If anything this is a huge reason not to trust Hasbro with any future VTT.
Sigil was a mess but those that actually used it had to have put immense time into creating usable maps. It would be different if you signed up, used some premade map packs, etc but anyone who was actually using it had to have dumped countless hours into it. I never followed the micro transactions they were trying either or if any were for sale or purchased but refunds weren’t mentioned in the announcement.
Again… it was an awful product and shouldn’t have been released but you did and you wasted your most loyal fans’ time. I can’t imagine any world where they could try another VTT. No one will trust them.
If anything this is a huge reason not to trust Hasbro with any future VTT.
Sigil was a mess but those that actually used it had to have put immense time into creating usable maps. It would be different if you signed up, used some premade map packs, etc but anyone who was actually using it had to have dumped countless hours into it. I never followed the micro transactions they were trying either or if any were for sale or purchased but refunds weren’t mentioned in the announcement.
Again… it was an awful product and shouldn’t have been released but you did and you wasted your most loyal fans’ time. I can’t imagine any world where they could try another VTT. No one will trust them.
The people who wanted to use it are the same people who were okay putting in the time to make the maps. Talespire didn't drop 100 map packs either but you can go onto their site and see literally thousands of fanmade maps. FYI, Sigil also allowed map sharing. We also have no idea if official map packs would have been a thing. People were so determined to reject it from the point that it was introduced, that we have no insight into what it would have been had it been allowed to complete development and launch.
If anything this is a huge reason not to trust Hasbro with any future VTT.
It makes absolutely no difference to my trust (which was, to be fair, not particularly high to start with), because I'm entirely aware that projects fail.
If anything this is a huge reason not to trust Hasbro with any future VTT.
Sigil was a mess but those that actually used it had to have put immense time into creating usable maps. It would be different if you signed up, used some premade map packs, etc but anyone who was actually using it had to have dumped countless hours into it. I never followed the micro transactions they were trying either or if any were for sale or purchased but refunds weren’t mentioned in the announcement.
Again… it was an awful product and shouldn’t have been released but you did and you wasted your most loyal fans’ time. I can’t imagine any world where they could try another VTT. No one will trust them.
If anything this is a huge reason not to trust Hasbro with any future VTT.
Sigil was a mess but those that actually used it had to have put immense time into creating usable maps. It would be different if you signed up, used some premade map packs, etc but anyone who was actually using it had to have dumped countless hours into it. I never followed the micro transactions they were trying either or if any were for sale or purchased but refunds weren’t mentioned in the announcement.
Again… it was an awful product and shouldn’t have been released but you did and you wasted your most loyal fans’ time. I can’t imagine any world where they could try another VTT. No one will trust them.
The people who wanted to use it are the same people who were okay putting in the time to make the maps. Talespire didn't drop 100 map packs either but you can go onto their site and see literally thousands of fanmade maps. FYI, Sigil also allowed map sharing. We also have no idea if official map packs would have been a thing. People were so determined to reject it from the point that it was introduced, that we have no insight into what it would have been had it been allowed to complete development and launch.
That is definitely all true (in my opinion), but the issue was always that VTTs are not something for a universal D&D audience, and I think as a product, it sort of made that assumption, and more specifically, calculated the expected economic performance of that tool based on that assumption. It's an understandable assumption for two reasons.
First, DnDBeyond functions like that. It's not exclusive to any part of the D&D audience; anyone, whether you play online or offline, gets benefits from DnDbeyond.
Second is that for a time, because of the pandemic, the D&D audience was forced online, because there was no other way to really play the game during this period. We were all forced into isolation so if you wanted to keep playing D&D with your group, online play was pretty much the only option. This gave a false positive that universally everyone does, in fact, play D&D online, but this is simply not true. The online audience is but a tiny fraction of the D&D community. I mean, according to Wizards of the Coast, about 85 million people engaged with D&D just last year meanwhile, at the peek of the pandemic, Roll20 reported around 3 million users, which today is well under a million. These aren't hard or presumably even particularly accurate numbers, but suffice to say the difference between online and offline audiences is massive and to an offline audience, a VTT is a completely useless technology that serves no purpose at all.
