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Slyphic posted:*snip* Kind of suspect that Secret Weapon is saying US Bank owns the IP now but no-one there TTC has talked to knows anything about it. If a bank is taking your stuff because of debts, they are going to have that poo poo itemized and filed in triplicate. And if Secret Weapon really wanted to prove they were telling the truth about that, they'd just put TTC in communication with their contact at the bank. They've gotta have a name for this, after all.
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Jul 19, 2022 05:53
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:What were you saying on their facebook page that got you banned? Were you literally like "this game is loving poo poo, go play 40k" or what? Mostly started with a big unit stat update the put out where they made a big deal about no units were being excluded from the game, then I pointed out they forgot a unit in the new stats. They add an entry for it, but the stats make no sense, like it's an entirely new unit with the same role in the game. Totally different characteristics and stats and armaments. I ask about this and they get all defensive, with them claiming its not deleted, thats just a placeholder. (follow up, that old model disappeared from the catalogue about 3 months later, and 3 months after that, lo and behold, a brand new totally different replacement model gets released!) Beyond that, the new update was also riddled with typos and bad Engrish, and they published multiple conflicting sources of unit stats and refused to say which ones were correct or try to reconcile either. I asked about once a month if there was any way they could take a few minutes and maybe clean up some of the typos, or put out a FAQ to explain some of the rules that made less sense than before the update. This was perceived as being excessively negative. Then I got into an argument in a thread brainstorming loreful justifications for a change with the owner of the company where he basically called me a dumb nerd for caring about this poo poo. I tried to explain I like the game's original hard SF WYSIWYG design. "It's just a game bro, it doesn't matter. It's just for having fun" I found out later this isn't the first time he's made his opinion of wargamers clear. I talked to a bunch of the old playtesters that quit en masse after TTCombat made a hash of the beta rules, and literally told them "we don't actually care about the rules, it doesn't have to be fun or make sense, we're just doing this to sell models" Most of them asked for their names to be removed from the 'Thanks' section of the book that got published. Was I a model citizen? No. But I don't think I was being a troll. I just wanted to talk about the game, discuss the good and bad parts of the rules freely. Turns out only Likes were welcome. My own foolish fault really, it was the first time I'd used Facebook in more than a decade, and it took me about 5 months to remember why I originally swore off the platform in the first place. I'm happily back to ignoring that festering cesspool. Tsilkani posted:Kind of suspect that Secret Weapon is saying US Bank owns the IP now but no-one there TTC has talked to knows anything about it. If a bank is taking your stuff because of debts, they are going to have that poo poo itemized and filed in triplicate. And if Secret Weapon really wanted to prove they were telling the truth about that, they'd just put TTC in communication with their contact at the bank. They've gotta have a name for this, after all. Slyphic fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Jul 19, 2022 |
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Jul 19, 2022 06:27
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alg posted:Yeah because they would pay once....or a very small amount. Are you gonna find 6 players to pay $10 a month to play on one VTT? You're right, let's just make the DM pay a shitload more in opportunity costs and actual costs and just never expect players to be willing to fork over $5-10 a month, which they easily would pay in things like a drink and a snack at the FLGS or in pizza/whatever at the DM's house over the course of a month. I genuinely disagree with how you're entering this argument, that players are fundamentally unwilling to pay for anything meaningful and that the DM must do everything and assume all costs. I think that there's easily a market for a decent product but that there's no decent product being marketed. And I think that'd probably be healthy for the hobby as a whole if we stopped expecting DMs to be the sole facilitators of the hobby. I think we'd have a ton more DMs, virtual or otherwise, if the entire onus wasn't placed on them, even if sometimes maybe players pitch in for Foundry or a VTT sub (which is better than nothing but that's a low goddamn bar).
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Jul 19, 2022 06:43
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At the very least, you could separate the role of "host" from that of "GM".
