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4 years ago ::
Apr 24, 2009 - 6:42AM
#131
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Date Joined:
Sep 28, 2006
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From what I recall (and Wolfstar76 will probably chiome in to correct me, as he actually had hands-on experience with them) was that they were still fairly buggy. Certain actions would crash the program with almost 100 % certainty.
Sicne then, they also made the decision to fcus on one program at a time. Thus, while the past 6 months or so have seen us get a lot of focus on the Character Builder (and also to the Compendium, seeing as how I think that they use overlapping databases). Once the Character Builder is at a point where most of the major bugs are worked out, they will shift focus to the next tool or set of tools that they will be working on.
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4 years ago ::
Apr 24, 2009 - 6:53AM
#132
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Date Joined:
Nov 18, 2008
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I'm going to ask you to cut this out. I'm really kind of surprised that you haven't been addressed already. Accusing someone else of trolling (as you have done) isn't a particularly nice thing to do and I'm pretty sure is against the code of conduct for the forums. Not only that, (and I know I run the risk here) but it seems to be what you're doing.
Please cut it out and give everyone else a break. If you have something positive to contribute to the conversation please do so, but leave that crap at the door.
Thanks
Fair enough, just having some fun, but I apologize, didn't do it maliciously as much as annoyingly.
I just think that time has passed and we can't keep complaining about how evil WotC is. They messed up, they admitted they messed up, and now they have stated what they plan to do.
I think that the people here that post demanding something need to shed their aura of entitlement and realize 2 things.
1) If you don't like something, don't buy it. Nobody is forcing them to subscribe to DnDI, nobody is forcing them to buy books. And they weren't tricked into buying it either. I bought my books knowing full well that DnDI was still a WIP. It isn't WotC fault if they did not empower themselves with knowledge.
2) You need to learn when to shut up, and this goes to KM and others like him, thread after thread they have derailed into a WotC broke the law/is evil/will fail/owes me this/ are liars.... You've made you point now please stop derailing threads
Now that that's out of the way, I'm pleased with the result of the survey as a campaign manager will help me greatly
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4 years ago ::
Apr 24, 2009 - 7:26AM
#133
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Date Joined:
Mar 19, 2008
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A campaign manager, to me, is like Quicken, or MS Money. It might be a nice tool, but it's only as good as the effort you take to maintain it.
Again, to me, for the campaign manager to be most useful it would need to seamlessly integrate with online gaming tools....like a VTT (whistles innocently)
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4 years ago ::
Apr 24, 2009 - 7:31AM
#134
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- Senior Volunteer Community Lead
- Dragon Slayer
- D&DI News Guide
Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2005
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From March 2008, these videos show the tools at a fairly advanced stage, including a fully playable VTT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm_fm3npXZk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72io6MTxkkg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzS1rgZ_Qfk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64ioPwEV3rk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL7w7rXKjSw
The main frustration, at least on my part, is the demos, and marketing showing these tools 'almost ready', and indicating their imminent release.
There are other hands-on videos from Gen Con as well.
I have used third party tabletops as well. But it was the demos of the still-unreleased games table that got me excited about 4e, and about rekindling my old gaming group that is now scattered across the country.
In the mean time, I'm watching for any sign of progress, and plan to wait until the tools offering appeals to me before seriously considering a subscription.
From what I recall (and Wolfstar76 will probably chiome in to correct me, as he actually had hands-on experience with them) was that they were still fairly buggy. Certain actions would crash the program with almost 100 % certainty.
Indeed, what MB says is correct.
While, on the surface, the Game Table as shown off at GenCon is something I'd have been happy to use - I was cautioned about several features that were then causing the entire application to crash. What particularly stood out in my mind was the inability to show off "conditions".
At DDXP, six months before, conditions were demoed - and they were pretty cool. Right(?)-click on a figure, and choose, say, Bloodied. This would cause a semi-transparent drop of blood to start circling the figure - making it clear who has what status/condition.
While it worked well at DDXP, WotC_DM couldn't show it off at GenCon, as it was prone to killing off the entire application. Such is the nature of progressive software development I guess.
While I don't know if there were bugs or other related issues, the demo I saw was also hosted completely locally. Single client, with two open windows - one with the DM view, one with the player view.
So I couldn't say if the networking features are written, installed, solidified, etc. Then there's issues (potentially) with integration to the other tools (that weren't complete - either, so the Integration piece was likely not ready either).
So again, while the demo looked functional - and I was impressed by how much Didier was able to show me, that doesn't mean the tool is done.
We've seen, with the Character Builder, how "crash-proof" WotC wants their BETA software to be - if they're keeping that attitude with the other tools, it's little surprise to me that the Game Table - when last seen WITH crashbugs - is still not ready for public consumption.
Again - I'm with everyone else in that I'd like to know more, but I can also see from WotC's point of view that it needs to be near-perfect before it hits the Intartronz.
[EDIT]
At the risk of tooting my own horn, you can read about my Game Table demo from GenCon2008: http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php? … stcount=10
Wolf Star76 Community Advocate (SVCL) for D&D Organized Play, Avalon Hill, and the DCI/WPN LFR Community Manager DDi Guide  Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Calorie Counter
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4 years ago ::
Apr 24, 2009 - 10:01AM
#135
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Date Joined:
Jun 22, 2007
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Hey all. I wanted to pop in and let you know that we posted up some more information about the D&D Insider Tools.
Trevor Kidd
Community Manager
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4 years ago ::
Apr 24, 2009 - 10:06PM
#136
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Date Joined:
Oct 11, 2003
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From March 2008, these videos show the tools at a fairly advanced stage, including a fully playable VTT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm_fm3npXZk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72io6MTxkkg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzS1rgZ_Qfk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64ioPwEV3rk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL7w7rXKjSw
The main frustration, at least on my part, is the demos, and marketing showing these tools 'almost ready', and indicating their imminent release.
There are other hands-on videos from Gen Con as well.
I have used third party tabletops as well. But it was the demos of the still-unreleased games table that got me excited about 4e, and about rekindling my old gaming group that is now scattered across the country.
In the mean time, I'm watching for any sign of progress, and plan to wait until the tools offering appeals to me before seriously considering a subscription.
The problem is that demos like that can be misleading. You can develop a demo of a game that 'looks' 90% finished, but in software development, the devil is in the details. That last 10% of polish can end up being 60% of the effort to build the application. Software demos are given in controlled environments, where the the one demoing the software can choose what hardware to use, the exact software configuration of the system, which features are demonstrated, and in some cases the exact sequence of the user input events. It's a lot easier to write an application that works as a demo than it is a finished product that can be released "into the wild," where users might install the software on all kind of software and hardware configurations, and the software needs to work 99.9% of the time no matter bizarre thing the user does.
Of course, there is the added problem that the presenters said that these tools would be released on a timeline they did not meet. They obviously made a mistake, but an all too common one when it comes to developing software.
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