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Is there anyway we can still download the old Character Builder? I have it on my desktop, but I would like to move it to my laptop and want to install it properly. Is this still available? Does anyone have the link?

May 10, 2011 -- 8:48PM, DadGum wrote:

Is there anyway we can still download the old Character Builder? I have it on my desktop, but I would like to move it to my laptop and want to install it properly. Is this still available? Does anyone have the link?

 It's available,
From what I've read the forum mods get a little hissy when folks post the link.
A little judicious google searching should get you to a forum that has the link

Also, the install is portable - you should be able to just copy you current install over to your laptop  (It works for me at any rate - I've got a "mobile" setup on a usb drive I use from time to time)

Oddly, the official link to the original Character Builder is operational on the Wizards site, yet despite the fact that this is a link to a location on the official WotC website, the mods will temp-ban accounts for posting it, citing section 4 of the code of conduct, ie "enabling or encouraging illegal behavior".

Again, quite odd.  If they don't want us to DL it, why don't they take it down?

May 10, 2011 -- 11:05PM, Damon_Tor wrote:

Oddly, the official link to the original Character Builder is operational on the Wizards site, yet despite the fact that this is a link to a location on the official WotC website, the mods will temp-ban accounts for posting it, citing section 4 of the code of conduct, ie "enabling or encouraging illegal behavior".

Again, quite odd.  If they don't want us to DL it, why don't they take it down?

Even funnier is you have to "log in" to the update server to update it to the Oct 2010 version so they know who's getting updates.  If I was to guess it's one of those....sshhhhh, don't tell anyone *wink* *wink* things.

To the best of my knowledge (and I am not a mod, so please don't take this as definitive), it is not posting the links to the CB on the WotC website which is the problem. It is the links to programs that are used to, in the view of WotC, illegally modify the CB Classic, that get people banned.

In any case, I will do what I can to try to find out.

Meantime, for what it's worth, I have taken the whole folder with the program and put in on a portable drive and then executed it from another machine.  It worked.  So I suppose you could do that and, provided you did not share it, stay with the terms of use as well.

I was a little surprised that I did not need any registry entries to make it work, but either none are required or it rebuilds them on-the-fly. 

The old file will be removed from the servers, so it won't be available from wizards.com anymore. That the file was left in place wasn't really a marketing move or a technical oversight. It was more like laissez-faire benign neglect. Since it seems to be causing some trouble, it's going to be pulled down. I don't know how soon that will happen.

Steve

May 11, 2011 -- 12:11PM, Huscarl wrote:

The old file will be removed from the servers, so it won't be available from wizards.com anymore. That the file was left in place wasn't really a marketing move or a technical oversight. It was more like laissez-faire benign neglect. Since it seems to be causing some trouble, it's going to be pulled down. I don't know how soon that will happen.

Steve

Kind of a non-answer in terms of the "why do you ban people for posting the link" front.  Mudbunny is incorrect; posts with just the link to the old CB, and no information about Canadian Bacon at all, have been deleted and met with bans.

But I do appreciate communication, however minimal.

I can't say why someone might have been suspended without knowing who it was and what they actually posted. Once the file is removed from our servers, however, no one will be banned again for posting that link. As to whether posting a link to the old CB somewhere else could get you suspended, I suspect the answer would be yes, but I defer to the mods on that; they're much better versed in the terms of service than I am.

Steve
 

How long does it really take to remove one file from your servers?  Really?

To physically delete the file -- a minute or two. But very little happens on the servers without a producer creating a job order, slotting it into a work queue, etc., etc.

Steve

May 12, 2011 -- 9:03AM, Huscarl wrote:

To physically delete the file -- a minute or two. But very little happens on the servers without a producer creating a job order, slotting it into a work queue, etc., etc.

Steve

Translation: Red Tape.

May 12, 2011 -- 9:03AM, Huscarl wrote:

To physically delete the file -- a minute or two. But very little happens on the servers without a producer creating a job order, slotting it into a work queue, etc., etc.

Steve

"Translation: Red Tape."

I agree with that.  Thanks very much for letting us know.

And I think I see why things take so long in general...

I'm curious what "problems" the old file is causing that are prompting its removal.  

Here's my guess: Discussions like this are problems.  This is because they encourage continued use of the old CB.  While I know WotC has no problem with folks continuing to use it, there are issues with it such as easy piracy.  These issues constitute one of the reasons for switching to the new model in the first place.  Thus, unfortunately, folks like me who want to just innocently use it when offline get bundled with hackers and such since there's no way to tell the difference.

