Looks like the DDI Virtual Table Top is DONE.
And by done I mean CANCELLED.
Lame.
Are they still going to make the non random minis skirmish game?
Are they still going to make the non random minis skirmish game?
I dont see any reason why they'd cancel it. They're still giving previews and snippets of the first few sets.
Point me the right direction? My search-fu failed me for some reason.
Sorry for slight derail.
Like they licensed the magazines to a company who took them to award winning heights?
As mentioned elsewhere, I'm starting to wonder if 5E itself is going to get canned.
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Would it not be better for WotC to simply license the game to some people who have already developed the software?
It looks like they may be doing this exact thing:
Well there is a way out...I am the Vice-President of GameTable Online and I am happy to say we will be adopting the VT platform and are currently preparing to host it at our new RPG portal. GTO coded and developed the VT so we are very familiar with the platform and are excited to be going live with this roleplaying game application.
The anticipated name for the new VT will be RPGTable Online and we have claimed the URL address of www.rpgtableonline.com. We have some work to do to prepare for the transition but expect to be back to hosting online RPG sessions at the end of July!
A big concern for us was making sure that your existing VT Dungeons & Dragons campaigns are transferred to RPGTO. To transfer your active campaigns to RPGTable Online all you need to do is register at www.gametableonline.com before we go live and email your GTO User Name and VT Screen Name to support@gametableonline.com. When the transition to the RPGTO site goes forward, our plan is to port your content over so all of your campaigns will be waiting for you!
GTO has been hosting online board games, since 2003 so we know and love games. We are looking forward to the opportunity to expand our online games to include RPGs application.
Robert Eng
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Hmm, the reason for cancelling was not enough support, by that I assume they mean not enough demand.
Now was there not enough demand because of the specific implementation?
Not enough demand because people who want to play online already have chosen a VTT application?
Not enough demand because it was branded as Beta and people were wanting to wait for the final version (i.e. demand was based on the number of early adopters)?
Not enough demand for WotC to believe they will make a "decent" return on the investment they are putting into it (how efficient are they using that investment)?
It would be worth Paizo exploring all of these issues because if they don't they could well find their VTT not being a worthwhile investment - and it would be even more embarrassing for Paizo to cancel their VTT due to lack of demand when people could point to WotC and say "Duh! Was WotC's experience not a clue for you?"
Personally I think Paizo would push ahead with the VTT anyway, a) because they likely don't expect as big a ROI as WotC, b) because they may intend to run it as a loss leader anyway, and c) they wouldn't want the even greater embarrassment of cancelling their VTT after WotC cancelled theirs.
Personally, I doubt I would ever use a VTT. I looked into them once, but for me if I am going to be looking at a screen and typing stuff in, I would prefer to play a computer game - roleplaying for me is sitting round a table enjoying the social aspect.
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That's assuming that what WotC says is what actually happened. Oh wait, I forgot whom I'm talking to.
And there's always the "Paizo's VTT will work, because they're yet to make a bad business decision" and "WotC's VTT was doomed, because WotC lately is all about failure" option, but again I can understand why this particular thought did not plant a seed in your field of imagination.
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I may regret responding to this post for the obvious reasons (feeding the troll), but I will do so anyway.
That's assuming that what WotC says is what actually happened. Oh wait, I forgot whom I'm talking to.
Whilst I try not to be naive enough that I assume everything I read is true, I would hate to be so cynical and sceptical that I would automatically assume everything I read from WotC is a lie. I would rather take it at face value until presented with evidence (or even rumour) to indicate otherwise.
But if you hadn't realised, I was actually questioning what WotC meant by "unable to generate enough support" and then went on to suggest reasons why they may not have had enough demand. One of my suggested reasons was that their specific implementation of a VTT may not be up to what is expected.
Imagine that, I was actually proposing that a reason WotC's VTT lacked support was because WotC didn't do a good enough job. But I guess I was perhaps too subtle there and that as you obviously only expect me to spout praise for WotC you missed that.
And there's always the "Paizo's VTT will work, because they're yet to make a bad business decision"
Whilst Paizo do seem to make good business decisions in general and seem to be on a roll I would be very surprised if they have never made a bad business decision - they are not infallible.
And past success is no guarantee of future success, especially when venturing into a new field of endeavour. Personally I wonder whether Paizo are spreading themselves too thin, venturing out into MMOs (albeit via Goblinworks), minis, pawns, VTT as well as their current portfolios of map packs, PF books and PDFs and Pathfinder Society organised play.
I hope the Paizo VTT works and works well and I am sure they have enough customer goodwill to make it a success and even forgive them a few setbacks should they occur. If it is particularly good and easy to use I may be convinced to even use it to play a PFS scenario or two (though as I stated I prefer face to face roleplaying so Paizo will have their work cut out to entice me in).
