, which struck me as very unlikely. If I was wrong in that interpretation, then I apologize. My experience is that a program can be, or seem, "functional" in a controlled environment and still be a very long way from finished. The ability to use a program to do exactly what the developers have set it up to do, with them watching over you to make sure you only enter the right values and don't do anything "wrong", is not evidence that the program is going to work well in the real world. The fact that the game table "demo reel" we've all seen looked good and complete, but game table is still in limbo with an unannounced new release date, should be proof of that.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 7, 2009)

Lizard said:


> If that's how it was interpreted, I must have been unclear, and I am sorry. It was not my intent. My comments were entirely based on the claim it was going to be released in time for the 4e release, which seemed improbable to me based on the "It was at alpha in December" comment. Five months from alpha to release of a networked, 3-d game platform incorporating rules still under development just didn't make sense to me then, and it certainly seems that my instincts were correct.
> 
> His statement about playing a game on it seemed, at least to me, to be evidence in support of the larger claim that the program would be good to go by the release of 4e, which struck me as very unlikely. If I was wrong in that interpretation, then I apologize. My experience is that a program can be, or seem, "functional" in a controlled environment and still be a very long way from finished. The ability to use a program to do exactly what the developers have set it up to do, with them watching over you to make sure you only enter the right values and don't do anything "wrong", is not evidence that the program is going to work well in the real world. The fact that the game table "demo reel" we've all seen looked good and complete, but game table is still in limbo with an unannounced new release date, should be proof of that.




I think Scott probably did misunderstood you - and maybe he had little chance of really understanding you because he lacks this software background. 

I totally understand this - it depends on the size of many factors, but it's true - even if you already used a product and did a few (or maybe many) key tasks with it, it is still far from finished. A prototype can seem very powerful, but its foundation can be very weak, it's unstable and certain elements just "appear" to function. 

I remember an anecdote from one of my co-workers. His team has taken over the software from an external software firm, and as they investigated it and developed it further, they stumbled upon one piece of code that didn't do anything useful except waste time. It was connected to a button that said "Enhance Image". Having no clue how he should do that, but having found a note that this button HAD to be included in the release, the original programmer added the button and added an eventhandler/actionlistener that would just get the hourglass turning.  But the original customer believed the button would work...


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## D'karr (Jan 7, 2009)

I got to play with the game table software at GenCon 2008.  It had a lot of features and showed a lot of potential.  But it also had many quirks.  It was difficult to handle and creating an adventure for it was not very intuitive.  It definitely needed more work on it.  But that was me working with it with no experience, no manual, and no instructions at all.  I also got to see the demo of the game table at DDXP that same year.  It had some problems but at that demo the developers where the ones showing off the software and they knew what they were doing.  Was it a rigged demo?  I doubt it, specially after seeing how it worked at GenCon.


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## Scribble (Jan 7, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> It was connected to a button that said "Enhance Image". Having no clue how he should do that, but having found a note that this button HAD to be included in the release, the original programmer added the button and added an eventhandler/actionlistener that would just get the hourglass turning.  But the original customer believed the button would work...




Hah! This makes me think of when I used to do sound for an AV company... 

Inevitably no matter how great you get the sound gear running the client will need to have you "adjust it." 

The easiest way to fix the issue they're having is to turn a knob on the board that has absolutely nothing to do with the mic they're using and ask- "That better?" 

98% of the time they'll say "Much better thanks!"


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## Zaukrie (Jan 7, 2009)

I'd guess in about a year, if ever.

Frankly, there is one thing I've never understood about some of the anger over this (actually more than 1 thing, but I'm trying to focus here): why do some people feel 4E can't be played, or is somehow missing something, if DDI isn't there? While I understand that it was promised, no other edition had that level of virtual support, and this one does not need it to be viable either.

As for DDI in general:

character builder is great so far. This might become my favorite tool

The compendium is the best D&D tool yet (other than the books). I can quickly look items up, cut and paste to make my encounters, this thing is nearly indespensible to me as a DM.

Dragon-too little content for my taste. The quantity has dropped since it was free.

Dungeon - see above, and also, they have not always delivered on the three adventure promise. December had 2 and a side trek. The awesome quality of the FR and Eberron conversions of Keep set the bar too high for this magazine to even come close to living up to the first on line version.

Bonus tools-these are throw aways, that cost little production time, and some people use them. Not a big deal to me either way.

Character visualizer-i don't care if this ever comes out.
Virtual table-I don't think I care if this ever comes out, but it could be useful someday.

edit: what I really want is a robust NPC/Monster creator, so I can make fair encounters with monsters of my own creation (or to power up/down an existing monster).


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## Scribble (Jan 7, 2009)

Zaukrie said:


> Bonus tools-these are throw aways, that cost little production time, and some people use them. Not a big deal to me either way.
> 
> edit: what I really want is a robust NPC/Monster creator, so I can make fair encounters with monsters of my own creation (or to power up/down an existing monster).




Awww man I use the bonus tools constantly... They serve the same function as a calculator basically. Not really needed but they speed things up tenfold.

They also have a monster creator in the bonus tools you know right? I wouldn't call it particularily "robust" but it gets the job done...


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## Zaukrie (Jan 7, 2009)

Yup, I've used it. It's not bad. By throw away I meant, not really robust and not something they'd ever try to sell, just extras.

I've used the bonus tools some, but they aren't great, and won't get any support/updates (given that they've said that, and their champion was laid off).


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## Scribble (Jan 7, 2009)

Zaukrie said:


> Yup, I've used it. It's not bad. By throw away I meant, not really robust and not something they'd ever try to sell, just extras.
> 
> I've used the bonus tools some, but they aren't great, and won't get any support/updates (given that they've said that, and their champion was laid off).




Yeah I know that part sucked... which bugs me because throw away or not, they're crazy useful (to me at least!)

I hope they at least automatically add the new monsters from the compendium.

Maybe they're just linked to the same database and would do it on their own.... rather then have to be updated right? I can hope right? right???? 

What I really think dragon needs is it's own specialized search function. So way down the road if I want to look up everything they've put in dragon about eladrin cities... I can use the dragon search tool..


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## Sir Brennen (Jan 7, 2009)

Scribble said:


> Yeah I know that part sucked... which bugs me because throw away or not, they're crazy useful (to me at least!)



Biding time until I can run a 4E game, I've been doing some conversions from 3.X adventures, and the tools have all been very handy. I'd _really_ like to see a trap builder similar to the monster creator, and have the Encounter Builder allow adding traps and not just monsters.  This would greatly re-enforce the 4E idea that traps are much better used as part of an encounter mix with creatures, or other traps (actively trying to kill the party round-to-round).



> What I really think dragon needs is it's own specialized search function. So way down the road if I want to look up everything they've put in dragon about eladrin cities... I can use the dragon search tool..



Or at least a filter in the compendium based on source. As it is, some searches return a metric asshat of results with less than a year's worth of source material to draw from.


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## Lizard (Jan 7, 2009)

Zaukrie said:


> I'd guess in about a year, if ever.
> 
> Frankly, there is one thing I've never understood about some of the anger over this (actually more than 1 thing, but I'm trying to focus here): why do some people feel 4E can't be played, or is somehow missing something, if DDI isn't there? While I understand that it was promised, no other edition had that level of virtual support, and this one does not need it to be viable either.




Oh, I'm not mad. I think 4e is perfectly playable without it. I think it was a silly idea from the start, it reeked of someone from Hasbro saying "This Dungeons whatsis, it's like Warcraft, right? But without a computer? Why don't you put it on a computer, or something?" I looked at the entire concept and said "Huh?". The whole advantage D&D has is face-to-face interaction with your real cheeto-gobbling, Mountain Dew swilling, best buds. The advantage MMORPGs have is not having to wait for people to show up -- and the computer knowing all the rules. To have a program which combines the "Sitting alone in the dark" aspect of MMORPGs with the "Flipping to look up the rules" aspect of tabletop is to go after a very small niche market indeed. The resources dedicated to it could have been better used on the tabletop game, or getting the GSL out on time. 

Dragon/Dungeon online are excellent and worth paying for. Compendium is of minimal use to me because there's no wireless where we game.  Character creator I'm waiting on, but it's still of small use to me as a player because, hey, I make up one character every couple of months, if that. (I'd like something which had all the Monster/NPC rules for use as a DM.) Haven't tried any of the other tools. Some of WOTC's ideas for cash flow -- BUYING miniatures to use with game table? And having the cost based on the "Size" of the mini, as if a dragon cost more pixels to store than a kobold -- are just wacky. (And what happened to each book having a code which could be used to unlock online content and get free watermarked PDFs?)

My main worry is that WOTC projected a lot of revenue from Gleemax and DDI, revenue which will never be realized, and this will anger the gods at Hasbro, who will wonder why they've still got this division now that the Pokemon fad is over...


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## Nebulous (Jan 7, 2009)

Scribble said:


> They also have a monster creator in the bonus tools you know right? I wouldn't call it particularily "robust" but it gets the job done...




I lost the link, but someone here on Enworld also made a 4e Monster Maker that works really, really well.  I've used it more than the official one on DDI.


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## Scribble (Jan 7, 2009)

Sir Brennen said:


> Biding time until I can run a 4E game, I've been doing some conversions from 3.X adventures, and the tools have all been very handy. I'd _really_ like to see a trap builder similar to the monster creator, and have the Encounter Builder allow adding traps and not just monsters.  This would greatly re-enforce the 4E idea that traps are much better used as part of an encounter mix with creatures, or other traps (actively trying to kill the party round-to-round).




Well, you can. Just use a hazzrd of appropriate level. I agree it would be better if they added them in as actual things though so you could cut/past the stats like you can monsters.



> I looked at the entire concept and said "Huh?". The whole advantage D&D has is face-to-face interaction with your real cheeto-gobbling, Mountain Dew swilling, best buds. The advantage MMORPGs have is not having to wait for people to show up -- and the computer knowing all the rules. To have a program which combines the "Sitting alone in the dark" aspect of MMORPGs with the "Flipping to look up the rules" aspect of tabletop is to go after a very small niche market indeed.




My guess is the question was asked: "Why are we loosing out to games like Warcraft?"

One of the answers was probably it's easier to simply log on and play in your free time, then to either find a group to game with, and find time to game.

Will it work? Dunno. I think it might be neat, to be able to log on when bored, and hop into an online 24/7 convention though. No need to wait for my Friday Night game. 

I don't think it could ever replace my normal table top game, but I think it will definitely get people playing more often (provided the program doesn't suck.) Which is a good thing for D&D.


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## resistor (Jan 7, 2009)

wedgeski said:


> I agree with the earlier poster who said that the GenCon and subsequent videos showed an app that seemed solid;




As time has progressed, I'm increasingly convinced that we were shown a mockup or hi-fi prototype at GenCon.  It's relatively standard operating procedure for the software engineering team to produce a mockup or prototype that implements just enough of the surface functionality to be useable for demoing.  The client (in this case, the D&DI managers) test it out, give feedback, and they iterate until they settle on what the final program will be like.  Then the software engineers go off and write the actual program.

Speaking as a software engineer, a prototype that looks pretty in a quick demo does not a working program make.  Not even close.


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## The Ghost (Jan 7, 2009)

Zaukrie said:


> I'd guess in about a year, if ever.
> 
> Frankly, there is one thing I've never understood about some of the anger over this (actually more than 1 thing, but I'm trying to focus here): why do some people feel 4E can't be played, or is somehow missing something, if DDI isn't there? While I understand that it was promised, no other edition had that level of virtual support, and this one does not need it to be viable either.




