Yeah understandable but that was also back in May 2020. 9 months is not a lot of time I get it and they had Tasha's which was a big ol update for sure.
However, just seems like as others had mentioned they had trouble keeping up with the rollout of new stuff and implementing new things.
The dice were a big ??? to me as it was something that was cool I guess but seems to be a very small value add from my limited perspective.
I am not sure if they were hoping to get more cash flow from it but I have only used them about 1 or 2 times and I have been a full fledged subscriber for about 3 years.
The backwards build was needed for sure but for some reason this makes me feel like maybe they are not interested in furthering those features and want to focus on the dice or other money makers instead.
Granted they are a business and that they need cash flow to stay afloat but if they start inundating me with this kind of stuff I will likely unsubscribe.
Don't forget, like all of us in 2020, they had to deal with the side ball that is Covid-19, global pandemic, and quarantine.
Dice Roller is a great add, requested by many, and had to be done first, before shared dice rolling could be added. I highly doubt that they planned on dice styles as being a big money maker, let's be sensible on that.
Don't forget, like all of us in 2020, they had to deal with the side ball that is Covid-19, global pandemic, and quarantine.
Dice Roller is a great add, requested by many, and had to be done first, before shared dice rolling could be added. I highly doubt that they planned on dice styles as being a big money maker, let's be sensible on that.
I guess I'll have to take your word on the dice roller being something a lot of people asked for. I had never seen a request for it before it came out but maybe I missed them.
The fact that we're all here discussing it means DDB screwed up by not letting us know more than a day ahead of time, and not giving any indication of what's in the future plans.
As Adam said on the Dev update, he's still here for weeks. Adam, Lauren & Todd are leaving at different times for different opportunities.
Yes, the decision was made to announce that they're leaving in one go. I'm not sure what is meant by screwing up by not announcing ahead of time though. They've not left yet! This was pretty much the first sensible opportunity to break the news.
Regarding a formal statement - that was made on the Dev update video and by the people themselves on Twitter. Multiple staff have followed up here, to let you all know that everything is going to be ok and D&D Beyond isn't at risk, closing down, or otherwise failing - quite the opposite. We're continuing to grow, recruit and build.
I totally understand the reaction of, "but this many people at once? Something MUST be wrong." but as I said previously, sometimes stuff just coincides and that's all it is. I get it though, why it looks bad from the outside.
Ironically, because there's not a disaster occurring, there's no way for anyone here to prove that to the community, other than to continue to communicate openly and for us to carry on doing our jobs to make D&D Beyond better than ever.
Am I sad that friends are moving on? Very much so, but I'm also so happy for them that opportunity has opened up for them in a wonderful way.
Anyways, I've never been the kinda girl that was good at corporate platitudes. Not something you'll see from me. 😉
I'm gonna go sleep and tomorrow I'll carry on working on building Candlekeep Mysteries, with the rest of the Game Content team. They're awesome people and I love working with them. Also it's a really cool book with some crazy fun adventures in!
G'night folks, please don't worry. ❤️
This would be a great chance to get to know some of the other people involved on the teams. Not that they would be in the spotlight all the time, but just a behind-the-scenes look into other people that actually make things happen. It would be an interesting chance to spotlight those that were willing... and I understand that some don't want ANY spotlight, so there's that even though they are good at their job. Thanks for weighing in on this and being a calm voice of reason. Looking forward to the future and hope it's not too long before we see more articles highlighting good things happening and good people doing too much hard work.
And for the record, count me in the pool of "Glad D&DBeyond isn't a VTT"... I love having a legendary digital toolset that can follow me everywhere from table to the realms of stolen maps and markers or even the face to face magic of the Feynternet.
Don't forget, like all of us in 2020, they had to deal with the side ball that is Covid-19, global pandemic, and quarantine.
Dice Roller is a great add, requested by many, and had to be done first, before shared dice rolling could be added. I highly doubt that they planned on dice styles as being a big money maker, let's be sensible on that.
I guess I'll have to take your word on the dice roller being something a lot of people asked for. I had never seen a request for it before it came out but maybe I missed them.
