Topic: Online D&D not to be confused with D&D Online...

[Sirgod]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,344888,00.html?sPage=fnc/scitech/videogaming

Now, D&D is borrowing from its imitators. The next edition of the game, due out in June, will for the first time be paired with online features that the publisher hopes will lure lapsed players back to the dungeon.

"That group that broke up in 1987 because you all graduated from high school and went to schools across the country? Well, you can get that old teenage group back together," said Scott Rouse, brand manager for D&D at Wizards of the Coast.



The Hasbro Inc. subsidiary publishes the game.

Roleplayers have always faced the difficulty of getting together regularly, especially since the games are lengthy. But they talk warmly about the camaraderie fostered by the games, since the players cooperate rather than compete.

Though guided by thick rulebooks, the games have an element of theater, with players using the voices of their characters. Not surprisingly, they're considered uncool by those who lack an appreciation of fantasy.

The new edition, the fourth since D&D was created in 1974, may do nothing for the game's social stigma, but at least players will have the option to commune online.

Each screen will show the same virtual 3-D "tabletop" with monsters and heroes, and the players will be able to talk via Internet voice chat.

Wizards is also building its own social-networking site as a Facebook or MySpace for gamers.

The players will be able to create fantasy characters for themselves with an online tool. That streamlines a process that can take hours and dozens of reference books.

Wizards employees are avid players of online games, and the new initiative springs from that experience, Rouse said

More at link above. This might be enough for me to justify moving away from 2nd edition. It would be kinda neat to have a gaming night with some of the peeps from here, But I don't know about monthly fees, for a virtual table.

Stephen

[Javora]

It's good to see the game is still going but I wouldn't spend $10~$15 a month for that kind of game.  I would be happier with a one time fee like most any other video game.

[Sirgod]

I agree with that. heck one could just use team speak and maybe a simple graphic model and get the same experience

Stephen

[Czar Mohab]

Doesn't have to be teamspeak, with the metric butt-ton of online communications software out there... as for the "Virtual" table, what's stopping you or your group from having the DM point his web cam at a real table? Chances are he'll have at least two to get different angles without being asked to move the camera all the time... Something tells me that this is done already to some extent with some current versions of D&D and similar games.

(Wondering also if SFB could be/is played in this manner. Outside of the obvious SFC, that is.)

I'm also wary about how many of those that graduated in '87 would flock to this new venue. A lot of those interested in D&D in '87 are most likely sucked into some form of MMORPG already, and not likely to respawn in their favorite dungeon. An example of this would be my brother, although it is an extreme case. He's played EQ, EQOA, EQ2, WoW, CoH, CoV, and a couple of others. He's chosen one and stuck with it (EQ), and I don't think he'd pick up OD&D for anything more than to check it out, even if it meant he could recapture part of his younger days and play in his dungeon with people he once played with.

I agree with you 100% that this new service should be offered as a one time payment thing. Anything else might damage the fan base, since, like I said, it can be done cheap-as-free with what is already available.

IMHO, MMORPG's do a better job of immersion than my own imagination, and I feel that despite the free style and randomness of D&D, their draw on people will be the success/fail point of OD&D.

BUT:

If it was cheap-as-free, I might be convinced to play a game or two with others from here.

Czar "Just my 2cp" Mohab

[GE-Raven]

Actually last month I had a group of friends over to play some Vampire.  One couldn't make it so we tried something new.  We used Skype to have him virtually join us.  Amazingly enough it worked VERY well.  Sure it wasn't as good as having him there, but damn it was better then having his Character "off" doing something else.

GE-Raven

[Javora]

Communications isn't the problem, the problem would be things like die rolls, map generator, etc.  For that having some type of program would be better.  But if they are going to go to all of that trouble why not just create NWN 3 with in-game voice option??!?

I think my biggest gripe with the company is the monthly fee.  If it was a one time cost I would be willing to pick it up.  Heck even if the core set was $60~$70 USD and had the option of buying modules each week or so I would be happier.  Having modules like Tomb of Horrors, Temple of Elemental Evil, Ravenloft, Keep on the Borderlands, Treasure Hunt, Egg of the Phoenix...  well you get the idea.     Combine that with the option to fully generate your own module would IMHO be a much better marketing strategy then what they are doing now.

But then even when AD&D was owned by TSR they had that special way of shooting themselves in the foot.   

[FPF-DieHard]

I agree with that. heck one could just use team speak and maybe a simple graphic model and get the same experience

Stephen

I was thinking the same thing, TS and Net Meeting are Free.

My Second Edition campaign of adults was amazing, ran from 1999 to 2001.  Would love to do it again but I need to freedom of my off-the-wall house rules to DM how I want.

I think it's why I became a D2 server admin, I missed being God

[Sirgod]

LOL, I hear that DH, that's why my original Nick was Sirgod too many years of being a DM.

Stephen

[Beeblebrox]

IMHO, MMORPG's do a better job of immersion than my own imagination...

Not to pick on you, Czar, but this is half the problem with this new crop of thugs kids we've got these days.  I have yet to run into a video game that has the graphics or the imagination to equal, much less better, my own imagination.  It kind of seems as if no one has any interest anymore in relying on their mind for stimulation. 

