Quote from: pathar;233915Again, that's just for now.  They aren't even willing to guess what they might wind up charging when they finish things.

With the delay and all that, it'd be nice if they kept the price low for a bit, even after adding features.

Is there an equivalent to the dungeon builder out there for free?

That's pretty much the only thing I'm interested in...
The screenshots look pretty cool.

Skotos is hardly a good metric for the cost of online games. It's just proof of the principle that if your costs are low enough, you can make money selling manure on a plate as haute cuisine.

Skotos is fairly low-quality. The games on it are nowhere near as fun as NetHack or Angband, and the graphics are just "good" enough to lack all of the ascii charm that Angband has (but it does do multiplayer?). In any case, Skotos is not comparable because we are mainly talking about virtual tabletop.

For Dungeon building.. it's hard to say. FantasyGrounds is great because you can import nice maps built in Dundjinni or whatever else and then overlay a grid on top of. So the answer is yes and no: There are better map building programs out there (including the freebie here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20061121t ): the object is build it, then import it.

If you just want to make sweet looking maps, I would go with Dundjinni, or build your own straight out of paintshop or photoshop. Some people are really good just with MS Paint.

There are more than a couple of these virtual RPG-tabletop programs out there, but they are (pretty much?) all client-server rather than truly multi-player big bandwidth. I honestly think FGII is the best that we have now, but it also costs money: around $40 for the server, and around $20 bucks or so for each client (which you can drive down a bit by buying multiple clients).

For a physically dislocated gaming group it's pretty fucking great though. We had the game here which used Skype and Screenmonkey that had players from Germany to New Jersey to Utah all at the same table yelling and throwing dice, and that was awesome.  

Screenmonkey (which is free, and what we used earlier this year) will do it too, but the interface is a bit clunky and you don't as much room and (importantly) the ability to zoom in and out as you do on FGII. If DDI doesn't stand up by say.. December, I'll be switching everything back FGII to run remote games. I get enough gaming in locally that it isn't that much of a concern right now (I'm actually a bit overwhelmed right now, but I expect to see a bit of drop-off around November/Dec).

Quote from: Koltar;233750....If It was better, bigger and Slicker - yeah I'd agree with you.

It may not be slick, but I find it damn useful, and Kenzerco seems to actually like its fan base.

QuoteOur current plan is to start charging for subscriptions before we have the client applications ready.

i think that's the most horrible bit, and apparently said with a straight face.  Hell, I've seen MMO's where they at least try and offer some sort of verbal reach-around that you're doing some great service by testing, getting an "exclusive sneak peek", or even giving you some dumbass virtual pet.

Maybe the people who pay for this now will at least get special avatars.  (with SUCKER emblazoned over the top...)

Personally I have no problem with paying less than the price of a pint of beer per month for Dungeon and Dragon as long as they maintain the current standard. It's not like $5 is more than pocket change anyway, and I probably would drink it if I didn't spend it elsewhere.

The official site now says :

Quote from: WOTCPricing Questions

Most of the questions generated by last week's Digital Insider column seemed to center around the pricing structure that I announced there. I'll do my best to clarify some things:

    What happens to my year-long subscription when the price goes up?

The $4.95 / month price covers Web content only (Dragon and Dungeon Magazines, the D&D Compendium, and the Bonus Tools). We will be charging more for access to the Character Builder, Character Visualizer, Game Table, etc. Our previously announced pricing for the full package (including both Web content and client applications) is $9.95 if you sign up for a full year (going up to $14.95 if you pay one month at a time).

The details of how transitions from one subscription package to another will work will be announced later, but you can safely assume that a) we will honor the terms of the package you signed up for and b) you won't be charged more unless you choose to pay for more services.

    What about free trials of client applications?

We will be making demo versions of the Character Builder and Character Visualizer available so that folks can sample those applications for free. Our plan for the demo version is to have full functionality, but only a small amount of data. So, for example, you might only have access to levels 1 - 3 or you might only be able to build a human. These demo's will be a permanent fixture of the D&DI website (in other words: the free trial never ends).

    How long will the free trial of the Web content last?

At least one more month.