Small and simple is less of an option for a major company than an indie, as I believe had already been mentioned. Particularly since they're so late to the VTT field that if they're just doing what places like Roll20 already do, there's little incentive for all the people who already use the existing options to leave their initial investments and move to D&D's offering. They swung for the fences and struck out, which has happened to plenty of software projects before now and will continue to happen to many more down the line.
Small and simple is less of an option for a major company than an indie, as I believe had already been mentioned. Particularly since they're so late to the VTT field that if they're just doing what places like Roll20 already do, there's little incentive for all the people who already use the existing options to leave their initial investments and move to D&D's offering. They swung for the fences and struck out, which has happened to plenty of software projects before now and will continue to happen to many more down the line.
Not to mention Roll20 allows you to pick which ruleset you want to use where as here on DDB you have to parse the 24 stuff whether your using it or not .
It's important to realize that just because something failed doesn't mean it wasn't worth trying; we don't know enough about the original pitch to guess how realistic it was.
A new product in the VTT space would need something to distinguish it from competitors, and it's going to be hard to do much to break into the 2d VTT field -- too much established competition, without glaring weaknesses -- so 3d was probably a good choice, though I can imagine a space for 2.5d (isometric). 3d options do exist (talespire, tabletop simulator) but have much more notable weaknesses. At a guess, they got too caught up in adding graphical bells and whistles that people will go "that's cool", use three times, and forget about, rather than focusing on performance and core functionality.
Small and simple is less of an option for a major company than an indie, as I believe had already been mentioned. Particularly since they're so late to the VTT field that if they're just doing what places like Roll20 already do, there's little incentive for all the people who already use the existing options to leave their initial investments and move to D&D's offering. They swung for the fences and struck out, which has happened to plenty of software projects before now and will continue to happen to many more down the line.
Not to mention Roll20 allows you to pick which ruleset you want to use where as here on DDB you have to parse the 24 stuff whether your using it or not .
Not exactly sure what differences would meaningfully impact a VTT there; last I checked it's not like Sigil was supposed to actively run things like status conditions and abstract spell effects, so there'd be what- half a minute to a minute of extra time looking up some text that got changed, less for things like conditions that come up frequently enough people would remember their effects?
Also, I'm not sure why exactly the people who are making a point of not spending further money on D&D are surprised that D&D isn't spending money on them.
DDBeyond was bought for 150Million, and look at what it has become. Sigil reportedly had only 30million invested and is nearly useless to a significant number of the brands base.
Roll20 made more than 20Million just hosting what DDbeyond should be doing, hosting various versions of the different editions of the game, and now sits in a position far better than what we the community have seen from Wizbro and this site since that purchase of the platform.
Sigil would need to be redesigned to allow use by a larger audience, and the lackluster tools within configured to allow adaptive rules customization.
I personally don’t see that happening, and it’s a shame.
The biggest issue with Sigil as I understand it was that on a technical/performance level it was an absolute unit of system requirements; PC's that could happily run BG3 or Doom would absolutely chug trying to operate this VTT and even when you could there was simply too many issues with classes just not working.
The system requirements seem pretty average in my opinion...
The thing with the system requirements is, if one person in the group doesn’t have them, then the whole group will most likely go to a different VTT (as others have observed) rather than cut that person out of the group. So they really need something that can run on a potato.
We haven't seen any major efforts to collect data about player preferences so far as VTT's go that would suggest anything conclusive about what people look for in a VTT. It's not like there is some universal answer that says, "ok if you build a VTT this way, you will capture the bulk of the market".
What we do know is that the range of available VTT goes pretty wide, from stuff like Talespire (Full 3d with little automation), Owl Rodeo (Minimalist), Fantasy Grounds (full automation), and everything in between. Take any VTT, and there is a following with people swearing by it, but all of them have a wide range of features and they aren't all the same.
It's a bit of a murky areas as to what people need and as most VTT's are for different RPG's not just D&D, when you think about it from the perspective of a D&D players needs, the absence of any real hard data is even more pronounced.