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Jul 19, 2022 06:53
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Tendales posted:At the very least, you could separate the role of "host" from that of "GM". This. A thousand times this. I like GMing, I like hosting. I do not like it being an assumed requirement that I always do both at the same time, forever. Edit : I just realized you probably meant this in an internet hosting sense and I'm a big dumb dumb airing my pet peeves for no reason. Ignore me, sorry. Xiahou Dun fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Jul 19, 2022 |
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Jul 19, 2022 06:59
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I can safely say that on a personal level that if foundry required a subscription from the players I would have never tried it
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Jul 19, 2022 07:11
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If it allowed you to play the game independently to try things out, would you? I mean, the nearest we’ve had to this is probably the original Neverwinter Nights, but that didn’t have a subscription.
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Jul 19, 2022 08:42
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hyphz posted:If it allowed you to play the game independently to try things out, would you? If you mean the original AOL Neverwinter Nights, that started with a per-hour fee - $6.00 according to Computer Gaming World 106. It was only towards the end of its lifecycle it was added to a standard AOL service for free (but at that time AOL itself cost a per-hour fee).
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Jul 19, 2022 09:30
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https://startplaying.games/
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Jul 19, 2022 10:08
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I meant the first BioWare version, where you could play as a standard single player RPG or traditional multiplayer, but could also use the game as a VTT with a user being the GM.
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Jul 19, 2022 10:39
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wizzardstaff posted:One More Multiverse is in open beta right now and this is one of their design goals. Whether they stick the landing remains to be seen. Neat, I'll check it out! Thanks!
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Jul 19, 2022 10:50
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Darwinism posted:You're right, let's just make the DM pay a shitload more in opportunity costs and actual costs and just never expect players to be willing to fork over $5-10 a month, which they easily would pay in things like a drink and a snack at the FLGS or in pizza/whatever at the DM's house over the course of a month. You must have a very different experience from mine, or just very dedicated players. Most players are barely able to show up on time, much less read the rules of the game, and even much less pay for software or a subscription. If you ever delve into the Roll20 LFG area, you will see lots and lots of organized play types who can't find a regular game who use it just because it is free. No player is going to pay a subscription without the guarantee of return on investment. The only way to guarantee that is if the DM is paying. I am not sure any service would go as low as $5 a month for something like this, especially if it is D&D only. D&D Beyond is already $5.99 and that's just for a website, before spending money on virtual book content.
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Jul 19, 2022 12:23
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On one hand, $25 to play a session is pretty reasonable. On the other hand, if I paid $25 and there were 8 non-GM players at the table I would be a little miffed. The economics of GM-for-hire is really interesting to me, there was that article a few years ago about the Toronto man who was doing it and he was charging roughly $150 per session, kinda billing it as a fun group thing instead of going to the pub one night, see what all this DnD fuss is about. I remember being surprised he was making ends meet, but I guess if you can do 5-6 bookings a week the money can work out, barely.
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Jul 19, 2022 12:39
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Chakan posted:On one hand, $25 to play a session is pretty reasonable. On the other hand, if I paid $25 and there were 8 non-GM players at the table I would be a little miffed. I've been thinking about doing it as a side gig but i think i'd have to DM stuff that's d&d to make it reliable and i'm just not sure i'm down for that.
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Jul 19, 2022 13:05
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Chakan posted:On one hand, $25 to play a session is pretty reasonable. On the other hand, if I paid $25 and there were 8 non-GM players at the table I would be a little miffed. I've paid for GM's before, the economics seems like it'd be pretty good for like a secondary or part time gig. it's like +100(4-5 people at $20/$25) a week per 2-3 hour session, the GM I used ran 4 sessions on the weekends and 2 sessions during the week. It is a poo poo ton of GMing, but if it's something you find fun and can keep yourself from burning out then +2400 a month for some side work isn't the worst payout.