Whatever the reason, it's too bad.  No surprise of course, as discontinued products don't get supported forever, but it's still a shame.  

Kudos to WotC for letting us download it this long - both my computers had to be replaced this year, and without that download I wouldn't have the original CB.

Um..., wouldn't it be prudent to keep the old character builder on the server for a full year, so that those who bought an annual subscription to D&D Insider in October 2010 would have access for migrations to another computer for the length of their subscription (i.e., October 2011)?

-DS

May 16, 2011 -- 1:26PM, DarkSphinx wrote:

Um..., wouldn't it be prudent to keep the old character builder on the server for a full year, so that those who bought an annual subscription to D&D Insider in October 2010 would have access for migrations to another computer for the length of their subscription (i.e., October 2011)?

-DS

Yeah, totally!  Sure there's plenty of arguments against this (no promises were made, you can cancel early, etc.) but I think this would be a very logical and community-friendly thing to do.

And I think I see why things take so long in general...

This is standard operating procedure. What kind of company do you work for that people can just log into a public production server and start deleting files willy-nilly?

May 16, 2011 -- 9:03PM, DrNick wrote:

And I think I see why things take so long in general...

This is standard operating procedure. What kind of company do you work for that people can just log into a public production server and start deleting files willy-nilly?

It's been 6 months.  We're way past willy-nilly.

May 16, 2011 -- 9:03PM, DrNick wrote:

And I think I see why things take so long in general...

This is standard operating procedure. What kind of company do you work for that people can just log into a public production server and start deleting files willy-nilly?

May 16, 2011 -- 10:22PM, Damon_Tor wrote:

May 16, 2011 -- 9:03PM, DrNick wrote:

And I think I see why things take so long in general...

This is standard operating procedure. What kind of company do you work for that people can just log into a public production server and start deleting files willy-nilly?

It's been 6 months.  We're way past willy-nilly.

Bingo.

That being said, I work in open-source software.  I can log in and delete stuff if I want to.  I don't because that would be dumb.  It shouldn't take this long to delete one file which should have been deleted months ago - it seems pretty telling that it wasn't actually, since any competent web developer would know that deleting links =/= deleting files.  Telling about what, I'm not quite sure. 

That being said, I work in open-source software.  I can log in and delete stuff if I want to.  I don't because that would be dumb.  It shouldn't take this long to delete one file which should have been deleted months ago - it seems pretty telling that it wasn't actually, since any competent web developer would know that deleting links =/= deleting files.  Telling about what, I'm not quite sure. 

You do know what a ticket system is, why large organizations use them and how they work, right?

Not specially.

That being said, I can take a wild guess.

However, it's still 6 months, whatever happens.  I hope to goodness it's either intentional or an oversight, because any system that intentionally takes that long to remove one file...

May 16, 2011 -- 10:22PM, Damon_Tor wrote:

May 16, 2011 -- 9:03PM, DrNick wrote:

And I think I see why things take so long in general...

This is standard operating procedure. What kind of company do you work for that people can just log into a public production server and start deleting files willy-nilly?

It's been 6 months.  We're way past willy-nilly.

From Steve's statement, I got the impression that he didn't even try to delete it until now. They left it up.

I have a feeling that the issue here is seperation of departments. The server guys didn't take down the file because they weren't asked to. The content guys didn't ask because they didn't really care all that much and the forum admins conflated "downlaod link from Wizards" as "download link for pirates". Which lead to the issues you guys are having with being banned.

In all honesty, is this a big deal? If I were you guys I'd be arguing for them to keep the link up rather than arguing about how long it's been up.  

May 17, 2011 -- 9:47AM, DrNick wrote:

From Steve's statement, I got the impression that he didn't even try to delete it until now. They left it up.

I have a feeling that the issue here is seperation of departments. The server guys didn't take down the file because they weren't asked to. The content guys didn't ask because they didn't really care all that much and the forum admins conflated "downlaod link from Wizards" as "download link for pirates". Which lead to the issues you guys are having with being banned.

In all honesty, is this a big deal? If I were you guys I'd be arguing for them to keep the link up rather than arguing about how long it's been up.  

Well said!  I particularly like the coflation theory, that's very insightful. 

May 17, 2011 -- 9:47AM, DrNick wrote:

If I were you guys I'd be arguing for them to keep the link up rather than arguing about how long it's been up.  

Like anyone cares if there's an officially sanctioned way to download it.  I'm just amused by the lack of a coherent policy here; it implies a fairly stunning lack of communication between the various branches of DDI and/or WotC management.

