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2 years ago ::
Nov 19, 2010 - 2:14PM
#141
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2009
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It does. And I'm not an insider. There is less protection than there, perhaps, should be.
Less protection than was, perhaps, intended is what I'm thinking.
Oh crap, you know what that means? They're gonna do this again in a month or two!!
Just kidding ha ha.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 19, 2010 - 2:28PM
#142
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2009
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" - they're pretty new at this stuff and as it turns out, s**t happens as you feel your way along into new territory..."
Hmm, not to rain on your parade, but this isn't the first time something like this has happened. Just ask anyone who saw the Virtual Tabletop demo at GenCon a few years back.
No, I take this deployment to mean that WotC doesn't have the resources to hire competent programming staff.
From the choice of platform all through to deployment, this has "junior tech" written all over it. I just get no sense of commitment to getting the job done right, or even taking the software side seriously, when I look at what they have done and what they have promised.
T
Rain on my parade? Not at all. I may softball it a little more than you, probably because I came to the game later (the whole WotC experience, I mean) so my patience isn't wearing as thin, but on core message I agree with you 100%
Also...
Ok, a better question: why did we need a new CB?
There have been a number of answers to this question already that I believe have pretty much explained what's going on in a good amount of detail, but none of them have taken the most simple approach to an answer:
The key point here is that we did not need a new CB, but they felt that they did and prioritized its creation over continued content delivery.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 19, 2010 - 4:03PM
#143
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Date Joined:
Aug 30, 2007
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Like I said, most everyone was going to be angry with this application no matter how good/bad it was. You all had preconceived notions and didn't want to hear it any other way. I guess if you want me to leave, I'll leave. By the way, to the person that said they couldn't create a level two Encounters character...in the time it took me to read and reply to this post, I made a kick-ass thief with no effort at all. Like I said...you were all biased before you tried this. Your opinion was set. I was more proving this for myself then trying to win the lot of you over. I hope things go better for all of you.
No, we were NOT all biased before we tried this. I reupped for a year because I felt "Well, finally, they are going to be able to create characters again." Imagine my disappointment when:
1) I had 3 crashes during my first character;
2) The interface treats me, as someone else noted, like a mommy making certain I held her hand to cross the street. Yes, that is a completely subjective measure, but it was incredibly annoying for someone that has played D&D for over 30 years and has played e4 since it was introduced.
3) When I finally created the character, lo and behold, the only printer I have is not supported.
4) I found that my characters are now held hostage by DDi - stop paying the fee, and I cannot access the character, nor can I download them for my use.
These were initial impressions, from creating one character, and pretty strong ones. I wanted to like the new character builder, but from what I have experienced to date (granted it is very limited) and what I have read from those who have extensively tested and found many components which are in the offline version are missing, I feel very disappointed in what is being forced on us.
So please, don't presume to speak for all of us, because you don't know how we all feel. I think there is potential here. But asking us to take a huge step back from what we had, especially after non-delivery on so many other promises, is just another backhand to many loyal players.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 19, 2010 - 4:07PM
#144
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Date Joined:
Sep 17, 2001
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What adds to the suck is that the old Character Builder was also the only way some groups kept up with the errata. My GM has alot of the books but we haven't touched them in a long time. Why? Because alot of the relevant data in them isn't correct anymore due to errata. With this new development we're probably going to be going back to the books again sans content errata because it's ALOT of crap to print out. I know I used the Character Builder alot, not to make characters but rather to check powers to see if they were being used right or if recent errata changed them (I'm looking at you Magic Missile).
This new builder presents more than a little inconvenience (my gaming store, in America, doesn't have free access Wi-fi because it's primarily a comic book store, complete with comic book store mentality).
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2 years ago ::
Nov 19, 2010 - 4:12PM
#145
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Does that XML data include the "rulesElement" entries?
Found it and indeed it does. One could wonder how much of this I could put right into the old CB with CBLoader...