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Jul 19, 2022 13:52
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wizzardstaff posted:One More Multiverse is in open beta right now and this is one of their design goals. Whether they stick the landing remains to be seen. piL posted:Neat, I'll check it out! Thanks! Holy crap, I'm thoroughly impressed with OMM. It seems like it would be almost impossible to run something off the cuff and players who went off the raila could be a huge creative endeavor if you didn't have some very basic maps prepared but what a presentation. Dexo posted:I've paid for GM's before, the economics seems like it'd be pretty good for like a secondary or part time gig. Currently paying for an online GM and it's working well for friends and I. It's a tough pill to swallow on the player side too, because that feels like a lot of money. If the players can realise its the cost of 2 or 3 pints out a week, it can feel worth it, especially if nobody wants to GM. Pretty sure it's 90% dnd out there though. I had an idea where I would get a group of friends together and game hop from pro-GM to pro-GM, asking them to run their favorite obscure RPG, preferably something from an early 00s bargain bin, but my friends weren't down to chip in on that experiment.
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Jul 19, 2022 14:14
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Slyphic posted:Mostly started with a big unit stat update the put out where they made a big deal about no units were being excluded from the game, then I pointed out they forgot a unit in the new stats. They add an entry for it, but the stats make no sense, like it's an entirely new unit with the same role in the game. Totally different characteristics and stats and armaments. I ask about this and they get all defensive, with them claiming its not deleted, thats just a placeholder. (follow up, that old model disappeared from the catalogue about 3 months later, and 3 months after that, lo and behold, a brand new totally different replacement model gets released!) This reminds me a lot of original release Age of Sigmar, before they backtracked hard on a lot of things.
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Jul 19, 2022 14:42
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piL posted:Currently paying for an online GM and it's working well for friends and I. It's a tough pill to swallow on the player side too, because that feels like a lot of money. If the players can realise its the cost of 2 or 3 pints out a week, it can feel worth it, especially if nobody wants to GM. Yeah I'm in this tricky situation where I'm stuck being a GM and really just want to play in some games again, even at the point where I'd be up for playing dnd again but its so goddamn tricky trying to find a game. I get a lot of my inspiration and energy to GM from playing so I feel I'm needing that recharge. The aggregation sites/search are now completely flooded with paid games that even finding one that isn't paid is tricky. For $20 I can get a new video game every weekend that its a tough ask to be honest. On the flip side I'm intensely curious to see what the social dynamic of something like that is especially with something like dnd that requires so much mechanic course adjusting and inter-personal attention that I don't know what that relationship looks like when its paid transaction. What are you getting out of that, just a person running an adventure module with all the trimmings (sound, maps, etc), are they building stories for your specific characters and working to make sure you get a story arc? Is it even less than that? What is your baseline expectation for a paid campaign?
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Jul 19, 2022 14:44
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Ghost Leviathan posted:This reminds me a lot of original release Age of Sigmar, before they backtracked hard on a lot of things. The original creator of Dropzone and Dropfleet seems to have pretty much vanished, and the quality of the rules has plummeted. TTC very much posed themselves as triumphantly saving DzC from Hawk's mismanagement after the buyout, which was a red flag at the time. By now I think it's clear Dave has been frozen out.
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Jul 19, 2022 14:46
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Not even a category for 4e D&D smh
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Jul 19, 2022 14:49
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Crap, startplaying.games is a paid service? Modiphius is running a giveaway if you GM through them, and I was like "I'll GM for some randos, maybe make some friends, maybe get some swag". But I don't want to get in to the whole paid-GMing space.
