So with more info about WotC’s VTT being revealed, I have to be honest.
It looks good, pretty good in fact.
If it’s gonna be just TaleSpire with actual rules in place, making the game actually playable, then I’m all for it and I’ll probably move on over to that instead of waiting for Bouncyrock to, eventually, get customizable rule sets in place. I’m mainly curious on how custom miniatures are gonna be handled as well as how pre-written adventures will be transferred over (que the comments about WotC being scumlords now).
These are just my thoughts on all the info shown in the last while but I’m curious on what the rest of the community thinks.
I agree it’s basically looks like an advanced talespire. The minis the showed have the exact same style animation and movement as talespire. Maybe the used Talespire to make the tech demo or maybe secretly partnered with them lol.
Copied and pasted my response from another thread:
All other content aside, I was mostly looking forward to getting info on the new VTT and I was a little underwhelmed. The presentation, whilst not bad in itself, came across more of a 'fun times with product' rather than a closer look at the ins and outs of how it will operate. Maybe I was expecting too much at the early stage, but I was hoping for a lot more info. I figured we would be able to import our characters easily enough, but I was hoping for a proper insight; what's the cost model? Can you import all the monsters you've bought on D&D Beyond? Is it a free tool like the Encounter Builder, a one-time purchase like your standard video game, or is there a subscription based model to have access?
My group play with Roll20, although I've held off on investing a lot of money into it because of this coming VTT. Whether I decide to invest money in a separate VTT or commit to the new D&D VTT depends on the answers to the questions I've raised.
All that said, it looks great and I'm happy we'll have access before the end of the year instead of next year like the early plan was saying. I'm also glad that we can import 2D Maps so that all my previous map making doesn't go to waste!
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#Open D&D
Have the Physical Books? Confused as to why you're not allowed to redeem them for free on D&D Beyond? Questions answered here at the Hardcover Books, D&D Beyond and You FAQ
Looking to add mouse-over triggered tooltips to such things like magic items, monsters or combat actions? Then dash over to the How to Add Tooltips thread.
Anyway, as I also said in the other thread, The VTT showcase looked neat, but got a little eye-roll-y when the presenter was gushing about how they were going to be relying on the users to generate a lot of content and how there would be some sort of "shop" to post and trade mini, terrain, and probably even campaign designs.
Also, it made me smirk that a lot of the "animations" were just picking up two minis and bumping their bases together like a kid fighting action figures in each hand.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Will this work on low-spec machines like a Chromebook?
Will it be easy for DMs to set up scenes?
In both cases, it's seeming like Roll20 is going to win on convenience, even if it loses on the wow factor. If it takes twice as long to set something up in the new VTT as it does in Roll20 or half my players can't use it, it's not a viable option for my table.
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If you got a problem, yo, I'll solve it || Cast Fireball, that usually resolves it
Unless it have huge functional flaws they should release it to the public and worry about perfection later.
Technically it looks like they are just trying to perfect all the automation things like automatically keeping track of player stats, inventory and a few other things. Lets us use it without that feature and add it in later.
Will this work on low-spec machines like a Chromebook?
Will it be easy for DMs to set up scenes?
In both cases, it's seeming like Roll20 is going to win on convenience, even if it loses on the wow factor. If it takes twice as long to set something up in the new VTT as it does in Roll20 or half my players can't use it, it's not a viable option for my table.
If it works like I assume it will, i.e. the rendering is done on DDB servers and the device you use is just the display, you'll be able to run it on anything, much like game streaming services like Steam Link or Moonlight or Remote Play etc. In the preview, Kale Stutzman had this to say:
"What I want to do is connect all my friends and play with them. They're on their computers, they're on their phones, they're on their game consoles, but wre're all together playing through the same virtual tabletop."
If they can get it to work on phones, then it will absolutely run on a Chromebook, because the device you're accessing it through is essentially just the screen, and the GPU etc is hosted by WotC themselves.
I've got no reason to think that they would go with the expensive server option of rendering on their own servers and then simply sending the final image to PCs.