May 17, 2011 -- 9:47AM, DrNick wrote:

May 16, 2011 -- 10:22PM, Damon_Tor wrote:

May 16, 2011 -- 9:03PM, DrNick wrote:

And I think I see why things take so long in general...

This is standard operating procedure. What kind of company do you work for that people can just log into a public production server and start deleting files willy-nilly?

It's been 6 months.  We're way past willy-nilly.

From Steve's statement, I got the impression that he didn't even try to delete it until now. They left it up.

I have a feeling that the issue here is seperation of departments. The server guys didn't take down the file because they weren't asked to. The content guys didn't ask because they didn't really care all that much and the forum admins conflated "downlaod link from Wizards" as "download link for pirates". Which lead to the issues you guys are having with being banned.

In all honesty, is this a big deal? If I were you guys I'd be arguing for them to keep the link up rather than arguing about how long it's been up.  

It's not a huge deal, it just seems symptomatic of internal issues at WotC.  Particularly, I'd be concerned to have on board a web developer who takes down the links but not the file.

Particularly, I'd be concerned to have on board a web developer who takes down the links but not the file.

This is a good point that I hadn't really considered. I guess it would depend on how the order was written. It's pretty clear that Wizards doesn't do it's hosting in-house.

In other words: we'll never know. *shrug*  

May 18, 2011 -- 11:51AM, DrNick wrote:

Particularly, I'd be concerned to have on board a web developer who takes down the links but not the file.

This is a good point that I hadn't really considered. I guess it would depend on how the order was written. It's pretty clear that Wizards doesn't do it's hosting in-house.

In other words: we'll never know. *shrug*  

I'm sure the file was left there intentionally after the link was removed.  They had every intention of having some small amount of overlap between the two character builders so as not to leave folks in the lurch.  (Plus I'm pretty sure Wizards staff wanted to keep using the old one for a while too.)  The step that was neglected was to go ahead and remove the file after "a small amount of overlap time" had passed.

It's gone now.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio:
a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy:
he hath borne me on his back a thousand times ...

Steve 

*removes hat*

It is truely the end of an era.





Now get back to work, code monkeys! I want this update out before the next full moon!

What makes it so sad is that the reason it's become such an issue is that people like myself hate the Silverlight version because it lacks specific functions that we rely upon.  It's gotten to the point that I am canceling my DDi subscription because the only thing that I found really beneficial here (i.e. the ability to create character sheets with a high degree of customization) is now dead.

Sorry to hear that the old download is gone for good...

Agreed.  I cancelled my subscription once they removed the old character builder.  The online version is slow and not nearly as usable for me.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I cannot figure out how to copy the files over to my new system. I think it is related to Windows 7. I can get character builder working and I can get monster builder working, but there are no data files even though I have copied them from everywhere they are stored in XP. My old system is going to crash any day now and I cannot get everything off of it to my new system....sucks. Any other ideas feel free to share.

May 22, 2011 -- 2:37PM, DadGum wrote:

Thanks for the feedback guys. I cannot figure out how to copy the files over to my new system. I think it is related to Windows 7. I can get character builder working and I can get monster builder working, but there are no data files even though I have copied them from everywhere they are stored in XP. My old system is going to crash any day now and I cannot get everything off of it to my new system....sucks. Any other ideas feel free to share.

I am sure this worked for me:

I copied ALL files over to a portable drive of some sort (a USB drive, perhaps?).  That's both the program files location and the my documents location.   I plugged that into another computer and it worked.  I was able to open and (IIRC) edit a saved character.

May 22, 2011 -- 2:37PM, DadGum wrote:

Thanks for the feedback guys. I cannot figure out how to copy the files over to my new system. I think it is related to Windows 7. I can get character builder working and I can get monster builder working, but there are no data files even though I have copied them from everywhere they are stored in XP. My old system is going to crash any day now and I cannot get everything off of it to my new system....sucks. Any other ideas feel free to share.

If you are talking about the offline CB then the following applies:

Your character files are stored in C:\Documents And Settings\[username] \ddi\saved characters

Once you have copied your character files to your new PC you'll have to tell CB where they are.  I don't have it at work, but IIRC at the bottom of the list of character files is a folder with a "+" symbol in it.  Click that and browse to the location where you copied the files.  Once you've selected the folder that contains your characters you will see that in the list and should be able to go right to it.

How are people who may not have access to an internet connection at the local game shop suppsed to be able to use the great insider tools when we can't download them?