There are three ways VTT's do differ on a core level
1. Full automation vs. no automation: The assumption by many here might be that the more automation the better, but there is a lot of pushback on that. Many people prefer to run their online session the same as they run their table games, they don't want automation at all. A tool like Sigil almost forces automation and makes a lot of assumption about "how you play D&D". Again we don't have any numbers on how this splits up the desires of players, but it's certainly something WotC should know and not assume about their player base.
2. Campagin Management vs. No Campaign Management: Its clear from the various types of VTT's available out there that some players want to do all of their campaign creation (story writing, campaign settings etc..) in the tool, while others don't want to take the time to transfer over their creations or "buy" official conversions etc..
3. Prep Time: I think a general consideration is, how much prep time does using a VTT add and I think this should be a big topic of conversation. Preparing a 3d environment is a HUGE effort, speaking from experience using Talespire, it increases how much you have to do before a session considerably. I would argue you at least 6x to 7x times as much effort here beyond what you would normally do. I know Sigil tries to address this but there is no getting around the fact that 3d level building is a time-consuming process.
My point here is that despite all the VTT's we have and so many examples in the different ways they work and are used, there is shockingly little hard data about what the preferences and routines of D&D players and communities specifically are. There is just a lot of assumption and I think a big part of Sigils failure is that it's basically almost entirely based on assumptions like players won't mind building 3d environments or buying them from us? Are you sure about that? My observation is that 99% of DM's do not want to fuss about with a lot of "tool driven" prep. Are you sure people want to do their campaign prep in a VTT? Many people use VTT's as a supplement to their table sessions, playing some games online and some offline so they will want their material printable and accessible in the real world. And don't get me started on automation. It is definitely very misguided to assume that everyone wants their VTT to automate gameplay, there is a lot of evidence out there to the contrary.
For how expensive Sigil is, WotC went into it pretty blind and it shows. From what I can tell the entire tool was designed with little player and DM input.
We haven't seen any major efforts to collect data about player preferences so far as VTT's go that would suggest anything conclusive about what people look for in a VTT. It's not like there is some universal answer that says, "ok if you build a VTT this way, you will capture the bulk of the market".
What we do know is that the range of available VTT goes pretty wide, from stuff like Talespire (Full 3d with little automation), Owl Rodeo (Minimalist), Fantasy Grounds (full automation), and everything in between. Take any VTT, and there is a following with people swearing by it, but all of them have a wide range of features and they aren't all the same.
It's a bit of a murky areas as to what people need and as most VTT's are for different RPG's not just D&D, when you think about it from the perspective of a D&D players needs, the absence of any real hard data is even more pronounced.
There are three ways VTT's do differ on a core level
1. Full automation vs. no automation: The assumption by many here might be that the more automation the better, but there is a lot of pushback on that. Many people prefer to run their online session the same as they run their table games, they don't want automation at all. A tool like Sigil almost forces automation and makes a lot of assumption about "how you play D&D". Again we don't have any numbers on how this splits up the desires of players, but it's certainly something WotC should know and not assume about their player base.
2. Campagin Management vs. No Campaign Management: Its clear from the various types of VTT's available out there that some players want to do all of their campaign creation (story writing, campaign settings etc..) in the tool, while others don't want to take the time to transfer over their creations or "buy" official conversions etc..
3. Prep Time: I think a general consideration is, how much prep time does using a VTT add and I think this should be a big topic of conversation. Preparing a 3d environment is a HUGE effort, speaking from experience using Talespire, it increases how much you have to do before a session considerably. I would argue you at least 6x to 7x times as much effort here beyond what you would normally do. I know Sigil tries to address this but there is no getting around the fact that 3d level building is a time-consuming process.
My point here is that despite all the VTT's we have and so many examples in the different ways they work and are used, there is shockingly little hard data about what the preferences and routines of D&D players and communities specifically are. There is just a lot of assumption and I think a big part of Sigils failure is that it's basically almost entirely based on assumptions like players won't mind building 3d environments or buying them from us? Are you sure about that? My observation is that 99% of DM's do not want to fuss about with a lot of "tool driven" prep. Are you sure people want to do their campaign prep in a VTT? Many people use VTT's as a supplement to their table sessions, playing some games online and some offline so they will want their material printable and accessible in the real world. And don't get me started on automation. It is definitely very misguided to assume that everyone wants their VTT to automate gameplay, there is a lot of evidence out there to the contrary.