Actually, for me, 4E cannot be played without the game table up and running. The main reason I had bought into 4E when announced was being able run games online with friends around the country. My local gaming group prefers 3.5E. 

The longer it takes for this feature to come online the less likely I am of embracing the entire project. What is the point of investing in any more books or Dungeon/Dragon without the ability to fully use the products?


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## malraux (Jan 7, 2009)

The Ghost said:


> Actually, for me, 4E cannot be played without the game table up and running. The main reason I had bought into 4E when announced was being able run games online with friends around the country. My local gaming group prefers 3.5E.
> 
> The longer it takes for this feature to come online the less likely I am of embracing the entire project. What is the point of investing in any more books or Dungeon/Dragon without the ability to fully use the products?




And none of the third party applications are acceptable?


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## The Ghost (Jan 7, 2009)

malraux said:


> And none of the third party applications are acceptable?




Which ones are you referring to? I am not very familiar with anything outside of what WotC does.


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## ki11erDM (Jan 7, 2009)

Charwoman Gene said:


> I'm actually more confident now than I was earlier, just I don't expect it before 2010.




/agree

I do think they will do it.  Just to much at stake to not move some play online.  2010 sounds good... but it might be a matter of how much they actually got done before they hit the pause button.


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## Lizard (Jan 7, 2009)

Scribble said:


> My guess is the question was asked: "Why are we loosing out to games like Warcraft?"
> 
> One of the answers was probably it's easier to simply log on and play in your free time, then to either find a group to game with, and find time to game.
> 
> Will it work? Dunno. I think it might be neat, to be able to log on when bored, and hop into an online 24/7 convention though. No need to wait for my Friday Night game.




See, you STILL need to find a group -- while a "pickup" game of D&D might be fun now and then, the real value to the game is continuing characters and campaigns. It's why roleplaying took off as a separate game from miniature wargaming; the idea of character advancement and story was the key innovation in original D&D. Playing a CHARACTER, not a FIGURE, was the revolution -- not magic and monsters. You still need to get a group together, have everyone show up, and the DM still has to adjudicate the rules, but he has to do so in a tedious fashion, because I can't believe any set of online tools is going to be as smooth or as easy as the DM saying, "OK, those squares are now on fire".


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## Spatula (Jan 7, 2009)

Lizard said:


> I think it was a silly idea from the start, it reeked of someone from Hasbro saying "This Dungeons whatsis, it's like Warcraft, right? But without a computer? Why don't you put it on a computer, or something?" I looked at the entire concept and said "Huh?".



Except that it wasn't Hasbro's idea... there are game table apps out there, right now.  Clearly someone went through the trouble of building them with no audience in mind, right? 

Maybe, just _maybe_, there are gamers who want to play with people that no longer live close to each other.

Regarding the point of the virtual table being more of a hassle, well, yeah.  That aspect still looks pretty crude, but will probably improve as the concept gets refined.


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## Lizard (Jan 7, 2009)

Spatula said:


> Except that it wasn't Hasbro's idea... there are game table apps out there, right now.  Clearly someone went through the trouble of building them with no audience in mind, right?
> 
> Maybe, just _maybe_, there are gamers who want to play with people that no longer live close to each other.
> 
> Regarding the point of the virtual table being more of a hassle, well, yeah.  That aspect still looks pretty rough, but will probably improve as the concept gets refined.




Yes, but those programs tend to be generic, and ends-in-themselves... not supplements to an existing game. (You'd think WOTC could have just licensed one of said existing game table programs.... )

While I admit my experience with those programs is limited, what I've seen of them seems much less ambitious than Game Table Online, closer to "Chat room with map and dice roller" than "3d application". 

GTO was pushed as the "solution" to "Can't find a group"; the existing other apps are more, as you note, "Keep the old group together". I think WOTC was aiming for a much larger market for these tools than actually exists; hence, the large feature list, budget, and development time.

Perhaps I'm wrong completely, and when it ships, it will Change Gaming As We Know It. I suppose we'll see in... 6 months? A year?


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## Scribble (Jan 7, 2009)

Lizard said:


> See, you STILL need to find a group -- while a "pickup" game of D&D might be fun now and then, the real value to the game is continuing characters and campaigns. It's why roleplaying took off as a separate game from miniature wargaming; the idea of character advancement and story was the key innovation in original D&D. Playing a CHARACTER, not a FIGURE, was the revolution -- not magic and monsters. You still need to get a group together, have everyone show up, and the DM still has to adjudicate the rules, but he has to do so in a tedious fashion, because I can't believe any set of online tools is going to be as smooth or as easy as the DM saying, "OK, those squares are now on fire".




Won't argue any of that. I'd rather play a campaign then a string of pick up games...  I'd also rather play a face to face game.

But if the choice to include some pickup games now and then was made easily available when I had extra free time? I'd be happy to include them.

If I couldn't find a game group anywhere near me and the choice was either ontime game table or no game? I'd be happy to put up with some aspects being more cumbersome as opposed to not gaming at all.

I used to go to conventions in my younger days when I had extra time/money and one was around. It's sometimes fun to hop into a game with people I don't normally game with. I don't often have the ability to do that anymore. A 24/7 online one would fill that gap.

I'm not arguing Game Table should/will replace regular tabletop gaming. I realy sincerely hope it never does. But I can definitely see an added bonus to having it.


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## malraux (Jan 7, 2009)

The Ghost said:


> Which ones are you referring to? I am not very familiar with anything outside of what WotC does.






Aeolius said:


> Given the prevalence of viable cross-platform virtual tabletop applications, I wonder why WotC even bothers to compete in this arena. Instead, they should throw their support behind a handful of the more successful such as maptools.






Mistwell said:


> For those recommending alternatives, please don't forget about the excellent Klooge.Werks!






Zulithe said:


> Do what I did: buy Fantasy Grounds II.



Now I'm not familiar with these in detail, but they are all 3rd party alternatives to the WotC VTT.


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## The Ghost (Jan 7, 2009)

malraux said:


> Now I'm not familiar with these in detail, but they are all 3rd party alternatives to the WotC VTT.




Hah! I must be loosing my memory because I do not remember those posts in this thread. Thanks for reminding me.

I will check them out. Hopefully the quality is good enough!


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## Spatula (Jan 7, 2009)

Lizard said:


> Yes, but those programs tend to be generic, and ends-in-themselves... not supplements to an existing game. (You'd think WOTC could have just licensed one of said existing game table programs.... )



Well, there's where you see the difference between independant creators and big companies.  The current crop of apps are fairly generic because they have to be, due to legal issues (although one I looked at had d20, thanks to the OGL).  A company product is looking for ways to keep you coming to them and giving them your money.

I do agree that WotC would have been wise to bring in someone with some experience in any case - either licensing, partnering with, or hiring from some of the stuff that's already out there.  As you note, the D&D VT was a lot more ambitious than what's currently available, ridiculously so IMO.  The concept is lightyears ahead of what's been done to date, and that kind of jump is difficult to pull off - and nearly impossible in a such a short time frame.  I'm guessing the bad experience with whoever did the 3e chargen demo probably convinced them that everything needed to be done in-house.



Lizard said:


> GTO was pushed as the "solution" to "Can't find a group"; the existing other apps are more, as you note, "Keep the old group together". I think WOTC was aiming for a much larger market for these tools than actually exists; hence, the large feature list, budget, and development time.



I'll bet there's a lot of players hungering for a game (or a particular style of game - finding a group is only half the battle) that can't get one in their area.  Hard to say how many since there's no one catering to them currently.



Lizard said:


> Perhaps I'm wrong completely, and when it ships, it will Change Gaming As We Know It. I suppose we'll see in... 6 months? A year?



I'm kinda doubting it'll ever see the light of day, or if it does, its feature list will be dramatically pared down.  But I'd still like to see a product that lets me game with my buddies scattered all over with a minimum of hassle.


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## Spatula (Jan 7, 2009)

And fundamentally, the idea of online pickup games of D&D isn't any different than RPGA-style pickup games at conventions.  It's also a potentially better online experience (in that it's more like the tabletop experience) for people than PBEM or PBP.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Jan 7, 2009)

Spatula said:


> And fundamentally, the idea of online pickup games of D&D isn't any different than RPGA-style pickup games at conventions.  It's also a potentially better experience (in that it's more like the tabletop experience) for people than PBEM or PBP.



And that seems to be one of the main goals of the Game Table application.  I've been told rumors of the program being able to do searches for things like "Active Living Forgotten Realms games that haven't started yet for level 3 characters."

You join a bunch of people, play the LFR adventure, get your XP and gold and have it all tracked online, with a copy of your character sheet stored in the Character Vault.  It's like being at a convention and being able to be mustered into a slot at any time of the day or night.

Although, I haven't heard anything about the Character Vault since it was announced months ago either.


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## Asmor (Jan 8, 2009)

Zaukrie said:


> edit: what I really want is a robust NPC/Monster creator, so I can make fair encounters with monsters of my own creation (or to power up/down an existing monster).




Ask and ye shall receive


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## Aeolius (Jan 8, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> Because the reason they gave that it wasn't going to be cross-platform was that they cut development time dramatically by recycling a Direct3D engine that Hasbro owned due to being created for another project.




   Perhaps I should have said "from the restart". I am aware of the limitations to the original VTT plans. I was simply stating that, if they were to redesign it from the ground up, scrap the antiquated technologies and build something cross-platform, with a functional z-axis.


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## Drkfathr1 (Jan 8, 2009)

I'm not bothered by the lack of the Table, but I'm not interested in DDI at all, I'll be just fine without it. 

What concerns me is the fear that much of the "plan" for 4E revolves around the DDI and the various online apps. I worry that resources that would/should go into the book publishing will be diverted to the DDI, and if the DDI fails or doesn't live up to the expectations, then the rest of 4E may suffer for it. 

I hope that explains why it matters to some of us, even though "we don't need it to play."


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## Stoat (Jan 8, 2009)

The more I think about it, the less excited I get about WotC's 3D VTT.  I game exclusively online now, and I DM.  Every 2D VTT I've tried (Fantasy Grounds, Klooge, d20Pro) allowed me to drop in my own 2D-maps and tokens with relatively little trouble.  I could swipe a map from WotC's archives, draw one in campaign cartographer, or generate one randomly at Gozzy's, and then BAM! game on.  Likewise for tokens.

There's just no way a 3D VTT  can give me that level of flexibility.  I'm certain that it would have to be limited to the 3D tiles that WotC provided.


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## Asmor (Jan 8, 2009)

Stoat said:


> The more I think about it, the less excited I get about WotC's 3D VTT.  I game exclusively online now, and I DM.  Every 2D VTT I've tried (Fantasy Grounds, Klooge, d20Pro) allowed me to drop in my own 2D-maps and tokens with relatively little trouble.  I could swipe a map from WotC's archives, draw one in campaign cartographer, or generate one randomly at Gozzy's, and then BAM! game on.  Likewise for tokens.
> 
> There's just no way a 3D VTT  can give me that level of flexibility.  I'm certain that it would have to be limited to the 3D tiles that WotC provided.




Actually, if you've seen the screenshots all of the tiles are are 2d, and it allows you to draw and such. I'd be really surprised if they didn't let you import your own graphics.

It's just the minis and some select accessories which are 3d.