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Jul 19, 2022 15:00
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Loxbourne posted:The original creator of Dropzone and Dropfleet seems to have pretty much vanished, and the quality of the rules has plummeted. TTC very much posed themselves as triumphantly saving DzC from Hawk's mismanagement after the buyout, which was a red flag at the time. By now I think it's clear Dave has been frozen out. Randomly a couple weeks ago, Dave popped his head up for a hot minute on the internet. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0965/1274/files/Dave_s_PHR_Behemoth_Build.pdf?v=1655207664 He's proud of the huge models he made, and they do look cool. Sadly, it doesn't change the fact that they just don't fit in the game; they aren't usable in pick-up or tournament games, they totally distort the game when you include them, and the rules are just plain poo poo. If TTC had made them showpiece scenario driving models, it might have worked. But the fools are insistent that these third-of-your-army-points units that are literally 500% bigger than the next smallest unit should be part of standard play. Oh, yeah, I forgot about one more thing I got in trouble for. The stats for the behemoths were leaked (they weren't leaked, they were in the online army builder's code, JSON formatted and world readable for months) and TTC put out a release explaining these were very early placeholder stats (they weren't, they're pretty drat close to what got released, and matched the stats the fired playtesters told them were poo poo 2 years before that) and I got scolded for saying they were a sunk cost mistake.
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Jul 19, 2022 15:05
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Slyphic posted:I read it differently. SW is saying they can't find other buyers because those buyers refuse to pick up a company that's got TTC making claims on the company's IP. The very first Secret Weapon post says: Secret Weapon posted:This situation has forced Secret Weapon to default on its debts to US Bank, who now hold the Secret Weapon IP, and all outstanding accounts payable. The TTCombat response: TTC posted:We have contacted US Bank to register an interest in SW however no one we have talked to is able to confirm they have actually repossessed SW IP. And then in the most recent Secret Weapon post: Secret Weapon posted:Like Mr. Simpson, I am also frustrated at how long this process is taking. I wish I knew what US Bank was going to do next, I really do. If Secret Weapon was actually telling the truth, either TTC would be able to contact someone at US Bank who knows what's going on, or Secret Weapon could, you know, put TTC in touch with the person who told them US Bank was taking their assets. This looks like someone hosed up their kickstarter, hosed up the helping hand TTC offered them, and is now trying to bite the hand that fed them.
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Jul 19, 2022 15:11
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CitizenKeen posted:Crap, startplaying.games is a paid service? Modiphius is running a giveaway if you GM through them, and I was like "I'll GM for some randos, maybe make some friends, maybe get some swag". But I don't want to get in to the whole paid-GMing space. Yeah, there's way, way more players than DMs so i kinda find it inevitable.
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Jul 19, 2022 15:11
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Tsilkani posted:If Secret Weapon was actually telling the truth, either TTC would be able to contact someone at US Bank who knows what's going on, or Secret Weapon could, you know, put TTC in touch with the person who told them US Bank was taking their assets. It read to me like US Bank is in the process of reclaiming the IP but it won't be finalized until they actually go under, instead of this skating by half-life the company is currently in. Really, I expect there's a ton of shared incompetence to go around between the two groups. And considering the amount of effort it took to get my deed from the bank that held it when I payed off my mortgage, I find it incredibly believable that TTC can't find someone at the bank that knows what the gently caress is going on. It took me almost an entire year and cumulative days of my life to get them to cough up the deed, with countless transfers, dead ends, runarounds, and frankly bald faced lies.
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Jul 19, 2022 15:20
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piL posted:Holy crap, I'm thoroughly impressed with OMM. It seems like it would be almost impossible to run something off the cuff and players who went off the raila could be a huge creative endeavor if you didn't have some very basic maps prepared but what a presentation. Yeah, it's almost all D&D although I have seen a bunch of Pathfinder 2e, and some Lancer stuff around. kingcom posted:Yeah I'm in this tricky situation where I'm stuck being a GM and really just want to play in some games again, even at the point where I'd be up for playing dnd again but its so goddamn tricky trying to find a game. I get a lot of my inspiration and energy to GM from playing so I feel I'm needing that recharge. The aggregation sites/search are now completely flooded with paid games that even finding one that isn't paid is tricky. For $20 I can get a new video game every weekend that its a tough ask to be honest. There are a number of games that are just Hey this DM will run "Strahd or Avernus, or Abomination Vaults for you", others do their own homebrew stuff, it mostly varies. Most have maps(for 5e and Pathfinder you pretty much need them), and some do sounds, it also varies and kinda depends on the group as far as character stories, some just want to run through a module, others want a more RP heavy experience. It's why most Paid GM's give you a session for free, or at the least do free session 0s Like one of my first paid DM games(which lasted like a year and a half and blew up spectacularly at the end due to some drama) we were ostensibly running Ghosts of Saltmarsh, but like after month or so in the book we ended up off dealing with feywild politics and dealing with shadowfell problems. They had custom maps, and sounds. It's mostly just like any other group, only you are paying the GM for the time they put in prepping and running a game for you.