"WotC's VTT was doomed, because WotC lately is all about failure" option
WotC's track record with DDI tools has had its ups and downs I agree (original tools not being available for Macs, move to online tools before having as good functionality as the offline tools), and they were definitely premature, and oversold the idea, when they revealed the idea of a VTT at the launch of 4e.
However, it seems failure in this case may just be a matter of overestimating how many players would want to use the VTT, and therefore how much return they hoped to gain on the effort and money put in (bearing in mind use would be free with DDI subscription, so I guess they were hoping it would encourage more people to subscribe).
In the end I was merely suggesting that Paizo may want to take a look at WotC's history with the VTT and their eventual decision to cancel it. They would be foolish not to learn from the mistakes WotC make. Do you disagree with that?
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In the end I was merely suggesting that Paizo may want to take a look at WotC's history with the VTT and their eventual decision to cancel it. They would be foolish not to learn from the mistakes WotC make. Do you disagree with that?
At this point in Paizo's life, does anyone really believe that they AREN'T fully cognizant of WotC's catalog of blunders and know NOT to follow in their footsteps?
I'm sorry, but this really seems like yet another "If WoTC couldn't do it, what makes you think Paizo could?" kind of setups and questions. If I read this wrong, I apologize in advance.
I think Paizo has proven that they CAN do what others are unwilling or incapable of doing.
In the end I was merely suggesting that Paizo may want to take a look at WotC's history with the VTT and their eventual decision to cancel it. They would be foolish not to learn from the mistakes WotC make. Do you disagree with that?At this point in Paizo's life, does anyone really believe that they AREN'T fully cognizant of WotC's catalog of blunders and know NOT to follow in their footsteps?
I'm sorry, but this really seems like yet another "If WoTC couldn't do it, what makes you think Paizo could?" kind of setups and questions. If I read this wrong, I apologize in advance.
I think Paizo has proven that they CAN do what others are unwilling or incapable of doing.
FWIW, I didnt read DigitalMage's comment like that at all, although I take your point that it hardly seems necessary to draw the travails of WotC to Paizo's attention.
What gives me confidence Paizo will succeed where WotC failed is that Paizo seem very willing to learn from their mistakes and to change, rather than to plug on with a subpar product until it dies. They've made mis-steps and miscalculated fans' desires before but one of the keys to their success, in my view, is their ability to listen to the disparate views of their customers and to weave those views into the design of their products. I fully suspect Paizo's VTT to have some failures - but any complaints will be heard and responded to. Who can ask for more than that?
I think another probable factor in the abandonment of the VTT is that it is tied so closely to 4E. As I understand it, the rules are hardcoded in. Given the looming demise of 4E (*sigh*) the probable market is pretty unlikely to justify the required push from beta to fully functioning product.
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The problem with a VTT more generally is that you need to be available all at the same time to play, otherwise why not just do PbP? It's little use to me as upgrading my PbP games to this format doesn't overcome this issue, due to players being in significantly different timezones. Otherwise, I might as well just meet the people I'm playing with in a RL game or just not bother. So when I heard I was disappointed but, then again, I was one of those people who wasn't that interested to start with, irrespective of my attitude to WotC. So it strikes me as a pretty niche product to start with.
I suspect Paizo can do some stuff because they are prepared to accept lower initial profit margins than WotC - which is there prerogative as a private company but not something a public company can do so easily. And it's not like Paizo get everything right - anyone remember Planet Stories? They are quite happy to cut stuff themselves when it looks like a loser for them.
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At this point in Paizo's life, does anyone really believe that they AREN'T fully cognizant of WotC's catalog of blunders and know NOT to follow in their footsteps?
The announcement by WotC to abandon their VTT has only just happened, and at present the reason given is they could not generate enough support.
The point I was making was that Paizo should make themselves cognisant of this particular announcement and the reason given, to possibly dig deeper to see why the support could not be generated (Steve Geddes makes a good point in that it may be tied to a ruleset in its twilight years) and thus determine whether it may have any impact on the likely demand for their own VTT.
I'm sorry, but this really seems like yet another "If WoTC couldn't do it, what makes you think Paizo could?" kind of setups and questions. If I read this wrong, I apologize in advance.
That wasn't how it was meant; Gorbacz mentioned the Paizo VTT announcement and that got me thinking about whether there is anything that could be learnt.
Noted, and apology reiterated. Thanks!
Paizo don't do this:
"We realize that because all data generated in the tool is in a proprietary format usable only by the Virtual Table, it is not possible to export your campaigns for use in another tool. You can, however, take screenshots of any notes, maps or adventures that you would like to hang on to or use in your home games."
