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.
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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.
Sad to see it go but it seems like it was a bad idea from the start as, unfortunately, the Covid Pandemic gave a false indication of the amount of users who actually played online.
It sucks because I was originally SOOO hyped when I saw what was going to be in store for us. 'This is it' I thought - this is what will be my new VTT. I would have definitely considered using it in person with a TV displaying the maps.
As soon as I got my hands on it though, I was immediately taken aback by how unpolished and how difficult it was to use. The extreme loading times and slow down didn't help either. DM prep takes enough time as it is - Sigil was not helping this process.
Maybe Sigil was destined to fail, but I think had the product been seriously good, people would have switched over from whatever they were using before. As it stands, I've carried on making maps with Dungeon Alchemist.
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Folk, please try to avoid focusing on each other or on playstyles.
While the number of people who use VTTs may be relevant to the discussion of a VTT's potential, this shouldn't be twisted to disparage any playstyle by saying some are more or less worthy of support, or to place judgement on those who prefer those playstyles. If such statistics come up, try and engage with them as numerical statements rather than value judgements either way.
It's also going to be understandable if folk are upset about loosing Sigil as a potential VTT, seeing as many folk engaged with playtesting and feedback and were hopeful for what it could be. Other's might not have even been aware of Sigil's existence until now. Let people be upset, let people show confusion.
So overall- remember our rule on civility please, and stay on topic. If any post should end up focusing on a User and not a point take a moment to reread and rethink what you're wanting to engage with.
The funny thing to me, is they can try again, with a better thought-out product and process, and still do the things that the community was clamoring for with Project-Sigil. Just think of an approach that favors community needs and doesn't try to hype the investors who will bail the moment a whisper in the wind spooks them.
Less intensive engine, art style that isn't prone to age (as example, look at Metroid Prime, still looks great even today.) and clear, upfront information on how things will be monetized, what you can do with it, and requirements. Make it easy to use, and easy to override, and boom, suddenly you have a tool that would be solid foundation for 3D players. Heck, they could even liscense out a fork or modified version of Talespire or Dungeon Alchemist if they don't want to in-house it. it likely wouldn't cost 50Million either. They could do it, and they could do it in the open without the secrecy and lack of details that Kept people warry of it.
Keep the users informed, treat the staff well, and it would get a lot more traction. Also make it an open park that people can wander into and feel like staying, and not a walled garden that makes people feel trapped in it, so they won't set foot in.
Those are the majority of the concerns i have seen voiced, and WoTC can just address them, be upfront, and head a steady community.
Talk to your users, see what they value, then MAKE THAT. ( not that i think they will, after this, but, they COULD do it. )
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"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call To rise up in triumph should we all unite The spark for change is yours to ignite." Kalandra - The State of the World
The funny thing to me, is they can try again, with a better thought-out product and process, and still do the things that the community was clamoring for with Project-Sigil. Just think of an approach that favors community needs and doesn't try to hype the investors who will bail the moment a whisper in the wind spooks them.
Less intensive engine, art style that isn't prone to age (as example, look at Metroid Prime, still looks great even today.) and clear, upfront information on how things will be monetized, what you can do with it, and requirements. Make it easy to use, and easy to override, and boom, suddenly you have a tool that would be solid foundation for 3D players. Heck, they could even liscense out a fork or modified version of Talespire or Dungeon Alchemist if they don't want to in-house it. it likely wouldn't cost 50Million either. They could do it, and they could do it in the open without the secrecy and lack of details that Kept people warry of it.
Keep the users informed, treat the staff well, and it would get a lot more traction. Also make it an open park that people can wander into and feel like staying, and not a walled garden that makes people feel trapped in it, so they won't set foot in.
Those are the majority of the concerns i have seen voiced, and WoTC can just address them, be upfront, and head a steady community.
Talk to your users, see what they value, then MAKE THAT. ( not that i think they will, after this, but, they COULD do it. )
The funny thing to me, is they can try again, with a better thought-out product and process, and still do the things that the community was clamoring for with Project-Sigil.
This assumes that Project Sigil was something the community was clamoring for in the first place. The core problem with Sigil was failure to understand the actual demand.
The funny thing to me, is they can try again, with a better thought-out product and process, and still do the things that the community was clamoring for with Project-Sigil.
This assumes that Project Sigil was something the community was clamoring for in the first place. The core problem with Sigil was failure to understand the actual demand.