It has been noted that the players in the video had quite stonking laptops for their own access to this new VTT.
I doubt it will be easy to set up scenes, simply finding a 2D map is difficult enough for existing VTTs. Building a 3D scene that looks "good enough" will just take longer.
My main take from the video was that it is taking away more of the imagination from players by showing them a 3D picture of what is happening. (This isn't really anything new, Neverwinter Nights was doing it 20? years ago.)
I don't think we can tell how good this will be based on the demo.
The concept of using 3d rendering software and a physics engine to emulate a physical tabletop with scenery and miniatures is not new -- tabletop simulator was doing it in 2014. The graphics are pretty enough, but I'm pretty sure the biggest priority of people using VTTs isn't pretty graphics: it's usability, particularly for the DM, and we didn't see anything at all about the UI of the the game.
Also, it made me smirk that a lot of the "animations" were just picking up two minis and bumping their bases together like a kid fighting action figures in each hand.
This also made me chuckle a bit; when they advertised that there would be slick animations, the spells looked great, the Ankheg emerging from the ground looked awesome but when the Half-Orc player made his 'longsword attack' and it was just the mini 'booping' the Ankheg, I couldn't suppress my laughter.
That said, despite my criticisms, I'm aware this is still in early development and I'm excited to see where it goes from here. Hopefully there will be trackable spell slots during combat (like there should already be in the Encounters Tool on this site..... still mad 😂)
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#Open D&D
Have the Physical Books? Confused as to why you're not allowed to redeem them for free on D&D Beyond? Questions answered here at the Hardcover Books, D&D Beyond and You FAQ
Looking to add mouse-over triggered tooltips to such things like magic items, monsters or combat actions? Then dash over to the How to Add Tooltips thread.
It looks interesting. But it's early days, won't be openly usable for at least a year, and I expect won't be feature-complete until 2025. So, plenty of time to monitor its progress in comparison with competitors and wait for more detail. As others have said, it was cool to see but we're missing a lot of information.
Notes on "player/community" swiftly followed by "MARKETPLACE" comment and I have to note this video borders on racism against non-US players. The ginger "person"... wow, I haven't felt such false sincerity since the I met an Amway sales rep. That's an incredible and frankly distasteful sales pitch.
Can you help me rephrase this please? I've re-read a few times and failed to understand. Is this line making one point or multiple?
Not using it. I have VTT resources with easy to build maps, no requirements for more current video cards and anyone can use for free. Good luck D&D trying to monetize this during economic hardship. This is literally the worst time to launch a cost entertainment subscription based service when there are fungible goods at lower cost available.
The new video game format has been rolled out, as well as 6e. The new DMG, MM. and PHB are out. DDB accounts can be imported into the video game. This is all as advertised. Now, suppose as the DM, you want your Ankheg to have extra HP, and a Grappling ability. Pretty sure the DM can add the HP to the monster easily enough. But the Grappling ability? Sorry, we don't have a video graphic for an Ankheg grappling a char.
They are already solving for this. You see, in the "Marketplace" you can probably find some perfectionist DM or over-zealous D&D hobbyist who has sculpted and programed a model with a grapple feature and put it up for sale for $2.99 (of which WoC will get a cut). In fact, that seller has about twenty different model animations for things like breath weapons, and gas clouds, and fire columns, and spectral wings, etc. And you can buy them each for just about any monster you want! How exciting! >_>
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
I'm cautiously intrigued. Foundry with a few mods already lets me have animations for attacks/spells/effects/etc along with combat automation, ambient audio, easy journal notes, dynamic lighting with animated effects, full 3d scenes if I want them, and macros/mods for pretty much whatever else needs to get done. However, the limited demo was very pretty. It's important to remember this was one very small scene with only a few assets that they had time to polish and no tech limitations. That being said, if they can make the finished product look this good while also somehow magically running smoothly on my players' potatoes and not taking hours to set up each scene it would be something I'd probably use for occasional boss fights and special stuff. As a general statement if they can push VTT tech forward I support it. I doubt I'll ever want to have dndbeyond be my only VTT as I don't trust wotc to control the entire dnd experience from content to VTT but I'm open to spending on a super pretty option for major events.
