WW ICC Digital Tools Announcement

[resplendenthawk]

White-Wolf has a front page announcement on their site, which says, in part:

"A new suite of digital tools to help manage your chronicles. Along with Lone Wolf Development, the creators of Hero Labs, we have been developing some amazing, utilitarian, approachable tools to help you create, run and maintain your chronicles. Think of it as part automatic wiki and part storyteller dream. It’s still in the formative stages right now, but even at the earliest stages they are amazing."

How does this figure in to the character builder already available? Is this a replacement for the current character builder with a completely new interface? A mutually exclusive product offering? Something that expands upon the current tool?

I realize the folks at Lone Wolf probably can only talk about this in very general terms, but I wasn't sure if this announcement was indicating big new things for the way the character builder currently works, or if it was more of WW pointing out something that already existed (the tool as it is now) to a large audience that might not know about it.

Thanks!

[rob]

Originally Posted by resplendenthawk

How does this figure in to the character builder already available? Is this a replacement for the current character builder with a completely new interface? A mutually exclusive product offering? Something that expands upon the current tool?

I realize the folks at Lone Wolf probably can only talk about this in very general terms, but I wasn't sure if this announcement was indicating big new things for the way the character builder currently works, or if it was more of WW pointing out something that already existed (the tool as it is now) to a large audience that might not know about it.

To answer your last question first, it's a little of both. :-) To answer your initial questions, it's an entirely separate product that will ultimately integrate smoothly with Hero Lab.

I can't go into any details at this point, but I'll provide some background. We've been developing some really cool stuff behind the scenes that we haven't told anybody about yet, with the exception of a select few industry folks. White Wolf was among those and they immediately wanted to adopt the technology for tools they are developing for the ICC. They have taken the core technology and are leveraging it within their own development with specific tailoring for the ICC, while we're working on a more generalized solution as a new product.

We showed a prototype to a few industry icons at a tradeshow back in April. Every one of them wanted this technology *yesterday*. And that was just a crude prototype that was very clunky to use. So we're pretty sure that this new product will be a hit. Our only problem is the lack of manpower to do everything we want to do, which is why White Wolf is developing their own specialized solution in parallel with us.

Our goal is to have something ready for release by the end of 1Q2010, but it's more likely that we won't have it ready until Q2. We should be able to start talking about it in more concrete terms shortly after the first of the year.

To summarize the clues: (1) it's software for the RPG sector, (2) it's a new product, (3) no one has done this before, and (4) in the words of Ryan Dancey of White Wolf/CCP, we've "figured out how to solve the problem".

Let the wild theories begin! :-)

[jonbartels]

here's hoping that this new tool can do online gaming like play by post etc

[Khayin]

I had been very excited about the possibilities after the ICC announcement and, Rob -- your response, however vague it may be, was just what I was hoping to hear!

I will wait patiently for next year's announcements.

... okay, I lied. I'm not going to be patient. I really do want it yesterday.

[Pali]

I'm very curious too. Wonder whether this tool will be something like Grapevine was for the oWoD Larps.

[rob]

I have not used Grapevine. I have only seen the very brief overview provided on the website. Based that tiny bit of info, I'm *GUESSING* that the goal of the White Wolf's tool suite is to replace Grapevine *and* provide some major additional capabilities. It's those major additional capabilities that we conceived and are developing in conjunction with White Wolf. Based on what little I know about Grapevine, I don't think we're trying to replace Grapevine at the current time.

[jonbartels]

I'm curious will this new tool be a stand alone program or will it be an add on to Hero Labs? will it be compatible with hero labs? will it cost extra and how much?

[rob]

It's a separate, standalone tool - *not* an add-on.

The new product will complement Hero Lab nicely, and the two can definitely be used together. In fact, we plan to ensure that they work well in concert with one another. However, there will be no requirement to have one before using the other.

That being said, we sure hope that everyone will *want* to use them both together. :-)

[Pali]

Again, thanks for the infos.

Will we get futher teasers right over here or do we have to wait for the day when the tool is up for sale?

[rob]

We'll post more info in the first quarter of next year, definitely in advance of the release. I'm sure we'll be looking for a few folks to help us Beta test the tool, as well. That should be at least a month or two prior to release.