I would like to suggest that the Beyond platform expand to include a full fledged virtual table top solution for all WotC games.
You have a solid start already with what Beyond is currently, but there is no reason not to expand this subscription service into the virtual table top market and take customers away from licensed software services such as Fantasy Grounds, or Roll20.
Certainly would be nice for the players and GM to have everything they need straight from the source to run a virtual table top campaign, and quite frankly the market is ripe for a company to beat the above listed services at their own game with a next gen level one stop shop and play solution.
I would also like to suggest that if a customer buys a physical copy of your books/products they in addition receive digital owner rights to that content here. This could be done through a unlock code system that is shipped as an insert with the books. You buy the book you get the code, and unlock the digital version of the content here with said code.
I'm in mobile so I can't really format broken quotes right. So I'll start from the top.
Firay off, you open with dear WotC. Beyond isn't WotC, Beyond is made by a company called Curse, which is owned by Amazon
I doubt Beyond will expand to include all WotC games because of the expense of licensing them. Also, in a virtual tabletop sense, magic is probably too complex to really pick up. If you know much about magic, then you'd probably know what a cluster MTGO is and I'm sure if anyone could do it better, there would be talks.
I think there is plenty of reason for Beyond not to become a VTT. And I think the devs agree with me because from what I recall, that's not even on the already massive *list*. I really don't want to see the Beyond team spreading itself too thin trying to do everything. I want Beyond to be a great resource for character and campaign management as well as an aid in playing the game itself. I also doubt people heavily invested in Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds would be very eager to jump onto a new service. As things are now, Beyond is the only officially licensed source that just handles things like rules searching, and the digital campaign stuff WITHOUT a VTT. And not everyone wants a VTT. I run and in person game and use Beyond every session and never wanted to dive into the VTTs
I'm not sure what you mean about getting everything from the source. Beyond, FG, and Roll20 all get their info from the same source. I'm also not sure where you got the idea the market is ripe for someone new to enter. Where's this coming from? I've literally heard no one asking for this. Again, I'm not sure where you got the idea Curse would do something "next Gen" either. What even is next Gen for a VTT?
The digital codes in physical books is so unlikely to happen I'm fine saying it'll never happen. There's so much that would have to change for it to even be viable. Wizards would have to add the extra steps of having the codes and inserting them in books. They'd have to make a way to secure them so people can't just steal them, or buy the book and return it after redeeming the code. They'd have to set it up so there's either codes for all digital tools, or the code can only be redeemed on one tool and never for any others. They'd have to figure out how the digital companies would all get their cut of the book sale. And lastly, books would probably having to be 1.5-2x more than they are now to cover all of this. Which now screws over the people who want a physical copy only.
You're the only reply thus far so no need for quotes.
I am aware of who owns what and am aware they are official partners with WotC to develop digital game tools for WotC, which would potentially be a virtual table top. So posting here and addressing WotC is fair in my opinion as it would probably be Curse handling the project, but WotC would be the one green lighting.
Stopped playing magic in 1997, so no not really in a current sense of things, but if it is bad as you say then there should be talks for a better solution.
You have opinions as to why it shouldn't happen, ok.
Did not say such a project should happen asap, that would be an unreal expectation of a development team that clearly already has a full workload. Granted I did not explicitly say it and used terms such as ripe so sorry for the confusion, but in the future when they have established this service I think it should be seriously considered.
I can understand not wanting to use a virtual table top and did not suggest the database features be exclusively used in a virtual table top. Why not both and give people the option, after all it is a pen and paper game. Quite frankly I wish I could play it as a pnp game but due to friends locations who I have been playing with for years it would be impossible so vtt it is.
I play both roll20 and Fantasy Grounds and can say with complete honesty that someone could beat them at their own game and take all the spoils, and yes I have spent a good amount of money on both and yes I would go to a different platform if it was superior in functionality. The effects syntax in FG alone makes me want to jump ship. So yes you have heard of someone asking for it, me.