The new video game format has been rolled out, as well as 6e. The new DMG, MM. and PHB are out. DDB accounts can be imported into the video game. This is all as advertised. Now, suppose as the DM, you want your Ankheg to have extra HP, and a Grappling ability. Pretty sure the DM can add the HP to the monster easily enough. But the Grappling ability? Sorry, we don't have a video graphic for an Ankheg grappling a char.
They are already solving for this. You see, in the "Marketplace" you can probably find some perfectionist DM or over-zealous D&D hobbyist who has sculpted and programed a model with a grapple feature and put it up for sale for $2.99 (of which WoC will get a cut). In fact, that seller has about twenty different model animations for things like breath weapons, and gas clouds, and fire columns, and spectral wings, etc. And you can buy them each for just about any monster you want! How exciting! >_>
Ah yes..."we will let someone else do the work, then plagiarize it, but because everyone tacitly agreed to the new OGL when that person created an account, it is legal."
Plagiarism would be if they were sold on the marketplace with no credit at all to the user who created the content. Metamongoose is presuming WotC will split the proceeds with the creator. That's not plagiarism. It's also how DMs Guild works.
Of course, the example being discussed is simply taking a monster feature, in this case your proposed ability to Grapple, and cut and pasting it into another monster's features or list of available actions, which people do all the time with present homebrew editors ... if that's all it is, I don't know if that needs to be monetized any more than the homebrew presently available on DDB (which is not at all). In either case, both DMs Guild and the present homebrew library system credits the creator/author ... so plagiarism still isn't the complaint here. I mean I guess some folks who really don't like the official publishers of D&D can be upset that WotC would dare to host such a thing, but that's still not plagiarism.
Kinda curious how or whether such a feature would impact CR calculations on the VTT's encounter builder.
It looks nice, but I've never been interested in VTTs and this one doesn't do it for me either. Maybe if I was still playing 100% online games, this would interest me, but I don't see this really helping how I currently play, though I could see how it could appeal to a lot of folks who've wanted a VTT more officially integrated with DDB.
Plagiarism would be if they were sold on the marketplace with no credit at all to the user who created the content. Metamongoose is presuming WotC will split the proceeds with the creator. That's not plagiarism. It's also how DMs Guild works.
I would expect it to work the same way as other video game marketplaces. Including the ones offered by competitors in the VTT space, such as roll20.
Plagiarism would be if they were sold on the marketplace with no credit at all to the user who created the content. Metamongoose is presuming WotC will split the proceeds with the creator. That's not plagiarism. It's also how DMs Guild works.
I would expect it to work the same way as other video game marketplaces. Including the ones offered by competitors in the VTT space, such as roll20.
Roll20's terms are more generous than DMsGuild, and again, by no means plagiarism. I'm also presuming the program is popular among user creators?
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
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So with more info about WotC’s VTT being revealed, I have to be honest.
It looks good, pretty good in fact.
If it’s gonna be just TaleSpire with actual rules in place, making the game actually playable, then I’m all for it and I’ll probably move on over to that instead of waiting for Bouncyrock to, eventually, get customizable rule sets in place. I’m mainly curious on how custom miniatures are gonna be handled as well as how pre-written adventures will be transferred over (que the comments about WotC being scumlords now).
These are just my thoughts on all the info shown in the last while but I’m curious on what the rest of the community thinks.
I agree it’s basically looks like an advanced talespire. The minis the showed have the exact same style animation and movement as talespire. Maybe the used Talespire to make the tech demo or maybe secretly partnered with them lol.