Jun 1, 2011 -- 9:48PM, Norikor wrote:

How are people who may not have access to an internet connection at the local game shop suppsed to be able to use the great insider tools when we can't download them?

You don't.  And it's intentional (on WotC's part).  If that's a deal breaker for you I suggest you do the only thing you can to tell WotC how displeased you are.  Cancel your sub and get all your money back for any time you have remaining ASAP.

May 20, 2011 -- 11:30AM, Rakashan wrote:

What makes it so sad is that the reason it's become such an issue is that people like myself hate the Silverlight version because it lacks specific functions that we rely upon.  It's gotten to the point that I am canceling my DDi subscription because the only thing that I found really beneficial here (i.e. the ability to create character sheets with a high degree of customization) is now dead.

Sorry to hear that the old download is gone for good...

I am a college student who is scraping every bit of cash to my name to avoid using loans to complete a college education in the great fascist state of Florida, where scholarships are being wrung out like milk-soaked rags. 

I stopped playing WoW after 4 years about 8 months ago... and won't pick it back up, not because of the time constraints, but because it's just not worth the subscription cost for what I get out of it.

I went back to D&D this summer because I was aching to get some RPG action going again. I loved using the old CB because my DM friends would allow me to use one of their updates for my own CB client. I used my builder all the time... theorcrafting and mixing different types of class types and powers. The offline part wasn't the best part, though. 

Now seeing and hearing about the cold, new online CB, I can say with certainty that being able to ACCESS my work without having an active subscription of my own is the best part.

I don't want to get all nerd rage up in here, but It seems for someone in my position, which appears to be a position of growing commonality in this country, I can't afford paying for ANYTHING monthly between tuition gouging and gas prices.

This mandatory subscription for use of CB seems counter-productive to the population I reprsent: young adults who play D&D because it's essentially free and in our control.

Since this is no-longer the case, what do we do? spend a silly amount of money on books so we have hard copies, or perhaps search the internet far and wide for the artifactesque "old CB" so we have a small degree of freedom from monthy payments.

It seems nothing is free anymore... not even table top gaming. I suppose it was not in WotC's minds that DMs could give their members a share of their updates for the purpose my group and many others did... but IMO, having ever allowed the CB to be free in any capacity was a cruel tease, given the "new direction" these tools are being taken.

To those that have the money that this issue is nonexistant, I can see how it might be a slight improvement. However, call me old fashioned, but I believe somehting is lost when you stop being able to save your characters safely to your own computer, and cannot access your handiwork at a moment's whim unless you a. have internet connection and b. an active subscription.

---That is my peace, now, if only there were a way to allow this November setback to not ruin my local gaming community. We're not the richest bunch, and most of us struggle to stay in school while balancing a job and at least one loan. Again, I'm probably one of the more financially stable of my group of about 40 (over 3 stores and my university).

 

Jun 2, 2011 -- 6:49AM, kenjoon wrote:

Jun 1, 2011 -- 9:48PM, Norikor wrote:

How are people who may not have access to an internet connection at the local game shop suppsed to be able to use the great insider tools when we can't download them?

You don't.  And it's intentional (on WotC's part).  If that's a deal breaker for you I suggest you do the only thing you can to tell WotC how displeased you are.  Cancel your sub and get all your money back for any time you have remaining ASAP.

Indeed, as I never owned a subscription, I cannot say much about what it may or may not actually offer you... But cancelling your sub is the only form of protest they can actually listen to.

Words are only words, but numbers, my fellow gamer, they speak volumes if they shrink enough.
 

Jun 5, 2011 -- 2:46AM, Omnislash89 wrote:

May 20, 2011 -- 11:30AM, Rakashan wrote:

What makes it so sad is that the reason it's become such an issue is that people like myself hate the Silverlight version because it lacks specific functions that we rely upon.  It's gotten to the point that I am canceling my DDi subscription because the only thing that I found really beneficial here (i.e. the ability to create character sheets with a high degree of customization) is now dead.

Sorry to hear that the old download is gone for good...

I am a college student who is scraping every bit of cash to my name to avoid using loans to complete a college education in the great fascist state of Florida, where scholarships are being wrung out like milk-soaked rags. 

I stopped playing WoW after 4 years about 8 months ago... and won't pick it back up, not because of the time constraints, but because it's just not worth the subscription cost for what I get out of it.

I went back to D&D this summer because I was aching to get some RPG action going again. I loved using the old CB because my DM friends would allow me to use one of their updates for my own CB client. I used my builder all the time... theorcrafting and mixing different types of class types and powers. The offline part wasn't the best part, though. 

