Ok, i was in the process of posting a huge rant about this last week,
but just as i posted it, the wizard up for maintenance screen came up
and i lost it all. I was annoyed, but undeterred. Here it is again, with extra observations.
I missed that announcement of the change. To be honest i would
probably not have been so excited with 4e if i had known. I was
looking forward to having a legal, up-to-the-minute pdf available to
me so that i could use it offline, or when i don't have my books with
me.
The *only* reason i was interested in 4e is that i was promised:
- an availabe up to date PDF version of the books i bought.
- online character generating and visualising tool.
- DM helper tools. IIRC: 'to make the DM's Job easier and less time consuming'
- Tools to help me play online with friends abroad.
What have they produced of this? Nothing. Well something. The Compendium.
The Compendium. The first DDI product - Its practically useless for at
the table work and as a reference material for anyone who is not WoTC.
- It cannot be used off-line!
It is not portable or readable on the move, or anywhere without
internet access. When almost everyone that WoTC is trying to reach
out to will soon have, or already have, a device like the EEE-PC,
this is an immediate Fail.
I have seen, like so many others, the searchable PDF's available at
the many p2p sites. I plan on acquiring them at my convenience. I own
all the books, as far as I'm concerned someone has saved me the
trouble of scanning them.
- You cannot search by context.
When i'm looking for something in a book and i cannot remember the
exact page or name of something, i search for a word that might
appear in the description, or for something i know to be next to it
on the page. The Compendium has no direct mapping onto the original
books, and so unlike a PDF you cannot search by context.
- It does not search very well, and expects you to be able to spell.
In a world where you can google for something, its a pretty poor
search tool. I, for one could not spell Dilettante first time:
Fail:
http://ww2.wizards.com/dnd/insider/race … =Dilletant
After i spell checked:
http://ww2.wizards.com/dnd/insider/race … Dilettante
- Its designed for Players not DM's.
This has to be the biggest pain as far as i can see. There is no
mention of any DMG stuff in this. Ask the Compendium about
Confluence. Confluence? What is that? Go search your paper DMG
and don't bother me again.
- Its useless for Players too.
The other boneheaded thing about it is, when errata data comes out,
the compendium is updated. Fine. But no mention is made in the
compendium about that change. When they check it in their PHB its
different. WTF?
Check out Dilettante in the PHB Errata:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/updates
Compendium:
http://ww2.wizards.com/dnd/insider/race … Dilettante
For a DM its a nightmare waiting to happen. I can hear cries of "But
it says so in the WoTC Compendium!" already.
- Its designed for People who have editable PDF's (like WoTC) not us shmucks.
Because there is no versioning information in the Compendium, it
only functions for people who can keep their books up to date.
I remember listening to the hype about the new books. All of the
playtesters and WoTC guys had a 3 ring binder for each of the DMG,
PHB and MM. In fact you can see that they have designed the print
books around the pull out page(s) put in page(s) concept. The MM is
a fine example of that.
As a side Rant WTF are WoTC playing at with updating the core rules
in the second errata? Is it only (as i suspect) to differentiate
their material from the leaked PDF's? As i don't own a 3 ring binder
copy i cannot just replace the affected pages.
I makes my *Brand New* DMG Screen obsolete. That is something that
never happened in all of the time i owned 3.5.
Also The errata reads like what programmers call a Diff. Remove this
text, add that text, update something else, and there you go.
To sum up, best stick to the books.
That is my rant kind of over for the moment. I cannot evaluate the
outcome of the other DDI promises because they have not materialised
I have to say that the Compendium (and to some extent the leaked
PDF's) have one saving grace. They have allowed the community to
innovate around them very very quickly. Already there are power,
item, condition, etc cards available.
This helps spread the word, and get the game into the hands of those
that would not normally have the money to spend, or consider it money well spent.
What i am hoping (and its probably a vain hope) is that the subscription
holders will have access to up to date watermarked PDF's.