Plus, when I was playing D-n-D all a player needed was a photocopied character sheet, a pencil, and a handful of D6/D8/D10/D20.  Maybe it's different for today's kids but we didn't have the cash to shell out $15 a month for a gaming habit.  Pppbbtt!  We were lucky to afford our comic books.  Besides, playing D-n-D online really defeats the true purpose of gaming:  hanging out with your friends, eating pizza, breaking balls, and hoping for an excuse to use your +3 Mace of Skullcrushing on the Kender partymember.

[marstone]

... and hoping for an excuse to use your +3 Mace of Skullcrushing on the Kender partymember.

Hey, I usually ended up being that Kender party member.  Hmmm, so that is why the skullcrushing thing happens when you happen to *find* things that the other party members think were theirs.

[Czar Mohab]

I didn't mean it to sound Like I have no imagination; its just that it is much easier for me to picture a forest, slap an orc, open a treasure chest, etc. when that stimulus is provided.

I dunno, like I said, its not that I lack imagination. I've swung both ways on the RPG fence. I just found MMO's a touch more stimulating.

Then again, for sake of simplicity and before teamspeak, et al, we'd have EQ parties. Where most of the group was in the same house. 'Bout as close to D&D as we got with that.

Maybe it was just D&D that I didn't like so much.

Czar "Who knows" Mohab

[Sirgod]

Actually Czar, you have a good point. I'm one of those old guys who played Chainmail rules prior to D&D. So I kinda go back with a few of the others here when we refer to old school. That being said, I bet everyone of us, remember hours of fun, with our friends crouched in front of the Tv set, waiting for the 1541 Disk Drive to pore out C64 goodness with certain gold boxes.

It didn't replace our normal sessions playing D&D, but it did give us something away from the normal mental masturbation that was D&D at the time. Hell, I learned more about Math playing D&D then I ever did in the first 9 years of school. That's not saying using Arrow keys , and a one button joystick to save Hillsfar wasn't fun.

Like Javora, give me the old school campaigns, the old arguements, etc etc. Those where great days. OF course if they ever make a cheap alternative for us to play, I'll be grabbing Throne of Bloodstone once again, to torture everyone . lol

Stephen

[Commander La'ra]

I didn't mean it to sound Like I have no imagination; its just that it is much easier for me to picture a forest, slap an orc, open a treasure chest, etc. when that stimulus is provided.

It's also much easier to imagine yourself in some other world when every single person you run into has their own motivations and personality.

[KBF-Crim]

Man...I still have two sets of all the books, a huge bag of dice (including my d30's), almost every module, and around 1000 painted figures...

Even made my own charactor class based on a charactor from a novel..."weapons master" Garret Jax (before the duelest was even thought of)...

Still have my charactor sheets too...

I could never bear to get rid of them...

I also have a bunch of "car wars" stuff....including all the "Uncle Al the duelest pal" books...

Yes....I am still a total geek....

 

[S'Raek]

Online D&D is an interesting idea.  But I wouldn't go with a monthly fee either.  I have never been into D&D personally (though I did play Twilight 2000 a little) but I would be willing to play a game with you guys.  But not in this format.

While I like video games, I think the old school using your imagination way is much better. 

[RazalYllib]

LoL
Many Many moons ago, my step-bro (outstanding GM) and I hashed out the exact parameters on doing this thing (say 20+ years) as network "gaming" programming.

Picture this:

A "virtual" table hosted by GM and players linked closed circuit or local w/ multiple studio cams, like a talk show...broadcast for entertainment content and story line. A channel with several ongoing "public" campaigns and audience feedback to the players...ie dont go it that room you FOOL! or "that npc just lied to you, I wouldnt trust him" kind of things.

Would be more fun to watch than american idol.

I indulged a extroidanary large number of man hours on various RPGs and the like starting with DnD (white box and all expansions before there was a white box) the first blue box, Adnd and stopped w/ TSR...did some interesting traveller (where my buddy turned me on to another buddy who played this game in ziplock bags with silouettes of Star Trek stuff on it..he told me it looked pretty kool--and that is how I wound up posting this...I used ziplock bag edition of SFB modified to play some tactical combat for traveller - this was b4 High Gaurd book released fyi) bunches of rpg - then voila...Panzer leader/ Panzer bliz...I was off to take europe for awhile....then gettysburg...waterloo etc...by this time, my step bro had stumbled onto something a little different....Rolemaster (surnamed chartmaster) and it was absolute luv at first sight and that passion still stirs me deeply-no other "off the shelf" system can allow a gm to model time frame cro-magnon to the year 97450 out of the box as it (Rolemaster + Spacemaster). Once I made the switch...all cardboard movers (including car wars - which by a strange happenchance I dug out of a box this week looking for bits for my Warhammer 40K Ork Boyz I am painting now my son has got the bug) except SFB , took a backseat to the new toy.

Years passed...a fully fleshed out independant campaign had evolved...ah the memories....its still in boxes ... One of my friends asked as a 40th Bday present to run something...I came up with a warped version of hansel and gretal...sort of what if hansel and gretel became cannibals (eating the witch after the candy illusion disappeared) and spawn a clan of cannibal youth terrorizing the nearby fishing village by eating the seasonal fisherman under semi-natural fog---they didnt finish it, but figured most of it out by the end...it was pretty out there idea, wanted to give him something different/special and indeed it was.

I still think RPG can be a form of interactive theator...its story tellling. The trick is getting outsiders to view it as such.