Next Gen VTT will be anything from any company that seriously attempts to make a virtual tabletop up to current standards of usability and looks, this was sort of a joke or play on words if you will.
You have a fair point about the difficulty of creating a system to give customers digital rights to content here; although I bet they could ask any college textbook company who does this how it could be done. Better yet offer a version of their physical books that do give digital copies here or else where, heck I bet those would sell a lot better and more frequently than collectors editions while giving yet another reason to use this service.
Charge a premium why not, better than paying twice on top of a subscription.
Here is something you may want to consider, WotC has tried and failed to launch a VVT of their own already. Add to that their painful to use MTGO platform and the....what is the polar opposite of wisdom...of building their last edition's character builder platform on a legacy software that Windows had twilighted, and I think you can start to form an opinion that you don't want them anywhere near the technical end of your gaming experience. Luckily, Wizards has somewhat learned this lesson as well and has been contracting out and licensing their IP to various other companies who do the job better than they ever could in recent years.
This is where DDB comes in. From what I can tell, Curse is less interested currently in jumping into the VTT market and that's fine. They are serving a very important niche for people who run home-games and do convention play. DDB also seems to be gearing up to take the show on the road with fully integrated Twitch support (since Curse is owned by Twitch and all) which will open them up to an arena similar to the VTT scene, but with a much larger growth market.
I don't ever really expect them to pick up older editions or move to grab other Wizards properties anytime soon.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
I am aware of who owns what and am aware they are official partners with WotC to develop digital game tools for WotC, which would potentially be a virtual table top. So posting here and addressing WotC is fair in my opinion as it would probably be Curse handling the project, but WotC would be the one green lighting.
Bold emphasis, mine. D&D Beyond tools could be a virtual table top solution. Would implies that a virtual table top was planned as part of these tools from the beginning. Not trying to nitpick, just making an important distinction. Would I love for the D&D Beyond team to put together a virtual table top solution that integrates with their other tools? Heck yes! Is this in the cards, or was this part of their initial talks with WotC? No, unfortunately.
Quote from Seabhac »
Stopped playing magic in 1997, so no not really in a current sense of things, but if it is bad as you say then there should be talks for a better solution.
WotC is already working on a new digital Magic: The Gathering solution. Check out Magic: The Gathering Arena.
Quote from Seabhac »
Did not say such a project should happen asap, that would be an unreal expectation of a development team that clearly already has a full workload. Granted I did not explicitly say it and used terms such as ripe so sorry for the confusion, but in the future when they have established this service I think it should be seriously considered.
I agree. I think D&D Beyond without a virtual table top solution is like stopping one experience point short of your next level. :)
Quote from Seabhac »
I can understand not wanting to use a virtual table top and did not suggest the database features be exclusively used in a virtual table top. Why not both and give people the option, after all it is a pen and paper game. Quite frankly I wish I could play it as a pnp game but due to friends locations who I have been playing with for years it would be impossible so vtt it is.
I'm in a similar boat, and while I find Fantasy Grounds and Roll20 to be OK, I have the feeling that the D&D Beyond team could knock this out of the park as well. A virtual table top solution would be several years away, I would think, as the D&D Beyond team is rather small.
Quote from Seabhac »
I play both roll20 and Fantasy Grounds and can say with complete honesty that someone could beat them at their own game and take all the spoils, and yes I have spent a good amount of money on both and yes I would go to a different platform if it was superior in functionality. The effects syntax in FG alone makes me want to jump ship. So yes you have heard of someone asking for it, me.
Agreed, Roll20 is OK, but not great, and Fantasy Grounds is a user functionality nightmare.
Quote from Seabhac »
Next Gen VTT will be anything from any company that seriously attempts to make a virtual tabletop up to current standards of usability and looks, this was sort of a joke or play on words if you will.
But you are certainly correct. I think the enormous commercial response to D&D Beyond has shown WotC (and Curse, of course) that there is a large untapped market for well-polished digital tools for D&D.
