Wizards has done little but erode trust and confidence since purchasing DDB. They have made the entire site harder to use, removed things that people wanted and flat out crawfished on marketing promises. They are not winning back trust they are chasing customers off.
I could be wrong but most things would be exactly the same regardless of wotc acquiring ddb. I honestly struggle to think of anything that would be different besides negatives...
No project sigil or maps
Less 3rd party content
No physical/digital options
I'll put one pretty big negative:
- No piecemeal purchasing. Which was, like, the biggest draw for me.
There are other things I could mention, but they're more abstract and one thing I've learned on these boards is that people don't really cope with abstract very well. The one thing that was a positive about WotC taking over DDB was that they're a bigger company, so I'd hoped they'd really invest in it and solve a lot of the problems. I think I'd have even forgiven the piecemeal purchases if they had done that. They didn't, and in some ways it's gotten worse.
As for your positives, they're not something that are particularly exciting for me. Maps doesn't really do anything I can't get for free elsewhere - and you have to pay a sub to get it. Sigil is cool, but seems like it's not really going anywhere. The Encounter Builder has been up as long as I've been here and still not out of Beta, so I'm less optimistic about Maps and Sigil.
3rd party content is nice, I guess? Just don't talk about LotRRP - which is the one 3rd Party that I was tempted to buy. Oh well. As for digital/physical... WotC charges so much for physical that, for me, it's not worth it. I just checked, and I can get the MM '24 cheaper elsewhere - cheap enough that I can then pay full price for the DDB version, and still be paying less than what WotC charges just for the physical. The big plus is that I'm not forced into buying in a bundle. I can buy one, then decide I want the other later on when I'm happy with paying for it twice.
So my opinion of the WotC takeover is....meh. I don't know what DDB would have been like had WotC not bought it...too much speculation for my taste.
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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.
I was quite impressed by it. The latest download lets me import my characters from D&D Beyond and the graphics look really good. Most things were functional, and building decent rooms and maps was easy and quick to do.
I'd use it on a second monitor for face to face games, rather than online experience as it's too clunky for that. But as a battlemap that you can set up for a face-to-face session, it is more than enough.
- No piecemeal purchasing. Which was, like, the biggest draw for me.
There are other things I could mention, but they're more abstract and one thing I've learned on these boards is that people don't really cope with abstract very well. The one thing that was a positive about WotC taking over DDB was that they're a bigger company, so I'd hoped they'd really invest in it and solve a lot of the problems. I think I'd have even forgiven the piecemeal purchases if they had done that. They didn't, and in some ways it's gotten worse.
As for your positives, they're not something that are particularly exciting for me. Maps doesn't really do anything I can't get for free elsewhere - and you have to pay a sub to get it. Sigil is cool, but seems like it's not really going anywhere. The Encounter Builder has been up as long as I've been here and still not out of Beta, so I'm less optimistic about Maps and Sigil.
3rd party content is nice, I guess? Just don't talk about LotRRP - which is the one 3rd Party that I was tempted to buy. Oh well. As for digital/physical... WotC charges so much for physical that, for me, it's not worth it. I just checked, and I can get the MM '24 cheaper elsewhere - cheap enough that I can then pay full price for the DDB version, and still be paying less than what WotC charges just for the physical. The big plus is that I'm not forced into buying in a bundle. I can buy one, then decide I want the other later on when I'm happy with paying for it twice.
So my opinion of the WotC takeover is....meh. I don't know what DDB would have been like had WotC not bought it...too much speculation for my taste.
I agree with pretty much everything. There's been some minor improvements, but the changes to the marketplace and in particular taking away piecemeal purchases cancels out all of that.
This is NOT a thread about A La Carte or 3pp. It has ZERO relevance to the highly dubious practice of firing a supermajority of a team.
At this point, all that's said has been said.
I'll end on this.
Money that could have gone to fixing other stuff was wasted on Sigil. The CORE game seemingly being updated into Sigil-friendly wording being the chief example of such.
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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.
This is NOT a thread about A La Carte or 3pp. It has ZERO relevance to the highly dubious practice of firing a supermajority of a team.
There's nothing highly dubious about it. They decided to cancel or greatly scale back the project, and are keeping just enough people to try and salvage something from what's left.
