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A Veteran GM's First Impressions of D&D 4th Edition
Martin Ralya writes "I spent several hours with the three core D&D 4th Edition books on launch day, and wrote a detailed look at all of them based on my first impressions. Two big takeaways: Yes, the World of Warcraft comparisons are fair (and a good thing), and the way character powers work now will make the game more fun for everyone."
...and had a blast. My brother and I have never played D&D, but I have been listening to podcasts and reading about it for the past few months and definitely wanted to give it a try with someone who knew what they were doing.
We had a great time, especially when we essentially tied down an Ice Dragon and our main Fighter intimidated the Dragon into giving up (even without knowing the Dragon's language!) and we won the encounter without even killing it! It was so much more fun than raiding Onyxia, especially given all the freedom you have in D&D. I bought a book and can't wait to rope all my friends into it.
See, I want to take this another level. There was a tremendous amount of experimentation done with online games. How many MUD's are there? I'd bet the best of those MUD's ended up giving their best programmers / designers to online gaming. And so the stuff people liked about MUD'ding got pushed into the online games, and the online games cross-pollinated. This, indeed, has nothing to do with what happened with tabletop games. I've met many, many people with custom systems.... And they didn't cross-pollinate as much. It's just harder to do. So computers made making the game a better process.
My little site.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought that DnD's main appeal was spending time with your friends in person. I really liked it for a couple of years. The reason was that I had friends who were fun to play with, and the funny rituals and habits we had that went along with it.
I've continued to read a little about DnD in the 18 years since I stopped playing. I like to know what's going on with the evolution of the game, but now, my best friends are scattered across the continent, and the thought of playing with my local group of friends is lame.
I like the idea of playing DnD. I just don't have the friends for it anymore. It somehow felt more comfortable to roll a toon on WoW and meet people online to play with, than to head down to the hobby shop on a game night. If I'm going to meet new people in person, I'd like food and alcohol involved.
See, this isn't the 1990s any more. Nowadays, making a Windows-only desktop app limits your userbase even among people who run Windows on their computer at home. Because they aren't always at home. Maybe they want to play D&D on their iPhone, had you thought of that? Or on their Windows Mobile phone, if that's what they prefer. If it was a web app, they could play it on any kind of device that has an internet connection.
Is that worth how much it would cost to port it? Oh, wait, if it was a web app, porting it would cost a whopping $0.00.
That's why developing a Windows-only desktop app is stupid, unless your app actually requires the kind of things that web apps don't do well, like real-time 3D graphics. Which D&D totally doesn't.