Quote from Seabhac »
You have a fair point about the difficulty of creating a system to give customers digital rights to content here; although I bet they could ask any college textbook company who does this how it could be done. Better yet offer a version of their physical books that do give digital copies here or else where, heck I bet those would sell a lot better and more frequently than collectors editions while giving yet another reason to use this service.
While it would be nice, this won't happen. Consider the enormous outcry from customers who already have hardcover versions of books that WotC would now be putting D&D Beyond codes into. There would be no way for someone who has already purchased a book to be able to prove that to WotC that they have legally purchased the book, and purchased it new, not used. I'm sure some people keep their receipts from three years ago, but I'm betting the majority do not.
Quote from Seabhac »
Charge a premium why not, better than paying twice on top of a subscription.
WotC wouldn't want to do that as it would alienate half of the D&D customer base who either have no interest in using D&D Beyond, because they use other tools, or because they prefer to keep technology out of their D&D games altogether.
Quote from Metamongoose »
Here is something you may want to consider, WotC has tried and failed to launch a VVT of their own already. Add to that their painful to use MTGO platform and the....what is the polar opposite of wisdom...of building their last edition's character builder platform on a legacy software that Windows had twilighted, and I think you can start to form an opinion that you don't want them anywhere near the technical end of your gaming experience. Luckily, Wizards has somewhat learned this lesson as well and has been contracting out and licensing their IP to various other companies who do the job better than they ever could in recent years.
Well, remember, the virtual table top solution that WotC touted for Fourth Edition was sidelined due to some very unfortunate events concerning the employee in charge of it's development. You're right, WotC has learned that it is better to license out to companies that want to offer digital solutions, which I think was a great move.
Quote from Metamongoose »
This is where DDB comes in. From what I can tell, Curse is less interested currently in jumping into the VTT market and that's fine. They are serving a very important niche for people who run home-games and do convention play. DDB also seems to be gearing up to take the show on the road with fully integrated Twitch support (since Curse is owned by Twitch and all) which will open them up to an arena similar to the VTT scene, but with a much larger growth market.
True, but there is not reason that D&D Beyond could not, eventually, have a table top solution as well.
Quote from Metamongoose »
I don't ever really expect them to pick up older editions or move to grab other Wizards properties anytime soon.
I agree with you here. I have a great love for older editions of D&D, but it would not be cost effective for D&D Beyond to branch out in this direction. The market segments that still actively play an older edition, whilst significant, is not large and the portion of that market segment that would want to use digital tools like D&D Beyond in their games is markedly smaller.
The staff has expressed interest in trying to integrate DDB into established VTTs. So I think this is more likely to happen than them developing their own.
I'm just sort of wishing on a star with this, but I think just a simple map/image viewer would be nice, especially since it already provides all of the high res maps and images with compendium content.
I play an in-home game, and I use a TV on my table to display maps and information, but currently the only way to do this and get Fog of War functionality is to load your VTT twice (or with roll20, have two separate browsers), log in on two accounts, and meanwhile eat up your system resources (my laptop isn't the best, but something as simple as displaying an image and gradually revealing it shouldn't be too hefty). I don't need chat or tokens, since I use real minis.
If there was a way to launch a "player view" window where you could display maps, manage a fog of war, and maybe show other visual resources without all of the clunky VTT features meant for online play, I would throw money at it so fast.
DDB doesn't necessarily have to make this an integrated feature, but if any software developers looking for a new project are roaming these boards... HINT HINT NUDGE NUDGE.
I think you're vastly underestimating both how much work Curse still has to do on the core DDB functionality and how much work it is to create a good virtual tabletop. Between the mobile app, homebrew feats, homebrew races, homebrew classes and the character sheet revamp, Curse has their work cut out for them for probably well over a year. How do you expect them to put out a better VTT than two companies that can devote 100% of their resources to that and have had a head start for years, while also keeping all of their other commitments?
Getting digital copies with books has been beaten to death on these forums. It can't be done.
I'm only commenting on the VTT portion or the original post. A VTT isn't really on the list now, but will most likely be in the future. For others posting about difficulties of VTT, a VTT is a pretty darn simplistic piece of software. I mean literally any collaborative tool could be used as a VTT. You just need a white board screen sharing feature that has a chat portion and digital dice rolling. Everything after that (maps, monsters, avatars etc..) is just polish.
