Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Sigil was pushed too heavily as its going to be the best VTT in the universe.
Its virtual miniatures look atrocious compared to those over at Hero Forge.
They overpromised.
I suspect they also overestimated how many gamers were genuinely interested in playing D&D in front of their computers when they can kind of do that with BG3.
I think the most interesting take on the subject of Sigils status came from DM Shorts in his recent Youtube video. I think its a pretty fair assessment and shows the low level of readiness the application is in at the moment. It's hard to predict how much work a small 3-4 man group can get done and how quickly they can address some of these core issues with the tool if WotC chooses not to shutdown the project entirely. With such a small group working on it however they would have relatively low overhead moving forward so one might estimate that while progress might be slow, it might mean they will proceed with the product despite the bad press its getting.
I agree though it's very difficult to see where it's all going from a franchise perspective and how successful it can even become even if the product works exactly as intended. From my personal experience with Sigil, all I can say about it is that it's not a good VTT at all, even if all the features actually worked as planned. It requires far too much work to prep for a session, it's just very impractical. But I suppose if you have lots of time on your hands and are willing to put in the work, assuming they fix it up to working order there might be some fraction of the general D&D population willing to participate.
For me the concern remains that there is nothing in the 2025 calendar being released for the game in terms of content that I have an interest in and I wonder how many people share that disappointment. There are 4 books on the calendar right now and a starter box. From my seat it looks like it will be a year of not buying anything from official D&D content baring any potential 3rd party releases which, I don't wouldn't buy here anyway as I want physical products. So its a bit of a quandary, there is at least for me personally, nothing to be excited about. I suppose the Starter Box being based on Keep on the Borderland might be something, but even that begs the question, do I really want another starter set for 5e? I have three already, two of which I never even took out of the shrinkwrap. I'm just not feeling it.
This has been the biggest point for me. I understood that Sigil was in alpha/ early beta, so I was very much waiting to see where it went. That having been said, there were a number of decisions they made with it that even at this early point had me less certain that it would convince me to leave Talespire. I most certainly do NOT want to see Sigil killed off, and was very curious to see what would come next, but man, I can believe a lot of the stuff circulating about confused leadership and uncertainty about the differences between video games and VTT's.
Fingers crossed that Sigil does not get the axe, because there IS potential, and it would absolutely suck if so much effort just vaporized for no discernable reason.
I mean, the reason would presumably be that they determine it’s operating at too much of a loss to be worth tossing good money after bad to salvage.
It sounds like the current plan is "salvage what is salvageable for inclusion in another project". It was always a bad sign when Maps started in development, because, well, a company producing competition with its own planned projects usually indicates some sort of internal dysfunction. In this case, I think the D&D Beyond/Maps team had a better understanding of the actual market.
Sigh. Once again, we get a half-baked solution. No disrespect to the Sigil team who was trying their best, but we would have been better off if WOTC had never bothered, and just licensed content to other capable platforms (I'm looking at you Foundry, with 5e rules but no adventure support from WOTC...)
God, this.....
I have been utterly baffled at the way they kept talking about Sigil as if other 3d VTT's just....did not exist. The messaging kept sounding like they were flat out unaware of what the market state is, rather than being confident in what they were making. And yeah, I very firmly join you in the club of being confused as to why they were working on two VTT's at the same time, while also pretending to be unaware of the awkwardness.
I’m seriously wondering if DDB were already working on Maps when they were acquired and just continued on development because no one told them not to. By the sounds of things Chris Cao and his digital team had terrible communication with DDB, plus the rumours he hates the site and was against buying it, so I can easily believe that the two teams had no idea that the other VTT was in development before the general public did
sadly that sounds very much possible and likely to had happen.
They had quite a lot of time to realize that this was happening and correct it. My suspicion is internal corporate politics rather than just bad communications (remember, they're actually in separate divisions of Hasbro).
MAPS debuted Sept 19th 2023, and closed beta started around march I think? So, Maps was probably a quick feature to stem the flood, and ended up torpedoing SigiL.
BG3 gave some delusions of grandeur, and both time and money went the wrong way.
" 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.
In under a week we have gone from 'nothing to see here' because it's perfectly normal for software developers to be let go as soon as a project has been brought to completion to having to acknowledge that a leaked internal memo says Wizards of the Coast just weren't fulfilling what they had overpromised and so the project won't be as a large as initially intended and because of this they had to let people go ...
So basically the 'doomsayers' were right. Again.
My first post on the topic: "Honestly, it feels like Wizards has given up on Project Sigil -- they stealth released it in a way that, from what I've heard, probably wasn't ready for release, and then laid off the team."
That's not "nothing to see here". This is absolutely doom for Project Sigil. It just doesn't mean much outside of Project Sigil.
I wasn't speaking specifically about you or what you had said. I was speaking specifically about those who were making excuses. Including the one I mentioned.
On the first page you have one person saying this is normal and another 'confirming' what that person is saying and even going out of his or her way to mention how he or she knows someone in the industry and another also saying it's standard behavior.
To lay off those hired to work on a software's development once the project has neared completion and they are no longer needed.
But that is not what happened here.
One could probably safely bet a pot of gold those invoking that excuse won't admit to their being wrong either.
And it means plenty outside of the project. For the thirty people now out of work and any of their dependents. And for anyone with even the most basic human empathy.
It's a fan forum, the fans are always going to defend and present the best-case scenario no matter what the reality actually is. In their defense, I was rooting for them.
The reality however is that this was probobly never going to end well, none of it will most likely. D&D as a franchise is struggling right now if even half of what is being leaked is true and from the stories it has a lot less to do with the actual game a lot more to do with the company and how they are handling the business at the moment. Hopefully, it's a temporary glitch and they will correct it, but if the information out there about the realities behind the scenes is true, D&D is in a lot of trouble right now, quite possibly worse than 4e days.
Only time will tell what happens next, but WotC has been very quiet about the situation up to this point and I suspect we won't get any official information about the plan going forward anytime soon. We'll have to wait and see what happens.
can someone explain something to me, is sigil the Schrodinger's cat of dnd??
i ask since it seems to be both dead and alive at the same time...
alot of people say its dead, yet its also transitioning to be a feature of dndbeyond they want available to players...
so are you all sure that its actually dead and not just moved to a lower priority??
could it be that the part of sigil that died is just the monetization path that was planned??
People keep saying that Maps and Sigil were competing products. That is far from the case. They are similar products but aimed at two different markets.
Maps is a web based basic product that can be used on a phone or tablet, whereas Sigil was a more immersive 3D based product that required a somewhat powerful PC to use.
Technically, it's still alive. Reality is not so positive. If the reports are to be believed, they've essentially abandoned the original plan for it, which seems to have been some kind of video game. What they've made so far will be available for players and might be cannibalised for other projects. In short, I don't think we'll see much more than what's in front of us in the "beta".
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.
makes sense
was just starting to wonder if due to being transitioned towards being a feature
if it would essentially be a longer trail period for people to muck around with it
and possibly revisited at a later date (a years time) once they have released more dnd24-5e content
heres to hoping :)
Maybe. To be honest, I'm wondering about what else is happening...or will stop happening.
It's been revealing so far.
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.