For how expensive Sigil is, WotC went into it pretty blind and it shows. From what I can tell the entire tool was designed with little player and DM input.
They went into it with suits in mind rather than the game & the designers of such.
I can't see anyone other than executives, accountants & investors wanting this whole shebang.
Lord knows where all of those allocated funds are going to now that this is all but toast.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
We haven't seen any major efforts to collect data about player preferences so far as VTT's go that would suggest anything conclusive about what people look for in a VTT. It's not like there is some universal answer that says, "ok if you build a VTT this way, you will capture the bulk of the market".
Surveys would probably fail to tell you anyway, as what people think they want and what they'll actually buy are pretty different, but I'm pretty sure the market leader, by a significant margin, is roll20, and its biggest selling point is ease of use (it's otherwise clunky in a whole lot of ways).
If this somehow survives, or more realistically if they try again on a later date, I can see a few things.
1. A detailed tutorial with words, vocal directions, and words so people of different skill levels can handle it. This way people of various levels of computer savviness can handle this without difficulty.
2. Graphics slider. Alot of games these days have them, especially RTS style game. The slider can range from Final Fantasy XII to Elden Ring. This way someone that isn't a big Computer gamer, they can still play this. One issue I heard from this was Sigil was just as taxing on a computer as a lot of best looking games out there be it Indi Darling Baudler's Gate 3, or AAA juggernauts like the current chapter of Final Fantasy XII remake. Using World of War Craft as an example, much less a bunch of mobile games that have RAID: Shadow Legends' graphics, alot of them are not maxed out to what they could be outside of the occasional cinematic. This way they can play on most rigs without melting it.
3. All the main classes and Species in the 2024 rulebook/ease in uploading DDB Character Sheet. We can add older stuff and third party stuff later, focus on the new hotness for right now. As is, it wasn't intuitive when I first tested it, and there is only 6 player species.
4. More customization. I see mostly options for lightly armored builds. So if I want my armored behemoth, I need to go somewhere else.
Graphics honestly should have been like... bottom rung of priorities; by doing so they'd have allowed for a much broader swathe of users.
I’d guess the idea was to have something worth spending money on.
As for the 3D DTT, i think they should have asked more fans or seen what they were complaining the most on different websites like Reddit or this site.
On the corporate side there are a million ways to monetize their thing, and its with the list of Hasbro properties. Start with say the D&D cartoon characters/various Baudler's Gate ones as a base line, allow for adjustments from there.
Later on, they could either do DLC that can be paid for and or earned with in game currency (most likely paid for) for the various franchises as potential skins or outfits for different characters, mounts, enemies, familiars, animal companions, summons, NPCs, and so o: My Little Pony, GIJOE, Transformers, Pound Puppies, Jem and the Holograms, Power Ranger, and so on.
Graphics honestly should have been like... bottom rung of priorities; by doing so they'd have allowed for a much broader swathe of users.
I’d guess the idea was to have something worth spending money on.
As for the 3D DTT, i think they should have asked more fans or seen what they were complaining the most on different websites like Reddit or this site.
You know, there is a feedback channel in SigilVTT's Discord server, and they even have a web page where you can submit feedback and vote for much-requested features.
Feedback channel on discord is but one place, but this forum could have been a second more direct line of communication, and compiling the various feedback across multiple social media channels would have given a broader view of the biggest issues.
They built it, hated it, canned it. Now best we might get is the ability to not require an extensive GPU crypto-mining, next gen required hardware version that can used by a greater number of users, otherwise the thing will only be used by those who have the capacity to do so, and from the company itself that number isn’t enough to keep it going.
Hasbro bet on a horse, and when the gate opened, the horse jumped and had a heart attack. DOA, and hasbro now has a tax write-off.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
" Darkvision doesn’t work in Magical darkness, and if something is magical, Never Trust it acts the same way as a non-magical version of that same thing!”- Discotech Mage over a cup of joe.