Now seeing and hearing about the cold, new online CB, I can say with certainty that being able to ACCESS my work without having an active subscription of my own is the best part.

I don't want to get all nerd rage up in here, but It seems for someone in my position, which appears to be a position of growing commonality in this country, I can't afford paying for ANYTHING monthly between tuition gouging and gas prices.

This mandatory subscription for use of CB seems counter-productive to the population I reprsent: young adults who play D&D because it's essentially free and in our control.

Since this is no-longer the case, what do we do? spend a silly amount of money on books so we have hard copies, or perhaps search the internet far and wide for the artifactesque "old CB" so we have a small degree of freedom from monthy payments.

It seems nothing is free anymore... not even table top gaming. I suppose it was not in WotC's minds that DMs could give their members a share of their updates for the purpose my group and many others did... but IMO, having ever allowed the CB to be free in any capacity was a cruel tease, given the "new direction" these tools are being taken.

To those that have the money that this issue is nonexistant, I can see how it might be a slight improvement. However, call me old fashioned, but I believe somehting is lost when you stop being able to save your characters safely to your own computer, and cannot access your handiwork at a moment's whim unless you a. have internet connection and b. an active subscription.

---That is my peace, now, if only there were a way to allow this November setback to not ruin my local gaming community. We're not the richest bunch, and most of us struggle to stay in school while balancing a job and at least one loan. Again, I'm probably one of the more financially stable of my group of about 40 (over 3 stores and my university).

 

Your DM allowing you to install a copy of the offline chararcter builder and updating it with just his account was a breach of the EULA and is not the intent of the program which is probably the main reason why they no longer support the offline character builder.

Alas, nothing is free. Even if we are imparting to him some of our money when he renews his subscription. Seems like the black and white EULA doesn't accommodate people that are okay with sharing financial resources to make it cheaper for everyone.

Amirite?

I propose 3 reasons for what we did:

1, we were all fresh out of getting our AAs and were dirt poor.
2, jobs in the Tampa area weren't getting any easier to find.
3, All stresses considered and D&D being a known stress reliever for us, why would we want to spend any more money on it than we already did, having already accumulated every book in 3.5? Sometimes I wish we could send in our proofs of purchase and get early investor discounts on DDI.

Wizards wouldn't want to put the financial stranglehold on people that have been playing for the better part of their entire lives, would they? (kind of like how the government deprciates old War Bonds now since they cannot possibly afford to compensate for all the inflation since)
 

Jun 5, 2011 -- 12:30PM, Omnislash89 wrote:

Alas, nothing is free. Even if we are imparting to him some of our money when he renews his subscription. Seems like the black and white EULA doesn't accommodate people that are okay with sharing financial resources to make it cheaper for everyone.

Amirite?

I propose 3 reasons for what we did:

1, we were all fresh out of getting our AAs and were dirt poor.
2, jobs in the Tampa area weren't getting any easier to find.
3, All stresses considered and D&D being a known stress reliever for us, why would we want to spend any more money on it than we already did, having already accumulated every book in 3.5? Sometimes I wish we could send in our proofs of purchase and get early investor discounts on DDI.

Wizards wouldn't want to put the financial stranglehold on people that have been playing for the better part of their entire lives, would they? (kind of like how the government deprciates old War Bonds now since they cannot possibly afford to compensate for all the inflation since)
 

To reiterate the previous poster.  You are specifically the target of the move to online tools.  What your friend (the DM) did by using his account and one of his 5 monthly updates to install CB on your computer was piracy/theft.  If you can't afford to pay a monthly fee for an online subscription, then don't.  

1 & 2. Buy your books (one time) and never pay for them again and you're set to go.  Being poor is no excuse for theft.
3. No financial "stranglehold" was put on you or your friends.  DDI is a convenience, nothing more.   If money is tight, keep playing 3.5 since you already had all the books.

 keep playing 3.5 since you already had all the books.

The harshest punishment...  

Jun 6, 2011 -- 1:59PM, DrNick wrote:

 keep playing 3.5 since you already had all the books.

The harshest punishment...  

LOL!

Jun 6, 2011 -- 1:59PM, DrNick wrote:

 keep playing 3.5 since you already had all the books.

The harshest punishment...  

Well played..

Jun 5, 2011 -- 10:58AM, Mithreinmaethor wrote:

Your DM allowing you to install a copy of the offline chararcter builder and updating it with just his account was a breach of the EULA and is not the intent of the program which is probably the main reason why they no longer support the offline character builder.