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## Scribble (Jan 8, 2009)

Asmor said:


> Actually, if you've seen the screenshots all of the tiles are are 2d, and it allows you to draw and such. I'd be really surprised if they didn't let you import your own graphics.
> 
> It's just the minis and some select accessories which are 3d.




I think they said certain tiles will be in 3d as well. This wouldn't invalidate your thoughts though, as you could still import other stuff... Just to get the fancy, you'd need to use the WoTC tiles.


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## Stoat (Jan 8, 2009)

Asmor said:


> Actually, if you've seen the screenshots all of the tiles are are 2d, and it allows you to draw and such. I'd be really surprised if they didn't let you import your own graphics.
> 
> It's just the minis and some select accessories which are 3d.




Huh.  I watched the demo videos and oogled the screenshots when the VTT was first announced, and I had in my head that they were 3D or maybe isometric.  A good reminder that it never pays to rely on memory.

2D-tiles + ability to import my own = teh winz0rs.  I would hope that WotC would go that route, and not try to drive people toward purchasing tiles by making it impossible to import from other sources.


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## Asmor (Jan 8, 2009)

Scribble said:


> I think they said certain tiles will be in 3d as well. This wouldn't invalidate your thoughts though, as you could still import other stuff... Just to get the fancy, you'd need to use the WoTC tiles.




Hence, "some select accessories."

I think some examples they mentioned were things like statues and fiery urns. Definitely not "backbone" stuff, just window dressing.


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## Scribble (Jan 8, 2009)

Asmor said:


> Hence, "some select accessories."
> 
> I think some examples they mentioned were things like statues and fiery urns. Definitely not "backbone" stuff, just window dressing.




Yeah I figured that's what you meant, but only after I posted. I thought about changing my post, but then figured. eh screw it. 

I'm lazy like that.


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## heruca (Jan 8, 2009)

malraux said:


> And none of the third party applications are acceptable?
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Here's a comprehensive list of all the virtual tabletop programs for RPGs.

And here's a VT Feature Comparison Chart that compares a handful of the more popular VTs. Note, however, that some of the information on that chart is a bit out of date.


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## guivre (Jan 10, 2009)

Glyfair said:


> Eventually you will get it (I would bet by the end of the year).




I'll take that bet.

It is highly unlikely that the VTT will ever materialize. It's obvious to an experienced eye that they really do not know what they're doing and they don't have the resources to undertake a program that complex. Their history is appalling. So far they've release (late) a glorified wiki, and a barely passable Character Generator (which isn't even actually released yet). 

If they even managed to release the game table it would fall under it's own weight. WotC simply doesn't currently have the skills or staff to maintain it.

Unless there is significant restructuring on the project it will never materialize. In the long run that is probably for the best, the train wreck that would result from releasing what they're currently capable of would do far more damage than never releasing it at all. 

At this point they would be MUCH better served licensing out the ability to create a game table to a 3rd party and making that the "official" VTT for 4e.


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## Asmor (Jan 10, 2009)

guivre said:


> So far they've release (late) a glorified wiki, and a barely passable Character Generator (which isn't even actually released yet).




I'm assuming that the "glorified wiki" you're referring to is the compendium, which is not remotely similar to a wiki in any sense of the word. The compendium is, in my mind, a success, though it could certainly be improved upon, and in its initial incarnation was a complete let down.

The character generated, on the other hand, is an unmitigated success and this is literally the first negative thing I've seen about it. Have you even used it? What exactly are your complaints?

FWIW, I generally agree with you on most of your points (though I wouldn't trust WotC to farm the VTT out, either; 3rd party developers didn't help the master tools or Magic Online very much either...), but that sentence seemed out of place and unnecessarily vitriolic.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart (Jan 10, 2009)

Stoat said:


> 2D-tiles + ability to import my own = teh winz0rs.  I would hope that WotC would go that route, and not try to drive people toward purchasing tiles by making it impossible to import from other sources.




The last word I heard about this before they stopped talking about the Game Table was that they were likely going to include all of the Dungeon Tiles ever made as 2d tiles.  They were going to make 3d versions of many of the tiles, but they were going to charge extra money for the 3d versions.  They would also include 2d tokens for monsters, but they were going to sell 3d versions of select monsters.

They implied they'd be really cheap prices.  But they seemed to expect that most DMs would find it much cooler to be able to place real, 3d monsters on the table and would pay the couple extra dollars.


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## guivre (Jan 10, 2009)

Asmor said:


> I'm assuming that the "glorified wiki" you're referring to is the compendium, which is not remotely similar to a wiki in any sense of the word. The compendium is, in my mind, a success, though it could certainly be improved upon, and in its initial incarnation was a complete let down.





You're free to disagree, but that's all it is. It's a web based information repository with limited search capabilities. Comparing it to a wiki is more than fair.  There is nothing special about it and there's really no excuse that it couldn't have been completed by release. 



> The character generated, on the other hand, is an unmitigated success and this is literally the first negative thing I've seen about it. Have you even used it? What exactly are your complaints?



Yes I've used it and there were a host of usability and stability issues when I did. 

An unmitigated success is it? That's some fantastic praise for an unreleased piece of software. It already fails at the number one requirement for successful software: it hasn't been released.

What criteria is this unmitigated success based on? It's beta status over 7 months after intended release? The swarms of yet unresolved bugs? 

Far from there being nothing negative, there are swarms of bugs posted on WotCs forums. Enough that it doesn't fulfill it's function: creating legal characters for 4e. New books come out monthly, the PHB II comes out in what.. March? Even IF they managed to iron out enough bugs to make a passable release, they're going to do so just in time for it to be out-dated. 



> FWIW, I generally agree with you on most of your points (though I wouldn't trust WotC to farm the VTT out, either; 3rd party developers didn't help the master tools or Magic Online very much either...), but that sentence seemed out of place and unnecessarily vitriolic.



I didn't say they would or even that I trusted them to. I said they should. Employing one of the companies that already produces a VTT to provide the licensed VTT for 4e would be the best move they could possibly make right now, assuming they chose that third party wisely.

It's not vitriolic, it is an honest, qualified opinion from someone with 25 years experience.  The pattern is very clear, this is a mess and the odds are it's only going to get messier. Some companies pull it out, but the overwhelming majority do not, not without a great deal of help. 

There is nothing about this operation that doesn't scream train wreck. My professional opinion, backed by seeing similar cases would be that they eventually get the Character Builder out. It's still going to have bugs, but they'll push it out the door is good enough. I'd lay even money that it doesn't come out till March. The limited staff they already have will end up in maintenance mode, trying to get the bugs fixed. It's going to take full time employees to keep it up to date. Even with the benefit of seeing some of the material before hand they're going to fall behind and constantly be in maintenance mode trying to incorporate all of the material released. It's not just the books, it's the magazine content as well, and the LFR material.  Between the "content" bugs, and the software bugs that are bound to occur it's going to cost a fortune in developer hours just to try and keep the project afloat. 

In the meantime they'll pick the Character Visualizer to work on next, I seriously doubt they'll have the resources to work on more than one tool at a time. They don't have them now and they certainly won't after the CB is released and they are constantly trying to keep up. 

The visualizer will seem like a good pick, because it's relatively simple, it's really nothing a hobbyist with a good 3D package couldn't do at home. Though TBH if I were in there as a consultant I'd recommend they can that product completely. They'll still struggle to get it out, but before they do, Hasbro is going to pull the plug. It's going to turn into a money sink and they're not going to stand for it up top very long. 

Like I said, I could be wrong, but if I wasn't right far more often than not I wouldn't be pulling down the salary I am. It's entirely possible that DDI can be turned around, but the smart money will certainly not be on that happening.

I have no hate for WotC only disappointment. Nor am I a 4e hater. I own everything published since it's release, except the "premium dice".


----------



## Echohawk (Jan 10, 2009)

guivre said:


> What criteria is this unmitigated success based on?



Possibly on a number of fairly favourable reviews.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 10, 2009)

guivre said:


> You're free to disagree, but that's all it is. It's a web based information repository with limited search capabilities. Comparing it to a wiki is more than fair.



A Wikis unique feature is that other users can contribute to them and add material, typically in an easy way. (Easy compared to creating your own website, at least.)


			
				Wikipedia said:
			
		

> A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable *anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content*, using a *simplified markup language*.[1][2] Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites.



Now, Wikipedia might not always qualify as the best source for a definition, but in case of Wikis, I think it is a very good authority.


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## Charwoman Gene (Jan 10, 2009)

The character builder is not an unmitigated success.  It is a success thus farm, save for the delay issues.


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## guivre (Jan 10, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> A Wikis unique feature is that other users can contribute to them and add material, typically in an easy way. (Easy compared to creating your own website, at least.)
> 
> Now, Wikipedia might not always qualify as the best source for a definition, but in case of Wikis, I think it is a very good authority.





I'm well aware of the definition of a wiki. If it stretches your imagination too much to understand the comparison, fine, ignore it. 

A well configured wiki, or other piece of content management software could have been used to provide the same (and likely better) functionality for a lot less development time.


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## Echohawk (Jan 10, 2009)

guivre said:


> So far they've release (late) a glorified wiki [...]






guivre said:


> A well configured wiki, or other piece of content management software could have been used to provide the same (and likely better) functionality for a lot less development time.



I agree that it may have been _possible_ to implement the Compendium as a Wiki, but that's not what you said. You said "so far they've *release[d]* a glorified wiki".

It is not possible for users to edit or add content to the Compendium, thus it fails the most basic comparison to a Wiki. Whether or not the Compendium could have been implemented in the form of a Wiki, by no stretch of the imagination is the Compendium, _as currently implemented_, a Wiki, glorified or otherwise. I agree with Mustrum_Ridcully that your comparison is thus broken.


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## Oldtimer (Jan 10, 2009)

Echohawk said:


> It is not possible for users to edit or add content to the Compendium, thus it fails the most basic comparison to a Wiki. Whether or not the Compendium could have been implemented in the form of a Wiki, by no stretch of the imagination is the Compendium, _as currently implemented_, a Wiki, glorified or otherwise. I agree with Mustrum_Ridcully that your comparison is thus broken.



The central feature of a wiki is not that anyone can add or edit its content, but that the add/edit operation can be done quickly with a reduced set of mark-up (compared to HTML). Hence its name (from hawaiian).

The comparision is fair, but maybe unusual. I suggest we avoid derailing the thread with definitions of what a wiki is or isn't.

Regarding the Game Table, I think it will end up as a big nothing. The character builder is already in a bad state and it won't get any easier going forward with this digital initiative. My guess is it will fail on a technical level. Sooner or later, someone will pull the plug on this money sink.


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## Derren (Jan 10, 2009)

I don't think WotC will even release the character visualizer.
Think about it, whenever they release new races and weapons they have to add them to the visualizer.
That would require a permanent staff of artists whos only job is to keep the visualizer up to date and I don't think WotC is willing to invest that much of effort/money.

And without the visualizer the game table looses a bit on appeal. Sure, they can use generic miniatures and not custom created ones, but that was a big feature of this whole setup.
(Also, the visualizer alone is also not very useful)


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 10, 2009)

Oldtimer said:


> The central feature of a wiki is not that anyone can add or edit its content, but that the add/edit operation can be done quickly with a reduced set of mark-up (compared to HTML). Hence its name (from hawaiian).
> 
> 
> > Well, the *Wiki*pedia definition includes the content edition. Wikis were created for purposes like this .
> ...