Charge a premium why not, better than paying twice on top of a subscription.
WotC wouldn't want to do that as it would alienate half of the D&D customer base who either have no interest in using D&D Beyond, because they use other tools, or because they prefer to keep technology out of their D&D games altogether.
Not really topical to the thread which is of course my fault, but only meant this premium being charged for a version of the book that includes a digital copy here.
Charge a premium why not, better than paying twice on top of a subscription.
WotC wouldn't want to do that as it would alienate half of the D&D customer base who either have no interest in using D&D Beyond, because they use other tools, or because they prefer to keep technology out of their D&D games altogether.
Not really topical to the thread which is of course my fault, but only meant this premium being charged for a version of the book that includes a digital copy here.
Thanks for the reply's everyone.
Ah, I understand, but what would be the point? Any book sold that way would most assuredly cost as much as a Player's Handbook + D&D Beyond PHB as it stands right now anyway.
I'm only commenting on the VTT portion or the original post. A VTT isn't really on the list now, but will most likely be in the future. For others posting about difficulties of VTT, a VTT is a pretty darn simplistic piece of software. I mean literally any collaborative tool could be used as a VTT. You just need a white board screen sharing feature that has a chat portion and digital dice rolling. Everything after that (maps, monsters, avatars etc..) is just polish.
A half-assed VTT is worthless when roll20 already provides a good one for free (and a great one for $5/month). They'll never catch up to roll20's features and the mere presence of the VTT functionality will invite comparisons and criticisms.
Roll20's VTT isn't perfect, and actually ridiculously simplistic. The most complicated thing about roll20 is developing the artwork to be used, which to be fair looks like it is right out of a 1997 clipart package. I like Roll20 and appreciate it for what it is, but to say that they couldn't catch of to roll20's features is ludicrous. Don't forget who owns curse. If they want to have a fully featured VTT and can afford to throw a team of developers into making it, they could surpass roll20 easily.
Roll20's VTT isn't perfect, and actually ridiculously simplistic. The most complicated thing about roll20 is developing the artwork to be used, which to be fair looks like it is right out of a 1997 clipart package. I like Roll20 and appreciate it for what it is, but to say that they couldn't catch of to roll20's features is ludicrous. Don't forget who owns curse. If they want to have a fully featured VTT and can afford to throw a team of developers into making it, they could surpass roll20 easily.
It's "ridiculously simplistic" if you ignore the macros, character sheets (with auto-generated macros and drag-and-drop integration with the Compendium), dynamic lighting, advanced fog of war, Soundcloud integration, webcam support, spell/ability cards, and scripting API.
The free artwork is the least complicated thing to roll20.
I like Roll20 and appreciate it for what it is, but to say that they couldn't catch of to roll20's features is ludicrous.
I think you both massively underestimate how hard it is to build a VTT and the specialised knowledge required for it as well as the cost and return on investment of it. While it may very well happen in the future, I seriously wouldn't be counting on it happening any time soon, at least not for a couple of years, and even then, the longer 5e is around, the less likely it will happen, because the longevity of the edition becomes an issue in cost/benefit analysis.
This is why you get specialised platforms like FG and Roll20, which differ from offerings like DDB. It's also a reason why I have zero interest in VTT's and yet have bought into DDB wholesale. A VTT offers me nothing I want. DDB offers me most of what I want, mostly in a way that I want it.
As I previously stated, roll20 is just a collaboration/meeting software tweaked with a google+ api plugin which controls the social part.
Collaboration/meeting software is pretty much a dime a dozen and there are plenty of open source options. If you have even a basic understanding of development a single developer could throw together (without the content) a roll20 clone with about 2 weeks work. In fact there is probably a wordpress or dotnetnuke theme that does 75% of the work for you. In fact looking details of roll20 it is literally just a customized tumblr blog with various plugins and google+ api.