You spend time inputting all your notes and you cannot even take them with you when they pull the plug. [sarcasm] I just love how anything you ever do on their site and with any of their products is theirs not yours. [/sarcasm]
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Um, if that was the case, you wouldn't be able to take the screenshots and so on. I think what they are saying is that the system isn't compatible with other systems so you can't move it anywhere else. Which is contrary to the post above from Robert Hawkshaw, and more the source of controversy than this.
Um, if that was the case, you wouldn't be able to take the screenshots and so on. I think what they are saying is that the system isn't compatible with other systems so you can't move it anywhere else.
Which, in case of product like VTT is a sign of a very bad design decision, which had to be taken on an early stage of development. Making VTT data easy to transfer and download for use on pen and paper sessions should be one of the priorities.
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Well, if you are a great believer in Open Source, which of course WotC aren't. That said, if you want to do paper and pen there are already systems for that - involving paper and pens (or indeed, their other systems like the Character Generator, Compendium and Monster Builder). I know very little about the system as I wasn't intested in the Beta but I would imagine making the system compatible with WotC's existing 4e systems would probably be a more urgent priority. Having a VTT and then making it so you can use it for table-top as a major design aim seems to be missing the point.
I meant character data and notes, not data files for game mechanics. Ability to download in printable form does not have to do anything with being Open Source - it's just a common sense for a tool designed to play long-range "pen and paper" sessions ("pen and paper" in a sense of still being classic game sessions played on computer medium instead of cRPG).
I didn't know Paizo was pursuing a VTT. Links/info?
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I didn't know Paizo was pursuing a VTT. Links/info?Announced at PaizoCon.
Ah. That could explain, since a literal ocean seperated me from PaizoCon.
I'd have to say that I share the concern about Paizo spreading itself too thin, between this, Pathfinder Online, the RPG, and the campaign setting. And I dunno if they're still doing Dr. Lucky and the other board games, but if so, that has to eat up some resources too.
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I'd have to say that I share the concern about Paizo spreading itself too thin, between this, Pathfinder Online, the RPG, and the campaign setting. And I dunno if they're still doing Dr. Lucky and the other board games, but if so, that has to eat up some resources too.
Ryan Dancey and Goblinworks will be doing all the stuff for PFO, so I wouldn't worry about that too much -- they'll be interacting with the Paizo staff but it's really a separate company producing the game under license.
The VTT may or may not sap resources. My only concern with that is that the tech team already has a backlog of projects, but frankly Paizo knows their business and resources. Lisa and Vic have shown that they have the managerial skills to prioritize, allocate resources, and grow the company as necessary. Have some faith :)
I was actually questioning what WotC meant by "unable to generate enough support" and then went on to suggest reasons why they may not have had enough demand. One of my suggested reasons was that their specific implementation of a VTT may not be up to what is expected.
My observations as a DDi subscriber for a few months are in line with this theory. I got out before the VTT debuted, but their other features never seemed to measure up to user expectations.
First, they dumped a functional product - the offline character and monster builders - for a web-based application that was inferior in scope.
Then they were either unable or unwilling to make the online builders as fully functional as the older tools. Updates at the tail-end of the support for the offline tools appeared to break features rather than fix them, and while I hate to don the tinfoil hat, that did seem like a deliberate attempt to drive users toward sustained subscriptions for the online tools.
Problem is, the online tools didn't seem to improve in functionality - at least, not rapidly enough for me to keep paying them money. It took them a long time to incorporate Dark Sun and D&D Essentials into the new platform, which looked especially bad considering that some digging into the source code for the offline CB seemed to indicate that the work on the Dark Sun material - and perhaps a limited amount of the Essentials content - had already been done.
The message that I got from Wizards as far as their digital tools went was this: "You'll keep paying for it because there's no alternative except HeroLab, which is effectively hobbled by our distribution method, and we're only going to give you features and updates as we see fit, feedback be damned. Don't like it? Okay. Don't subscribe."
And I suspect that quite a few people did just that.
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Um, if that was the case, you wouldn't be able to take the screenshots and so on. I think what they are saying is that the system isn't compatible with other systems so you can't move it anywhere else. Which is contrary to the post above from Robert Hawkshaw, and more the source of controversy than this.
Um, that's not changing the statement that it's not compatible with other systems. That's the designers of the existing system saying they'll keep it running independent of DDI. It doesn't address compatibility in any way.
To sum up: same exact system, different domain name.
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I meant character data and notes, not data files for game mechanics. Ability to download in printable form does not have to do anything with being Open Source - it's just a common sense for a tool designed to play long-range "pen and paper" sessions ("pen and paper" in a sense of still being classic game sessions played on computer medium instead of cRPG).
