Wednesday, September 3, 2008

A Game Table Worth Using?

I have to admit I am pleased that Wizards of the Coast has kept it's word to break the silence on the Digital initiative.  The most recent article featured a Q&A which brought some interesting changes to the initiative to light.

One of the big changes is how they will be handling virtual miniatures for the D&D Game Table product.  It appears they have scrapped the idea of purchasing miniatures with micro-payments and on limiting how many clones you could make of a virtual miniature.  Now, your subscription to the Game Table will give you unlimited copies of all of the miniatures they have produced.

This is great news.  The micro-payment model was one of the most ridiculed aspects of the Game Table product among my group.  Limiting miniature cloning was a big issue caused by this model as well.  After all, if you bought an orc miniature and it came with the ability to be cloned ten times, did you really want to spend extra money if you had a room with twenty orcs in it?

It does sound like their may be "special edition" miniatures, but that they will be bundled with digital modules.  This makes sense to me.  If you can buy online versions of the modules that come with pre-built encounter areas and special miniatures for the module?  That seems like less of an overt money grab than charging me for an extra twenty orcs. 

Of course, this may all change between now and when the Game Table launches.  It seems like this will be one of the last of the major Digital Initiative products to launch, and a lot can change between now and then.

5 comments:

mdonle said...

this only makes all the other online game tables out there more appealing. Who knows how amazing d20pro, rptools, klooge, etc will be by the time WotC releases their gametable seeing as how they will be working on improving their respective programs versus WotC just trying to launch theirs. I not a WotC hater. I like 4e and I wish they had come through with their online game table cause i'd love to use it, instead, the real entertainment factor now will be it's launch day. Everyone will be standing around watching the launch from a safe distance like it was a building with c4 strapped to it's support beams marked for demolition, not waiting to see if it's cool, but how bad of a disaster the launch will be.

Bronz said...

I'm curious on the launch as well. I am absolutely thrilled however that they took out the whole "pay per mini" business model, as it was a loser at best, complete disaster at worst. It will be very interesting in how it does. I love rptools with how little I know of it, but if this digital game table from WotC can popularize online table gaming I will be one happy camper, and may even fork over the subscription fees as a thank you.

Scafloc said...

While I am not a WotC hater either, I AM a hater of subscription based billing. A BIG hater. I will be really quite upset (read: furious enough to throw rocks) should I need to pay for this in order to game with my group (lordsoftyr.com members). Big rocks.

I can't delete this said...

I could seriously give a shit about the whole digital initative that Wizards is launching, I want no part of it..

That said, I really do miss the game table at Brian's house, everyone sitting around it, able to see and move thier "physical" minatures and such....

mdonle said...

granted, tabletop gaming is usually better when you use an actual, non-virtual tabletop. But why specifically do you want no part of the digital initiative from wotc? is it their track record or do you just not like virtual things?

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