Money that could have gone to fixing other stuff was wasted on Sigil. The CORE game seemingly being updated into Sigil-friendly wording being the chief example of such.
It's not really logically the same budget; while money is transferable, it's likely that it would have remained in that department and spent on some other video game type development.
As for the Core game being updated into Sigil-friendly wording... that's complete nonsense. The 2024 rules are just as obnoxious to implement in a computer game as the 2014 rules.
This is NOT a thread about A La Carte or 3pp. It has ZERO relevance to the highly dubious practice of firing a supermajority of a team.
At this point, all that's said has been said.
I'll end on this.
Money that could have gone to fixing other stuff was wasted on Sigil. The CORE game seemingly being updated into Sigil-friendly wording being the chief example of such.
Yeah but I don't think they want to put money into fixing things. They want to put money into things that will make money. So I'm not sure fixing things would be the incentive for reallocating that money to where you/we would prefer. Thus the point may very well be moot.
This is NOT a thread about A La Carte or 3pp. It has ZERO relevance to the highly dubious practice of firing a supermajority of a team.
At this point, all that's said has been said.
I'll end on this.
Money that could have gone to fixing other stuff was wasted on Sigil. The CORE game seemingly being updated into Sigil-friendly wording being the chief example of such.
Yeah but I don't think they want to put money into fixing things. They want to put money into things that will make money. So I'm not sure fixing things would be the incentive for reallocating that money to where you/we would prefer. Thus the point may very well be moot.
This is NOT a thread about A La Carte or 3pp. It has ZERO relevance to the highly dubious practice of firing a supermajority of a team.
There's nothing highly dubious about it. They decided to cancel or greatly scale back the project, and are keeping just enough people to try and salvage something from what's left.
Money that could have gone to fixing other stuff was wasted on Sigil. The CORE game seemingly being updated into Sigil-friendly wording being the chief example of such.
It's not really logically the same budget; while money is transferable, it's likely that it would have remained in that department and spent on some other video game type development.
As for the Core game being updated into Sigil-friendly wording... that's complete nonsense. The 2024 rules are just as obnoxious to implement in a computer game as the 2014 rules.
Dubious, as in untrustworthy, shady, AND deceitful(To shareholders & customers)
All the flavor removal & mechanical clarifications, to me, feel like they're 99.99999% so that they'd be easier on the team to transfer to Sigil compared to 2024. It's so patently obvious. A lot of these changes are designed to make spells uniform so they can be easier to translate to code FOR THE TEAM. Not for Larian, not for end-users, for the people who are/were working on it who are coders. The uniformity, flat language, lack of MM stat block summons, removal of "fun" effects by way of clarification, and cutdown of ambiguity screams "make it easier for the people who are going to make the REAL money for us, WotC"
I'm out again.
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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.
All the flavor removal & mechanical clarifications, to me, feel like they're 99.99999% so that they'd be easier on the team to transfer to Sigil compared to 2024. It's so patently obvious. A lot of these changes are designed to make spells uniform so they can be easier to translate to code FOR THE TEAM. Not for Larian, not for end-users, for the people who are/were working on it who are coders. The uniformity, flat language, lack of MM stat block summons, removal of "fun" effects by way of clarification, and cutdown of ambiguity screams "make it easier for the people who are going to make the REAL money for us, WotC"
I recall hearing that most of the 3e changes were to make AD&D easier to code.
But then, how dare they make the game better and easier to play!
All the flavor removal & mechanical clarifications, to me, feel like they're 99.99999% so that they'd be easier on the team to transfer to Sigil compared to 2024. It's so patently obvious. A lot of these changes are designed to make spells uniform so they can be easier to translate to code FOR THE TEAM. Not for Larian, not for end-users, for the people who are/were working on it who are coders. The uniformity, flat language, lack of MM stat block summons, removal of "fun" effects by way of clarification, and cutdown of ambiguity screams "make it easier for the people who are going to make the REAL money for us, WotC"
I can only conclude that you don't know anything about software (this is a common feature of people complaining about any edition of D&D being designed for computers; there are a ton of super annoying things in D&D for a computer. Look at video games that have actually tried to implement the rules and how much stuff they didn't implement). Looking at your points
Flavor Removal: adding descriptive blobs to objects is trivial.