This is absolutely correct in every detail, I think.

However, let us reflect:

WotC has gained nothing, since there was no cash here to be gained.

WotC may well have lost a future customer for D&D, since their approach is causing the passion to fade.

Assessing the wisdom of this policy is an exercise for the reader.

 their approach is causing the passion to fade.

Forgive me, but what does this mean exactly? I'm having a hard time understanding you. What "passion"? What "approach"?  

Jun 11, 2011 -- 4:45PM, DrNick wrote:

 their approach is causing the passion to fade.

Forgive me, but what does this mean exactly? I'm having a hard time understanding you. What "passion"? What "approach"?  

I mean that WotC's approach of ensuring restrictive and firm control (for themselves) of their IP, in response to imagined "lost sales", is successfully stripping away access to the digital tools from those who were able to "bend the rules" with the previous tools and gain access to them cheaply (by sharing access or only occasionally updating).  This risks causing those no longer able to use the tools to lose passion for the hobby and drift away from it, when in future they might otherwise have got a well-paid job and subscribed permanently (not to mention purchased all the books and so on).

I say this because it describes pretty much exactly what happened with me and music (via magnetic tape recording of records) in my younger years.  I now own at least one purchased copy of just about every record I taped back then, primarily because my passion for music was sustained by the "hooky copies" I listened to when I simply had no money for the "real thing".

I also had a photocopy of the original "three booklets" of D&D back then, although, to be fair, that had more to do with the total unavailability of them here in the UK when they first came out than with money, per se. Thanks to the passion those copies inspired, my RPG collection now amounts to over 2,000 books and numerous PDFs - all purchased.

TL;DR version: "piracy" may be the cause of corporate paranoia, but it has been a fact of business (and not altogether a negative one) for far longer than we have had the interwebz.  "Fighting" it by nerfing the capabilities of your product has never been that good an idea.

Jun 15, 2011 -- 4:38AM, Balesir wrote:

Jun 11, 2011 -- 4:45PM, DrNick wrote:

 their approach is causing the passion to fade.

Forgive me, but what does this mean exactly? I'm having a hard time understanding you. What "passion"? What "approach"?  

I mean that WotC's approach of ensuring restrictive and firm control (for themselves) of their IP, in response to imagined "lost sales", is successfully stripping away access to the digital tools from those who were able to "bend the rules" with the previous tools and gain access to them cheaply (by sharing access or only occasionally updating).  This risks causing those no longer able to use the tools to lose passion for the hobby and drift away from it, when in future they might otherwise have got a well-paid job and subscribed permanently (not to mention purchased all the books and so on).

I say this because it describes pretty much exactly what happened with me and music (via magnetic tape recording of records) in my younger years.  I now own at least one purchased copy of just about every record I taped back then, primarily because my passion for music was sustained by the "hooky copies" I listened to when I simply had no money for the "real thing".

I also had a photocopy of the original "three booklets" of D&D back then, although, to be fair, that had more to do with the total unavailability of them here in the UK when they first came out than with money, per se. Thanks to the passion those copies inspired, my RPG collection now amounts to over 2,000 books and numerous PDFs - all purchased.

TL;DR version: "piracy" may be the cause of corporate paranoia, but it has been a fact of business (and not altogether a negative one) for far longer than we have had the interwebz.  "Fighting" it by nerfing the capabilities of your product has never been that good an idea.

/cheer
At last. Someone who gets it.

Jun 5, 2011 -- 1:50PM, kenjoon wrote:

Jun 5, 2011 -- 12:30PM, Omnislash89 wrote:

Alas, nothing is free. Even if we are imparting to him some of our money when he renews his subscription. Seems like the black and white EULA doesn't accommodate people that are okay with sharing financial resources to make it cheaper for everyone.

Amirite?

I propose 3 reasons for what we did:

1, we were all fresh out of getting our AAs and were dirt poor.
2, jobs in the Tampa area weren't getting any easier to find.
3, All stresses considered and D&D being a known stress reliever for us, why would we want to spend any more money on it than we already did, having already accumulated every book in 3.5? Sometimes I wish we could send in our proofs of purchase and get early investor discounts on DDI.

Wizards wouldn't want to put the financial stranglehold on people that have been playing for the better part of their entire lives, would they? (kind of like how the government deprciates old War Bonds now since they cannot possibly afford to compensate for all the inflation since)
 

To reiterate the previous poster.  You are specifically the target of the move to online tools.  What your friend (the DM) did by using his account and one of his 5 monthly updates to install CB on your computer was piracy/theft.  If you can't afford to pay a monthly fee for an online subscription, then don't.  