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## Oldtimer (Jan 10, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> The Character Builder is delayed, but its functional state looks good.



No it doesn't. Not really. It only contains data for levels 1-3 and there are loads of data errors. Then there are lots of coding errors (crashes and unexpected behaviour). The installation package uses InstallShield, but it doesn't work very well. It doesn't even check for the presence of .NET framework 3.5 sp1, which is a requirement and should be handled by the installer. On my plain vanilla XP Pro system it won't even install. I had to take apart the MSI file and modify it before I got it onto that system. Good thing I have the tools and knowledge to do that.

With over 30 years of professional experience with software development, I don't think their development project is doing too well. Had I been asked my professional opinion about it, I would have given it a rather low grade.

The few developers they have on this are probably struggling heroically, but heroics rarely produce good software.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I hope the Game Table will make it through. But it is horribly delayed, so the chances are less good. It depends a lot on how much money the DDI and D&D 4 brings in - if that is still good, they will have a strong incentive, but it any of it weakens, well, it doesn't look so good. Unless they have reason to believe that this will turn things around in their favor...



I also hope, or rather hoped. When it was announced almost 17 months ago, I was excited. I had high hopes. I saw that they used an external source (Radiant Machine) for the development and considered that a very good idea. Then everything changed and my hopes waned.

Right now it has every indication of a software project in trouble.


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## darjr (Jan 11, 2009)

What would you do? If, as you say, WotC's software development is in trouble, what would you do?

I get it about licensing an existing working VTT, but what then? The CB is in beta, the visualizer is not even in beta, the table wouldn't be integrated with any tiles or the CB, what then?

I'm not convinced they are in that much trouble anymore, or as bad as you say, the sign of heroics and programmers falling on their own sword, now, would be a big key piece of evidence tho... 

However, I'm interested, as I hope WotC is, if they are in more trouble.


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## JohnnyQuest (Jan 11, 2009)

heruca said:


> Here's a comprehensive list of all the virtual tabletop programs for RPGs.
> 
> And here's a VT Feature Comparison Chart that compares a handful of the more popular VTs. Note, however, that some of the information on that chart is a bit out of date.




Thanks for the link to the list; that's very helpful. The second link doesn't work for me. So far, it looks like iTabletop is the only program that offers voice chat, which is a must for me. Is there another program that offers voice?


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## malraux (Jan 11, 2009)

JohnnyQuest said:


> Thanks for the link to the list; that's very helpful. The second link doesn't work for me. So far, it looks like iTabletop is the only program that offers voice chat, which is a must for me. Is there another program that offers voice?




There's no reason you can't use another program for the VOIP.


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## heruca (Jan 11, 2009)

The second link was working when I posted it. However, that entire site seems to be down right now. Hopefully it will be back up within a few days.

And malraux is correct in that any virtual tabletop program can be used with a VOIP program running in the background. I prefer to use Ventrilo, for its push-to-talk feature which cuts down on background noise and its ability to send a private voice message to an individual without addressing the whole group. But Skype is more user-friendly to set up.


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## JohnnyQuest (Jan 11, 2009)

Excellent information -- thanks!


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## Spatula (Jan 12, 2009)

Echohawk said:


> Possibly on a number of fairly favourable reviews.



The beta looks good, but there are lots of little data errors in it, and - it's only a crippled demo.  If we're going to judge the project by the beta, well, then it fails soley on the basis of the level 3 cap.  Like guivre says, you can't label it a success when the actual product doesn't exist yet.


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## qstor (Jan 14, 2009)

guivre said:


> Whether you are optimistic or pessimistic about the chances of that probably depend largely on how much stock you put into WotC's past failures with digital products.




I don't think it will ever come out. Despite all the fanfare that I saw it get at DDXP.

I think WOTC laid off some of the software people a few months ago too.

Mike


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## Aristotle (Jan 14, 2009)

It is probably too late in the thread to offer a long winded opinion and have it be read by anyone. Too bad. The issue for me is that they've wasted time on minor applications or gimicky elements that I don't think I or the folks I game with even care about.

The character generator is awesome. Seriously. I'll use it. If I could only buy each of my players access to it, the rules compendium, and a player's only seat at virtual tabletop for a reasonable price... Perhaps if I had the virtual tabletop I could justify the current price.

I've outlined some ideas on the Wizards forums (username Hildy) for what needs to happen to make the encounter generator a full fledged DM's counterpart to the character generator. The kind of app DM's would pay for and spend hours each week using.

The last major piece I would need in place is the virtual tabletop. I've been promised it and now I want it dangit. Here is the thing. I never wanted a 3D environment with almost no rules integration. I want a tabletop... like *Fantasy Grounds*. That app offers amazing integration of rules without playing the game for you. Seriously, check out the 4e ruleset tutorials. Wizards needs to buy or license it now, complete the integration of the 4e ruleset, and maybe add some support for official Dungeon Tiles and maps from Dragon magazine so folks don't feel like they have to be digital art masters to get a nice map. I'd have to think they could have this ready inside of the year, if not before summer.

I'd be using fantasy grounds now if I could figure out how to compile the rules. I'm half tempted to find someone locally who can do it, have them come over and verify my books, and then pay them for their time to generate the files for me. Did I mention that I really want my virtual tabletop sooner than later? *sigh*


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## Bleoberis De Ganis (Feb 24, 2009)

I don't know why it is such a problem to create.

There are plenty of people who know how to do the whole client server thing. I've even created simple web services that took me 10mins to find out how to do it - that obviously wouldn't cut the mustard with this app - but still..

They have already done the 3D engine, it's not like they need an intensivly fast realtime engine. At the same time why hasn't the visualizer been finished. It is just a collection of models and textures bunged together by a menu.

As for the rest of it - 4E is built for simplistic logic design. A lot of the annoyances have been taken out - such as circular area effects - that would be more tricky(er) to program with edge detection and such like - though probably not to someone with better/professional programming skills than me.

I can only assume the table will use the classes (programming not D&D) from the builder so they want to make sure that is stable and working before moving all that stuff into the table app.

I was dabbling with making one with a 2D interface, but I have other stuff to do so it would take ages, and when they announced the table I thought - well no point now, they are going to make one a damn site better than I could.

Stupid me. I could have finished it by now.


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## Thandren (Feb 24, 2009)

It's very poor of WOTC to hype the game table up so much as being a big plus point for 4th edition and then not deliver for years.  It's obvious the 4th edition game has been designed to be ported to a computer environment.  But still no game table.   

Six months late, is passable but this, no way, it's very poor.

Very very poor, there are lots and lots of other good RPG systems out there and people are starting to move to them.  

WOTC you need to try harder to give the people what they want.


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## GMforPowergamers (Feb 24, 2009)

Thandren said:


> It's very poor of WOTC to hype the game table up so much as being a big plus point for 4th edition and then not deliver for years.






> Six months late, is passable but this, no way, it's very poor.





are you kidding???

  I keep seeing this here and at WotC site...I belive that the 4e books came out in june 2008...it is feb 2009 that is 8 months...but people keep saying these things are YEARS laate...it is only months...not even a year yet...


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## renau1g (Feb 24, 2009)

GMforPowergamers said:


> are you kidding???
> 
> I keep seeing this here and at WotC site...I belive that the 4e books came out in june 2008...it is feb 2009 that is 8 months...but people keep saying these things are YEARS laate...it is only months...not even a year yet...




Which people keep saying that these things are YEARS late?

It's not acceptable, because a fake bill of goods was sold to their customers. A product was promised and now it isn't (& might never) be available. I enjoy 4e, but haven't (and have no plans on) subscribing to DDI, until they offer the features in their entirety.

If I missed a deadline at work by a few days, my @SS is on a platter, but at WOTC they've missed it by 8 months and nobody's mentioning it. 

P.S. I work in software development, we don't get YEARS-worth of extensions...


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## Asmor (Feb 24, 2009)

renau1g said:


> P.S. I work in software development, we don't get YEARS-worth of extensions...




*coughdukenukemcough*


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## renau1g (Feb 24, 2009)

Asmor said:


> *coughdukenukemcough*




I was referring to my company...not everyone follows this either (look at Spore as well)


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## Drkfathr1 (Feb 24, 2009)

So, 8 months with nothing in sight is acceptable? 

Yeah, saying a year late is really out of line! 

The whole "big announcement" at Gencon 2 years ago had the Game Table shoved front and center, along with that Character Visualizer. 

That was what? 10 or 11 months before 4th edition was even released? Should that count too?


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## filthgrinder (Feb 24, 2009)

renau1g said:


> It's not acceptable, because a fake bill of goods was sold to their customers.




You were sold the game table, the game table wasn't delivered, so you deserve, no you SHOULD DEMAND, a full refund.

So, let's see, you paid $0 for the game table, and you were refunded $0, so looks like everything was balanced out.

Now, in back over here in reality, I saw WotC offer DDI up contained Dragon and Dungeon magazines, the compendium, and bonus tools. Thats what was originally offered. That is what I bought. They've since given me the character builder, without charging me more.

So it seems like I'm making out like a bandit with what I was sold, and you recieved a complete and total refund on the game table that you were "sold".

You also mentioned that you are in software, so you are fully aware of the term "vaporware", and fully know to not believe anything until you see it.


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## Scribble (Feb 24, 2009)

renau1g said:


> It's not acceptable, because a fake bill of goods was sold to their customers. A product was promised and now it isn't (& might never) be available. I enjoy 4e, but haven't (and have no plans on) subscribing to DDI, until they offer the features in their entirety.[/qoute]
> 
> I don't know. I mean I agree they overstated their promo stuff, but I knew exactly what I was getting when I bought my DDI subscription... I don't think they sold me a fake bill of goods.
> 
> ...


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## renau1g (Feb 24, 2009)

filthgrinder said:


> You were sold the game table, the game table wasn't delivered, so you deserve, no you SHOULD DEMAND, a full refund.
> 
> So, let's see, you paid $0 for the game table, and you were refunded $0, so looks like everything was balanced out.
> 
> ...




Sorry, but look at the back of your PHB... doesn't that contain an option that was sold with the $30 book...?

Also, what was originally offered, if you go back to their launch of the Digital Initiative, is a Virtual Tabletop as the centerpiece of their initiative. 

As I said previous, I really enjoy the 4e books, and hear great things about Dungeon & Dragon and the builder, but it seems that missed deadlines and missing features are acceptable to some people. If you're happy with mediocrity that's fine, but I guess I was hoping for a bit more from Wizard's attempt to jump back into the Digital water's after their last failure.

Just because I'm aware of vapourware, doesn't mean I have to like it. It's like saying an accountant should be ok with cooking the books, because he's in the business...


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## renau1g (Feb 24, 2009)

Scribble said:


> renau1g said:
> 
> 
> > It's not acceptable, because a fake bill of goods was sold to their customers. A product was promised and now it isn't (& might never) be available. I enjoy 4e, but haven't (and have no plans on) subscribing to DDI, until they offer the features in their entirety.[/qoute]
> ...


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## Nightson (Feb 24, 2009)

Good companies push back releases if there's problems.

Bad companies go ahead and release software with problems because they don't want to push back the release date.


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## Scribble (Feb 24, 2009)

renau1g said:


> As I said previous, I really enjoy the 4e books, and hear great things about Dungeon & Dragon and the builder, but it seems that missed deadlines and missing features are acceptable to some people. If you're happy with mediocrity that's fine, but I guess I was hoping for a bit more from Wizard's attempt to jump back into the Digital water's after their last failure.