Copied and pasted my response from another thread:
All other content aside, I was mostly looking forward to getting info on the new VTT and I was a little underwhelmed. The presentation, whilst not bad in itself, came across more of a 'fun times with product' rather than a closer look at the ins and outs of how it will operate. Maybe I was expecting too much at the early stage, but I was hoping for a lot more info. I figured we would be able to import our characters easily enough, but I was hoping for a proper insight; what's the cost model? Can you import all the monsters you've bought on D&D Beyond? Is it a free tool like the Encounter Builder, a one-time purchase like your standard video game, or is there a subscription based model to have access?
My group play with Roll20, although I've held off on investing a lot of money into it because of this coming VTT. Whether I decide to invest money in a separate VTT or commit to the new D&D VTT depends on the answers to the questions I've raised.
All that said, it looks great and I'm happy we'll have access before the end of the year instead of next year like the early plan was saying. I'm also glad that we can import 2D Maps so that all my previous map making doesn't go to waste!
#Open D&D
Have the Physical Books? Confused as to why you're not allowed to redeem them for free on D&D Beyond? Questions answered here at the Hardcover Books, D&D Beyond and You FAQ
Looking to add mouse-over triggered tooltips to such things like magic items, monsters or combat actions? Then dash over to the How to Add Tooltips thread.
Question: VTT means what?
Virtual Table Top.
Anyway, as I also said in the other thread, The VTT showcase looked neat, but got a little eye-roll-y when the presenter was gushing about how they were going to be relying on the users to generate a lot of content and how there would be some sort of "shop" to post and trade mini, terrain, and probably even campaign designs.
Also, it made me smirk that a lot of the "animations" were just picking up two minis and bumping their bases together like a kid fighting action figures in each hand.
I didn't see anything that Foundry doesn't already do with the 3D canvas module.
It looks amazing, but my concerns are twofold:
In both cases, it's seeming like Roll20 is going to win on convenience, even if it loses on the wow factor. If it takes twice as long to set something up in the new VTT as it does in Roll20 or half my players can't use it, it's not a viable option for my table.
If you got a problem, yo, I'll solve it || Cast Fireball, that usually resolves it
Unless it have huge functional flaws they should release it to the public and worry about perfection later.
Technically it looks like they are just trying to perfect all the automation things like automatically keeping track of player stats, inventory and a few other things.
Lets us use it without that feature and add it in later.
If it works like I assume it will, i.e. the rendering is done on DDB servers and the device you use is just the display, you'll be able to run it on anything, much like game streaming services like Steam Link or Moonlight or Remote Play etc. In the preview, Kale Stutzman had this to say:
"What I want to do is connect all my friends and play with them. They're on their computers, they're on their phones, they're on their game consoles, but wre're all together playing through the same virtual tabletop."
If they can get it to work on phones, then it will absolutely run on a Chromebook, because the device you're accessing it through is essentially just the screen, and the GPU etc is hosted by WotC themselves.
I've got no reason to think that they would go with the expensive server option of rendering on their own servers and then simply sending the final image to PCs.
It has been noted that the players in the video had quite stonking laptops for their own access to this new VTT.
I doubt it will be easy to set up scenes, simply finding a 2D map is difficult enough for existing VTTs. Building a 3D scene that looks "good enough" will just take longer.
My main take from the video was that it is taking away more of the imagination from players by showing them a 3D picture of what is happening. (This isn't really anything new, Neverwinter Nights was doing it 20? years ago.)
It'd be expensive for something like an MMO. But for a turn-based game where each instance is unlikely to have more than 8 players?
Also, again, Kale himself mentioned phones, and he's the lead dev. So if the rendering is local those would be out.
Lastly, as you mentioned, 3D D&D is nothing new. I haven't seen anyone bemoaning Talespire as the death of creativity etc.
I don't think we can tell how good this will be based on the demo.
The concept of using 3d rendering software and a physics engine to emulate a physical tabletop with scenery and miniatures is not new -- tabletop simulator was doing it in 2014. The graphics are pretty enough, but I'm pretty sure the biggest priority of people using VTTs isn't pretty graphics: it's usability, particularly for the DM, and we didn't see anything at all about the UI of the the game.