Post pandemic, there is not much of a market for VTT's, especially expensive 3d ones that demand a lot of time to setup. Add the fact that there is a lot of competition in this limited market of many already well-established and easy to use VTT's and it's not hard to understand why Sigil, no matter what they did or how they marketed, was effectively created for an audience that doesn't really exist and never has. At least not in the numbers they were sort of expecting. I would expect a tool like that if they have 200 people using it every day, its a booming success, aka... Talespire reaches an audience of about 290 players per day on average and it's a far superior tool to anything Sigil was ever even planning, let alone had hope of executing.
The issue is that online gaming is a sub-section of D&D and this is not the "default" way people play D&D. Its a small business, which is fine for the many companies running VTT's, they do really well because they don't need a big audience to be successful. Sigil however, was planning to be this next BIG Baldur's Gate 3 level success, which was about he craziest expectation imaginable. I mean.. this was never going to happen; there was ZERO chance of Sigil reaching anything even approaching such a level of success.
At its absolute best, it would have been a niche tool for a tiny audience and that is all you can ever expect now or in the future from a 3d VTT. Its a cool concept, I ran a Talespire online game once for 3 years (during the pandemic) and I was extremely proficient with the tool and the average prep time was excessive. Generally, I would run a session once every other week and it took about 6-8 hours of work to prep for a 3-4 hour session. It was effectively 2 hours of work to prep 1 hour of play.
If anything this is a huge reason not to trust Hasbro with any future VTT.
It makes absolutely no difference to my trust (which was, to be fair, not particularly high to start with), because I'm entirely aware that projects fail.
It should.
Trust isn't really about moral failure or whatever in this context. It's about believing that if you invest in their project (whether that's in money, time, effort, hope whatever), that it will workout. I don't back Kickstarters unless I known the company or person behind it, because otherwise I don't trust them to follow through and I'll end up with my goodies. I don't think they're going to con me per se, but that the project has a reasonable chance of falling through.
Likewise, I don't impute some kind of moral failing on this. As you say, projects fail. Spending more cash on something that's not going to turn a [large enough] profit is irresponsible and there's no money that's been invested by customers to create a duty. However, it's another data point on the "If they say they're going to do something, will they do it?" graph.
I really think companies need to cool their heals on things like this and not announce stuff when they're in the "we have an idea" or "we have a mock-up of an idea" stages. Instead, they should wait until shortly before they're ready for customer involvement (whether that's for beta for large audience testing like they did for 1D&D or release or whatever). Unfortunately, they get excited, announce super early and that causes problems. My biggest gripe with this is computer games. They declare they're making something...then nothing appears for years. Sometimes, it never does.
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.
If anything this is a huge reason not to trust Hasbro with any future VTT.
Sigil was a mess but those that actually used it had to have put immense time into creating usable maps. It would be different if you signed up, used some premade map packs, etc but anyone who was actually using it had to have dumped countless hours into it. I never followed the micro transactions they were trying either or if any were for sale or purchased but refunds weren’t mentioned in the announcement.
Again… it was an awful product and shouldn’t have been released but you did and you wasted your most loyal fans’ time. I can’t imagine any world where they could try another VTT. No one will trust them.
That isnt really true. I built a few maps real quickly, a simple dungeon was easy and quick to do for me (and I am not a computer savy person). Village ruins was also real easy, the ability to combine uploaded 2D maps with 3D terrain got you good looking maps real quick.
It makes absolutely no difference to my trust (which was, to be fair, not particularly high to start with), because I'm entirely aware that projects fail.
It should.
Trust isn't really about moral failure or whatever in this context. It's about believing that if you invest in their project (whether that's in money, time, effort, hope whatever), that it will workout.
My assumption when they first announced it was "interesting idea, might work, but given that the developer is a board game company with minimal experience with video game development, it probably won't". Even if it was an established developer I'd give it maybe 50:50 odds. Games fail. They fail a lot. Frankly, Sigil exceeded my expectations.
You are talking about the time sink for players but again, the people who like things like Talespire or Game Master Engine are fine with that. That is their past time. The 3d community would have grown and almost certainly would have made their own maps from official 2d maps. I don't understand why everyone is so delighted about other people losing tools that they themselves were never going to use anyway. That just sucks. This community sometimes just really sucks. I would have been willing to pay for this tool (I am sure those who appreciate the tool would largely have been willing to) and I don't care that it would have been niche. Great, I don't need everyone to be using it just like I don't need everyone to use physical maps for me to enjoy my own gaming experience.