I'm fine with missed deadlines so long as I'm not being charged for them.

If I paid WoTC money with the understanding that they would provide me with a virtual tabletop... and then none was delivered, I'd be rightfully upset.

But that has not happened.


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## renau1g (Feb 24, 2009)

Nightson said:


> Good companies push back releases if there's problems.
> 
> Bad companies go ahead and release software with problems because they don't want to push back the release date.




Good companies hit their release dates  jk

Seriously though, Betheseda is considered by many to be a good company, yet their Elder Scrolls series & Fallout 3 game were released and full of crash-worthy bugs...


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## Scribble (Feb 24, 2009)

renau1g said:


> Maybe I used too strong of a sentiment, but when I said that I meant their original material, not once they started charging $ for the subscription.




Shrug. Ads and promos don't mean much to me. I only care about what I get for my money. Again if they charged me 15 dollars and told me I could use the Virtual Table, and then when I logged on it said, oh crap it's not ready it'll be there soon, but we're still going to charge you for use of the table... I'd be madder then a cat in a bathtub...

But they didn't do that. They said we want to include the tabletop, but it's not done. We have these other features you might be interested in at a reduced price.

Those other features interested me, and I felt the price more then reasonable. Nothing fishy about the situation. 



> No, but we're not a public company either.




Just because they're a public company doesn't mean every business move is in a glass window. Again I'm sure behind closed doors a bunch of people have a much easier time on the can now... 



> I'll be honest, we've never had this issue... I can't imagine how something could get this far off track, especially based on the demos displayed previously.




Fable?


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## renau1g (Feb 24, 2009)

Scribble said:


> Fable?




Very true, I hope the tabletop turns out better than Fable , or at least provides more than a couple of hours of entertainment.


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## Scribble (Feb 24, 2009)

renau1g said:


> Very true, I hope the tabletop turns out better than Fable , or at least provides more than a couple of hours of entertainment.




Thats the thing... So do I. And I think WoTC is in a tough spot right now.

I think if they release a sub par version of the table, they risk repeating the past... Which would in my opinion make a lot of people ignore the good parts of DDI out now, and ultimatly risk the whole thing being scrapped.

I currently really like the stuff they're offering right now. I would preffer they take their time on the table, and get it right, rather then put the current stuff at risk.

But they are in that damned if they do, damned if they don't spot right now.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 24, 2009)

Scribble said:


> Thats the thing... So do I. And I think WoTC is in a tough spot right now.
> 
> I think if they release a sub par version of the table, they risk repeating the past... Which would in my opinion make a lot of people ignore the good parts of DDI out now, and ultimatly risk the whole thing being scrapped.
> 
> ...



The biggest mistake WotC made and that they just cannot undo is that they believed they could pull all the "big" products - Gleemax, Game Table, Visualizer, Builder and Compendium off around the time of the release of 4E.

Looking at this list of apps, I have no idea who told them that this could even be possible with a company of their size or whether they just ignored any evidence to the contrary. 

They expected too much, and they promised to much in their marketing. But they didn't sell us stuff they didn't have. I think this distinction is important. It's probably not enough to alleviate all doubts that they will eventually release all apps they promised, but it should be taken into consideration when discussing their goodwill. 

Personally, I don't thing the GameTable is off. But I don't believe in a release this year, while I was still hopeful last year it could be done around the middle or end.


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## xechnao (Feb 25, 2009)

Well they drew people's attention with the marketing. For them better that they have done it than if they had not.


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## Asmor (Feb 25, 2009)

Nightson said:


> Good companies push back releases if there's problems.
> 
> Bad companies go ahead and release software with problems because they don't want to push back the release date.




And then there's WotC, who pushes back releases if there are problems and then releases them later with problems anyways.


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## CubeKnight (Feb 25, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> The biggest mistake WotC made and that they just cannot undo is that they believed they could pull all the "big" products - Gleemax, Game Table, Visualizer, Builder and Compendium off around the time of the release of 4E.
> 
> Looking at this list of apps, I have no idea who told them that this could even be possible with a company of their size or whether they just ignored any evidence to the contrary.
> 
> ...




I blame the marketing staff. IME, no matter how many times you tell them it's just *not possible* to have [insert-new-product-here] ready in [insert-stupid-deadline-here], they'll just ignore you, and go ahead with the unrealizable proposed date.

Cube
_Coder tired of explaining the same stuff over and over again to marketing staff, only to be ignored in the end._


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## Zerakon (Feb 25, 2009)

CubeKnight said:


> I blame the marketing staff. IME, no matter how many times you tell them it's just *not possible* to have [insert-new-product-here] ready in [insert-stupid-deadline-here], they'll just ignore you, and go ahead with the unrealizable proposed date.
> 
> Cube
> _Coder tired of explaining the same stuff over and over again to marketing staff, only to be ignored in the end._




Do you have any evidence that the WotC marketing staff is to blame, or are you just basing this conclusion on your personal experiences?


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## Thandren (Feb 25, 2009)

One thing is for sure WOTC will not be getting any of my money until the virtual game table is up and running.


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## Shawn_Kehoe (Dec 16, 2009)

Oh well, maybe in 2010? 

Most of my game group uses Macs at home, so we aren't really the target demographic in any case.


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## Derren (Dec 16, 2009)

Shawn_Kehoe said:


> Oh well, maybe in 2010?




Imo unlikely.
WotC probably dropped the VTT and will never mention it again.

If they do want to make a VTT though, I don't think they can make it before 2011 after such a long development stop and having fired much of their IT last year.


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## avin (Dec 16, 2009)

Necro?


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## Lizard (Dec 16, 2009)

Whoa, suddenly getting "reply to" alerts! Maybe ENWorld will be useful for me again?


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## Shawn_Kehoe (Dec 17, 2009)

Derren said:


> Imo unlikely.
> WotC probably dropped the VTT and will never mention it again.
> 
> If they do want to make a VTT though, I don't think they can make it before 2011 after such a long development stop and having fired much of their IT last year.




It could well be. I really think that the model of requiring a full DDI subscription for all participants would have limited the audience.


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## tenkar (Dec 17, 2009)

My guess?  At some point they license an established VTT or allow an establsihed VTT to license 4e adventures.

The idea of a WotC VTT should be allowed to die.  It would never meet the expectations many of us had for it anyway.


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## Tarrl (Dec 17, 2009)

I hope something positive happens with the VTT. That is what really sold me when I first heard about 4.0.


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## bytor4232 (Jan 6, 2010)

Yeah, I don't plan on "upgrading" to 4E until I have a reason.  Right now I don't have one.  A virtual tabletop where I could find players to game with 24/7 would certainly be a compelling reason.


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## Ogrork the Mighty (Jan 10, 2010)

tenkar said:


> My guess?  At some point they license an established VTT or allow an establsihed VTT to license 4e adventures.




That's the most sensible thing WotC could do. WotC are not experts at software design & development. They have their hands full with DDI. Let people who have the know-how, ability, and focus create the VTT. License it and get it going already.

Those guys from Sweden (I think) who are making a virtual tabletop out of the new Sony electronic table top thingy are light years ahead of WotC.


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## Derren (Jan 10, 2010)

Ogrork the Mighty said:


> That's the most sensible thing WotC could do. WotC are not experts at software design & development. They have their hands full with DDI. Let people who have the know-how, ability, and focus create the VTT. License it and get it going already.
> 
> Those guys from Sweden (I think) who are making a virtual tabletop out of the new Sony electronic table top thingy are light years ahead of WotC.




Didn't they try this whole outsourcing thing in 3E with eTools? Didn't really work either.
I don't think WotC wants to touch the VTT topic until they are really ready. At least they won't announce it beforehand. They got away pretty well with the "VTT will be ready at 4e launch" failure. Why wake sleeping dogs (unless you have a big fat T-Bone to distract them)? Its not like a lot of sales depend on that feature.


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## ForceUser (Jan 10, 2010)

Derren said:


> Its not like a lot of sales depend on that feature.



/thread


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## knifie_sp00nie (Jan 10, 2010)

Zerakon said:


> Do you have any evidence that the WotC marketing staff is to blame, or are you just basing this conclusion on your personal experiences?




ALL marketers are like that everywhere in every industry throughout all time. 

Guess you've never worked with marketers before?


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## malraux (Jan 10, 2010)

Derren said:


> Didn't they try this whole outsourcing thing in 3E with eTools? Didn't really work either.




Well, they did outsource the VTT as well and that didn't work either.


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## UngainlyTitan (Jan 10, 2010)

malraux said:


> Well, they did outsource the VTT as well and that didn't work either.



Yeah but they did not buy an existing working VTT and rebadge it as the official VTT


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## bytor4232 (Jan 11, 2010)

Well, a VTT has been what I've been waiting for before I buy into 4E.  A well designed tool that will facilitate finding other players would be a killer app for me.  I'm almost 40, I don't have time to search FLGS's for new players.


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## Dire Bare (Jan 11, 2010)

Derren said:


> Didn't they try this whole outsourcing thing in 3E with eTools? Didn't really work either.




Heh, at the risk of stating the obvious, outsourcing works when you outsource to a quality company.  It doesn't work when you outsource to a company that doesn't have its act together.  I'm pretty sure WotC has outsourced ALL of their software offerings, past and present.  Sometimes that worked out pretty well, sometimes it was a disaster.


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## Asmor (Jan 11, 2010)

Dire Bare said:


> Heh, at the risk of stating the obvious, outsourcing works when you outsource to a quality company.  It doesn't work when you outsource to a company that doesn't have its act together.  I'm pretty sure WotC has outsourced ALL of their software offerings, past and present.  Sometimes that worked out pretty well, sometimes it was a disaster.




Could be wrong, but I was under the impression that both the current version* of Magic Online and the various D&D Insider tools were all done in-house.

*IIRC the original version was made by a company called Leaping Lizard, but WotC brought development back in-house at some point and the current 3.0 version was designed from the ground up in-house


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## Than (Jun 22, 2010)

Is the Game Table still in the pipeline?


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## UngainlyTitan (Jun 22, 2010)

Than said:


> Is the Game Table still in the pipeline?



Well now! your guess is as good as mine. Though mine is that it is a low priority behind the additional modules of the adventure tools suite.
Though what else might be in the adventure tools suite is anybodies guess also.
While the CB has been actively tweaked recently, wether anyone is working on new stuff is also probably unknown. WoTC is playing their cards really close on this stuff after the fiasco that was Gleemax et al.


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## Argyle King (Jun 22, 2010)

Than said:


> Is the Game Table still in the pipeline?





For the time being, there's probably a better chance that Big Foot will hold a press conference and declair that he exists.

I imagine we will see Game Table some day, but I assume (yeah... I know...) it won't be for quite a while, and I'll even go out on a limb and say that I believe we'll be closer to a new edition before we see Game Table again.


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## Shazman (Jun 22, 2010)

Derren said:


> Didn't they try this whole outsourcing thing in 3E with eTools? Didn't really work either.
> I don't think WotC wants to touch the VTT topic until they are really ready. At least they won't announce it beforehand. They got away pretty well with the "VTT will be ready at 4e launch" failure. Why wake sleeping dogs (unless you have a big fat T-Bone to distract them)? Its not like a lot of sales depend on that feature.