1 & 2. Buy your books (one time) and never pay for them again and you're set to go.  Being poor is no excuse for theft.
3. No financial "stranglehold" was put on you or your friends.  DDI is a convenience, nothing more.   If money is tight, keep playing 3.5 since you already had all the books.

Try making and playing a character by hand, and you will see how much of a stranglehold it really is.  Unless you have every single feat, power, and class ability memorized, you are going to spend more time looking through your books to figure out what your character can do than anything else.  I've seen people play without the CB, and it is painful to watch, especially when you are playing with them, as the game is being held up while they look up their powers.  The CB is basically mandatory for a smooth play experience.  4E is the least user friendly version of D&D when it comes to making and playing a character by hand.  Sometimes I think that might have been intentional to force players to use the CB.

I have tried making characters by hand.  Hundreds of them over the years in all of the various editions.  I've made spreadsheets that auto-calculate and distill a character sheet from all the info that goes into making a character.  It's hard frigging work, but that was part of the fun.  I don't see how the CB is any more "neccessary" now than it was in past editions.   
Yes, you have to keep an immense amount of information in your head to get your character pieced  together, but that has nearly always been the case.  

If anything, I'd say the new CB is worse than doing it by hand.  Not only are there errors (which is inevitable and understandable), but you cannot see how the information on a character sheet is derived, obscuring  those errors (which is assenine and inexcusable).  You also have no leeway for house ruled items or characters.  

As for buying one copy of a CB and sharing it among X people, I'm sorry but that is just wrong.  I am no Wizards fanboy, but they are a business that needs to keep their people employed.  You pay them for their service so they can keep going, or you don't use thier service so they can fail.  

I've played many editions as well.  Most of my character sheets were made by hand.  I can do Pathfinder and 3.5 by hand easily and most of the time won't have to look up what my character could do. Fat chance doing that with 4E.  You'd need a pile of books to reference  for your powers, many of which would be wrong thanks to the mountain of errata for 4E.  Before you say I'm exaggerrating, I've seen it in real life.  It's annoying to deal with.  I really wouldn't want to try my hand at it unless I made a wizard that did nothing but magic missle, which would be so boring as to be pointless.

I've played many editions as well.  Most of my character sheets were made by hand.  I can do Pathfinder and 3.5 by hand easily and most of the time won't have to look up what my character could do. Fat chance doing that with 4E.  You'd need a pile of books to reference  for your powers, many of which would be wrong thanks to the mountain of errata for 4E.  Before you say I'm exaggerrating, I've seen it in real life.  It's annoying to deal with.  I really wouldn't want to try my hand at it unless I made a wizard that did nothing but magic missle, which would be so boring as to be pointless.

I guess you conviently left out that this kind of thing only works for non-spellcasters that happen to use only a single book, because otherwise making a 3e character is actually loads more work.

I've seen people make 4e character sheets by hand. It's not that hard. You just need to copy the full text for your powers and Feats. Which takes up about as much space as a Wizard's first level spells. Good luck writing down his entire spellbook, and then his scrolls and wands.

The powers system means that everyone is a spellcaster, and are thus fairly complicated to run.  That stats for each power are specfic for each character.  There is no spell that simply does 10d6 damage in a burst.  It's now add 1/2 your level plus implement plus intelliegence plus feats, etc. to calculate your attack and damge bonus.  You do this for every power you have.  That is extremely difficlut to do with a hand made character sheet and an open book or power cards.  I've seen it done, and it's not pretty.

Oct 12, 2011 -- 5:31AM, talok55 wrote:

The powers system means that everyone is a spellcaster, and are thus fairly complicated to run.  That stats for each power are specfic for each character.  There is no spell that simply does 10d6 damage in a burst.  It's now add 1/2 your level plus implement plus intelliegence plus feats, etc. to calculate your attack and damge bonus.  You do this for every power you have.  That is extremely difficlut to do with a hand made character sheet and an open book or power cards.  I've seen it done, and it's not pretty.

Extremely difficult?  Seriously?

Honestly, you're frequently going to be adding the same modifiers to most of the powers you selected.  Once the CB went online I stopped using it, and my numbers aren't any farther out of line than they were back when the builder calculated them for me.  It's not much different from making and updating characters in previous editions. 

What you said:

Oct 5, 2011 -- 12:18PM, sfPuck wrote:

I've made spreadsheets that auto-calculate and distill a character sheet from all the info that goes into making a character.  It's hard frigging work, but that was part of the fun.

