D&DI for as low as $5 per month

The pricing was announced today for Wizards Dungeons and Dragons Insider at Welcome to Digital Insider!. So the real question for me is whether the parts of D&DI that won't suck (like the Dragon and Dungeon content) are worth $5 per month. By the way that price is for a 12 month subscription.

Here is the price breakdown.

Web-Content Only Subscription Package:
12 Months = $59.40 ($4.95 per month)
3 Months = $19.95 ($6.65 per month)
1 Month = $7.95 ($7.95 per month)

If by some miracle the other computer tools don't suck (and actually work on Linux) those would be like icing on the cake really. I think their current pricing reflects the fact that their tools will suck (and they know it) and that people won't pay for them, but that people will pay for the magazine content. I would pay $5 per month for the magazine content so they will probably have me for a subscriber. 

This does not bode well for their confidence in their tools. Once again I think that they have bitten off much more than they can chew (and now they know it). So far I'm not impressed with the 3d character models. They look like a bunch of potato heads except for the dragonborn which actually look kinda cool. After playing City of Heroes over the last few years, maybe I'm spoiled by their amazing character creation system, but my standards should be high for a company that can produce really great miniatures. 

I fear that they are over complicating the game table piece. I'm convinced that it will fail miserably if they try to apply the complex rules of the game in it. Instead it should be treated exactly as a game table. A place to have a map, your miniatures, your dice, and a way to talk to each other and keep track of who's turn it is. That is all you need.

That comes down to:

• Sharing a graphical map (3d or 2d even)
• Sharing die rolls and having a way to create and save die expresions
• Tracking initiative and time so you know who's turn it is and can track effects over time
• Displaying some kind of character and npc representation This can be simple graphics taken from the monster manual or even just take 3d scans of the minis. Heck why not just do that for all the characters too. The bottom line is that it doesn't have to be complicated. Simple is good.
• Voice communication - well look this is not something that you need really. They should just ditch it. You can get a Gizmo voip conference room for free and game that way. Why even waste time with something that already has dozens of solutions out there already? Just partner with one of these voip companies (not Skype! They are too proprietery!).

So now here is the problem. All of those things can be done in various ways without using D&DI. Our group uses uStream and Gizmo and they do pretty nicely. Additionally we have used Kloogewerks which was absolutely wonderful for initiative and mapping. Not to mention it was all java based and crossplatform.

Wizards is 10 years too late to provide useful digital tools. What's out there and available is going to be just as good or better for what gamers actually need. We don't need a digital rules engine complicating our lives and sucking up the place unless it offers something so much more. What they are planning will never be able to function properly in a fluid and dynamic gaming environment. Heck the stuff that's out there can barely apply the rules for character design properly much less handle combat. 

So now the really issue comes up. Us purist, old foggy, D&D'rs don't care about all the glitz and glammer about 3d environment and rules engines. You know... we can actually imagine that stuff pretty nicely. But what about the newer players that expect that stuff as a minimum these days. Sure we are spoiled by some of the games in the last 10 years. They are so immersive. I can't blame anyone for wanting to combine the immersiveness of an MMORPG (WoW, Ultima, Dark Age of Camelot, Age of Conan, City of Heroes, etc...) or even a MOG (Neverwiter Nights, Dungeon Seige, etc...) with the fun and comradere of a face to face RP game. 

I know first hand how powerful something like that can be. When I played Ultima Online (for like 6 years), we had the most amazing time at its peak. We build a city (Aryslan, of which I was the mayor). We developed our own adventures and story lines which we role played. But eventually we attracted the attention of the Game Masters on our shard. They started running role playing events for us in game as well. They were so much fun. Eventually we developed a huge network of guilds that did everything the game had to offer. Then EA took the Game Masters away, they took the fun out of the game with some stupid rule changes, and everyone left. 

But for that awesome 2-3 year period, we had what I would imagine to be where the future of D&D may someday exist. A working rules engine (for the most part) combined with a graphics engine and a way to adventure together guided by a game master of some kind. That has not existed since Ultima Online in any other game. There is no MMORPG that has had custom content, items, and localized roleplaying like that. Not even the D&D Online MMORPG has that. 

It was a model that can't be replicated without one important thing. The ability for the players to create and manage the adventures themselves. I guess what people may be looking for is a way to merge the MMORPG experience with the more personal and group oriented game table experience. 

Creating a working graphics and rules engine for a game these days is a huge investment. I don't think that Wizards is really shooting for that and maybe they should be. Something like Oblivion but with the ability for the DM to inhabit and manage NPC's in a turn based engine? They need tools to allow the user community to create any content they can imagine. Wizards could also sell new digital content as well. This model is working for every 3d shooter game out there. Neverwinter Nights still has a large following and tons of user created content. Yet people still paid for the updates. 

Some of the most successful game experiences in history have been game mods. They have done nothing but improve the bottom line for games like Half-life and Quake. Wizards needs to build a fleixble environment for the community to create, innovate, improve, and have fun with. 

Above, I stated that they have bitten off more than they could chew. In this case I think it is correct. I don't believe they can successfully complete their existing plans. But the real reason is that they did not take it seriously enough. They actually needed to take a much larger risk and prepare to take an even bigger bite. Istead of creating these cheap tools that provide nothing new to anyone (That they will fail at anyways), they should have made something HUGE that actually provided an experience that cannot be had anywhere and has not been seen since the hayday of Ultima Online. This could not be accomplished by Wizards themselves. They would need a partner that actually knows how to create artwork, turn rules into a game engine, and provide infrastructure. Maybe Hasbro should just buy a game developer? 

Well what the heck do I know anyways. I'm just an old foggy D&D player that dreams the dreams of the young and wishes for a real digital D&D experience that can actually encompass the game somehow. 

How about this for a recipe... Second Life + Half-Life + Neverwinter Nights + Ultima Online + Kloogewerks + uStream + Gizmo + D&D = dreamy goodness.

What! That will only take like $80 million or something. Get it done! I'd pay $15 per month for that!