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3 years ago ::
Nov 09, 2010 - 6:08AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Aug 24, 2005
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3 years ago ::
Nov 09, 2010 - 6:19AM
#2
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"If we picked Flash it wouldn't have worked on an iPad." (Because Silverlight is so much better here?)
Seriously, can these people make a statement about the new Character Builder without having a moment of sounding like they have absolutely no idea what they are talking about?
Hilariously, if they had gone with Flash there is a reasonable chance that they could have used Adobe's tool to recompile for Ios and then it would have worked on an ipad (or possibly even an iphone) - instead they went to Silverlight, which has no plans to create a Ios compiler (big surprise given Microsoft is a direct competitor to Ios)
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3 years ago ::
Nov 09, 2010 - 6:30AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Aug 27, 2009
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I don't get why for WotC it's "20 characters" OR "infinite characters".
Why the drastic spread there? You don't need to give us infinite characters. But, 20 is way too low. Way, way too low.
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3 years ago ::
Nov 09, 2010 - 6:34AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Dec 28, 2009
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I don't get why for WotC it's "20 characters" OR "infinite characters".
Why the drastic spread there? You don't need to give us infinite characters. But, 20 is way too low. Way, way too low.
They really should up it to a thousand. For reaonable limit for practical purposes (you will barely reach it) but still very maintainable in storage size.
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3 years ago ::
Nov 09, 2010 - 6:51AM
#5
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Date Joined:
Aug 27, 2009
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They really should up it to a thousand. For reaonable limit for practical purposes (you will barely reach it) but still very maintainable in storage size.
Or even less. 20 is a miserable amount. I'd be fine with 100, with the option to upgrade your account for more space.
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3 years ago ::
Nov 09, 2010 - 6:56AM
#6
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2010
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"If we picked Flash it wouldn't have worked on an iPad." (Because Silverlight is so much better here?)
Seriously, can these people make a statement about the new Character Builder without having a moment of sounding like they have absolutely no idea what they are talking about?
Hilariously, if they had gone with Flash there is a reasonable chance that they could have used Adobe's tool to recompile for Ios and then it would have worked on an ipad (or possibly even an iphone) - instead they went to Silverlight, which has no plans to create a Ios compiler (big surprise given Microsoft is a direct competitor to Ios)
Yeah, that one made me lol. Flash is more widely supported than silverlight, at least, and far more likely to be installed on any given system AFAIK. And note that he didn't even address the fact that HTML5 is the single most widely supported potential method. I suspect that the answer is 'we made it in silverlight because we know how' - if that's so, then I wouldn't mind. But it would be good if they would say so.
There are a lot of things in this podcast about the CB that struck me as... odd... to say the least.
I wonder if anyone could text-to-speech it so that a transcript could be produced. It would be much easier that way, to work out what's being said, and the things we need to know.
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3 years ago ::
Nov 09, 2010 - 7:40AM
#7
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- Senior Volunteer Community Lead
- Dragon Slayer
- D&DI News Guide
Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2005
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Yeah, that one made me lol. Flash is more widely supported than silverlight, at least, and far more likely to be installed on any given system AFAIK. And note that he didn't even address the fact that HTML5 is the single most widely supported potential method. I suspect that the answer is 'we made it in silverlight because we know how' - if that's so, then I wouldn't mind. But it would be good if they would say so.
There are a lot of things in this podcast about the CB that struck me as... odd... to say the least.
I wonder if anyone could text-to-speech it so that a transcript could be produced. It would be much easier that way, to work out what's being said, and the things we need to know.
I'm not a web programmer by any means, so I'm going to repeat (and paraphrase) what others who appear to be more knowledgeable have said in these forums.
First off, PaoloM told us that HTML5 wouldn't have worked in the time frame they were given to create the new tool. Using Silverlight was an option that let them meet the six month timeframe they were given. (It's been said/suggested that because the old CB was in .net - that Silverlight was also given strong consideration because of the ease or porting bits of code as they saw fit, instead of having to completely re-create the wheel, as it were).
I've also seen it said by several others that HTML5 is a platform that's GOING to be awesome - but that because it isn't fully standardized yet, it's quite likely that an undertaking of this scope (especially starting 6 months ago, with even less of HTML5 ratified and standardized) is simply unrealistic.
Again, I'm not a subject matter expert on the topic, but these sound like very good reasons to have taken the path they did.
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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3 years ago ::
Nov 09, 2010 - 7:49AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2010
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So it's 'we did it this way because we know how to do it quickly enough'? If that's the case, then I can only guess that poor management decisions have led us to this point (giving your programming team a deadline they can't fulfil effectively). Somehow, it doesn't surprise me.
To my mind, the choice is 'do it properly, or don't do it at all', particularly when you have a more-or-less functional program already extant. Clearly, that opinion is not shared by whoever it is makes the decisions.
Sigh.
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3 years ago ::
Nov 09, 2010 - 7:53AM
#9
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- Senior Volunteer Community Lead
- Dragon Slayer
- D&DI News Guide
Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2005
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So it's 'we did it this way because we know how to do it quickly enough'? If that's the case, then I can only guess that poor management decisions have led us to this point (giving your programming team a deadline they can't fulfil effectively). Somehow, it doesn't surprise me.
To my mind, the choice is 'do it properly, or don't do it at all', particularly when you have a more-or-less functional program already extant. Clearly, that opinion is not shared by whoever it is makes the decisions.
Sigh.
Except, they've also made it pretty clear that the old builder wasn't really capable of supporting Essentials. While that may not be a problem for some, it WAS a problem for others.
WotC opted to get their content into a working builder, and needed to do so quickly.
The old builder wasn't "doing it right" either, so starting fresh - and doing so in a timely matter, was (as they saw it) a necessary choice.
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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3 years ago ::
Nov 09, 2010 - 7:53AM
#10
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Date Joined:
Aug 27, 2009
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They had to have it done by the time Essentials/Dark Sun patch was released (they clearly missed that deadline). This way, they could abandon the Classic CB and move forward with the Online CB with the new content from the new direction.
I think that's reasonable.
What I don't find reasonable is only allowing 20 characters. And then giving the excuse that "well, we can't allow infinite characters and we gotta worry about moving data some time in the far future..."
We don't need infinite data. And, clearly you're not going to be worried about data moving if your subscriptions blossom, so why worry about it with your current subscribers? Give us a _reasonable_ amount of storage for a _reasonable_ amount of characters.
Like I said, 100 would do just fine. That's enough for me to run 20 campaigns of 5 characters each with plenty of space for messing around with different builds.
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