It could be the same file. Why change the data if you've got it in a usable format?
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2 years ago ::
Nov 19, 2010 - 4:39PM
#146
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2008
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It does. And I'm not an insider. There is less protection than there, perhaps, should be.
Less protection than was, perhaps, intended is what I'm thinking.
I don't think it was intended, more like didn't realize what they were doing
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2 years ago ::
Nov 19, 2010 - 5:27PM
#147
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2007
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It does. And I'm not an insider. There is less protection than there, perhaps, should be.
Less protection than was, perhaps, intended is what I'm thinking.
I don't think it was intended, more like didn't realize what they were doing
The real question on this is - Why did we need a new CB again?
This looks worse and worse the more you dig into it.
WOTC Podcast:
"The web is a shortcut"
"Piracy was a big thing"
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2 years ago ::
Nov 19, 2010 - 5:44PM
#148
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The real question on this is - Why did we need a new CB again?
This looks worse and worse the more you dig into it.
My take on the situation is this:
When D&D 4e was introduced a company was hired to build a VTT including character builder and everything (see YouTube for demo videos). As the launch lingered closer so did not the completion of the VTT or CB. Finally Wizards of the Coast had to cut the deal and take over the development. To at least get something shipping they had to work with whatever code they had (probably ugly-ass, undocumented, spaghetti code) and whatever knowledge they had available in-house.
After that they managed to slowly improve what they had released, probably well aware that a full rewrite was looming on the horizon. And once Essentials and Dark Sun (with some odd rules) were released they probably decided that if any time was a good time to start over, now was that time.
That says nothing about how well the rewrite went and how well the communication up to this point has been handled though…
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2 years ago ::
Nov 19, 2010 - 8:05PM
#149
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Date Joined:
Aug 30, 2007
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The real question on this is - Why did we need a new CB again?
This looks worse and worse the more you dig into it.
My take on the situation is this:
When D&D 4e was introduced a company was hired to build a VTT including character builder and everything (see YouTube for demo videos). As the launch lingered closer so did not the completion of the VTT or CB. Finally Wizards of the Coast had to cut the deal and take over the development. To at least get something shipping they had to work with whatever code they had (probably ugly-ass, undocumented, spaghetti code) and whatever knowledge they had available in-house.
After that they managed to slowly improve what they had released, probably well aware that a full rewrite was looming on the horizon. And once Essentials and Dark Sun (with some odd rules) were released they probably decided that if any time was a good time to start over, now was that time.
That says nothing about how well the rewrite went and how well the communication up to this point has been handled though…
I'd like to think that was the issue, but I don't believe it for a second. However, the fact that the company came out and said "We also wanted to move to a solution that promotes individual account ownership and hinders piracy. " is telling. I firmly believe the main reason for this is very simple - money. Wizards may have listed this item last, but all that tells me is that they were trying to minimize it's importance. In an economy such as we are in now, everyone is looking at the bottom line. Wizards might not want to, but I can guarentee Hasbro is giving them no choice. I firmly believe the reason for this change it to lock down the CB against piracy (and guarentee a revenue stream), pure and simple.
Sure, there are some benefits they can say come from the change, and I agree some of these benefits can be good for the player base. But to be honest, I don't believe any of them are the primary reason; if they were, the OCB would not have been released in the state it was in.... buggy, missing features that are fully implemented and supported in the CCB, using inefficient coding/technology (pushing the entire character for every change.... seriously?). They would have been up front about the change, there would have been a closed/open beta.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 19, 2010 - 8:25PM
#150
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What is it you don't believe? We know for sure that the company responsible for the 2008 fiasco had to hand over everything to WotC, we know that WotC wanted to make CB a web based application already then but that the available skill set was a road block. What is speculation on my part is the state of the code when it was handed to WotC and Essentials/DS rules (judging by the cBC files they had at least tried to fit it into cBC).
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