I think this is probably true. They may have conflated younger players with gamers and hoped that the younger players would prop it up. My guess is that younger players are heavily engaged in mobile platforms, and gamers don't necessarily play D&D. I myself am a gamer who also plays D&D, but that's apparently the middle of the Venn Diagram that doesn't overlap too much.
The funny thing to me, is they can try again, with a better thought-out product and process, and still do the things that the community was clamoring for with Project-Sigil.
This assumes that Project Sigil was something the community was clamoring for in the first place. The core problem with Sigil was failure to understand the actual demand.
I don't think it was. Maybe in the future when the necessary specs will be trivial it'd be something that people would love but right now... it's hard enough just getting something as simple as Roll20 to work smoothly and nicely. Internet connections need to catch up as well as computer specs though.
The other issue is that I suspect that WotC would want to microtransaction the life out of it. That would not have been attractive.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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
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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.
I will chime in with my two pennies:
Sad to see it go but it seems like it was a bad idea from the start as, unfortunately, the Covid Pandemic gave a false indication of the amount of users who actually played online.
It sucks because I was originally SOOO hyped when I saw what was going to be in store for us. 'This is it' I thought - this is what will be my new VTT. I would have definitely considered using it in person with a TV displaying the maps.
As soon as I got my hands on it though, I was immediately taken aback by how unpolished and how difficult it was to use. The extreme loading times and slow down didn't help either. DM prep takes enough time as it is - Sigil was not helping this process.
Maybe Sigil was destined to fail, but I think had the product been seriously good, people would have switched over from whatever they were using before. As it stands, I've carried on making maps with Dungeon Alchemist.
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ModeratorFolk, please try to avoid focusing on each other or on playstyles.
While the number of people who use VTTs may be relevant to the discussion of a VTT's potential, this shouldn't be twisted to disparage any playstyle by saying some are more or less worthy of support, or to place judgement on those who prefer those playstyles. If such statistics come up, try and engage with them as numerical statements rather than value judgements either way.
It's also going to be understandable if folk are upset about loosing Sigil as a potential VTT, seeing as many folk engaged with playtesting and feedback and were hopeful for what it could be. Other's might not have even been aware of Sigil's existence until now. Let people be upset, let people show confusion.
So overall- remember our rule on civility please, and stay on topic. If any post should end up focusing on a User and not a point take a moment to reread and rethink what you're wanting to engage with.
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The funny thing to me, is they can try again, with a better thought-out product and process, and still do the things that the community was clamoring for with Project-Sigil. Just think of an approach that favors community needs and doesn't try to hype the investors who will bail the moment a whisper in the wind spooks them.
Less intensive engine, art style that isn't prone to age (as example, look at Metroid Prime, still looks great even today.) and clear, upfront information on how things will be monetized, what you can do with it, and requirements. Make it easy to use, and easy to override, and boom, suddenly you have a tool that would be solid foundation for 3D players. Heck, they could even liscense out a fork or modified version of Talespire or Dungeon Alchemist if they don't want to in-house it.
it likely wouldn't cost 50Million either. They could do it, and they could do it in the open without the secrecy and lack of details that Kept people warry of it.
Keep the users informed, treat the staff well, and it would get a lot more traction. Also make it an open park that people can wander into and feel like staying, and not a walled garden that makes people feel trapped in it, so they won't set foot in.
Those are the majority of the concerns i have seen voiced, and WoTC can just address them, be upfront, and head a steady community.
Talk to your users, see what they value, then MAKE THAT. ( not that i think they will, after this, but, they COULD do it. )
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You basically just described Talespire dead-on.
This assumes that Project Sigil was something the community was clamoring for in the first place. The core problem with Sigil was failure to understand the actual demand.
I think this is probably true. They may have conflated younger players with gamers and hoped that the younger players would prop it up. My guess is that younger players are heavily engaged in mobile platforms, and gamers don't necessarily play D&D. I myself am a gamer who also plays D&D, but that's apparently the middle of the Venn Diagram that doesn't overlap too much.
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I don't think it was. Maybe in the future when the necessary specs will be trivial it'd be something that people would love but right now... it's hard enough just getting something as simple as Roll20 to work smoothly and nicely. Internet connections need to catch up as well as computer specs though.
The other issue is that I suspect that WotC would want to microtransaction the life out of it. That would not have been attractive.
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