General: Sigil is a VTT, not a cRPG. It doesn't actually need clear rules because it doesn't interpret the rules, it just shows them to the DM.
Mechanical Clarification: the 2024 rules are by no means mechanically clear. If they wanted it mechanically clear, they would have actually assigned a technical writer and you'd get stuff that looks very different from the 2024 rules, and most of the rules arguments people have about the new rules would not exist.
Spells are by no means clear, and if you wanted to actually make it easy for coders -- you get someone to design a data schema, your creators fill in that data scheme, and then an automated process turns that data schema into text. And it looks nothing like actual 2024 spell layout (4e power cards were the closest thing in any edition of D&D to straightforward to implement, and they'd still be a giant PITA).
Lack of MM stat block summons: seriously, MM stat block summons are only ever a problem for a tabletop game. If I'm DMing in a VTT I can just drag monsters out of the library and put them on the map, no effort required, and for that matter it's a lot easier to deal with "and then I summon 16 wolves"; the game might actually not come to a stop for half of an hour until the DM decides "okay, in the future all BBEGs will cast forbiddance, meaning low CR summons instantly die when they enter the area".
Removal of 'fun' mechanics and ambiguity: this actually makes things harder to implement, not easier, because if you just leave the rule ambiguous... the programmer can just decide to make it work in whatever way is most convenient to implement.
Ever since 2024 came out, I can't help but draw parallels and see connections between TSR vs. WotC during the 2nd edition AD&D era and D&D in the 2024.
For starters, in both cases, I personally thought the game was vastly improved by the new books, in TSR era it was an update to AD&D which was much more streamlined and easier to use same as the 2024 version of 5th edition. In the early 90's the internet and online discussions weren't really a thing yet, but the impression I got was that this was universally true of the general fandom, meaning It seemed like and I assumed the community was adopting the game.
Both companies during their respective era's were trying to expand the franchises in a number of ways outside of the tabletop sphere presumed to be golden opportunities that would end up not panning out and again here, in both era's I found myself thinking... Yeah, that's really smart but it would turn out not to be at all.
Both eras were filled with politics that influenced the design of the game, politics that were generally driven by outsiders that had no interest in D&D or its success, just to enforce their political views and in both cases the companies folded and succumbed to the pressure and in both cases it's been terrible for the game.
Both eras had rather shocking controversies surrounding the company and its people, all of which ultimately affected how people viewed the game. Greed was driving all of the terrible decisions that would create a foundation of suspicion that would ultimately label the company as an "evil corporation".
In both eras, the company insisted that D&D was the most popular game in the world and that the edition of the game was selling like crazy, while their stocks tanked and financials didn't support anything they were saying.
I know that these parallels and connections are quite "loose", so I'm not looking to debate, I concede here and now that there are clearly many differences and exceptions. My point is less about that and more about the fact that the reality is that whatever is going to happen, we as a community are not going to know much no matter how much speculation or "side-taking" anyone does. We are not going to find out what was really happening until this is all history.
You realize that when you watch interviews with guys like Mike Mearls who, now that he is out of the shadow of WotC and not burdened by NDA's and can speak freely, the inside story of what was really happening at Wizards of the Coast at the time he worked there is vastly different from what anyone thought at the time.
In short, there is no telling what is going to happen and no amount of "positive" or "negative" thinking is going to change the reality on the ground but what is very likely to be true is that we are all wrong about it, that the real story is something that is very likely going to be altogether very different what we think today.
Its fascinating to watch the history sort of unfold live, but right now I would say the only thing we do know for certain is that things are not going according to plan at Wizards of the Coast and its going to be interesting to see how they respond to this latest development.
Personally I think we are witnessing the inevitable closure of Sigil, but I could be very wrong about that. The real question here is wether or not, 3d virtual table top gaming is something for which there is even a market. I pointed out in an earlier post that Talespire, a very similar product has a customer base of about 300 people. Meaning there are about 300 people actively using the tool on a monthly basis. That is a pretty good indication of the size of the community that might be willing to run games in a 3d virtual table top and to WotC numbers like that I think are far too low to justify it and this series of lay-offs is just the first reaction to that realization by WotC.
