Online content is relatively cheap to produce. DDI at wotc is mostly ad's and "preview material" that people later purchase AGAIN when they buy a particular book or supplement. It got me wondering if FFG should do this for WFRP (and/or RT or DH). If so, what would you want to see?

DDI current statistics: "25,000 people at $5.95 a month--the minimum rate--is $148,750/month revenue for WotC. This new revenue channel brings in more than $1¾ million per year."

If FFG signed up 1/100th the number of people, it would be $1,487 per month (enough for a PT staff member and additional content? hmm?)

jh

Hi,

Interesting idea

However it is simply not viable the whole point of the original site was to make playing online viable something that has never happened.

I would say it would be a complete waste

However a fan generated website with ffg on board would be very appealing. However the moment you start asking for a certain amount of money each week you are asking for trouble.

The truth is forth edition has failed miserably the facts speak for themselves.

So it is possible to grab a new audience and i think ffg can do this through this product i like the way they keep us informed and are constantly developing new ideas.

No thanks you : phone, electricity, gaz, social insurance, car insurance, house insurance and internet contracts are quite enough for me every monthes.

(No offense, but I do ask myself why you're suggesting such a capitalistic-jailing-money-sucking idea... Though FFG might have yet thought about it )

The big issue is that there's three programs anchoring DDI. The character builders, the monster builder, and the compendium. That's way more program than some part timer could handle. Then of course there's the issue of additional content. Someone has to produce all that extra content, again way more work than one part time person could handle. Lastly, WotC production schedule of books is way more than what FFG intends with this game. It'll be be almost 4 months between the tool kit and stormdorf. If you previewed that every day, there would be no point in buying it.

Neat idea, I just don't see it fitting FFG's biz model.

I'm not sure if the comparaison is possible : despite Warhammer is famous, D&D as a largier community.

But for me this is a point why I never tried D&D. If I wanna pay for something each month, I play WoW. Just my opinion.

willmanx said:

Actually, DDI only seems that way to people. In fact, all you need to play DnD IS ddi because it comes with all the rules and content of the books. 5.95 a month is way cheaper then buying all the books.

Here's how I'd do it:

1. Character Builder

2. Rules Compendium

3. Card creator

4. Online only content (Halfling, other races of the empire)

5. Scenarios

6. Monster builder/custom

7. Articles (accepted for submission)

8. Reprints of their old licensed stuff (the old PDF's) and/or a revisitation of the material

9. Web-enhancements (i.e. stuff edited out of regular material instead of it going to waste).

At $6.00/month, I'd pay for it. Anything more would just be money grubbing.

jh

so you just play with a laptop ? No good ol'core rulebook reading while in bed ? oh. I'm surprised. I didn't think that was possible.

Thanks Sinister.

Ick. I've never cared for the laptop..but I have run some 4E on mine. I prefer paper, but if I had the choice between NOTHING and laptop, I'll take laptop.

jh

Emirikol said:

Hell no.

For adventures, I simply copy/paste all the rules into the adventure, then print it. I take the laptop if we are going to level or look up a rule but I'd say it's needed every 3 sessions.

I don't find I like reading 4E in bed, this is where it differs from most rpgs, there much much much more crunch than fluff to read. If it had huge amounts of background like warhammer, i'd say I would want books.

Emirikol said:

Emirikol said:

I don't know how it is outside France but we have a big community around Warhammer. It take me few clics to find a lot about the old world and most of the background. So despite new rules, new cards (and not virtual!) and a new campaign, there is nothing such a software can be useful for me.

So we can't say Nothing for France. We already have a lot on Warhammer on the web.

boo for ddi, what a scam. 4ed is a giant scam in general. play pathfinder if you really need to play d&d. boo

boggle said:

lolfunny

ddi has been a huge success, as has 4ed D&D. It would appear that for the larger RPG companies to survive they will have to increasingly move to online media and away from print. Fortunately ereaders should make this a viable transition. WotC and WW will probably move to purely electronic media within the next 5-8 years.

Could it work for FFG? It would be a good idea, but setting up something like ddi isn't easy - it's expensive and requires expertise to create and maintain properly. FFG are obviously trying a different approach (the box 'n cards way), playing to their strengths (they already have the infrastructure and skills from their boardgames), but they may have to look at ereaders in the future.

To my mind a subscription model is a bit much to ask.

But!...a design and print on demand system would rock!!!

What I think could work is an online print-on-demand card designer that could charge users to recieve a physical copy of their custom card airmailed to them. At no point would users have access to a digital version of the card, so pirating could be less easy and FFG & GW would recieve revinue from each and every card.

Cards might cost, say $3 each plus postage and would be of near the same quality as the game box ones. Pricing would be enough to make producing the one off custom cards viable yet more expensive than the offical cards in the game boxes. I honestly don't know how much it would cost to produce one off custom cards but I'm sure gamers would pay a premium for cards of a professional quality.
The system would also alow ordering all the offical core cards etc to solve concerns of lost/damaged cards.
Perhaps users could browse each others designs (in a non-print ready format) and order custom cards others have created.

As far as artwork goes, the beauty of the system is that it could feature a wide selection of offical GW artwork that designers could place on their cards. Art would scalable and croppable to alow for some individualism. Custom images unfortunately wouldn't be uploadable due to the impracticality of guarding copy-right infringement.

FFG could release offical preview or experimental cards that people could try out and get a taste of things to come or give feedback. And once implemented the system would be easily scaleable to support FFGs other games. Hell, hire the SE dude to dev it

We would get our custom card rendered professionally and FFG would get to sell cards at a premium with none of the usual overheads.

