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Consolidation and cross referencing are my two biggies.

Consolidation: When I search for "Athletics" and go to "Skills", I get 4 results, one for each class which has it as a class skill. It the same skill every time, so why not just have it list all the classes for a single result?

Cross Referencing: When I'm in a class description and it lists the class skills, link to those skills. If I'm reading about Teiflings and it mentions Dragonborns, link to Dragonborns. There should (pretty much) never be mention of something else which is in the Compendium which isn't a link to that entry in the Compendium.

My subcomplaint is that things like conditions should be in there, too. So if I'm reading a power and it says "Target is dazed", I can click on "dazed" and it will tell me what that condition means. It's kinda silly to have the compendium, be reading the compendium, and now, oh look, I need to open my book after all because I can't remember that dazed is "single action only, grants combat advantage, and doesn't count as a flanker." This ruins the "quick reference" for me.

As for the pricing, I'm cool with the $5/month (yearly sub) as long as it includes the magazines. The "Bonus Tools" are currently a little weak in my opinion, but that's minor. (I know, this thread is supposed to be Compendium related...)

Back to the Compendium: I really wonder if it would work best as a Wiki. Among other things, it would make it easy to see what's changed and when, and it would allow people to see what the rules were before the change. Even if WotC internal are the only folks who get to edit the Wiki, I think it would still be a major improvement.

The compendium site has great potential. I hope that Wizards will actually realize some of it.

Some things I can think of that would help:

1. Cross referencing. This has been mentioned previously, but it's what makes the web great. When I see a power, like say Sleep, that knocks its victims unconscious, I should be able to click on unconscious to see the rules for that. Extra gravy for having a mouse-over that gives a quick overview of the unconscious condition, with the link leading to more information.

2. Predictable, meaningful URLs. The URLs to the compendium should be human-readable, and they should follow a reasonable pattern. This would allow people to go directly to their chosen topics more easily, even guessing at the URL of those things that they don't know. This also allows people to write automated tools that can link to pages within the compendium without having to have a master list of every URL in the compendium. The D20 SRD website (http://www.d20srd.org/) was good for this.

3. Page references. It's great to have the rules online, and the Compendium does indicate from which book the rule originates, but how about some page numbers? I can imagine using the Compendium in my games, and having my players at the table there with their copies of the books wanting to read a given rule for themselves. It would be really nice if I could just tell them which page number to flip to.

4. Last updated dates. The Compendium is meant to be a living document. We the readers should know when a rule was last change, and perhaps even why. This is rather a must to keep people from going insane. Bonus points for implementing a sort of change log like Wikipedia or something so that people know not only when it changed, but why and how it changed.


Right now, I'm not sure I would pay for the compendium, I think it needs work before it transitions from a curiosity to a usable tool for me.

I have not seen the changes implemented in the compendium yet for browse, or the monsters...but it was mentioned that this may not be immediate. I look forward to checking these out. The Compendium will be very valuable if it retains it information from all sourcebooks, including Dragon. I would like to see any new content or creatures from Dungeon or other published modules as well, as well as campaigns such as Forgotten Realms.

In my game, the laptop is a staple for the DM (in fact, most players bring theirs, too). We currently play 2nd Edition, and are using the Expanded Core Rules. It is very convenient to look up spells, monsters, etc. on the computer, rather than thumbing through stacks of books. Especially when we have 8 or more people at the game. So the Compendium will be very useful and welcome addition to our game...when we someday, possibly decide to play 4th Edition. But that doesn't rule out the fact that if I played it now, it would be useful.

One other thing I would like to point out, amid all the whining online, is that I really appreciate the current communication that Randy Buehler is providing to us. Throughout the launch of 4th Edition, Wizards did an abyssmal job of letting the consumer know what was going on...especially in the digital gaming arena. My masters degree and career is in marketing, so it makes me cringe whenever I see companies making such blatant consumer-vendor relation blunders. I think that is why the backlash has been so harsh in recent months. The build up of what is happening, what we are getting, etc. is so strong that it has built up a frenzy with the customer base. The consumer of D&D is not just a buyer, they are a fan, and the product is a big part of their life...so there is an emotional investment in every release. There are still many, many unknowns in pricing. The cost of Virtual Minis? (And for the love of Pete, why charge individually for them?!) But in light of these issues, I do truly appreciate the increase in consistent and open communication that Randy has recently opened. This has gone a long way to begin re-establishing my own personal trust as a consumer and fan...and I hope it indicates a trend.

Let's stay in this together. We want Wizards to succeed, and they want us to stick around.

- Roc