Personally I think we are witnessing the inevitable closure of Sigil, but I could be very wrong about that.
My assumptions about Sigil were always "well, it's not impossible that they'll succeed... but I wouldn't bet on it", for the simple reason that what they're trying to do is hard, there's established competitors, and it's not particularly connected to their traditional areas of competency. Also, I don't think they really understood the VTT market, ease of use is way more important than fancy graphics.
The most interesting thing wrt to the failure of the VTT is that it totally blows away the notion of the "billion dollar monetisation stream" that was put forth by a couple ex-microsoft exec's, one of who has already departed the company. Without a functional in-house VTT, it is impossible for wotc to create a walled garden that supports skin's, and other special features associated with a VTT. It is impossible for wotc to create features that function across multiple other competing VTT's. wotc can partner with one, and maybe, just maybe, created features compatible with that platform. But no way it can be done across multiple VTT's, and the amount of money that will be passed on to wotc is a tiny fraction of what was hoped for 2 years ago.
Every journalist or YouTuber or media analyst who reports on this industry is talking about how bad this is. Is it just me or is it only ever on these forums where we see a comparative marginal few defend or make excuses for Wizards' decisions?
Every journalist or YouTuber or media analyst who reports on this industry is talking about how bad this is. Is it just me or is it only ever on these forums where we see a comparative marginal few defend or make excuses for Wizards' decisions?
I mean, it's certainly not a positive, but controversy also makes for better clickbait.
Every journalist or YouTuber or media analyst who reports on this industry is talking about how bad this is.
No-one is calling it good. It's just not as significant as people want to think it is. Bear in mind the person who looks worst as a result of all this is Chris Cao, who last I knew everyone seemed to hate anyway, and as far as I know he's actually under a separate department (digital entertainment) from the regular D&D development. For that matter, there's plenty of history of him feuding with and wanting to 'destroy' D&D Beyond, so the fact that there was apparently lack of cooperation between the DDB team and the Project Sigil team is... not exactly surprising.
Sounds like someone needs to be replaced if that is the case. I couldn't tell you who - I have no idea what's going on - but that isn't how a good company works. You're paid to make it work the best possible way. Your own personal opinions and spats shouldn't interfere with giving it the best shot at its ventures that it can.
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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.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Cao is let go soon, although he’ll probably get a nice golden parachute. He’s ex-MicroSoft and ex-Xbox and was obviously hired on the promise that he could turn D&D into a digital gold mine and has spectacularly failed to do that. It makes me wonder how much of the rumours that Hasbro executives thought Sigil was going to be a standalone video game that they could sell like BG3 to non-D&D players is because that’s exactly what he promised. In interviews he’s certainly never come across as someone who actually plays TTRPGs so it’s entirely possible that he also fundamentally misunderstood what he was making and who he was making it for
Whatever the plan for Sigil was, no matter how you look at it, with 90% of the staff laid off at this early stage in its development it means that these plans were complete and indisputable failures. Given how large of a part digital D&D was for the 2024 edition of the game, with so much energy and focus on Sigil being a major player in the future of the game, it begs the question what IS the plan for D&D in 2025?
My hope is that WotC recognizes that they make a tabletop game and focus on producing quality content for the game. Right now, the best that can be said about 2024 edition assuming that it is in fact "The Best Selling D&D of all Time" is that there is potential for great success if they can support the game with content worth buying.
To me the last few years of content for D&D has been very weak. The last good D&D book that was worth a purchase (Tasha's Cauldron of Everything) was released in 2020, that is nearly five years ago. The last decent adventure was Tales from the Yawning Portal released back in 2017. This is my opinion of course, but the point Im making is that I just don't feel like there is anything worth buying for D&D right now. The 2024 books was a little burst of energy the game had, but what's to be excited about at this point now that the game is launched?
Another starter set? An expansion to Eberron? Yet another version of Forgotten Realms?
Right now the things slated for release for the 2024 edition of the game look more like something you would see at the end of an edition when the game is dying out and a new edition is about to be announced. I have 5 different versions of Forgotten Realms on my shelf already, I honestly do not need or want another one. I don't care about Eberron and I don't need another starter box... It's just quite literally nothing to buy for what appears to be the entirety of 2025 which amounts to a grand total of 4 books.