Not trying to disparage them, but what they do can easily be replicated by basically anyone with a knowledge of web development. The only complicated thing about their setup is getting the various licensing agreements they have, which Curse obviously already has.
This isn't a put up or shut up conversation. I'm just pointing out that what roll20 (which it does well) isn't a super duper complicated thing to do. Curse and especially their owners are more than capable of getting this done if they want to do it. People in this thread were expressing that it would take years of development and it would be inferior to roll20 in the end anyways. I was just pointing out it's silly to think Curse who is owned by freaking AMAZON couldn't wrestle up a couple of intermediate web devs and get this done. IF they wanted to.
VTT is something that *could* be in the development path, long-term, but it's more about looking at what the community is going to benefit from.
The current development direction medium-term is for tools that currently don't exist anywhere on the internet - that's going to be way more awesome and useful than just the D&D Beyond version of something that another company already does!
Seeing as how people in this thread are claiming that a VTT is ridiculously easy and that the current ones aren’t all that good, I’m guessing a VTT that pleases enough people to be financially viable is actually not as all that trivial. What’s more important is, if you want a DDB VTT, would you rather have double the cost of everything (on a conservative estimate) or cancel all of the planned additions on The List? There’s only so many hours in the day and only so many developers they can pay. The bottom line in software development is if you want something added, you need to cancel something else.
OR if you want to get technical, it’s the Project Management triangle - cost, time, and features - pick one (two if you are lucky). Everyone wants all three, but that is simply impossible. So if you want a D&D Beyond VTT, you need to either spend more, wait longer, or cancel other features. Reality of the IT world.
Hello WotC,
I would like to suggest that the Beyond platform expand to include a full fledged virtual table top solution for all WotC games.
You have a solid start already with what Beyond is currently, but there is no reason not to expand this subscription service into the virtual table top market and take customers away from licensed software services such as Fantasy Grounds, or Roll20.
Certainly would be nice for the players and GM to have everything they need straight from the source to run a virtual table top campaign, and quite frankly the market is ripe for a company to beat the above listed services at their own game with a next gen level one stop shop and play solution.
I would also like to suggest that if a customer buys a physical copy of your books/products they in addition receive digital owner rights to that content here. This could be done through a unlock code system that is shipped as an insert with the books. You buy the book you get the code, and unlock the digital version of the content here with said code.
Respectfully,
Seabhac
I'm in mobile so I can't really format broken quotes right. So I'll start from the top.
Firay off, you open with dear WotC. Beyond isn't WotC, Beyond is made by a company called Curse, which is owned by Amazon
I doubt Beyond will expand to include all WotC games because of the expense of licensing them. Also, in a virtual tabletop sense, magic is probably too complex to really pick up. If you know much about magic, then you'd probably know what a cluster MTGO is and I'm sure if anyone could do it better, there would be talks.
I think there is plenty of reason for Beyond not to become a VTT. And I think the devs agree with me because from what I recall, that's not even on the already massive *list*. I really don't want to see the Beyond team spreading itself too thin trying to do everything. I want Beyond to be a great resource for character and campaign management as well as an aid in playing the game itself. I also doubt people heavily invested in Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds would be very eager to jump onto a new service. As things are now, Beyond is the only officially licensed source that just handles things like rules searching, and the digital campaign stuff WITHOUT a VTT. And not everyone wants a VTT. I run and in person game and use Beyond every session and never wanted to dive into the VTTs
I'm not sure what you mean about getting everything from the source. Beyond, FG, and Roll20 all get their info from the same source. I'm also not sure where you got the idea the market is ripe for someone new to enter. Where's this coming from? I've literally heard no one asking for this. Again, I'm not sure where you got the idea Curse would do something "next Gen" either. What even is next Gen for a VTT?