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Jul 19, 2022 15:25
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kingcom posted:On the flip side I'm intensely curious to see what the social dynamic of something like that is especially with something like dnd that requires so much mechanic course adjusting and inter-personal attention that I don't know what that relationship looks like when its paid transaction. What are you getting out of that, just a person running an adventure module with all the trimmings (sound, maps, etc), are they building stories for your specific characters and working to make sure you get a story arc? Is it even less than that? What is your baseline expectation for a paid campaign? I had some friends who had expressed interest in DnD but we never consummated it while I lived nearby. Soon after a move, they listen to some dnd podcasts, get jazzed, and say something. I was already running a game in my new neighborhood and didn't want to run a second one, so I said: how about this--let's do this as a one time thing, each or us pitch in $25, and I'll find a GM on Fiverr and see what we think. I think for my situation, it helps that I came with players and we're buying the table as it were instead of paying to join a group. The GM doesn't have much power, other than turning away bread, to police the other players, so I could see that get frustrating really fast. My GM runs a three hour session, will answer questions outside via discord, and basically runs a customized module they're pretty familiar with. They include an up-charge for designing custom modules as well, but since the friends I was joining with were new, the traditional dnd stuff felt fine. Definitely custom story arcs and you can tell the GM is just running dnd once he's in it. The transactional nature has some unexpected advabtages, because the relationships are more clear. As a GM in the past, IRL I've been in situations where players were buying snacks and beer and then getting to the point where they were spending prohibitive amounts of money on what was advertised to be a cheap friendly outing, but didn't want to not do so because of player guilt. There's no player guilt--we paid admission. Other times, I've been frustrated when players give 50% or give late notice for not showing up. If I reschedule in less than 72 hours, it costs me a $25 fee--my fellow players and I are motivated to stick to the schedule or change things early, but the couple of times there were conflicts, the player with the conflicts paid the fee and nobody left feeling like they got the bad end of the deal; if it was a big enough deal that piL would spend $25 to reschedule, it wasn't just because he planned poorly or valued something else higher, it's probably a legit conflict.
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Jul 19, 2022 15:26
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CitizenKeen posted:Crap, startplaying.games is a paid service? Modiphius is running a giveaway if you GM through them, and I was like "I'll GM for some randos, maybe make some friends, maybe get some swag". But I don't want to get in to the whole paid-GMing space. You can just use it as a player-finding service for a free game if you want to. You're not obligated to charge.
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Jul 19, 2022 15:35
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I don't think there's any business in GMs charging per player. The more players in a single session the more diluted the experience between them, so they shouldn't be more expensive.
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Jul 19, 2022 16:11
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hyphz posted:I don't think there's any business in GMs charging per player. The more players in a single session the more diluted the experience between them, so they shouldn't be more expensive. A lot of these are bringing in players as individuals so you have to individualize the price. Usually there's a seat limit to prevent huge games.
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Jul 19, 2022 16:14
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hyphz posted:I don't think there's any business in GMs charging per player. The more players in a single session the more diluted the experience between them, so they shouldn't be more expensive. Almost all of the ones I've been in have been per player, because we players weren't a group. The DM is picking the players from people who apply, they have interviews with players to make sure they aren't a raging degenerate rear end in a top hat, at least openly lol. They usually cap at 4-5 players, if someone leaves, they find someone else to bring in.