From my perspective right now, there just isn't much to hang your hat on when it comes to 5e. Not that I was all that excited about Sigil, but at least it was something new to try, something to fiddle with.
they seriously need to stop nickel and diming us, the actual fans and customers, and make something for FREE for all the stuff we put up with them over the years.
This ignores all of the free adventures given away.
But more to the point:
People REALLY need to cool it with the "it's dead, let's celebrate all of the death" talk.
Y'all are ignoring the dev who said it isn't dead to run victory laps & post more doomerism to try & "win" this discussion.
Are you ignoring that counter-evidence?
(Firing people is still wrong, especially in this day and age, but still, evidence that SIgil is not dead exists.)
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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.
they seriously need to stop nickel and diming us, the actual fans and customers, and make something for FREE for all the stuff we put up with them over the years.
This ignores all of the free adventures given away.
But more to the point:
People REALLY need to cool it with the "it's dead, let's celebrate all of the death" talk.
Y'all are ignoring the dev who said it isn't dead to run victory laps & post more doomerism to try & "win" this discussion.
Are you ignoring that counter-evidence?
(Firing people is still wrong, especially in this day and age, but still, evidence that SIgil is not dead exists.)
Letting contractors go when the project wraps up one way or another is how these projects work. D&D simply doesn’t have the portfolio to keep a full software development team like this on full time.
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I'll put one pretty big negative:
- No piecemeal purchasing. Which was, like, the biggest draw for me.
There are other things I could mention, but they're more abstract and one thing I've learned on these boards is that people don't really cope with abstract very well. The one thing that was a positive about WotC taking over DDB was that they're a bigger company, so I'd hoped they'd really invest in it and solve a lot of the problems. I think I'd have even forgiven the piecemeal purchases if they had done that. They didn't, and in some ways it's gotten worse.
As for your positives, they're not something that are particularly exciting for me. Maps doesn't really do anything I can't get for free elsewhere - and you have to pay a sub to get it. Sigil is cool, but seems like it's not really going anywhere. The Encounter Builder has been up as long as I've been here and still not out of Beta, so I'm less optimistic about Maps and Sigil.
3rd party content is nice, I guess? Just don't talk about LotRRP - which is the one 3rd Party that I was tempted to buy. Oh well. As for digital/physical... WotC charges so much for physical that, for me, it's not worth it. I just checked, and I can get the MM '24 cheaper elsewhere - cheap enough that I can then pay full price for the DDB version, and still be paying less than what WotC charges just for the physical. The big plus is that I'm not forced into buying in a bundle. I can buy one, then decide I want the other later on when I'm happy with paying for it twice.
So my opinion of the WotC takeover is....meh. I don't know what DDB would have been like had WotC not bought it...too much speculation for my taste.
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.
I was quite impressed by it. The latest download lets me import my characters from D&D Beyond and the graphics look really good. Most things were functional, and building decent rooms and maps was easy and quick to do.
I'd use it on a second monitor for face to face games, rather than online experience as it's too clunky for that. But as a battlemap that you can set up for a face-to-face session, it is more than enough.
I agree with pretty much everything. There's been some minor improvements, but the changes to the marketplace and in particular taking away piecemeal purchases cancels out all of that.
This is NOT a thread about A La Carte or 3pp. It has ZERO relevance to the highly dubious practice of firing a supermajority of a team.
At this point, all that's said has been said.
I'll end on this.
Money that could have gone to fixing other stuff was wasted on Sigil. The CORE game seemingly being updated into Sigil-friendly wording being the chief example of such.
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.
There's nothing highly dubious about it. They decided to cancel or greatly scale back the project, and are keeping just enough people to try and salvage something from what's left.
It's not really logically the same budget; while money is transferable, it's likely that it would have remained in that department and spent on some other video game type development.
As for the Core game being updated into Sigil-friendly wording... that's complete nonsense. The 2024 rules are just as obnoxious to implement in a computer game as the 2014 rules.
Yeah but I don't think they want to put money into fixing things. They want to put money into things that will make money. So I'm not sure fixing things would be the incentive for reallocating that money to where you/we would prefer. Thus the point may very well be moot.