The digital codes in physical books is so unlikely to happen I'm fine saying it'll never happen. There's so much that would have to change for it to even be viable. Wizards would have to add the extra steps of having the codes and inserting them in books. They'd have to make a way to secure them so people can't just steal them, or buy the book and return it after redeeming the code. They'd have to set it up so there's either codes for all digital tools, or the code can only be redeemed on one tool and never for any others. They'd have to figure out how the digital companies would all get their cut of the book sale. And lastly, books would probably having to be 1.5-2x more than they are now to cover all of this. Which now screws over the people who want a physical copy only.
DM for the Adventures in Erylia Podcast
Where five friends sit around the table and record themselves playing Dungeons and Dragons
You're the only reply thus far so no need for quotes.
I am aware of who owns what and am aware they are official partners with WotC to develop digital game tools for WotC, which would potentially be a virtual table top. So posting here and addressing WotC is fair in my opinion as it would probably be Curse handling the project, but WotC would be the one green lighting.
Stopped playing magic in 1997, so no not really in a current sense of things, but if it is bad as you say then there should be talks for a better solution.
You have opinions as to why it shouldn't happen, ok.
Did not say such a project should happen asap, that would be an unreal expectation of a development team that clearly already has a full workload. Granted I did not explicitly say it and used terms such as ripe so sorry for the confusion, but in the future when they have established this service I think it should be seriously considered.
I can understand not wanting to use a virtual table top and did not suggest the database features be exclusively used in a virtual table top. Why not both and give people the option, after all it is a pen and paper game. Quite frankly I wish I could play it as a pnp game but due to friends locations who I have been playing with for years it would be impossible so vtt it is.
I play both roll20 and Fantasy Grounds and can say with complete honesty that someone could beat them at their own game and take all the spoils, and yes I have spent a good amount of money on both and yes I would go to a different platform if it was superior in functionality. The effects syntax in FG alone makes me want to jump ship. So yes you have heard of someone asking for it, me.
Next Gen VTT will be anything from any company that seriously attempts to make a virtual tabletop up to current standards of usability and looks, this was sort of a joke or play on words if you will.
You have a fair point about the difficulty of creating a system to give customers digital rights to content here; although I bet they could ask any college textbook company who does this how it could be done. Better yet offer a version of their physical books that do give digital copies here or else where, heck I bet those would sell a lot better and more frequently than collectors editions while giving yet another reason to use this service.
Charge a premium why not, better than paying twice on top of a subscription.
Here is something you may want to consider, WotC has tried and failed to launch a VVT of their own already. Add to that their painful to use MTGO platform and the....what is the polar opposite of wisdom...of building their last edition's character builder platform on a legacy software that Windows had twilighted, and I think you can start to form an opinion that you don't want them anywhere near the technical end of your gaming experience. Luckily, Wizards has somewhat learned this lesson as well and has been contracting out and licensing their IP to various other companies who do the job better than they ever could in recent years.
This is where DDB comes in. From what I can tell, Curse is less interested currently in jumping into the VTT market and that's fine. They are serving a very important niche for people who run home-games and do convention play. DDB also seems to be gearing up to take the show on the road with fully integrated Twitch support (since Curse is owned by Twitch and all) which will open them up to an arena similar to the VTT scene, but with a much larger growth market.
I don't ever really expect them to pick up older editions or move to grab other Wizards properties anytime soon.
The staff has expressed interest in trying to integrate DDB into established VTTs. So I think this is more likely to happen than them developing their own.
I'm just sort of wishing on a star with this, but I think just a simple map/image viewer would be nice, especially since it already provides all of the high res maps and images with compendium content.
I play an in-home game, and I use a TV on my table to display maps and information, but currently the only way to do this and get Fog of War functionality is to load your VTT twice (or with roll20, have two separate browsers), log in on two accounts, and meanwhile eat up your system resources (my laptop isn't the best, but something as simple as displaying an image and gradually revealing it shouldn't be too hefty). I don't need chat or tokens, since I use real minis.
If there was a way to launch a "player view" window where you could display maps, manage a fog of war, and maybe show other visual resources without all of the clunky VTT features meant for online play, I would throw money at it so fast.
DDB doesn't necessarily have to make this an integrated feature, but if any software developers looking for a new project are roaming these boards... HINT HINT NUDGE NUDGE.