As in other projects like this one, with continued development, there would have been optimization, which means rigs older than mine (a mid-range from 7ish years ago) would have been able to run it. It also would have meant that eventually, we could have seen it come to other OS like iOS too, especially now. Sometimes it is fun to throw together a map on a lunch break and really, once you are comfortable with the tools, it doesn't take 4 hours to make a map. If you need every single sconce placed perfectly, sure, but it doesn't need to be perfect for players to enjoy it.
I don't understand why everyone is so delighted about other people losing tools that they themselves were never going to use anyway. That just sucks.
They sunk $50 million into this project, and a team of 30 developers. I'm not sure the D&D Beyond Maps team is that large, and they definitely didn't get $50 million dollars.
What you seem to not get is that businesses have a limited bucket of cash to throw at their products. Wasting it on a product that was already struggling to be relevant, between no MacOS client and overtly high PC requirements, lack of clear direction, and generally not a lot of uptake is a mistake. By your own admission, you couldn't even use it, and no-one on the Sigil team claimed they'd ever be reducing the minimum specs (and based on the way it was built, that would probably be impossible due to 3D rendering requirements).
Throwing more money at it to keep it going when you've decided it's not going to work, is a worse mistake.
This isn't a "Yay you lost something". It's a "Maybe now you can focus on the thing that we all use and have been told by WOTC is the primary focus." I have already seen the Maps VTT get more attention than it had been lately, since they announced that Sigil was "effectively dead" a few months back.
You are talking about the time sink for players but again, the people who like things like Talespire or Game Master Engine are fine with that. That is their past time. The 3d community would have grown and almost certainly would have made their own maps from official 2d maps. I don't understand why everyone is so delighted about other people losing tools that they themselves were never going to use anyway. That just sucks. This community sometimes just really sucks. I would have been willing to pay for this tool (I am sure those who appreciate the tool would largely have been willing to) and I don't care that it would have been niche. Great, I don't need everyone to be using it just like I don't need everyone to use physical maps for me to enjoy my own gaming experience.
As in other projects like this one, with continued development, there would have been optimization, which means rigs older than mine (a mid-range from 7ish years ago) would have been able to run it. It also would have meant that eventually, we could have seen it come to other OS like iOS too, especially now. Sometimes it is fun to throw together a map on a lunch break and really, once you are comfortable with the tools, it doesn't take 4 hours to make a map. If you need every single sconce placed perfectly, sure, but it doesn't need to be perfect for players to enjoy it.
Don't misunderstand, I'm not happy/pleased that it failed as a project; my point was that their expectations and the reality of that market were horribly misaligned, it never stood a chance of achieving the goals they had set for it, and there simply aren't enough people in the world who use such tools to do with it what they expected. Had they made reasonable goals, with reasonable expectations, they would have achieved those goals, and you would have had your 3d VTT. Maybe it would have taken longer to get it, maybe there would have been some compromises, but you didn't need to spend 50 million on a project with 30 developers to create Sigil. That's what you do for triple-A PC and Video games, not a niche indie product that might get an audience of a few hundred people at best.
The failure of Sigil had more to do with the business end and expectations than it did with the tool or concepts behind it. We know there are people who love 3d VTT's and their certainly is a small, niche market for them. But that is the reality.
It makes absolutely no difference to my trust (which was, to be fair, not particularly high to start with), because I'm entirely aware that projects fail.
It should.
Trust isn't really about moral failure or whatever in this context. It's about believing that if you invest in their project (whether that's in money, time, effort, hope whatever), that it will workout.
My assumption when they first announced it was "interesting idea, might work, but given that the developer is a board game company with minimal experience with video game development, it probably won't". Even if it was an established developer I'd give it maybe 50:50 odds. Games fail. They fail a lot. Frankly, Sigil exceeded my expectations.
Yeah, they do fail a lot, which is why they should hold off announcing things to the public until they are in a position where it's either a dead cert or they have to (because they want open bets testing, they're opening up for pre-orders, whatever), instead of when they're planning to have a concept of a plan.
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.
It makes absolutely no difference to my trust (which was, to be fair, not particularly high to start with), because I'm entirely aware that projects fail.
It should.
Trust isn't really about moral failure or whatever in this context. It's about believing that if you invest in their project (whether that's in money, time, effort, hope whatever), that it will workout.