You buy them. You have to enter your payment details etc, but then you'll be charged 0 for them. It's dumb, but there you go.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
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Small and simple is less of an option for a major company than an indie, as I believe had already been mentioned. Particularly since they're so late to the VTT field that if they're just doing what places like Roll20 already do, there's little incentive for all the people who already use the existing options to leave their initial investments and move to D&D's offering. They swung for the fences and struck out, which has happened to plenty of software projects before now and will continue to happen to many more down the line.
Unsure if that would be the case..
It's alot easier and quicker to code 1yrs worth of consistent information compared to 10yrs worth with contradicting information - just a thought
Not to mention Roll20 allows you to pick which ruleset you want to use where as here on DDB you have to parse the 24 stuff whether your using it or not .
It's important to realize that just because something failed doesn't mean it wasn't worth trying; we don't know enough about the original pitch to guess how realistic it was.
A new product in the VTT space would need something to distinguish it from competitors, and it's going to be hard to do much to break into the 2d VTT field -- too much established competition, without glaring weaknesses -- so 3d was probably a good choice, though I can imagine a space for 2.5d (isometric). 3d options do exist (talespire, tabletop simulator) but have much more notable weaknesses. At a guess, they got too caught up in adding graphical bells and whistles that people will go "that's cool", use three times, and forget about, rather than focusing on performance and core functionality.
Not exactly sure what differences would meaningfully impact a VTT there; last I checked it's not like Sigil was supposed to actively run things like status conditions and abstract spell effects, so there'd be what- half a minute to a minute of extra time looking up some text that got changed, less for things like conditions that come up frequently enough people would remember their effects?
Also, I'm not sure why exactly the people who are making a point of not spending further money on D&D are surprised that D&D isn't spending money on them.
It is a difference of playing the game you want vs playing the game you're told to play.
It is more like getting people to stop spending vs not spending. Small detail with a big difference.
The biggest issue with Sigil as I understand it was that on a technical/performance level it was an absolute unit of system requirements; PC's that could happily run BG3 or Doom would absolutely chug trying to operate this VTT and even when you could there was simply too many issues with classes just not working.
The system requirements seem pretty average in my opinion...
The thing with the system requirements is, if one person in the group doesn’t have them, then the whole group will most likely go to a different VTT (as others have observed) rather than cut that person out of the group. So they really need something that can run on a potato.
We haven't seen any major efforts to collect data about player preferences so far as VTT's go that would suggest anything conclusive about what people look for in a VTT. It's not like there is some universal answer that says, "ok if you build a VTT this way, you will capture the bulk of the market".
What we do know is that the range of available VTT goes pretty wide, from stuff like Talespire (Full 3d with little automation), Owl Rodeo (Minimalist), Fantasy Grounds (full automation), and everything in between. Take any VTT, and there is a following with people swearing by it, but all of them have a wide range of features and they aren't all the same.
It's a bit of a murky areas as to what people need and as most VTT's are for different RPG's not just D&D, when you think about it from the perspective of a D&D players needs, the absence of any real hard data is even more pronounced.
There are three ways VTT's do differ on a core level
1. Full automation vs. no automation: The assumption by many here might be that the more automation the better, but there is a lot of pushback on that. Many people prefer to run their online session the same as they run their table games, they don't want automation at all. A tool like Sigil almost forces automation and makes a lot of assumption about "how you play D&D". Again we don't have any numbers on how this splits up the desires of players, but it's certainly something WotC should know and not assume about their player base.
2. Campagin Management vs. No Campaign Management: Its clear from the various types of VTT's available out there that some players want to do all of their campaign creation (story writing, campaign settings etc..) in the tool, while others don't want to take the time to transfer over their creations or "buy" official conversions etc..
3. Prep Time: I think a general consideration is, how much prep time does using a VTT add and I think this should be a big topic of conversation. Preparing a 3d environment is a HUGE effort, speaking from experience using Talespire, it increases how much you have to do before a session considerably. I would argue you at least 6x to 7x times as much effort here beyond what you would normally do. I know Sigil tries to address this but there is no getting around the fact that 3d level building is a time-consuming process.