I think you're vastly underestimating both how much work Curse still has to do on the core DDB functionality and how much work it is to create a good virtual tabletop. Between the mobile app, homebrew feats, homebrew races, homebrew classes and the character sheet revamp, Curse has their work cut out for them for probably well over a year. How do you expect them to put out a better VTT than two companies that can devote 100% of their resources to that and have had a head start for years, while also keeping all of their other commitments?
Getting digital copies with books has been beaten to death on these forums. It can't be done.
I'm only commenting on the VTT portion or the original post. A VTT isn't really on the list now, but will most likely be in the future. For others posting about difficulties of VTT, a VTT is a pretty darn simplistic piece of software. I mean literally any collaborative tool could be used as a VTT. You just need a white board screen sharing feature that has a chat portion and digital dice rolling. Everything after that (maps, monsters, avatars etc..) is just polish.
Roll20's VTT isn't perfect, and actually ridiculously simplistic. The most complicated thing about roll20 is developing the artwork to be used, which to be fair looks like it is right out of a 1997 clipart package. I like Roll20 and appreciate it for what it is, but to say that they couldn't catch of to roll20's features is ludicrous. Don't forget who owns curse. If they want to have a fully featured VTT and can afford to throw a team of developers into making it, they could surpass roll20 easily.
This is why you get specialised platforms like FG and Roll20, which differ from offerings like DDB. It's also a reason why I have zero interest in VTT's and yet have bought into DDB wholesale. A VTT offers me nothing I want. DDB offers me most of what I want, mostly in a way that I want it.
As I previously stated, roll20 is just a collaboration/meeting software tweaked with a google+ api plugin which controls the social part.
Collaboration/meeting software is pretty much a dime a dozen and there are plenty of open source options. If you have even a basic understanding of development a single developer could throw together (without the content) a roll20 clone with about 2 weeks work. In fact there is probably a wordpress or dotnetnuke theme that does 75% of the work for you. In fact looking details of roll20 it is literally just a customized tumblr blog with various plugins and google+ api.
Not trying to disparage them, but what they do can easily be replicated by basically anyone with a knowledge of web development. The only complicated thing about their setup is getting the various licensing agreements they have, which Curse obviously already has.
You seem very knowledgeable. I eagerly await your Roll20 competitor when you pitch it to the curse team to be hired as a dev.
DM for the Adventures in Erylia Podcast
Where five friends sit around the table and record themselves playing Dungeons and Dragons
This isn't a put up or shut up conversation. I'm just pointing out that what roll20 (which it does well) isn't a super duper complicated thing to do. Curse and especially their owners are more than capable of getting this done if they want to do it. People in this thread were expressing that it would take years of development and it would be inferior to roll20 in the end anyways. I was just pointing out it's silly to think Curse who is owned by freaking AMAZON couldn't wrestle up a couple of intermediate web devs and get this done. IF they wanted to.
VTT is something that *could* be in the development path, long-term, but it's more about looking at what the community is going to benefit from.
The current development direction medium-term is for tools that currently don't exist anywhere on the internet - that's going to be way more awesome and useful than just the D&D Beyond version of something that another company already does!
Sorry if that's a bit vague, but NDA! :)
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"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
Seeing as how people in this thread are claiming that a VTT is ridiculously easy and that the current ones aren’t all that good, I’m guessing a VTT that pleases enough people to be financially viable is actually not as all that trivial. What’s more important is, if you want a DDB VTT, would you rather have double the cost of everything (on a conservative estimate) or cancel all of the planned additions on The List? There’s only so many hours in the day and only so many developers they can pay. The bottom line in software development is if you want something added, you need to cancel something else.
OR if you want to get technical, it’s the Project Management triangle - cost, time, and features - pick one (two if you are lucky). Everyone wants all three, but that is simply impossible. So if you want a D&D Beyond VTT, you need to either spend more, wait longer, or cancel other features. Reality of the IT world.
If I remember correctly, it was said that integration with FG and R20 was something they wanted to look into.