Well, I don't know to what extent the now-defunct system interfaced with what exists already, but I do know that if you want data on characters and so on, it's in the character generator. I'm still not really seeing how this is a problem for the VTT. But it's a bit theoretical given it won't go into production anyway.
Re Thorkull, the point I'm making is that WotC's announcement doesn't mention the system existing independently of DDI or the Beta. Maybe it's obvious if you are a member of the Beta, but certainly the WotC email suggests that you need to print out your stuff or it's gone. Which seems a bit disingenuous of WotC if that's not the case. I'm a DDI subscriber so I got the actual email from WotC and they don't mention it in that, although there is a fuller link I didn't click and it might be in there, I suppose.
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Personally, I find it a disappointment that WotC didn't pursue this more. I think playing virtually in this fashion needs to be considered. A lot of gamers have friends and family who they aren't living near or who lack the space to conveniently host a game in person. I know as I am person who's in this situation. I get most of my game fix via weekly Xbox Live sessions or now a Skype D&D game we've started in playtesting Next with the rest being rare marathon sessions when we can get together in person. Having a well designed and well supported tool or tools that support this style of play is a good thing for the community. If they aren't willing to do the leg work, get in bed with someone who already has an offering. I think of how the DDM Guild came together to support minis play after WotC dropped D&D Miniatures support. They need a similar relationship here with the VTT.
One hopes the loss of this particular tool is not the death knell for electronic tool support as a whole via DDI. I'd hate to see it completely stagnate between now and whenever D&D Next is released. One has to believe they have some lessons learned from the 4E launch and are working on some comprehensive electronic support for the new game to include both web based DDI tools as well as smart phone and tablet apps.
Time will tell.
L
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I'm still unsure why WoTC and Paizo don't simply license their products out to third party VTTs and then focus on their core competencies, which is putting out compelling content and rules. How will the ROI for a Paizo built VTT will ever stack up what it could be with licensing, especially when you consider all the other things that could be getting done at the same time if you didn't have those resources tied up.
I think there is a lot of overestimating of the market and underestimating the resource cost. A lot of large and otherwise successful companies have made attempts at custom building software solutions that already exist simply so they can control its development and usage. This basically puts the ability to use the software in the hands of the company building it. If the project or service gets scrapped, you lose it. For the few problems that do exist for peer-to-peer games and software installed on your own system, at least with those you still own all your stuff.
On top of that, these attempts fail quite often. Even when they somewhat succeed, they fail to consider that while they are busy building their own solution, the target has moved and they still have an inferior solution to what is available externally.
As a career software developer, consultant and business owner, I've seen a lot of smart and savvy business people make very poor business decisions about software. How much money you have available to invest does not guarantee success. Using similar software does not mean you will be able to design it or be successful at directing others on what to build.
I think VTT grew somewhat outmoded. We may be this close to an app/widget that would track movement of minis on a screen of a tablet (seriously, it wouldn't be much of a difference from 4E-like pogs when they would be on the screen). Somewhat joining this with character trackers or attack rolls could be child's play for some more dedicated app creators (I mean people). If current tablets and smartphones are not fast enough to handle this (which I doubt), then next generation will have it.
If they did not "allow" people to take screenshots, I would say they did some very unacceptable things to peoples' computers.
I never did the DDI. At all. Again and again, I have been grateful for this decision. Today, once more.
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I'm still unsure why WoTC and Paizo don't simply license their products out to third party VTTs and then focus on their core competencies...
This is just my guess: Those other "out-of-a-box" solutions don't mesh with Paizo's custom-built website. The amount of work it would take on Paizo's part to integrate an existing VTT into their website probably drove the decision to build their own VTT, especially given that Paizo already has a few developers on staff that are intimately familiar with the guts of their website, store, forums, etc. (which, again, are all custom built).
Guessing further: Having a VTT that runs through their website was a very high priority for Paizo going forward with this project because they intend to do two things that Paizo has a history of doing very well. 1) Further build a sense of community by benig awesome to their customers; Paizo.come is the place to go for pick-up games, pbps, and on-going campaigns. 2) Use the VTT and sense of community as a marketing tool for selling more PFRPG products to those customers pulled to the website.
-Skeld
Disagree completely. I actually hate Apps and the latest trend towards accommodating them in everything. I'd take browser or PC based software over an app every time.
App or application is just a program for Android, which itself is derived somewhat from Linux if I recall the relations correctly. Windows 8 is going to be optimised for PCs tablets and smartphones...
I think the border between app, widget and program is purely in name. Platform will matter less as the time marches forward and currently it's merely a matter of how poweful processor rests in the shell.
What I was trying to point at was that simple game tracking thingy is well within capabilities of current technology. It just needs to be done. VTT people have probably realized it and also realized that whole thing probably wouldn't return the investment.