As of more than 10 minutes ago all dungeons have started. Yes it is possible someone is viewing the feed and reading the forum at the same time but honestly if they want to spoil something then I figure let them at this point. If they find their experience will be better by knowing what other people did, at this point I don't care.
That said did anyone else notice that AC was being used incorrectly in the dungeon? They asked for our Melee and Range AC but when attacked they didn't ask us which mode we were in. I pointed out to one DM that I would always be using my bow so he should use my range AC. He said that it depended if the monster was using range or melee. I explained that is not how AC works in TD. (Though there is at least 1 token that does affect your AC if you are being attacked with range a rare from a few years ago that I forget the name I think it was bracers). Anyway it is minor thing but did slightly annoy me because if they are going to take down our AC I want them to be using the correct one and if they don't know if I am using my sword and shield or my bow when I am attacking, they cannot know which AC is the correct one.
Off of that it was nice to see AC used in one room vs 1a when no one I knows remembers it coming up. I was not impressed with the changes in that room. But I wasn't impressed with that room at all in 1a. I felt it was the worst room of the entire dungeon. I robot looked very cheapily made the first time through. Though he looked better or maybe I ignored him more this time, I don't know. I just felt that being attacked by a random person made no sense with the story. Maybe there was more you could do to interact with her that just defeat her, I don't know. I played that room 3 times this weekend. Twice we defeated her the third time we stunned her put her back in the cell and left her in there. The DM accepted that solution but I don't know that it would be an actual acceptable one. I know people tried to remove fear from her, disease, curse and charm. None of those seemed to affect anything. Paladin detected no evil on her. So I still don't know what her story was.
I wonder if the puzzle room 7 had an additional difficulty component for being done in the physical world. The last two lines of the riddle made me think that you needed to place the RED symbols (top to bottom) in first and then the rest of the colors (maybe in an order maybe not) from top to bottom. So you still solved it via Sudoku Style but you could actually place them in in any order. Just a thought that would have made the puzzle a little more difficult in the physical world, I don't think it was doable (easily) in the virtual with not being able to see both puzzles at once.
I have to give a shout out to all the DMs (5 runs worth) of doing a better job of making combat more than number calling. Most did a decent to great job of talking about the damage we did to the monsters. And is weird as it sounds, I didn't need it this time. Since they were all repeat fights I didn't need to know how I hit it. I know it is weird that in general I think it is a great additional and I hope they keep it because it makes combat less boring (and I am used to that in PTD). But for my second weekend I didn't need it for me. I am glad it is there for other players, it just didn't enhance combat this time around. It would have in August without doubt.
So even though there was improvement in combat descriptions, I still find combat boring. On nightmare monsters with 25AC are an auto hit with a +4 bard song with just a +9 to hit with the d10+1 model. I do agree a pure d20 model is not ideal either. I recommend TBTP work on figuring out what they think a distribution of slides should be....ask the community I am sure we have lots of opinions on this.
That said I do not find it any fault of the app makers, I want to make that clear. The amount of work they both did in a short amount of time was/is amazing. I actually preferred using them than trying to use dice, which would not have worked well for some of my group that I never played an RPG so wouldn't understand rolling 1 dice to attack and a different dice for damage. So the apps were awesome, bugs and all. The feedback and fixes that they both have been doing is wonderful.
Now Jeff and Company is going to and has gotten a lot of praise for VTD. I think as a product the puzzles worked surprisingly well over zoom. Some definitely would have been better in person (looking at the flow like the leaf puzzle), but I thought their execution worked well in constraints.
And though I LOVE running with 9 people in physical TD. I absolutely had a much better time in small groups in VTD. Since I cannot as easily get to know 9 bodiless voices as 4 or 5. Though there wasn't much of the cross talk that I feared, there was still some. And occasionally I wanted to tell someone to shut up because I could not hear what someone else was saying (I didn't ever say it). I is much easier to remove myself from someone that annoys me in physical than VTD. I also know that I can be VERY annoying so I am sure that others feels the same way about me...lol.
So is playing with only 5 people worth double the price in VTD. It definitely is for some. I know a fair number of 5-6 person groups went through this weekend. For me it is not, but that is because I am having a hard justifying the full dungeon price for a virtual experience.
My group has a full run for V2 because I do trust in Jeff and Co. Even with the changes from V1a to V1b though if V2 is still the same I won't be buying out a run for my group. I will still play because like everyone else I am hooked on this TD crack, I just won't buy out a run for 3, 4, and 5.
Just my two cents on the V1.
You either discover a star or you don't. You arrogant punk.