I am *thrilled* with the dice roller. Hopefully it will integrate with the encounter tracker sooner rather than later so I can dispense with Roll20 for everything except maps.
I'm hoping that the last Dev Stream was just a chance to bid farewell to three people we've all got to know and trust and the next Dev Stream will include:
Who the next 'Adam' will be. Adam will be sorely missed, we all agree. But the uncertainty of what is happening is worrying people.
A strong commitment to ongoing development and support. This needs to be emphasised clearly and make us all go away with no doubt that all is good.
Above all else, complete confidence that the products and services we've purchased aren't going to vanish or become useless.
Like it has been mentioned above, if DDB was going down the pan and Adam, Lauren, Todd and James hated the company, they most likely couldn't tell us if they wanted to. A better way of delivering this news to all would have been to have had the new 'Adam' be on last week's stream to facilitate the news handout.
I'm sure all will be well. Think of your own companies you work for. When one person leaves its a blow. If three or four go at the same time, its a bigger blow. If one or two people prop up an entire company, then its a bad company anyway. People are ultimately replaceable. I just hope the new person is as open, honest, passionate and likeable as Adam is.
I'm sure all will be well. Think of your own companies you work for. When one person leaves its a blow. If three or four go at the same time, its a bigger blow. If one or two people prop up an entire company, then its a bad company anyway. People are ultimately replaceable. I just hope the new person is as open, honest, passionate and likeable as Adam is.
If it happened where I work, we wouldn't even be able to begin hiring until the other person actually left. Cross-training? Pshaw... that's for the corporate world... in Education... we do things a DIFFerent way (which is just another way to spell No Common Sense).
Don't forget, like all of us in 2020, they had to deal with the side ball that is Covid-19, global pandemic, and quarantine.
Dice Roller is a great add, requested by many, and had to be done first, before shared dice rolling could be added. I highly doubt that they planned on dice styles as being a big money maker, let's be sensible on that.
I guess I'll have to take your word on the dice roller being something a lot of people asked for. I had never seen a request for it before it came out but maybe I missed them.
I am *thrilled* with the dice roller. Hopefully it will integrate with the encounter tracker sooner rather than later so I can dispense with Roll20 for everything except maps.
I ended up importing everything into Foundry and it has been a real life saver during this time. If they could get the combat tracker into good shape I would for sure use that with the dice roller if they integrated.
Betting this all gets folded back under WOTC soon. As long as we keep our content I’m fine.
This TBH... smells like a buyout.
Clearly, some mistakes from the past attempt have been addressed by this team and hopefully WotC will have learned and can move forward with it... for all of us.
Don't forget, like all of us in 2020, they had to deal with the side ball that is Covid-19, global pandemic, and quarantine.
Dice Roller is a great add, requested by many, and had to be done first, before shared dice rolling could be added. I highly doubt that they planned on dice styles as being a big money maker, let's be sensible on that.
I guess I'll have to take your word on the dice roller being something a lot of people asked for. I had never seen a request for it before it came out but maybe I missed them.
Really VTT is the thing everyone is asking for. To do that, one of the very first things you need (after books and character sheets) is dice rolling. then the ability to share rolls. You also need a encounter builder, and combat tracker.
So if you have ever said wanted DDB to be rules, character sheets, and a alternative to roll20 all in one, then you asked for dice roller. Just because only a small set of people explicitly said they want a dice roller, doesn't mean that a large majority of vocal users haven't asked for it indirectly. The only thing I think that gets requested more is free digital books if people buy the physical copy (which we all know why that cannot actually be done, but people still refuse to read the thousands of threads explaining the issue)
Don't forget, like all of us in 2020, they had to deal with the side ball that is Covid-19, global pandemic, and quarantine.
Dice Roller is a great add, requested by many, and had to be done first, before shared dice rolling could be added. I highly doubt that they planned on dice styles as being a big money maker, let's be sensible on that.
I guess I'll have to take your word on the dice roller being something a lot of people asked for. I had never seen a request for it before it came out but maybe I missed them.
When I started using DnDBeyond during quarantine the first thing I did was get the Beyond20 on my system, so that I could one click and roll the dice. I don't know if it was so much a requested feature as much as what percentage of people used Beyond20 or something similar.