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Jul 19, 2022 16:21
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alg posted:You must have a very different experience from mine, or just very dedicated players. Most players are barely able to show up on time, much less read the rules of the game, I'm gonna be honest, the problem here sounds like it has less to do with monetization models and more that your players just kinda suck.
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Jul 19, 2022 17:08
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Kai Tave posted:I'm gonna be honest, the problem here sounds like it has less to do with monetization models and more that your players just kinda suck. Yeah that's true, and I don't think monetization models are even a problem. But having players that suck is a very common problem in the TTRPG world, much more common than an organized play player who wants to move a character between virtual games.
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Jul 19, 2022 17:53
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Slyphic posted:Mostly started with a big unit stat update the put out where they made a big deal about no units were being excluded from the game, then I pointed out they forgot a unit in the new stats. They add an entry for it, but the stats make no sense, like it's an entirely new unit with the same role in the game. Totally different characteristics and stats and armaments. I ask about this and they get all defensive, with them claiming its not deleted, thats just a placeholder. (follow up, that old model disappeared from the catalogue about 3 months later, and 3 months after that, lo and behold, a brand new totally different replacement model gets released!) You weren't being a troll. You likely were effortposting too much and expecting them to effortpost as much (there's a weird thing in the wargaming world where the big dog in the game, GW, basically always fucks up their releases, riddled with typos and people go "haha, thats normal!"). This isn't really the same as you going into a grocery store and saying the produce sucks, its more like you went into a grocery store and asked why the raw meat was being stored above lettuce and getting told that "I don't actually care about foodsafe lmao"
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Jul 19, 2022 19:34
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Slyphic posted:Really, I expect there's a ton of shared incompetence to go around between the two groups. That's my major takeaway. From what I can tell, two whole-rear end businesses both discussed a deal and then actually exchanged money and resources without a signed contract specifying what exactly they were agreeing on. I get that wargames are a hobbyist thing, but that's still kind of astounding - you'd think at least one of them would have said "wait, before I give you my stuff let's write down what we're agreeing to in order to make sure we're on the same page." Even if you don't want to get the lawyers involved, it seems like you should at least have something to point to where both parties agree to something - instead both parties are showing emails where they're negotiating, but no email where both parties are saying "yes, I agree to the last terms proposed"
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Jul 19, 2022 22:47
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Paid games are a scam imo. It's just too easy to find a good group of people who play for free in my experience.
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Jul 19, 2022 23:04
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trapstar posted:Paid games are a scam imo. It's just too easy to find a good group of people who play for free in my experience. lol definitely not a scam. People get what they paid for. And It's not particularly easy to find a GM, otherwise I wouldn't end up GMing for literally any game in any friend group either online or offline, in order to play a game. I get not wanting to participate in it, or it not being something you'd not be down for as far as having a hobby turn into a like something that either makes money or you spend money to enjoy, but It's just someone performing a service for you and others. Calling it a scam seems a bit silly.
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Jul 19, 2022 23:37
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It's also not that easy for a lot of people. Once you're in the sort of position to afford a paid game you're probably also in a position where you don't have a lot of time. Making friends as an adult is tricky for a lot of people, let alone 'making the kind of friends who can reliably make a regular game night'.
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Jul 19, 2022 23:47
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Just by his post alone, maybe he was saying "trying to find players isn't that hard", which is true, I suppose. But lol, try to find an online game as a player for an uncommon system.
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Jul 19, 2022 23:49
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Slyphic posted:Then I got into an argument in a thread brainstorming loreful justifications for a change with the owner of the company where he basically called me a dumb nerd for caring about this poo poo. I tried to explain I like the game's original hard SF WYSIWYG design. "It's just a game bro, it doesn't matter. It's just for having fun" I remember reading that. I'm happy to report that they've actually subtly modified the Prowler model to include manipulators to maintain lore/model/rule harmony.
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Jul 20, 2022 00:09
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