Exactly how didn't it work? E-tools was a great program that I used a lot.  It worked better than WotC's character creator program they put out with the 3.0 PHB. If WotC hadn't decided to yank all of their licenses, we might have a 4E version of E-tools and an outsourced VTT.


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## Zaran (Jun 22, 2010)

Shazman said:


> Exactly how didn't it work? E-tools was a great program that I used a lot. It worked better than WotC's character creator program they put out with the 3.0 PHB. If WotC hadn't decided to yank all of their licenses, we might have a 4E version of E-tools and an outsourced VTT.




I seriously do not think that they are putting any effort into getting the game table to us.  Hiring someone to do the work for them once they could not get it working would be a logical plan.  They probably think that the investment isn't worth it.  If they can't figure out a way to make a ton of money off the game table they will not make the effort.


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## Zaran (Jun 22, 2010)

By the way, this thread was made almost 18 months ago.  That in itself should tell you that we shouldn't hold our breath.


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## wayne62682 (Jun 22, 2010)

I'm a big fan of WotC and 4E but looking back when 4E debuted I can't help but laugh at all the things they swore would be ready for launch, and promised, and how many promises have been broken.  There was supposed to be Gleemax, the ultimate community for gamers, which crashed and burned what a few months (if that) after it launched?  The Character Builder came out on schedule, so that was good.  The Encounter Builder was late, but better late than never.  And the VTT is probably never going to see the light of day.  So the two main features they hyped up (Gleemax and the VTT) either crashed or are just vaporware.  

Not bashing WotC, but I find it funny how things are now compared to 4E launch.


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## Zaran (Jun 22, 2010)

wayne62682 said:


> I'm a big fan of WotC and 4E but looking back when 4E debuted I can't help but laugh at all the things they swore would be ready for launch, and promised, and how many promises have been broken. There was supposed to be Gleemax, the ultimate community for gamers, which crashed and burned what a few months (if that) after it launched? The Character Builder came out on schedule, so that was good. The Encounter Builder was late, but better late than never. And the VTT is probably never going to see the light of day. So the two main features they hyped up (Gleemax and the VTT) either crashed or are just vaporware.
> 
> Not bashing WotC, but I find it funny how things are now compared to 4E launch.




Apparently, they did a survey asking what we wanted.  GM tools beat out the online table.  I don't remember this survey but I wouldn't be surprised if people voted that way.   But I suspect that most of the people that spend alot of time in forums like this are GMs.  That being said they are being extremely slow on even the GM tools.   That encounter builder is nothing.  They need to make something that can be combined with the monster creator.

I also wouldn't be surprised if they had got alot of hate mail about selling virtual minis for use on the virtual game table and that has stopped them from pursuing it.


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## IronWolf (Jun 22, 2010)

It probably doesn't hurt that there are some pretty decent VTTs already out there ready for use and some of those are free to use.  As the existing VTTs continue to mature, WotC would have to come out with something to really get people to drop what they currently use and possibly pay for a tool WotC puts out.


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## malraux (Jun 22, 2010)

Zaran said:


> I seriously do not think that they are putting any effort into getting the game table to us.  Hiring someone to do the work for them once they could not get it working would be a logical plan.  They probably think that the investment isn't worth it.  If they can't figure out a way to make a ton of money off the game table they will not make the effort.




Right, so they did outsource the VTT.  That's a big part of why it ended up imploding.  The outsourced developer just couldn't deliver.


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## Shemeska (Jun 22, 2010)

I don't believe that the VTT was ever put back into active development once WotC moved everything in-house (prior to anything DDI being released). Of course all the people I've talked to have since been laid off so maybe there are miracles being worked on a much smaller team and smaller budget. I wouldn't expect WotC to ever again fund a VTT development project anytime within the next ten years given how the first time went.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jun 22, 2010)

I think the really more interesting question is when the next expansion to the Adventure Builder is due. It has been very quite on this front.

Neither the character builder nor the monster builder seem to need much more fundamental work, unless they want to add the new monster stat blocks now. They haven't seen any feature changes in the past few updates, IIRC.


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## Zaran (Jun 22, 2010)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I think the really more interesting question is when the next expansion to the Adventure Builder is due. It has been very quite on this front.
> 
> Neither the character builder nor the monster builder seem to need much more fundamental work, unless they want to add the new monster stat blocks now. They haven't seen any feature changes in the past few updates, IIRC.




I think we will see the new stat blocks soon. But that really shouldn't be an EPIC addition to the GM tools. Didn't I read somewhere that the guy in charge of the DDI development is also the guy who is charge of the non RPG stuff like the board games that they are putting out? Seems to me that department is spread pretty thin.


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## Stoat (Jun 22, 2010)

Shemeska said:


> I don't believe that the VTT was ever put back into active development once WotC moved everything in-house (prior to anything DDI being released). Of course all the people I've talked to have since been laid off so maybe there are miracles being worked on a much smaller team and smaller budget. I wouldn't expect WotC to ever again fund a VTT development project anytime within the next ten years given how the first time went.




How current is your information?  

What happened the first time that makes you think it will be ten years before WotC ever funds another VTT development project?


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## Shemeska (Jun 22, 2010)

Stoat said:


> How current is your information?
> 
> What happened the first time that makes you think it will be ten years before WotC ever funds another VTT development project?




About a year old now.

And based on the amount of $ they sunk into the outsourcing of the DDI (inclusive of Gleemax) and the subsequent management purges when much of it went belly-up.


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## Stoat (Jun 22, 2010)

Shemeska said:


> About a year old now.
> 
> And based on the amount of $ they sunk into the outsourcing of the DDI (inclusive of Gleemax) and the subsequent management purges when much of it went belly-up.




How much did WotC sink into outsourcing the DDI and Gleemax?  

I apologize for cross-examining you, but in a sea of speculation, you seem to be one of a very few people with any concrete knowledge about the situation.


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## Dire Bare (Jun 22, 2010)

Stoat said:


> How much did WotC sink into outsourcing the DDI and Gleemax?
> 
> I apologize for cross-examining you, but in a sea of speculation, you seem to be one of a very few people with any concrete knowledge about the situation.




Not bashing Shemeska, but he's simply speculating like the rest of us.  But with more confidence!  

Facts:

1) There were a variety of factors that led to the cancellation of Gleemax and then the delay with the Virtual Game Table.  Anyone who proudly points at one factor as proof of the demise of the VTT is, well, speculating at best . . .

2)  WotC has never announced that the VTT is dead, just that it has become a lower priority to other digital offerings.  It's a reasonable assumption that there is no current work being done on a VTT, but we don't really know.  It's also a reasonable opinion that the VTT is totally dead in the water, but again we don't know.

3)  If we ever do get a VTT from WotC, we won't hear about it until they need beta testers, and even then we might not as they may select beta testers confidentially and sign them up on NDAs.  WotC was burned by promising the moon and then not delivering it at 4e launch, and they have learned their lesson in that department.

4) At best, we might get some news at GenCon in August.  But I wouldn't hold your breath . . . .


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## El Mahdi (Jun 22, 2010)

deleted


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## wayne62682 (Jun 22, 2010)

El Mahdi said:


> Well, if you're able to hold your breath for one month per point of Constitution...and you have a Con of 18...then you should be able to have held your breath until just about right..._(gasp)_..._(thump)_...




Cleric!


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## Shemeska (Jun 22, 2010)

Stoat said:


> How much did WotC sink into outsourcing the DDI and Gleemax?
> 
> I apologize for cross-examining you, but in a sea of speculation, you seem to be one of a very few people with any concrete knowledge about the situation.




I was quoted a figure by one of the developers, but it and a number of other specific items I'm understandably loathe to drop on a public forum because well everyone I've spoken with was under NDA and while none of them work for WotC anymore, I don't want them to fall afoul of past contractual agreements. If you dig online a few people that worked on the in-house team and the outsourcing studio alike have voiced opinions openly or in more subtle form (a disclaimer in their resume for instance in one case).

Back to my reasoning for not thinking any further VTT work has been performed: around the time my information was still current, the development staff was such that according to them, only one person was really available to work on new material versus bug fixing, builder updates, compendium updates, etc. Since that time, those people have since left and the remaining staff is smaller AFAIK, which doesn't improve the chances of massive work on a new project IMO. Also, the one person who was familiar with the VTT work that was outsourced (ie. was on that team) is no longer with WotC either.

I might be totally off base, but I'll be surprised if WotC drops the cash for a VTT anytime soon. Hasbro might not exactly look kindly on it based on the drama from the first attempt.


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## Zaran (Jun 23, 2010)

> I might be totally off base, but I'll be surprised if WotC drops the cash for a VTT anytime soon. Hasbro might not exactly look kindly on it based on the drama from the first attempt.




I am of the opinion that if they had said they are doing it and that they know we want it, then they should do it no matter what.  There is no way they can't make money on it and it's just good business to make the customer happy.


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## Festivus (Jun 23, 2010)

I think some of these third party developers of VTT should court WoTC with a solution for a cut of the DDI revenue.

(You know, RPTools folks, Fantasy Grounds, etc... people with established VTT product already that could be retrofitted to drop into the system easily)


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## UngainlyTitan (Jun 23, 2010)

Festivus said:


> I think some of these third party developers of VTT should court WoTC with a solution for a cut of the DDI revenue.
> 
> (You know, RPTools folks, Fantasy Grounds, etc... people with established VTT product already that could be retrofitted to drop into the system easily)



Are any of these VTTs built on the ,Net framework? It would appear to me that WoTC have decide on .NET all the way and will not look at any product built on other frameworks. 
The ones i have looked at have been built on Python or Java.


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## Dausuul (Jun 23, 2010)

Zaran said:


> I am of the opinion that if they had said they are doing it and that they know we want it, then they should do it no matter what.  There is no way they can't make money on it and it's just good business to make the customer happy.




"No way they can't make money on it?"

There's _lots_ of ways they could not make money on it. They could botch it up so badly no one wants to use it; they could make it so fragile and hard to maintain that the cost of paying staff to keep it running exceeds the revenue; they could simply dump so much money into design and development that no reasonable projection of returns over time would justify the up-front investment.

Given WotC's past track record, any or all of these seems quite possible.


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## keterys (Jun 24, 2010)

Zaran said:


> There is no way they can't make money on it and it's just good business to make the customer happy.




They already lost money on it. A lot of money.

Much like they lost money on the other online game offerings they did (Acquire, Roborally, Las Vegas Showdown, etc) that hardly anyone tried - even though they were free to play. 

And Gleemax. Poor thing.

I'm with Shemeshka on this one. They sunk a ton of effort into something that was unstable and somewhat unusable in the state they got the "final" version from the 3rd party. They'd be faced with rewriting it entirely from scratch at that point. 

I could hope that something like Maptools or FantasyGround might get tapped to make something custom, but honestly I don't see that happening and I'm not sure it would work out all that well.


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## Asmor (Jun 24, 2010)

Zaran said:


> There is no way they can't make money on it




Well *that's* a failure of imagination if I've ever seen one.

If profits < expenses, then they've lost money, and I can think of a great many ways that that could be true.


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## Mephistopheles (Jun 24, 2010)

There are some respectable independent offerings that are free, both for online and on-the-table play. WotC would need to better those offerings, or at the very least match them, if they had any serious hope of making money from it - not to mention recovering any prior investment in abandoned work.