Side tangent for shits: am I the only human being in existence that's glad DDB isn't a VTT? Every VTT I've ever seen or heard of is ridiculously over-complicated to use, with massively unintuitive tools and a learning curve that's a bit more like a learning cinderblock wall with hidden claymore mines waiting for an errant face to hit their trigger switches. DDB not trying to force me to figure out how to work an obnoxious and unhelpful VTT interface - this is me staring squarely at Roll20 - is one of the reasons it got money in the first place.
If you happen to be on Mac or have an iPad variant, check into Encounter Plus. It’s a fantastic VTT imho. I’m not involved with development. Just one of many fans. There’s a very mature, respectful, active and helpful Discord community too.
The issue, Hollow, is that anyone who's worked in a corporation of any size, scale or scope before knows that the people leaving are contractually obligated to speak of the company in glowing terms, to tell everyone that it's simply a lifestyle change, and to wish everyopne the best.
Um, what??? I have worked for several corporations of many sizes over decades, and have many friends who have worked in corporations large and small, and this has NEVER been true for me or anyone I’ve worked with. Ever. Sure it does happen some times, but is unequivocally NOT the case that it is true for every corporation of any size, scale, or scope. Not even close.
Those companies who do not have such contracts do not have good legal council.
The issue, Hollow, is that anyone who's worked in a corporation of any size, scale or scope before knows that the people leaving are contractually obligated to speak of the company in glowing terms, to tell everyone that it's simply a lifestyle change, and to wish everyopne the best.
Um, what??? I have worked for several corporations of many sizes over decades, and have many friends who have worked in corporations large and small, and this has NEVER been true for me or anyone I’ve worked with. Ever. Sure it does happen some times, but is unequivocally NOT the case that it is true for every corporation of any size, scale, or scope. Not even close.
Those companies who do not have such contracts do not have good legal council.
Not necessarily. First of all, a non-disparagement clause is not a requirement to speak in glowing terms, it's just a requirement to not say anything bad. Secondly, there are real and non-negligible costs to getting people to sign one.
Betting this all gets folded back under WOTC soon. As long as we keep our content I’m fine.
This TBH... smells like a buyout.
Clearly, some mistakes from the past attempt have been addressed by this team and hopefully WotC will have learned and can move forward with it... for all of us.
Share what your nose knows to those of us who aren't getting what you're inhaling. How does the departure of three creatives/community facing staff (basically a mix of creative content and PR ancillary to the actual DDB product) and one DDB co-founder and Fandom VP smell like a buyout? None of the folks aside from Adam had any "control" over DDB, their (and Badeye's public facing) role was to serve as ambassadors of DDB to the broader D&D community. There's a lot of people within the company at the dev and executive level still working there. This is more like if Seth Meyers quit the Late Show, late night tv fans would wonder what's next. At least in reality. Many on this thread seems to take the logic that if Meyers leaves the Late Show, NBC must be folding.
EDIT/added: I just don't see Hasbro/WotC interested in buying it any more than than they are buying out a VTT. It's great DDB exists, but I just don't see WOTC being granted the capacity by Hasbro to staff up with professionals largely outside of WotC (and to an extent Hasbro's) wheelhouse. If DDB was at the scale MtG's online product is at maybe, but I just don't see it. While some think VTT is the "future" of TTRPG, I think most of the publishers who prefer to rely on third parties for that sort of stuff see a return to table as soon as viable. Sure VTTs won't go away, but I think more players than not still feel TTRPG at an actual table is the optimal way to play. DDB gets to straddle those worlds but again isn't entirely necessary and there's a lot of folks who mix up homebrew with 3rd party and I just don't see DDB being acquired unless it scaled up its "do it all" capacity, which will never happen because of the licensing agreements presumably against third party with great exceptions, and the centering of RAW over homebrew facility.
Why have we still not had a video of "So here new staff and or plans for the future." I not feeling great about all my 5e books in one basket with being told oh it's just coincidence they all are leaving at once.