My assumption when they first announced it was "interesting idea, might work, but given that the developer is a board game company with minimal experience with video game development, it probably won't". Even if it was an established developer I'd give it maybe 50:50 odds. Games fail. They fail a lot. Frankly, Sigil exceeded my expectations.
Yeah, they do fail a lot, which is why they should hold off announcing things to the public until they are in a position where it's either a dead cert or they have to (because they want open bets testing, they're opening up for pre-orders, whatever), instead of when they're planning to have a concept of a plan.
Indeed, and it illustrates quite plainly their total lack of experience in this area. No one in their right mind in the gaming industry would have followed a program like that. Which again, brings the point home. If you're a book publisher... stick to publishing books, and if you're going to expand, hire a professional and let them tell you how its done, not the other way around.
I get this all the time in my work as well. Some VP without a clue climbs down from their Ivory Tower to instruct me rather than ask me on how much a development will cost and when I will release it. In 30 years of my career, I have seen a lot of people get fired for a lot of different things, but VP's who think they can "order" something into existence get fired 100% of the time without fail. As soon as I hear someone do this, my instinct is to say "it's been nice working with you".. cause... yeah.. you're getting fired.
Yeah, they do fail a lot, which is why they should hold off announcing things to the public until they are in a position where it's either a dead cert or they have to (because they want open bets testing, they're opening up for pre-orders, whatever), instead of when they're planning to have a concept of a plan.
Announcing things long before there's a certainty that they'll work is not exactly unusual in the software industry (I've seen products announced that didn't have more than a name and a vague concept of what they would do).
I don't understand why everyone is so delighted about other people losing tools that they themselves were never going to use anyway. That just sucks.
They sunk $50 million into this project, and a team of 30 developers. I'm not sure the D&D Beyond Maps team is that large, and they definitely didn't get $50 million dollars.
What you seem to not get is that businesses have a limited bucket of cash to throw at their products. Wasting it on a product that was already struggling to be relevant, between no MacOS client and overtly high PC requirements, lack of clear direction, and generally not a lot of uptake is a mistake. By your own admission, you couldn't even use it, and no-one on the Sigil team claimed they'd ever be reducing the minimum specs (and based on the way it was built, that would probably be impossible due to 3D rendering requirements).
Throwing more money at it to keep it going when you've decided it's not going to work, is a worse mistake.
This isn't a "Yay you lost something". It's a "Maybe now you can focus on the thing that we all use and have been told by WOTC is the primary focus." I have already seen the Maps VTT get more attention than it had been lately, since they announced that Sigil was "effectively dead" a few months back.
Where do I demonstrate a lack of understanding in the finite nature of funds for a project? Quote where you see this lack of understanding.
MacOS is virtually never a priority launch initiative for any digital work. It almost always follows, if it ever comes at all.
You seem to have misunderstood my comment, as I said that my well-aged computer could run it, but with optimization, older computers than mine could have run it.
Yeah, can you show me any project that announces plans for optimization before they even launch? I never said lowering the minimum specs either. I said optimize it so computers older than mine could run it. Please READ my posts before responding to them.
What more money? What are you even talking about? You seem to have responded to my posts, but you aren't actually responding to any point I made. Are you just using this post as a springboard for whatever it is you want to talk about?
Don't misunderstand, I'm not happy/pleased that it failed as a project; my point was that their expectations and the reality of that market were horribly misaligned, it never stood a chance of achieving the goals they had set for it, and there simply aren't enough people in the world who use such tools to do with it what they expected. Had they made reasonable goals, with reasonable expectations, they would have achieved those goals, and you would have had your 3d VTT. Maybe it would have taken longer to get it, maybe there would have been some compromises, but you didn't need to spend 50 million on a project with 30 developers to create Sigil. That's what you do for triple-A PC and Video games, not a niche indie product that might get an audience of a few hundred people at best.
The failure of Sigil had more to do with the business end and expectations than it did with the tool or concepts behind it. We know there are people who love 3d VTT's and their certainly is a small, niche market for them. But that is the reality.
I pretty much agree that it never stood a chance. Whether it is a failure to understand the customers, overinvesting, or whatever, it seems that it was doomed from the start. I am not in the 3d animated space, so I honestly have no idea if 50 million is too much or too little, but I do think you probably about right that it would have been a few hundred people using it a month, at least to start. Talespire has about 300 users a month (launched from Steam) if we count player seats, which is not super excellent.