What I read:

Oct 5, 2011 -- 12:18PM, sfPuck wrote:

I don't understand that other people have different areas of interest than myself, so I will assume that those people are inferior to me!

Sorry, kiddo, but I want to spend my free time creating a thematic character concept and  rolling some dice, not doing Intro to Programming homework. Not everyone has the time - much less the interest - to spend hours programming Excel to mimic the basics of character sheet creation and copying the rules for a dozen or more powers by hand. For people like me - people with actual familial, social, and professional obligations other than gaming - 4e has made the Character Builder an absolute necessity.

And for the record, I play Pathfinder occasionally as well, and as a Summoner (a rules-heavy spellcaster) no less. I built the basic 1st-level character in about an hour, after which I  have referenced one or two core books a couple of times a session just  to check minutiae. The biggest difference is, 99% of the rules for Pathfinder are available online for free (just Google "PFSRD"), and I can easily copy and paste specific rules (such as summoned monster stats) to a document file if I need to print them out. For this simple and intuitive play experience, I have paid nothing since acquisition of the rulebooks.

Surprisingly, Paizo remains in business.

So pardon me for considering it laughable to insinuate that some poor kids pooling their money and sharing a Character Builder is somehow going to put WotC out of business. A violation of the EULA, yes, but a credible threat to WOTC's - let alone HABSRO's - bottom line? Gimme a break.

Now, I'm not saying that access to the full Character Builder should be free. It's just that I think there are considerably less asinine ways to go about it than making the hobby into a subscription service and calling those who can't afford to keep up with it "thieves." This is particularly true in the case of the online Character Builder, which continues to be awkward and error-ridden no matter how much I have paid for it.

Ideally, I would like to see the Core rules include well-developed executable Core Character Builder software (not a last-minute add-on) requiring a registration key, and each of the expansion products to include an installable update registered to that key to include the rules from that expansion. DDi could then include monthly downloadable updates containing new rules from Dungeon and Dragon's online articles.

This scheme would keep people buying books, and would encourage people to buy D&D books new rather than used, since a used book is more likely to have had its expansion update registered to someone else's key. Meanwhile, it ensures that the consumer gets what they have paid for and the means to use it effectively, without expecting us to pay a subscription fee just to be able to enjoy the product.

And for the record, under this proposed scheme, WotC would have a lot more of my money right now. I currently own only the Essentials books and the Monster Vault; I rarely even open the Essentials books, because I have the online Character Builder. (I just grit my teeth and bear the errors, sadly.) By paying the reduced rate for a multiple-month DDi subscription and NOT purchasing books, I have given WotC less this year than I would have if I were to have purchased every expansion that came out in the same time period, yet I have gotten ALL of that information and more.

The trade-off, of course, is that I don't get to keep all of that info if I stop subscribing, which I find extremely irksome; it gives me the sense that I now have an obligation to keep paying WotC in order to continue enjoying the hobby. The end result is that WotC actually makes less money from me each year, and I am still incredibly annoyed about it. In short, under the current scheme, everyone loses.

Tell me, how does that make sense?

Oct 15, 2011 -- 11:04PM, ChaoticGood wrote:

...snipped...

CB is no more (or less) required for 4e than for previous editions.  If you can't make a character for 4e without it, you wouldn't be able to make one for 3.5 either.  The CB is a time saving convenience... nothing more, nothing less.  Do not confuse this "time savings" with "mandatory".

I see these comparisons to Piazo all the time as if they are anywhere close to the same league as Hasbro/WotC.  The size of your customer base makes a huge difference in what financial models will work for you.  Saying "Surprisingly, Paizo remains in business." proves absolutely nothing.

Options:

1) Buy all the books.  With this option you have no future obligation to WotC and can play the game indefinately.  This option has a lot more upfront cost, but no ongoing cost.

2) Buy the core rules (RC or PHB) and RENT the CB via your subscription for all the other data.  This option is a lot cheaper upfront, but over time will cost more.  You also lose access to the content if you stop paying.

3) Both (why the hell would anyone do this???)

Trying to assert that because you personally don't like the model they've chosen (online subscription vs. content per book purchase) that "everyone loses" is nothing less than silly (if not an outright misrepresentation of the facts).  If this were true, DDI would have shut down from lack of subscribers.  It's one thing to be mad about such a choice.  Trying to twist that for use in your own personal propaganda campaign is something else entirely.

As a point of interest they considered the other choice before launch (with codes in the books to "activate" online content) and they chose to NOT go that route.