This also made me chuckle a bit; when they advertised that there would be slick animations, the spells looked great, the Ankheg emerging from the ground looked awesome but when the Half-Orc player made his 'longsword attack' and it was just the mini 'booping' the Ankheg, I couldn't suppress my laughter.
That said, despite my criticisms, I'm aware this is still in early development and I'm excited to see where it goes from here. Hopefully there will be trackable spell slots during combat (like there should already be in the Encounters Tool on this site..... still mad 😂)
#Open D&D
Have the Physical Books? Confused as to why you're not allowed to redeem them for free on D&D Beyond? Questions answered here at the Hardcover Books, D&D Beyond and You FAQ
Looking to add mouse-over triggered tooltips to such things like magic items, monsters or combat actions? Then dash over to the How to Add Tooltips thread.
It looks interesting. But it's early days, won't be openly usable for at least a year, and I expect won't be feature-complete until 2025. So, plenty of time to monitor its progress in comparison with competitors and wait for more detail. As others have said, it was cool to see but we're missing a lot of information.
Can you help me rephrase this please? I've re-read a few times and failed to understand. Is this line making one point or multiple?
Not using it. I have VTT resources with easy to build maps, no requirements for more current video cards and anyone can use for free. Good luck D&D trying to monetize this during economic hardship. This is literally the worst time to launch a cost entertainment subscription based service when there are fungible goods at lower cost available.
They are already solving for this. You see, in the "Marketplace" you can probably find some perfectionist DM or over-zealous D&D hobbyist who has sculpted and programed a model with a grapple feature and put it up for sale for $2.99 (of which WoC will get a cut). In fact, that seller has about twenty different model animations for things like breath weapons, and gas clouds, and fire columns, and spectral wings, etc. And you can buy them each for just about any monster you want! How exciting! >_>
I'm cautiously intrigued. Foundry with a few mods already lets me have animations for attacks/spells/effects/etc along with combat automation, ambient audio, easy journal notes, dynamic lighting with animated effects, full 3d scenes if I want them, and macros/mods for pretty much whatever else needs to get done. However, the limited demo was very pretty. It's important to remember this was one very small scene with only a few assets that they had time to polish and no tech limitations. That being said, if they can make the finished product look this good while also somehow magically running smoothly on my players' potatoes and not taking hours to set up each scene it would be something I'd probably use for occasional boss fights and special stuff. As a general statement if they can push VTT tech forward I support it. I doubt I'll ever want to have dndbeyond be my only VTT as I don't trust wotc to control the entire dnd experience from content to VTT but I'm open to spending on a super pretty option for major events.
Plagiarism would be if they were sold on the marketplace with no credit at all to the user who created the content. Metamongoose is presuming WotC will split the proceeds with the creator. That's not plagiarism. It's also how DMs Guild works.
Of course, the example being discussed is simply taking a monster feature, in this case your proposed ability to Grapple, and cut and pasting it into another monster's features or list of available actions, which people do all the time with present homebrew editors ... if that's all it is, I don't know if that needs to be monetized any more than the homebrew presently available on DDB (which is not at all). In either case, both DMs Guild and the present homebrew library system credits the creator/author ... so plagiarism still isn't the complaint here. I mean I guess some folks who really don't like the official publishers of D&D can be upset that WotC would dare to host such a thing, but that's still not plagiarism.
Kinda curious how or whether such a feature would impact CR calculations on the VTT's encounter builder.
It looks nice, but I've never been interested in VTTs and this one doesn't do it for me either. Maybe if I was still playing 100% online games, this would interest me, but I don't see this really helping how I currently play, though I could see how it could appeal to a lot of folks who've wanted a VTT more officially integrated with DDB.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I would expect it to work the same way as other video game marketplaces. Including the ones offered by competitors in the VTT space, such as roll20.
Roll20's terms are more generous than DMsGuild, and again, by no means plagiarism. I'm also presuming the program is popular among user creators?
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.