Another idea would be career cards with custom character portraits. Find the image of the human coachman jarring when playing your dwarven coachman? FFG could provide a gallery of characters to swap onto career cards. Maybe there could be a selection of portraits of the same characters dressed in differing career attire to choose from.

Daedalum said:

This is not so a good idea.

First, as seen via the plug in make, it will not protect anything. Just have to get the files inside the website to create your own models. Security for this kind of application is far too expensive.

Next, it will be really expensive, and I'm not speaking about cross-sea expeditions. In your example, if someone wants a copy of all actions cards, it will cost (152*3= 456$). For just Melee cards, it will be (19*3=57$). Saying you want only 8 customs cards on 3 copies, it still costs (8*3*3=72$). Extra fees, of course.

Despite, the idea is great.

macd21 said:

My facts are as follows please research what i say.

Here goes

At the hieght of its popularity d@d 3.5 had approximately a 1 million players world wide. This is based on sales , forum sites , gaming group information ect.

Since then of coarse we have 4th edition it currently has 100,000 thousand roleplayers based on the same facts. Whats shocking is you would have expected a lot of the players to migrate to the forth edition clearly they have not. In essence they have lost 90% of there players. Its simply a discrace to not be able to attract those players back so something fundamentaly has gone wrong.

Another good way to see how well a game is doing in any country is to check out the key distributers people like liesure games , orcs nest uk roleplayers forum ect. Of coarse i am talking about the uk in my example however my facts are world based. What you will notice is very few people playing forth edition.

Now lets talk about ddi 25,000 thousand from a million thats pitiful and a discrace dont get me started that they made the game portable for the pc then dont do it.

Finally They sacked there lead designer and 25 staff this christams who worked on the game what that tells you is it has not gone well and fifth edition my friend is in the pipe line.

But i dont care about forth edition i love warhammer and what ffg and its designers have done is kept us informed and told us what to expect at each strep and for that i will always be a fan.

Plus its the best system i have have ever played in.

Care to cite those sources?

Also, WotC has a habit of cleaning house after a new edition is launched and then ramping their development staff back up as they work on a new edition of the game. A 5th Edition of the D&Dis inevitable though, as a 4th edition of WFRP is inevitable. Games grow, change and take on new editions, it is simply the nature of the industry and doesn't always have to do with a game's success.

As to the original topic, it really is hard to beat the value of DDI to a Dungeons and Dragons Game Master. Between the easy access of the Compendium, the character builder and the Adventure Tools, a DM can help players generate characters in a fast an efficient way as well as turn out stat-blocks for enemies and NPCs with little or no effort other than needing a general idea of what you want to create.

In my opinion, WotC made a very smart move in focusing on having an electronic tool for players. In this day and age it is vital to have online tools that can help time-labored game masters create material for their games.

I'm not saying an online subscription service identical to WotC's DDI is needed, but some form of company to player support other than previews would help out WFRP3 immensely, especially in the first year while we game masters are needing guidance in adventure and challenge design.

If FFG could offer a little more fan support (apart from previews and PDFs that speculate on future releases) WFRP3 could only benefit.

This support could simply be an NPC a week that has a some exciting abilities.... or a guide on creating balanced powers for your NPCs. There are many options open to them.

Hi shadowspawn,

My sources come direct from woc themselves.

However although games change sometimes its not for the best.

I am certain in the passage of time that 4th will be regarded as a poor edition.

The facts are it was made to be able to put it on line that never happened and boy was that a mistake.

The other source you could use is print runs. 4th in most shops is still in its first what after a year my god that shocking or am i missing something.

My reagrds

On the subject of ddi.

Having on line tools to build characters ect

Somethings are nice to have like a name generator , treasure ect but they are not essential.

My feelings are that this system has it all boy its fun writing stories for this game. I need no prep time for npcs i can run on the fly. It seems simple to balance ecounters and i love that.

Rpg's will always be pen and paper once you move on line its a different experience its like a computer game the interaction is not the same it cant be.

Why would you need an ddi maybe a dedicated supported fan web site covering some of your points would be nice however again its still early lets see what happens ?

Boggle,

Sorry but your numbers are wrong. Millions not million. There are way more people that play than 100,000 right now. 60 minutes in 1985 citied 3 million players. In the years after the release of 3.0 they gained even more. Wikipedia notes sales of 1 billion and over 20 million people that have played DnD since it's creation. Various sources note the number of players in 2007 as 6 to 7 million.

4th editions sales are being vastly underated by fans on the internet mad because WotC didn't continue with 3x. They seem to be citing the fact that 4E isn't a popular as 3x, which is true, since no other rpg sold as well in history as 3x. I should also note that I know from distributors that the core rulebook has sold out three times since it's release.

Shadowspawn said:

Shadow I couldn't agree more. DDI is a great tool.

Yeah I find those numbers to be highly suspect and perhaps wishful thinking on your part since you don't enjoy the game yourself. I'm no defender of 4th Edition, having played it and found that it wasn't for me, but the game sold out it's initial print run before the copies even hit the shelves. Your anecdotal experiences don't create "facts" I'm afraid.

A comparison of print runs is futile in any case, as we can't say exactly how many units were printed for either WFRP3 or D&D 4E.

As far as being able to run the game on the fly, I much prefer to have a firm grasp of the game's mechanics and systems before I go doing that, and having as little time as I do for game preparation and even gaming in general, having a tool that could create NPC/Monster sheets and powers would be an amazing tool. If the tool came bundled with monthly online content like articles on the Old World and an NPC or three, I'd gladly fork over some money every month for them.

Just my opinion...

Lets just agree to disagree

as they say

Lets see what happens

ddi not the way forward