I see they are still working hard on developing tools, so I'm confident the tools are not going to be negatively impacted by this. On the other hand, James was the creator of most (or even all?) Of the articles we used to see on the home page on a weekly basis. I did notice that nothing new has been posted since James' farewell (except the necroposting needed to hide that post) and that DID scare me a little. But I guess it will just take some time to find a suitable replacement?
However, I don't see DNDBeyond crumbling in the near future. It will continue to be updated, host new manuals, offer new and improved tools and provide a nice community. The only risk would be a new and better platform hosted by someone else, but to be frankly honest I don't think there will ever be, at least for 5e. Not in this decade, at least.
I see they are still working hard on developing tools, so I'm confident the tools are not going to be negatively impacted by this. On the other hand, James was the creator of most (or even all?) Of the articles we used to see on the home page on a weekly basis. I did notice that nothing new has been posted since James' farewell (except the necroposting needed to hide that post) and that DID scare me a little. But I guess it will just take some time to find a suitable replacement?
However, I don't see DNDBeyond crumbling in the near future. It will continue to be updated, host new manuals, offer new and improved tools and provide a nice community. The only risk would be a new and better platform hosted by someone else, but to be frankly honest I don't think there will ever be, at least for 5e. Not in this decade, at least.
Oh yeah the barrier to entry to even come close to competing with DDB is astronomical at this point.
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Yeah understandable but that was also back in May 2020. 9 months is not a lot of time I get it and they had Tasha's which was a big ol update for sure.
However, just seems like as others had mentioned they had trouble keeping up with the rollout of new stuff and implementing new things.
The dice were a big ??? to me as it was something that was cool I guess but seems to be a very small value add from my limited perspective.
I am not sure if they were hoping to get more cash flow from it but I have only used them about 1 or 2 times and I have been a full fledged subscriber for about 3 years.
The backwards build was needed for sure but for some reason this makes me feel like maybe they are not interested in furthering those features and want to focus on the dice or other money makers instead.
Granted they are a business and that they need cash flow to stay afloat but if they start inundating me with this kind of stuff I will likely unsubscribe.
Don't forget, like all of us in 2020, they had to deal with the side ball that is Covid-19, global pandemic, and quarantine.
Dice Roller is a great add, requested by many, and had to be done first, before shared dice rolling could be added. I highly doubt that they planned on dice styles as being a big money maker, let's be sensible on that.
I guess I'll have to take your word on the dice roller being something a lot of people asked for. I had never seen a request for it before it came out but maybe I missed them.
This would be a great chance to get to know some of the other people involved on the teams. Not that they would be in the spotlight all the time, but just a behind-the-scenes look into other people that actually make things happen. It would be an interesting chance to spotlight those that were willing... and I understand that some don't want ANY spotlight, so there's that even though they are good at their job. Thanks for weighing in on this and being a calm voice of reason. Looking forward to the future and hope it's not too long before we see more articles highlighting good things happening and good people doing too much hard work.
And for the record, count me in the pool of "Glad D&DBeyond isn't a VTT"... I love having a legendary digital toolset that can follow me everywhere from table to the realms of stolen maps and markers or even the face to face magic of the Feynternet.
I am *thrilled* with the dice roller. Hopefully it will integrate with the encounter tracker sooner rather than later so I can dispense with Roll20 for everything except maps.
I'm hoping that the last Dev Stream was just a chance to bid farewell to three people we've all got to know and trust and the next Dev Stream will include:
Like it has been mentioned above, if DDB was going down the pan and Adam, Lauren, Todd and James hated the company, they most likely couldn't tell us if they wanted to. A better way of delivering this news to all would have been to have had the new 'Adam' be on last week's stream to facilitate the news handout.
I'm sure all will be well. Think of your own companies you work for. When one person leaves its a blow. If three or four go at the same time, its a bigger blow. If one or two people prop up an entire company, then its a bad company anyway. People are ultimately replaceable. I just hope the new person is as open, honest, passionate and likeable as Adam is.
If it happened where I work, we wouldn't even be able to begin hiring until the other person actually left. Cross-training? Pshaw... that's for the corporate world... in Education... we do things a DIFFerent way (which is just another way to spell No Common Sense).