Dubious, as in untrustworthy, shady, AND deceitful(To shareholders & customers)
All the flavor removal & mechanical clarifications, to me, feel like they're 99.99999% so that they'd be easier on the team to transfer to Sigil compared to 2024. It's so patently obvious. A lot of these changes are designed to make spells uniform so they can be easier to translate to code FOR THE TEAM. Not for Larian, not for end-users, for the people who are/were working on it who are coders. The uniformity, flat language, lack of MM stat block summons, removal of "fun" effects by way of clarification, and cutdown of ambiguity screams "make it easier for the people who are going to make the REAL money for us, WotC"
I'm out again.
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.
I recall hearing that most of the 3e changes were to make AD&D easier to code.
But then, how dare they make the game better and easier to play!
It's none of those things.
I can only conclude that you don't know anything about software (this is a common feature of people complaining about any edition of D&D being designed for computers; there are a ton of super annoying things in D&D for a computer. Look at video games that have actually tried to implement the rules and how much stuff they didn't implement). Looking at your points
Ever since 2024 came out, I can't help but draw parallels and see connections between TSR vs. WotC during the 2nd edition AD&D era and D&D in the 2024.
For starters, in both cases, I personally thought the game was vastly improved by the new books, in TSR era it was an update to AD&D which was much more streamlined and easier to use same as the 2024 version of 5th edition. In the early 90's the internet and online discussions weren't really a thing yet, but the impression I got was that this was universally true of the general fandom, meaning It seemed like and I assumed the community was adopting the game.
Both companies during their respective era's were trying to expand the franchises in a number of ways outside of the tabletop sphere presumed to be golden opportunities that would end up not panning out and again here, in both era's I found myself thinking... Yeah, that's really smart but it would turn out not to be at all.
Both eras were filled with politics that influenced the design of the game, politics that were generally driven by outsiders that had no interest in D&D or its success, just to enforce their political views and in both cases the companies folded and succumbed to the pressure and in both cases it's been terrible for the game.
Both eras had rather shocking controversies surrounding the company and its people, all of which ultimately affected how people viewed the game. Greed was driving all of the terrible decisions that would create a foundation of suspicion that would ultimately label the company as an "evil corporation".
In both eras, the company insisted that D&D was the most popular game in the world and that the edition of the game was selling like crazy, while their stocks tanked and financials didn't support anything they were saying.
I know that these parallels and connections are quite "loose", so I'm not looking to debate, I concede here and now that there are clearly many differences and exceptions. My point is less about that and more about the fact that the reality is that whatever is going to happen, we as a community are not going to know much no matter how much speculation or "side-taking" anyone does. We are not going to find out what was really happening until this is all history.
You realize that when you watch interviews with guys like Mike Mearls who, now that he is out of the shadow of WotC and not burdened by NDA's and can speak freely, the inside story of what was really happening at Wizards of the Coast at the time he worked there is vastly different from what anyone thought at the time.
In short, there is no telling what is going to happen and no amount of "positive" or "negative" thinking is going to change the reality on the ground but what is very likely to be true is that we are all wrong about it, that the real story is something that is very likely going to be altogether very different what we think today.
Its fascinating to watch the history sort of unfold live, but right now I would say the only thing we do know for certain is that things are not going according to plan at Wizards of the Coast and its going to be interesting to see how they respond to this latest development.
Personally I think we are witnessing the inevitable closure of Sigil, but I could be very wrong about that. The real question here is wether or not, 3d virtual table top gaming is something for which there is even a market. I pointed out in an earlier post that Talespire, a very similar product has a customer base of about 300 people. Meaning there are about 300 people actively using the tool on a monthly basis. That is a pretty good indication of the size of the community that might be willing to run games in a 3d virtual table top and to WotC numbers like that I think are far too low to justify it and this series of lay-offs is just the first reaction to that realization by WotC.
My assumptions about Sigil were always "well, it's not impossible that they'll succeed... but I wouldn't bet on it", for the simple reason that what they're trying to do is hard, there's established competitors, and it's not particularly connected to their traditional areas of competency. Also, I don't think they really understood the VTT market, ease of use is way more important than fancy graphics.
