Well, you remember that this happened.
Today, WotC announced that the D&D Miniatures game would not die after all. Instead, they’ve decided to hand it off to a handful of committed volunteers to develop stats for future minis releases and keep the skirmish/tournament scene going, with official license from WotC.
The group granted the license is known as “The Guild” and is made up of some serious DDM fans, so it looks to be in good hands. The forum thread about The Guild already contains an impressive amount of work towards branding themselves. The coolest part?
Tony Gullotti (Dagaron) of Indiana is point person on the design and production of a custom DDM Guild miniature. The miniature will be available by Gen Con. Polling the community resulted in a win for the Guild Master concept — a tribute to E. Gary Gygax.
I’m hoping I can get my hands on a EGG mini at next GenCon- that’d be awesome.
The Guild is also answering questions over at EN World, as well as some clarification by The Rouse. Overall, a very cool move on WotC’s part (and in fact, totally different than how Hasbro handles its board game library- they hold onto the license as long as they can, even if they don’t plan on publishing it).
Huh. That was unexpected. I think it was a smart move on Wizard’s part, though.
I don’t play DDM but I hope for their success – that these guys will be striving to meet professional quality on purely volunteer work is a pity. I’m sure most of us have seen how incredibly excited and talented freeware or gaming mod teams can have a steady project one day and an abandoned one the next.
Wow, I’m very happy to hear that. Maybe this will give some hope to all the jaded cynics who see Wizard’s as the root of all evil.
Wyatt´s last post: Paizo Watch: Prestige Classes, Ice Is Still Cold
Scypher: There’s some precedent, especially given how they handed off all the D&D settings they weren’t planning on publishing to fan sites and organizations.
Wyatt: That would be nice, wouldn’t it? 🙂
Thanks for your interest! We’re very excited about the future of DDM. It should be noted that the artwork above was created by Justin Bass of Indiana. Also, the current team of freelance designers employed by WotC to update all sets of D&D Miniatures to the revised (2.0) rules will be continuing the work. The Guild hopes to offer the same/similar compensation to these designers. Finally, the fact that WotC will continue to produce miniatures makes this a bit different from other fan/community projects, and combined with the participation of the freelancers, makes for a more stable and sustainable effort.
Oh, and do feel free to sign up at our website to receive updates!
http://www.ddmguild.com
Very interesting move by WotC.
Samuel Van Der Wall´s last post: Shadowrun – All Aboard The Ban-Wagon
Anyone else still think WotC should have just marketed D&D 4E as the new miniatures game instead of replacing 3.5? Would’ve prevented a lot of these recent headaches…
@CountBuggula: A thousand times, no! 😀