Thought I might show just how much better Sigil was compared to the competition with a mini side-by-side. In my opinion, there really was no comparison. Not only did Sigil look dramatically better, but it was fairly easy to use and incorporated PC and Monster specs right into the VTT and had some pretty neat spell effects too.
Don't misunderstand, I'm not happy/pleased that it failed as a project; my point was that their expectations and the reality of that market were horribly misaligned, it never stood a chance of achieving the goals they had set for it, and there simply aren't enough people in the world who use such tools to do with it what they expected. Had they made reasonable goals, with reasonable expectations, they would have achieved those goals, and you would have had your 3d VTT. Maybe it would have taken longer to get it, maybe there would have been some compromises, but you didn't need to spend 50 million on a project with 30 developers to create Sigil.
I did think they had one maybe viable path for a larger project, but in that case they weren't thinking big enough: a more general tabletop simulator that works for board games could plausibly provide $50M in value to Hasbro.
Where do I demonstrate a lack of understanding in the finite nature of funds for a project? Quote where you see this lack of understanding.
I didn't say for a "project". I said for a business. Spending money on something that isn't working out limits their ability to spend money on other things.
Yeah, can you show me any project that announces plans for optimization before they even launch? I never said lowering the minimum specs either. I said optimize it so computers older than mine could run it. Please READ my posts before responding to them.
"Optimize it so older computers can run it" by definition, requires lowering the minimum specs because those old computers don't meed the current minimum specs...
What more money? What are you even talking about? You seem to have responded to my posts, but you aren't actually responding to any point I made. Are you just using this post as a springboard for whatever it is you want to talk about?
My specific response was around the line I quoted. No one is happy because other people miss out. They're happy that WOTC has stopped wasting money on a product that wasn't going to work, and would have taken a team of 30 developers to continue improving. That costs a lot of money. Better to be spent on things that the whole commmunity including people on MacOS, people on old computers, people on phones, people on tablets, and people who don't want to spend a long time building isometric maps, can enjoy.
Better to be spent on things that the whole commmunity including people on MacOS, people on old computers, people on phones, people on tablets, and people who don't want to spend a long time building isometric maps, can enjoy.
While I generally agree, I would like to point out that Sigil wasn`t about "isometric" maps and it didnt necessarily take a lot of time to build a 3D map with it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
If anything this is a huge reason not to trust Hasbro with any future VTT.
Sigil was a mess but those that actually used it had to have put immense time into creating usable maps. It would be different if you signed up, used some premade map packs, etc but anyone who was actually using it had to have dumped countless hours into it. I never followed the micro transactions they were trying either or if any were for sale or purchased but refunds weren’t mentioned in the announcement.
Again… it was an awful product and shouldn’t have been released but you did and you wasted your most loyal fans’ time. I can’t imagine any world where they could try another VTT. No one will trust them.
The people who wanted to use it are the same people who were okay putting in the time to make the maps. Talespire didn't drop 100 map packs either but you can go onto their site and see literally thousands of fanmade maps. FYI, Sigil also allowed map sharing. We also have no idea if official map packs would have been a thing. People were so determined to reject it from the point that it was introduced, that we have no insight into what it would have been had it been allowed to complete development and launch.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
It makes absolutely no difference to my trust (which was, to be fair, not particularly high to start with), because I'm entirely aware that projects fail.
Psst. Maps is a VTT.
That is definitely all true (in my opinion), but the issue was always that VTTs are not something for a universal D&D audience, and I think as a product, it sort of made that assumption, and more specifically, calculated the expected economic performance of that tool based on that assumption. It's an understandable assumption for two reasons.
First, DnDBeyond functions like that. It's not exclusive to any part of the D&D audience; anyone, whether you play online or offline, gets benefits from DnDbeyond.
Second is that for a time, because of the pandemic, the D&D audience was forced online, because there was no other way to really play the game during this period. We were all forced into isolation so if you wanted to keep playing D&D with your group, online play was pretty much the only option. This gave a false positive that universally everyone does, in fact, play D&D online, but this is simply not true. The online audience is but a tiny fraction of the D&D community. I mean, according to Wizards of the Coast, about 85 million people engaged with D&D just last year meanwhile, at the peek of the pandemic, Roll20 reported around 3 million users, which today is well under a million. These aren't hard or presumably even particularly accurate numbers, but suffice to say the difference between online and offline audiences is massive and to an offline audience, a VTT is a completely useless technology that serves no purpose at all.