The most interesting thing wrt to the failure of the VTT is that it totally blows away the notion of the "billion dollar monetisation stream" that was put forth by a couple ex-microsoft exec's, one of who has already departed the company. Without a functional in-house VTT, it is impossible for wotc to create a walled garden that supports skin's, and other special features associated with a VTT. It is impossible for wotc to create features that function across multiple other competing VTT's. wotc can partner with one, and maybe, just maybe, created features compatible with that platform. But no way it can be done across multiple VTT's, and the amount of money that will be passed on to wotc is a tiny fraction of what was hoped for 2 years ago.
Every journalist or YouTuber or media analyst who reports on this industry is talking about how bad this is. Is it just me or is it only ever on these forums where we see a comparative marginal few defend or make excuses for Wizards' decisions?
I mean, it's certainly not a positive, but controversy also makes for better clickbait.
No-one is calling it good. It's just not as significant as people want to think it is. Bear in mind the person who looks worst as a result of all this is Chris Cao, who last I knew everyone seemed to hate anyway, and as far as I know he's actually under a separate department (digital entertainment) from the regular D&D development. For that matter, there's plenty of history of him feuding with and wanting to 'destroy' D&D Beyond, so the fact that there was apparently lack of cooperation between the DDB team and the Project Sigil team is... not exactly surprising.
Sounds like someone needs to be replaced if that is the case. I couldn't tell you who - I have no idea what's going on - but that isn't how a good company works. You're paid to make it work the best possible way. Your own personal opinions and spats shouldn't interfere with giving it the best shot at its ventures that it can.
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.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Cao is let go soon, although he’ll probably get a nice golden parachute. He’s ex-MicroSoft and ex-Xbox and was obviously hired on the promise that he could turn D&D into a digital gold mine and has spectacularly failed to do that. It makes me wonder how much of the rumours that Hasbro executives thought Sigil was going to be a standalone video game that they could sell like BG3 to non-D&D players is because that’s exactly what he promised. In interviews he’s certainly never come across as someone who actually plays TTRPGs so it’s entirely possible that he also fundamentally misunderstood what he was making and who he was making it for
Whatever the plan for Sigil was, no matter how you look at it, with 90% of the staff laid off at this early stage in its development it means that these plans were complete and indisputable failures. Given how large of a part digital D&D was for the 2024 edition of the game, with so much energy and focus on Sigil being a major player in the future of the game, it begs the question what IS the plan for D&D in 2025?
My hope is that WotC recognizes that they make a tabletop game and focus on producing quality content for the game. Right now, the best that can be said about 2024 edition assuming that it is in fact "The Best Selling D&D of all Time" is that there is potential for great success if they can support the game with content worth buying.
To me the last few years of content for D&D has been very weak. The last good D&D book that was worth a purchase (Tasha's Cauldron of Everything) was released in 2020, that is nearly five years ago. The last decent adventure was Tales from the Yawning Portal released back in 2017. This is my opinion of course, but the point Im making is that I just don't feel like there is anything worth buying for D&D right now. The 2024 books was a little burst of energy the game had, but what's to be excited about at this point now that the game is launched?
Another starter set? An expansion to Eberron? Yet another version of Forgotten Realms?
Right now the things slated for release for the 2024 edition of the game look more like something you would see at the end of an edition when the game is dying out and a new edition is about to be announced. I have 5 different versions of Forgotten Realms on my shelf already, I honestly do not need or want another one. I don't care about Eberron and I don't need another starter box... It's just quite literally nothing to buy for what appears to be the entirety of 2025 which amounts to a grand total of 4 books.
From my perspective right now, there just isn't much to hang your hat on when it comes to 5e. Not that I was all that excited about Sigil, but at least it was something new to try, something to fiddle with.
This ignores all of the free adventures given away.
But more to the point:
People REALLY need to cool it with the "it's dead, let's celebrate all of the death" talk.
Y'all are ignoring the dev who said it isn't dead to run victory laps & post more doomerism to try & "win" this discussion.
Are you ignoring that counter-evidence?
(Firing people is still wrong, especially in this day and age, but still, evidence that SIgil is not dead exists.)
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.
Letting contractors go when the project wraps up one way or another is how these projects work. D&D simply doesn’t have the portfolio to keep a full software development team like this on full time.