The recent measured response from WotC to Masterplan gave me the impression that they have no intention of releasing anything similar anytime soon. If that's true it may not be such a bad thing. The independent developers are doing good work. It makes sense for WotC to leave them to it and invest in producing things that aren't practical for the independents, either for technical or legal reasons.

Whether the reasoning inside WotC resembles that in any way I have no idea, but I can see some good reasons for not holding their initial plans and promises against them.


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## IronWolf (Jun 24, 2010)

Mephistopheles said:


> There are some respectable independent offerings that are free, both for online and on-the-table play. WotC would need to better those offerings, or at the very least match them, if they had any serious hope of making money from it - not to mention recovering any prior investment in abandoned work.




Yes, I think the competition for them has risen as the free products have matured into pretty good VTTs.  Makes me wonder if they wouldn't be better to simply publish a polished framework for something like Maptools.


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## UngainlyTitan (Jun 24, 2010)

IronWolf said:


> Yes, I think the competition for them has risen as the free products have matured into pretty good VTTs.  Makes me wonder if they wouldn't be better to simply publish a polished framework for something like Maptools.



I agree that this would be the smart way to go but there are some issues;

1) the VTTs I have looked at have been implemented in  Java or Python.

2) WoTC have made a decision to go with .NET and I suspect that there is a corporate policy to go with Microsoft product and that it is made at a non technical level so difficult or impossible to change in the short term.

3) That all the bits integrate. That is, the Monster builder, encounter and campaign manager, mapper and VTT are integrated suite.

Now having said that, If I were in charge I would buy Masterplan (I have not tried myself but I have heard good things about and it is in .Net. So I would pay the developer to change the GUI to match the Adventure Tools look and feel and a plugin interface to implement so that the Adventure Tools can talk to and manage the Masterplan components.

Then, I would buy a Python based VTT, assuming that there is no good .Net one out there. There might be, I have not found one but then I have not looked that hard.

So, why Python? well there are good Python implementations that are integrated with .NET and that should facilitate creation of the necessary components to allow the VTT to integrate with the rest of the Suite and the Character Builder. It is also less for the WoTC developers to learn since they can use their existing tools and can do the bulk of the work in the language they are most familar with, make used of interfaces and plugins to connect the bits together.

Once they have a working integrated suite then they can port the VTT over to native .NET languages, if they want to.

What are the potential pitfalls? Well there are a few. I suspect that originally WoTC viewed the VTT and its integration in to the other tools as a product that they can charge a premium for. If they buy in that could be an issue with the fans since there would be an undoubted preception that WoTC is taking something that was free and now charging for it. As well as removing the perviously free content.

Some of the free VTTs are open source and the developers might not sell for any price.
So what could WoTC do then, well I think that they should monetise it in a different way.
Exploit the open source nature of these developements and fork one of the existing VTTs by creating a framework that connects it to the rest of the suite but that only works with an existing DDI account and uses web services to pull information from other WoTC applications. It means that you need an active connection to import encounter data in to the VTT.
Then add additional services that would be premium content like by appointment but nearly always avialable LFR sessions or encounter sessions or stuff like that.
Another thing that has occured to me, now while I have had a look at a couple of the free VTTs I have not really used one in anger but the ones I have seen use tokens to show the locations of players, monsters etc. WoTC demos of their planned VTT showed 3d virtual minis, so that could be an issue also. They may feel obliged to deliver that also.

Just my 2cents.


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## wayne62682 (Jun 24, 2010)

ardoughter said:


> So, why Python? well there are good Python implementations that are integrated with .NET and that should facilitate creation of the necessary components to allow the VTT to integrate with the rest of the Suite and the Character Builder. It is also less for the WoTC developers to learn since they can use their existing tools and can do the bulk of the work in the language they are most familar with, make used of interfaces and plugins to connect the bits together.




There's also IronPython, which allows (almost) seamless integration between Python and .NET, including using WPF and whatnot.


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## UngainlyTitan (Jun 24, 2010)

wayne62682 said:


> There's also IronPython, which allows (almost) seamless integration between Python and .NET, including using WPF and whatnot.



Well I have never used Python in .NET so I was not going to make any reccomendation.


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## IronWolf (Jun 24, 2010)

ardoughter said:


> 1) the VTTs I have looked at have been implemented in  Java or Python.




I typically use Maptools which is Java based.

I know there is one out there using Python, which one is it?  I can't recall.

There is TTopRPG which uses .Net 3.5.  I've played in one game with it.  It didn't seem to have as many features as Maptools, but it certainly worked well enough and the developer seems quite willing to take input from people using the tool.



			
				ardoughter said:
			
		

> 2) WoTC have made a decision to go with .NET and I suspect that there is a corporate policy to go with Microsoft product and that it is made at a non technical level so difficult or impossible to change in the short term.




Yes, if they insist on using .Net with little flexibility on that matter then they are narrowing their choices down a fair amount short of working on one from scratch or picking up with what pieces they have.

Whatever they choose it would seem smart though to do something cross-platform.  With Apple making a stronger presence in the market of technology I think cross-platform becomes more of a consideration than it might have been three or four years ago.



			
				ardoughter said:
			
		

> 3) That all the bits integrate. That is, the Monster builder, encounter and campaign manager, mapper and VTT are integrated suite.




Integration would certainly be more difficult if they tried to provide tools for one of the existing VTTs as an add-on.  Though, take maptools for example.  If they built a 4e framework that plugs into Maptools that was easy plug-in to maptools, was maintained and reliable that would be one good step.  Then for adventures, provide maps that could be imported into maptools and provide pre-built tokens for critters in said modules that could get them pretty far.  

Total integration would be more difficult though as you mentioned.



			
				ardoughter said:
			
		

> Then, I would buy a Python based VTT, assuming that there is no good .Net one out there. There might be, I have not found one but then I have not looked that hard.
> 
> So, why Python? well there are good Python implementations that are integrated with .NET and that should facilitate creation of the necessary components to allow the VTT to integrate with the rest of the Suite and the Character Builder. It is also less for the WoTC developers to learn since they can use their existing tools and can do the bulk of the work in the language they are most familar with, make used of interfaces and plugins to connect the bits together.




Valid points as well, certainly from the technical side of things.  I'm not a dev, but aren't there Java tool options within .Net as well?  Similar to some of the the Python options?  (Actually a big fan of Python for sys admin scripting, so not trying to knock it - just curious about similar java tools for .Net).



			
				ardoughter said:
			
		

> What are the potential pitfalls? Well there are a few. I suspect that originally WoTC viewed the VTT and its integration in to the other tools as a product that they can charge a premium for. If they buy in that could be an issue with the fans since there would be an undoubted preception that WoTC is taking something that was free and now charging for it. As well as removing the perviously free content.




Yes, I think this is where the delay really hurt them.  There are several good VTTs out there now that I can use free of charge.  There are even community frameworks I can plug into the tools to run 4e games, 3.5 games, Pathfinder games, Savage World games, etc.  With the capabilities of the core VTT tools and these community frameworks I really have nearly everyhing I need now in a VTT.  So WotC has a lot to compete with in my opinion.  

Areas of improvement would be ease of use and a large amount of integration if they were to tackle a VTT from the ground up.  



			
				ardoughter said:
			
		

> Some of the free VTTs are open source and the developers might not sell for any price.




Yes, I actually would hate for WotC touch Maptools from any point.  I don't think that is going to happen though as I suspect the devs of Maptools would resist.  

I'd rather see WotC (and Paizo too for that matter) contribute a really solid framework to Maptools.  



			
				ardoughter said:
			
		

> Another thing that has occured to me, now while I have had a look at a couple of the free VTTs I have not really used one in anger but the ones I have seen use tokens to show the locations of players, monsters etc. WoTC demos of their planned VTT showed 3d virtual minis, so that could be an issue also. They may feel obliged to deliver that also.




Correct, the ones I have used are all token based, nothing super fancy like 3d virtual minis or anything.  To me this is not a major issue.  Perhaps other value the eye candy or WotC sees that aspect as the feature that will trump the already established VTTs of today.


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## Stoat (Jun 24, 2010)

IronWolf said:


> Correct, the ones I have used are all token based, nothing super fancy like 3d virtual minis or anything.  To me this is not a major issue.  Perhaps other value the eye candy or WotC sees that aspect as the feature that will trump the already established VTTs of today.




From what I remember, WotC viewed the 3D nature of their VTT (and its dynamic lighting) as big selling points.  I'm not sure how true that would be in practice.

2D tokens and maps are easy to create.  If I want an adventure featuring goblin pirates, a quick GIS will give me goblin pirates to turn into tokens.  I wouldn't be able to custom-make 3D images, and I doubt that WotC would be amenable to fan-made images anyway.  I would expect to be restricted to using whatever 3D tokens WotC provided.  

Further, IIRC, WotC was planning to charge extra for "virtual minis."  I don't think they ever came up with a solid plan, but some of the ideas I saw floating around looked pretty unappealing (I'm thinking about the "random virtual mini booster pack" here).  In other words, you'd pay for the VTT and then pay more for minis to use with the VTT.  

In other words, it looked like WotC was going for a system that (a) would limit a fan's ability to make and use custom tokens and (b) would involve a series of micropayments in addition to a monthly payment.  That's not real appealing to me, and I'm pretty sure it would not be real appealing to folks interested in gaming online.


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## UngainlyTitan (Jun 24, 2010)

IronWolf said:


> I typically use Maptools which is Java based.
> 
> I know there is one out there using Python, which one is it?  I can't recall.



OpenRPG



IronWolf said:


> There is TTopRPG which uses .Net 3.5.  I've played in one game with it.  It didn't seem to have as many features as Maptools, but it certainly worked well enough and the developer seems quite willing to take input from people using the tool.



 Thanks for the Link, as a .NET developer I have an interest in the topic. It is C++ and I wonder if it is all managed code. Must check it out some time.




IronWolf said:


> Yes, if they insist on using .Net with little flexibility on that matter then they are narrowing their choices down a fair amount short of working on one from scratch or picking up with what pieces they have.
> 
> Whatever they choose it would seem smart though to do something cross-platform.  With Apple making a stronger presence in the market of technology I think cross-platform becomes more of a consideration than it might have been three or four years ago.



agreed.



IronWolf said:


> Integration would certainly be more difficult if they tried to provide tools for one of the existing VTTs as an add-on.  Though, take maptools for example.  If they built a 4e framework that plugs into Maptools that was easy plug-in to maptools, was maintained and reliable that would be one good step.  Then for adventures, provide maps that could be imported into maptools and provide pre-built tokens for critters in said modules that could get them pretty far.
> 
> Total integration would be more difficult though as you mentioned.



Agreed on both counts.


IronWolf said:


> Valid points as well, certainly from the technical side of things.  I'm not a dev, but aren't there Java tool options within .Net as well?  Similar to some of the the Python options?  (Actually a big fan of Python for sys admin scripting, so not trying to knock it - just curious about similar java tools for .Net).



Not that I am aware of, I am pretty much .net focused but I have ran across a couple of Python frameworks that integrate with Visual Studio and I have heard of a Ruby one as well as a few other languanges but not Java.
I think that it could be that Java is sponsored by Sun now Oracle that is the source of the issue. Of course they can be made communicate using open protocols like SOAP and so forth.



IronWolf said:


> snip...
> 
> Yes, I actually would hate for WotC touch Maptools from any point.  I don't think that is going to happen though as I suspect the devs of Maptools would resist.