My point here is that despite all the VTT's we have and so many examples in the different ways they work and are used, there is shockingly little hard data about what the preferences and routines of D&D players and communities specifically are. There is just a lot of assumption and I think a big part of Sigils failure is that it's basically almost entirely based on assumptions like players won't mind building 3d environments or buying them from us? Are you sure about that? My observation is that 99% of DM's do not want to fuss about with a lot of "tool driven" prep. Are you sure people want to do their campaign prep in a VTT? Many people use VTT's as a supplement to their table sessions, playing some games online and some offline so they will want their material printable and accessible in the real world. And don't get me started on automation. It is definitely very misguided to assume that everyone wants their VTT to automate gameplay, there is a lot of evidence out there to the contrary.
For how expensive Sigil is, WotC went into it pretty blind and it shows. From what I can tell the entire tool was designed with little player and DM input.
They went into it with suits in mind rather than the game & the designers of such.
I can't see anyone other than executives, accountants & investors wanting this whole shebang.
Lord knows where all of those allocated funds are going to now that this is all but toast.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Surveys would probably fail to tell you anyway, as what people think they want and what they'll actually buy are pretty different, but I'm pretty sure the market leader, by a significant margin, is roll20, and its biggest selling point is ease of use (it's otherwise clunky in a whole lot of ways).
If this somehow survives, or more realistically if they try again on a later date, I can see a few things.
1. A detailed tutorial with words, vocal directions, and words so people of different skill levels can handle it. This way people of various levels of computer savviness can handle this without difficulty.
2. Graphics slider. Alot of games these days have them, especially RTS style game. The slider can range from Final Fantasy XII to Elden Ring. This way someone that isn't a big Computer gamer, they can still play this. One issue I heard from this was Sigil was just as taxing on a computer as a lot of best looking games out there be it Indi Darling Baudler's Gate 3, or AAA juggernauts like the current chapter of Final Fantasy XII remake. Using World of War Craft as an example, much less a bunch of mobile games that have RAID: Shadow Legends' graphics, alot of them are not maxed out to what they could be outside of the occasional cinematic. This way they can play on most rigs without melting it.
3. All the main classes and Species in the 2024 rulebook/ease in uploading DDB Character Sheet. We can add older stuff and third party stuff later, focus on the new hotness for right now. As is, it wasn't intuitive when I first tested it, and there is only 6 player species.
4. More customization. I see mostly options for lightly armored builds. So if I want my armored behemoth, I need to go somewhere else.
Graphics honestly should have been like... bottom rung of priorities; by doing so they'd have allowed for a much broader swathe of users.
I’d guess the idea was to have something worth spending money on.
As for the 3D DTT, i think they should have asked more fans or seen what they were complaining the most on different websites like Reddit or this site.
On the corporate side there are a million ways to monetize their thing, and its with the list of Hasbro properties. Start with say the D&D cartoon characters/various Baudler's Gate ones as a base line, allow for adjustments from there.
Later on, they could either do DLC that can be paid for and or earned with in game currency (most likely paid for) for the various franchises as potential skins or outfits for different characters, mounts, enemies, familiars, animal companions, summons, NPCs, and so o: My Little Pony, GIJOE, Transformers, Pound Puppies, Jem and the Holograms, Power Ranger, and so on.
You know, there is a feedback channel in SigilVTT's Discord server, and they even have a web page where you can submit feedback and vote for much-requested features.
Feedback channel on discord is but one place, but this forum could have been a second more direct line of communication, and compiling the various feedback across multiple social media channels would have given a broader view of the biggest issues.
They built it, hated it, canned it. Now best we might get is the ability to not require an extensive GPU crypto-mining, next gen required hardware version that can used by a greater number of users, otherwise the thing will only be used by those who have the capacity to do so, and from the company itself that number isn’t enough to keep it going.
Hasbro bet on a horse, and when the gate opened, the horse jumped and had a heart attack. DOA, and hasbro now has a tax write-off.
" Darkvision doesn’t work in Magical darkness, and if something is magical, Never Trust it acts the same way as a non-magical version of that same thing!”- Discotech Mage over a cup of joe.
There are free items in the DNDBeyond store for Sigil, but no indication on how you're supposed to redeem them. Does anybody know how?
You buy them. You have to enter your payment details etc, but then you'll be charged 0 for them. It's dumb, but there you go.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.