Post pandemic, there is not much of a market for VTT's, especially expensive 3d ones that demand a lot of time to setup. Add the fact that there is a lot of competition in this limited market of many already well-established and easy to use VTT's and it's not hard to understand why Sigil, no matter what they did or how they marketed, was effectively created for an audience that doesn't really exist and never has. At least not in the numbers they were sort of expecting. I would expect a tool like that if they have 200 people using it every day, its a booming success, aka... Talespire reaches an audience of about 290 players per day on average and it's a far superior tool to anything Sigil was ever even planning, let alone had hope of executing.
The issue is that online gaming is a sub-section of D&D and this is not the "default" way people play D&D. Its a small business, which is fine for the many companies running VTT's, they do really well because they don't need a big audience to be successful. Sigil however, was planning to be this next BIG Baldur's Gate 3 level success, which was about he craziest expectation imaginable. I mean.. this was never going to happen; there was ZERO chance of Sigil reaching anything even approaching such a level of success.
At its absolute best, it would have been a niche tool for a tiny audience and that is all you can ever expect now or in the future from a 3d VTT. Its a cool concept, I ran a Talespire online game once for 3 years (during the pandemic) and I was extremely proficient with the tool and the average prep time was excessive. Generally, I would run a session once every other week and it took about 6-8 hours of work to prep for a 3-4 hour session. It was effectively 2 hours of work to prep 1 hour of play.
It should.
Trust isn't really about moral failure or whatever in this context. It's about believing that if you invest in their project (whether that's in money, time, effort, hope whatever), that it will workout. I don't back Kickstarters unless I known the company or person behind it, because otherwise I don't trust them to follow through and I'll end up with my goodies. I don't think they're going to con me per se, but that the project has a reasonable chance of falling through.
Likewise, I don't impute some kind of moral failing on this. As you say, projects fail. Spending more cash on something that's not going to turn a [large enough] profit is irresponsible and there's no money that's been invested by customers to create a duty. However, it's another data point on the "If they say they're going to do something, will they do it?" graph.
I really think companies need to cool their heals on things like this and not announce stuff when they're in the "we have an idea" or "we have a mock-up of an idea" stages. Instead, they should wait until shortly before they're ready for customer involvement (whether that's for beta for large audience testing like they did for 1D&D or release or whatever). Unfortunately, they get excited, announce super early and that causes problems. My biggest gripe with this is computer games. They declare they're making something...then nothing appears for years. Sometimes, it never does.
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.
That isnt really true. I built a few maps real quickly, a simple dungeon was easy and quick to do for me (and I am not a computer savy person). Village ruins was also real easy, the ability to combine uploaded 2D maps with 3D terrain got you good looking maps real quick.
My assumption when they first announced it was "interesting idea, might work, but given that the developer is a board game company with minimal experience with video game development, it probably won't". Even if it was an established developer I'd give it maybe 50:50 odds. Games fail. They fail a lot. Frankly, Sigil exceeded my expectations.
OSR:
You are talking about the time sink for players but again, the people who like things like Talespire or Game Master Engine are fine with that. That is their past time. The 3d community would have grown and almost certainly would have made their own maps from official 2d maps. I don't understand why everyone is so delighted about other people losing tools that they themselves were never going to use anyway. That just sucks. This community sometimes just really sucks. I would have been willing to pay for this tool (I am sure those who appreciate the tool would largely have been willing to) and I don't care that it would have been niche. Great, I don't need everyone to be using it just like I don't need everyone to use physical maps for me to enjoy my own gaming experience.
As in other projects like this one, with continued development, there would have been optimization, which means rigs older than mine (a mid-range from 7ish years ago) would have been able to run it. It also would have meant that eventually, we could have seen it come to other OS like iOS too, especially now. Sometimes it is fun to throw together a map on a lunch break and really, once you are comfortable with the tools, it doesn't take 4 hours to make a map. If you need every single sconce placed perfectly, sure, but it doesn't need to be perfect for players to enjoy it.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
They sunk $50 million into this project, and a team of 30 developers. I'm not sure the D&D Beyond Maps team is that large, and they definitely didn't get $50 million dollars.
