|
4 years ago ::
Feb 11, 2009 - 4:37AM
#21
|
Date Joined:
Aug 18, 2007
|
Well, if all these polls/surveys are pop-ups, they're not going to get my input, just because I block all pop-ups. I would suggest a link @ the head of the forums when you first enter the site for any polls they're running.
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Feb 11, 2009 - 6:02AM
#22
|
Date Joined:
Dec 10, 2005
|
Bill,
Bravo! There's no need to waste time and energy on a useless weekly column.
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Feb 11, 2009 - 6:20AM
#23
|
|
|
Well, as much as I wasn't finding much use out of the column lately, I was hoping that instead of cutting content (a trend....) that they would find a way to give us a bone in these.
Oh well.
So many unanswered questions about paypal, renewal, number of articles, tools being worked on.....and so little communication.
What would I do:
1. Have an FAQ with known questions and answers. Update it every other week, even if the update is "unknown".
2. Provide insiders with a nugget each week. Give us the stats for a monster from an upcoming book. Give us a map from an upcoming book. Give us a feat or power that was cut from a book. Something.
3. Increase, not decrease, communication. Has a single developer updated their blog lately? Heck, give insiders access to designer blogs, that are updated once in awhile.
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Feb 11, 2009 - 6:25AM
#24
|
|
|
Since the last DDi column folds without any promises of new tools, or deadlines, I can only assume that the decision has been made to not work on them for the time being.
I bet the development staff has been laid off already and only those who update the character builder and website are still working in the IT department.
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Feb 11, 2009 - 6:56AM
#25
|
Date Joined:
Feb 10, 2009
|
Shortly after the publication of 3.5, my gaming group who had been together for 10+ years moved around the U.S. We took a hiatus from gaming.
We had been looking around at virtual tabletop software and trying to figure out how to get back in to running a weekly game when 4e came out. I went to my local shop and took at look at the first chapter, seeing the information about DDI and the virtual tabletop and dungeon builder.
Stupidly, I imagined that no company would release books detailing content they had not actually built. Even moreso, they wouldn't release books detailing content they had no intention of releasing for a year or more. So I purchased a full set of the core books for 6 players. Only to get home, go to the site, and mash my face against the wall.
I continue to support DDI, because I want it to be successful. These developers simply must engage in a little PR and open communication. I work in a similar industry, where 11 million people or so are ready to comment on my work on a daily basis without knowing anything about what I actually do. I completely understand how frustrating that is. But you know what solves it? Communication. Yes, people will still be pissy, but at least they will not be in the dark. It does the company no long-term good to hide lack of progress in the shadows. When you lose customers to manipulation, you do not gain those customers back.
What is going on with DDI development? What are you working on? How many people are working on it? What kind of builds do you have? Are we in photoshop still here or are we actually seeing something coded and rendered? Your development team take 2 weeks off for D&D XP? Okay! Just let your PAYING customer base know about this stuff. We are paying for products that we have been promised and are not yet receiving. The absolute least that the development staff can do is tell us what is going on.
The Digital Insider column is great in theory, rough in execution. It's not supposed to be marketing, it's supposed to be communication. Tell us where you are, and when we can expect to get the things we've been supporting for so long.
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Feb 11, 2009 - 6:56AM
#26
|
Date Joined:
Sep 28, 2006
|
It was a nice run while it lasted, but, to be honest, I am surprised that they didn't kill off the column sooner. DDI has reached a weird point where there is, to be brutally honest, not much information that can be put out on a regular basis.
I think that Bill saw that, over the last several issues of DI, that he was simply putting out previews of the next week of Dungeon and Dragon, and that "the natives were getting restless".
He realized that DDI was at a point where they didn't have any real info that could go out anytime soon, and that the information/updates that people are/were looking for could just as easily go out through more intermittent articles, or through WotC_Chuck, WotC_DM or other devs, through editorials n Dungeon or Dragon, or news articles that they post themselves.
Don't take the end of DI as a regular feature to mean that all communication between DDI staff and you will end. I send weekly updates to them on the status of the forums. What people like, and what people don't like. What people want changed, and what things they don't want changed.
Once they get closer to the beta of the next tool, and things start getting to a point where new information *can* be given out on a regular basis, I feel confident that we will see more regular issues of DI.