 My point exactly


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## IronWolf (Jun 24, 2010)

Stoat said:


> From what I remember, WotC viewed the 3D nature of their VTT (and its dynamic lighting) as big selling points.  I'm not sure how true that would be in practice.




Maptools does dynamic lighting and vision blocking as does TTopRPG, so even some of the freely available VTTs have that covered now.



			
				Stoat said:
			
		

> 2D tokens and maps are easy to create.  If I want an adventure featuring goblin pirates, a quick GIS will give me goblin pirates to turn into tokens.  I wouldn't be able to custom-make 3D images, and I doubt that WotC would be amenable to fan-made images anyway.  I would expect to be restricted to using whatever 3D tokens WotC provided.




Agreed.  2d tokens are so easy to create that the benefit outweighs any con of them not being 3d to me.  There are also a wealth of 2d tokens already available for use and as you said, when there isn't you can just make one anyways in very little time.  Being restricted to a 3D set WotC provided would not work for me when I have tools that don't restrict me.



			
				Stoat said:
			
		

> Further, IIRC, WotC was planning to charge extra for "virtual minis."  I don't think they ever came up with a solid plan, but some of the ideas I saw floating around looked pretty unappealing (I'm thinking about the "random virtual mini booster pack" here).  In other words, you'd pay for the VTT and then pay more for minis to use with the VTT.
> 
> In other words, it looked like WotC was going for a system that (a) would limit a fan's ability to make and use custom tokens and (b) would involve a series of micropayments in addition to a monthly payment.  That's not real appealing to me, and I'm pretty sure it would not be real appealing to folks interested in gaming online.




Definitely unappealing.




ardoughter said:


> OpenRPG




Ah!  That's the one.  Thanks!



			
				ardoughter said:
			
		

> Thanks for the Link, as a .NET developer I have an interest in the topic. It is C++ and I wonder if it is all managed code. Must check it out some time.




The dev is pretty friendly, so if you have interest he might be worth talking to.  I know he's sat in on some games simply to be available for comments, suggestions for improvements, etc. - which I thought was cool.


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## guivre (Jun 24, 2010)

MapTool has no 's'.


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## D'karr (Jun 24, 2010)

The WotC VTT demoed/premiered at DDXP and later demoed at Gencon had the capability of making tokens rather easily, from any image source.  So creating tokens on it was not an issue.

One of the "features" of that VTT was that you could import your 3D character from their "imaging" software and use it as your token on the table.  I saw the DM at the table demo this feature and it was nifty.

The VTT was ruleset agnostic and would not force any game specific artifacts.  This was a good thing and also a bad thing.  You could play any game you wanted with the table, but the lack of support for the ruleset could also be a detriment, IMO.

The game table looked awesome and the use of 3D models was very appealing.  I would say that would have been a selling point.  They had ported over the Dungeon Tiles at that time.  Some of the tiles actually had 3D elements such as burning braziers, etc.

I'd love to see somebody come up with a 3D game table someday.


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## wedgeski (Jun 24, 2010)

Stoat said:


> Further, IIRC, WotC was planning to charge extra for "virtual minis."  I don't think they ever came up with a solid plan, but some of the ideas I saw floating around looked pretty unappealing (I'm thinking about the "random virtual mini booster pack" here).  In other words, you'd pay for the VTT and then pay more for minis to use with the VTT.



This isn't true, I don't think. It was merely a (stupid) idea floated somewhere that -- as usual -- got blown out of all sense of reality by the fandom.


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## UngainlyTitan (Jun 24, 2010)

The key selling point for a WoTC VTT would be integration with DDI.
You could buy an adventure mod and get the maps, tokens, floor plans and a campaign file for the DM utilities and the whole lot would be bundled together.

If you roll your own then you could also pull stuff directly from the other tools.

The problem they have IMHO, is that the market is moving on and they are playing catchup. They do not have the resources to compete and buying would be their best option.


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## Stoat (Jun 24, 2010)

D'karr said:


> The WotC VTT demoed/premiered at DDXP and later demoed at Gencon had the capability of making tokens rather easily, from any image source.  So creating tokens on it was not an issue.




Do you mean the user could create 2D tokens or 3D tokens?  



wedgeski said:


> This isn't true, I don't think. It was merely a (stupid) idea floated somewhere that -- as usual -- got blown out of all sense of reality by the fandom.




You may be right.  To my recollection, WotC hadn't settled on what they were going to do, and a number of different pricing models were floated around.  I was under the impression that they wanted to sell 3D tokens separately and were looking for a way to do it, possibly with random tokens, more likely by providing a basic set of tokens with the VTT and then charging for add-ons.


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## Oldtimer (Jun 24, 2010)

IronWolf said:


> I'm not a dev, but aren't there Java tool options within .Net as well?  Similar to some of the the Python options?  (Actually a big fan of Python for sys admin scripting, so not trying to knock it - just curious about similar java tools for .Net).



Well, there is J#, but that is largely considered a dead language nowadays.


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## D'karr (Jun 24, 2010)

Stoat said:


> Do you mean the user could create 2D tokens or 3D tokens?




You'd take a 2D image and place it on a token.  The token looked like a 3D miniature base with the image on top of it.  The token was "flat", IIRC.



> You may be right.  To my recollection, WotC hadn't settled on what they were going to do, and a number of different pricing models were floated around.  I was under the impression that they wanted to sell 3D tokens separately and were looking for a way to do it, possibly with random tokens, more likely by providing a basic set of tokens with the VTT and then charging for add-ons.




Yes the talk about charging for miniatures was discussion of things that they were considering, among many other ideas.  They never settled on any definitive type of "pricing."  At that time even the pricing for DDI was up in the air.  The talk of micro-transactions kept coming up, but there were issues like how many miniatures, could you share miniatures, could you trade miniatures, could you duplicate miniatures, etc.  A lot of this was WotC spitballing ideas, and some took them as OMGWTFBBQ they are charging for virtual miniatures!!!


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## UngainlyTitan (Jun 24, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> Well, there is J#, but that is largely considered a dead language nowadays.



My understanding is that J# breached the Java licence in several ways, or at least that is what Sun claimed and eventally MS settled and dropped J#


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## Zaran (Jun 24, 2010)

D'karr said:


> Yes the talk about charging for miniatures was discussion of things that they were considering, among many other ideas. They never settled on any definitive type of "pricing." At that time even the pricing for DDI was up in the air. The talk of micro-transactions kept coming up, but there were issues like how many miniatures, could you share miniatures, could you trade miniatures, could you duplicate miniatures, etc. A lot of this was WotC spitballing ideas, and some took them as OMGWTFBBQ they are charging for virtual miniatures!!!




I think some of this is because they took the stance of not telling us anything.  They probably should come out and tell us what they are doing and what they aren't.  At the moment, everyone thinks they aren't doing anything because they are so quiet.  We assume that they don't know what they are doing and don't want to say something that isn't true to us.  Its a cursed if they do , cursed if they don't kind of thing.  I wonder if they would lose any customers if they came out and said they aren't going to do a virtual game table?  I doubt it.  They probably lost those people already.


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## IronWolf (Jun 24, 2010)

D'karr said:


> You'd take a 2D image and place it on a token.  The token looked like a 3D miniature base with the image on top of it.  The token was "flat", IIRC.




Was it something similar to this?


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## D'karr (Jun 24, 2010)

IronWolf said:


> Was it something similar to this?




No, visually it looked like a round miniature base with a picture attached to it.  Just like one of the tokens they have in the basic set but tacked on to a miniature base.


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## Stoat (Jun 24, 2010)

D'karr said:


> You'd take a 2D image and place it on a token.  The token looked like a 3D miniature base with the image on top of it.  The token was "flat", IIRC.




Huh.  I'd like to see what that looked like.  IMO, because playing over a VTT requires sacrificing facial expression and body language (and to a some degree vocal tone and timbre), a good map and tokens are vital.  My instinct is that putting a flat token into a 3D environment would take me too much out of the game.



> Yes the talk about charging for miniatures was discussion of things that they were considering, among many other ideas.  They never settled on any definitive type of "pricing."  At that time even the pricing for DDI was up in the air.  The talk of micro-transactions kept coming up, but there were issues like how many miniatures, could you share miniatures, could you trade miniatures, could you duplicate miniatures, etc.  A lot of this was WotC spitballing ideas, and some took them as OMGWTFBBQ they are charging for virtual miniatures!!!




Frankly, I'd expect to pay for virtual minis, and I'd be surprised if WotC didn't charge for them.  It takes time and talent to produce something like that, and time and talent cost money.  The big questions for me would be price point and whether the DM could dupe one token to represent multiple opponents.



Zaran said:


> I think some of this is because they took the stance of not telling us anything.  They probably should come out and tell us what they are doing and what they aren't.  At the moment, everyone thinks they aren't doing anything because they are so quiet.  We assume that they don't know what they are doing and don't want to say something that isn't true to us.  Its a cursed if they do , cursed if they don't kind of thing.  I wonder if they would lose any customers if they came out and said they aren't going to do a virtual game table?  I doubt it.  They probably lost those people already.




I'm almost positive that somebody from WotC flat out stated that the company wasn't currently working on a VTT about a year ago.  Given how spectacularly they crashed and burned the first time, I'd be very, very surprised if they announced anything before it was ready to roll out.


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## mudbunny (Jun 25, 2010)

Stoat said:


> I'm almost positive that somebody from WotC flat out stated that the company wasn't currently working on a VTT about a year ago.  Given how spectacularly they crashed and burned the first time, I'd be very, very surprised if they announced anything before it was ready to roll out.




WotC has been pretty consistent over the past couple of years (since the release of the Character Builder) in saying that they would be working on one tool at a time, and would be announcing the tool that they were working on a couple of weeks before it would go "live".


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## Festivus (Jun 25, 2010)

So I hadn't looked at Maptool in a while, and any frameworks, so I decided to take a look at what was out there last night.  Turns out there is a framework where you can copy and paste from the CB and Compendium entries (although it's not perfect, it's pretty much what has been suggested above).

RPTools.net Forums • View topic - [D&D 4E] Rumble's D&D Combat Framework

I played with it for a little bit, while it has room for improvement it's a huge timesaver just to be able to copy and paste stat blocks.


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## IronWolf (Jun 25, 2010)

Festivus said:


> So I hadn't looked at Maptool in a while, and any frameworks, so I decided to take a look at what was out there last night.  Turns out there is a framework where you can copy and paste from the CB and Compendium entries (although it's not perfect, it's pretty much what has been suggested above).
> 
> RPTools.net Forums • View topic - [D&D 4E] Rumble's D&D Combat Framework
> 
> I played with it for a little bit, while it has room for improvement it's a huge timesaver just to be able to copy and paste stat blocks.




Yeah - there is something similar in the popular pathfinder framework as well.


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## Festivus (Jun 25, 2010)

IronWolf said:


> Yeah - there is something similar in the popular pathfinder framework as well.




Just curious, but what does that import from?  Heroforge?  Herolab?


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## IronWolf (Jun 25, 2010)

Festivus said:


> Just curious, but what does that import from?  Heroforge?  Herolab?




I know of two stat block importers for the pathfinder stuff, it just works off a statblock as opposed to a saved character/monster file.

statblock2token

or 

StatBlockImporter

which claims to be able to import from Pathfinder_OGC.  I have not tested.


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## Mark (Jun 25, 2010)

On a similar note, here's a new report on what's up with the Microsoft Surface -

  Hands on with Microsoft Surface & Catan by Purple Pawn


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