What you seem to not get is that businesses have a limited bucket of cash to throw at their products. Wasting it on a product that was already struggling to be relevant, between no MacOS client and overtly high PC requirements, lack of clear direction, and generally not a lot of uptake is a mistake. By your own admission, you couldn't even use it, and no-one on the Sigil team claimed they'd ever be reducing the minimum specs (and based on the way it was built, that would probably be impossible due to 3D rendering requirements).
Throwing more money at it to keep it going when you've decided it's not going to work, is a worse mistake.
This isn't a "Yay you lost something". It's a "Maybe now you can focus on the thing that we all use and have been told by WOTC is the primary focus." I have already seen the Maps VTT get more attention than it had been lately, since they announced that Sigil was "effectively dead" a few months back.
Don't misunderstand, I'm not happy/pleased that it failed as a project; my point was that their expectations and the reality of that market were horribly misaligned, it never stood a chance of achieving the goals they had set for it, and there simply aren't enough people in the world who use such tools to do with it what they expected. Had they made reasonable goals, with reasonable expectations, they would have achieved those goals, and you would have had your 3d VTT. Maybe it would have taken longer to get it, maybe there would have been some compromises, but you didn't need to spend 50 million on a project with 30 developers to create Sigil. That's what you do for triple-A PC and Video games, not a niche indie product that might get an audience of a few hundred people at best.
The failure of Sigil had more to do with the business end and expectations than it did with the tool or concepts behind it. We know there are people who love 3d VTT's and their certainly is a small, niche market for them. But that is the reality.
Yeah, they do fail a lot, which is why they should hold off announcing things to the public until they are in a position where it's either a dead cert or they have to (because they want open bets testing, they're opening up for pre-orders, whatever), instead of when they're planning to have a concept of a plan.
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.
Indeed, and it illustrates quite plainly their total lack of experience in this area. No one in their right mind in the gaming industry would have followed a program like that. Which again, brings the point home. If you're a book publisher... stick to publishing books, and if you're going to expand, hire a professional and let them tell you how its done, not the other way around.
I get this all the time in my work as well. Some VP without a clue climbs down from their Ivory Tower to instruct me rather than ask me on how much a development will cost and when I will release it. In 30 years of my career, I have seen a lot of people get fired for a lot of different things, but VP's who think they can "order" something into existence get fired 100% of the time without fail. As soon as I hear someone do this, my instinct is to say "it's been nice working with you".. cause... yeah.. you're getting fired.
Announcing things long before there's a certainty that they'll work is not exactly unusual in the software industry (I've seen products announced that didn't have more than a name and a vague concept of what they would do).
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
I pretty much agree that it never stood a chance. Whether it is a failure to understand the customers, overinvesting, or whatever, it seems that it was doomed from the start. I am not in the 3d animated space, so I honestly have no idea if 50 million is too much or too little, but I do think you probably about right that it would have been a few hundred people using it a month, at least to start. Talespire has about 300 users a month (launched from Steam) if we count player seats, which is not super excellent.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
Thought I might show just how much better Sigil was compared to the competition with a mini side-by-side. In my opinion, there really was no comparison. Not only did Sigil look dramatically better, but it was fairly easy to use and incorporated PC and Monster specs right into the VTT and had some pretty neat spell effects too.
Game Master Engine
Talespire
Sigil
Secret Bonus Pic <3
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
I did think they had one maybe viable path for a larger project, but in that case they weren't thinking big enough: a more general tabletop simulator that works for board games could plausibly provide $50M in value to Hasbro.
I didn't say for a "project". I said for a business. Spending money on something that isn't working out limits their ability to spend money on other things.
Right, and Sigil would likely never have turned up on MacOS, cutting out a swathe of the playerbase.
"Optimize it so older computers can run it" by definition, requires lowering the minimum specs because those old computers don't meed the current minimum specs...
My specific response was around the line I quoted. No one is happy because other people miss out. They're happy that WOTC has stopped wasting money on a product that wasn't going to work, and would have taken a team of 30 developers to continue improving. That costs a lot of money. Better to be spent on things that the whole commmunity including people on MacOS, people on old computers, people on phones, people on tablets, and people who don't want to spend a long time building isometric maps, can enjoy.
While I generally agree, I would like to point out that Sigil wasn`t about "isometric" maps and it didnt necessarily take a lot of time to build a 3D map with it.