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Feb 11, 2009 - 7:03AM
#27
|
Date Joined:
Oct 16, 2007
|
It's been three years since you merged the plans for 4e with the digital initiative, two years since you announced your plans to the public, and a year since you launched the game. In all that time, you've managed to complete one of your goals--and it's not the one people were most interested in seeing, either.
Having been in a corporate IT group that got to clean up a three-year-old project that wasted $100 million with no deliverables, I don't envy your task. But you can't continue stringing customers along like this and expect them to remain customers. You--and I mean you, Bill--need to either 'fess up to the fact that DDI has been canceled beyond the magazines and the character builder, or give an un-retouched picture of where the project is at.
And if I can make a suggestion, for Pete's sake, look into licensing. There are at least two companies with online game tables that would work, and could be released within months to the WoTC customer base.
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Feb 11, 2009 - 7:06AM
#28
|
Date Joined:
Nov 11, 2008
|
I am very disappointed about how Insider has been handled. Lately deadlines are often not respected, and most of all the only useful product to a dm is the compendium. The problem is that, from the columns, you guys are always try to convery something like "it is a big journey", and you are doing a great job, even if some things are not really going as planned.
Truth is that, many of us were looking for the things you promised and advertised from the beginning , such as the gaming table (leave the visualizer, its sounds just like an appendix of the table..). We have an account that gives a lot of problems (example; why do I have to log on again every 20 minutes.. it takes me 6-8 hours of work to prepare a session, dont you think is uncomfortable?), and all the comunications we receive from you are like if nothing happened, most of the content is not too useful (Do you really feel that the preview of the sorcerer is what we need? we are going to get the PH2 anyway , all of us, are there really so many people which will playtest a class for 3 levels - If there are I assume they have a lot of free time and they are not running a long , structured campaign).
Don't get me wrong, I gave a chance to 4 ed, I have been an hard hard hardcore gamer for more than 12 years. I am testing and appreciating 4th edition, especially as a DM it has very simple rules that let me focus on other important things (however I am finding skill challenges a bit monotone by now), I just dont think that , with a company like Hasbro backing you up, it is fair to promise a lot and deliver almost nothing to people who paid you for yearly subs. (I am sure we wont get all the contents by the end of 2009).
I completely agree with Mudbunny, being in a similar situation as his..
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Feb 11, 2009 - 7:08AM
#29
|
|
|
This is what I think they should do: http://paizo.com/paizo/blogfree or pay, but something like this.
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Feb 11, 2009 - 7:15AM
#30
|
Date Joined:
Dec 31, 2003
|
Stuff I want:
1) The Character Visualizer:
-- it looked like it worked pretty well at Gen Con and earlier.
-- if it's mostly done, might as well finish it.
-- most computer games (rpgs, MMOs, Sims, etc) have this kind of thing; it's not like making the Character Builder; there are people out there who already make these products
2) A NPC and Template creation/application tool.
I like slapping templates on monsters or making them Elites or Solos. I like slapping NPC templates on monsters too. It would be great if this could be automated in the Character Builder or something. I still have to do it by hand.
3) Other Character Builder Add-ons:
- A "Print to PDF" function on Character Builder. Please?
- Make those journal pages printable as part of the character sheet.
4) Improved Compendium Functionality, including...
- Easy-grab stat blocks. They need to be printable. A tool that allows us to grab stat blocks onto a single sheet and save them as an image or pdf would be invaluable. We really should be able to save them; longer log times don't solve all the problems. Sometimes there's a weak internet signal in the room you're playing in, sometimes you get logged off in the middle of a game and the DM has to fiddle with the computer in the middle of the action... This sucked in last night's game. Sure, you can copy the blocks into Word, but the formatting is weird and then you're sorting through sheets of paper. We just need to be able to download or grab or at the very least print, stat blocks from the Compendium.
- Traps, Hazards, and Diseases need to be included.
- Better keyword searching. Look up "Human" in the Compendium and notice you don't get monsters from the Monster Manual. Stuff like that.
I have a feeling the Game Table is way, way, way far off so I'm not even going to ask for that yet. The above would improve my game significantly.
|
|
|