I ended up importing everything into Foundry and it has been a real life saver during this time. If they could get the combat tracker into good shape I would for sure use that with the dice roller if they integrated.
meh
This TBH... smells like a buyout.
Clearly, some mistakes from the past attempt have been addressed by this team and hopefully WotC will have learned and can move forward with it... for all of us.
Really VTT is the thing everyone is asking for. To do that, one of the very first things you need (after books and character sheets) is dice rolling. then the ability to share rolls. You also need a encounter builder, and combat tracker.
So if you have ever said wanted DDB to be rules, character sheets, and a alternative to roll20 all in one, then you asked for dice roller. Just because only a small set of people explicitly said they want a dice roller, doesn't mean that a large majority of vocal users haven't asked for it indirectly. The only thing I think that gets requested more is free digital books if people buy the physical copy (which we all know why that cannot actually be done, but people still refuse to read the thousands of threads explaining the issue)
When I started using DnDBeyond during quarantine the first thing I did was get the Beyond20 on my system, so that I could one click and roll the dice. I don't know if it was so much a requested feature as much as what percentage of people used Beyond20 or something similar.
If you happen to be on Mac or have an iPad variant, check into Encounter Plus. It’s a fantastic VTT imho. I’m not involved with development. Just one of many fans. There’s a very mature, respectful, active and helpful Discord community too.
Those companies who do not have such contracts do not have good legal council.
Not necessarily. First of all, a non-disparagement clause is not a requirement to speak in glowing terms, it's just a requirement to not say anything bad. Secondly, there are real and non-negligible costs to getting people to sign one.
Yeah I'm well stocked on here for my DnD Books, but this makes less than enthusiastic about future purchases.
Share what your nose knows to those of us who aren't getting what you're inhaling. How does the departure of three creatives/community facing staff (basically a mix of creative content and PR ancillary to the actual DDB product) and one DDB co-founder and Fandom VP smell like a buyout? None of the folks aside from Adam had any "control" over DDB, their (and Badeye's public facing) role was to serve as ambassadors of DDB to the broader D&D community. There's a lot of people within the company at the dev and executive level still working there. This is more like if Seth Meyers quit the Late Show, late night tv fans would wonder what's next. At least in reality. Many on this thread seems to take the logic that if Meyers leaves the Late Show, NBC must be folding.
EDIT/added: I just don't see Hasbro/WotC interested in buying it any more than than they are buying out a VTT. It's great DDB exists, but I just don't see WOTC being granted the capacity by Hasbro to staff up with professionals largely outside of WotC (and to an extent Hasbro's) wheelhouse. If DDB was at the scale MtG's online product is at maybe, but I just don't see it. While some think VTT is the "future" of TTRPG, I think most of the publishers who prefer to rely on third parties for that sort of stuff see a return to table as soon as viable. Sure VTTs won't go away, but I think more players than not still feel TTRPG at an actual table is the optimal way to play. DDB gets to straddle those worlds but again isn't entirely necessary and there's a lot of folks who mix up homebrew with 3rd party and I just don't see DDB being acquired unless it scaled up its "do it all" capacity, which will never happen because of the licensing agreements presumably against third party with great exceptions, and the centering of RAW over homebrew facility.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Why have we still not had a video of "So here new staff and or plans for the future." I not feeling great about all my 5e books in one basket with being told oh it's just coincidence they all are leaving at once.
I see they are still working hard on developing tools, so I'm confident the tools are not going to be negatively impacted by this. On the other hand, James was the creator of most (or even all?) Of the articles we used to see on the home page on a weekly basis. I did notice that nothing new has been posted since James' farewell (except the necroposting needed to hide that post) and that DID scare me a little. But I guess it will just take some time to find a suitable replacement?
However, I don't see DNDBeyond crumbling in the near future. It will continue to be updated, host new manuals, offer new and improved tools and provide a nice community. The only risk would be a new and better platform hosted by someone else, but to be frankly honest I don't think there will ever be, at least for 5e. Not in this decade, at least.
Oh yeah the barrier to entry to even come close to competing with DDB is astronomical at this point.