# The biggest issue with the new Character Builder:



## Herschel (Nov 18, 2010)

Unrealistic expectations from armchair computer "experts".

Seriously. How many people complaining about the initial bugs at role out have actually done any QA testing? I know I have on different programs for different companies and I can say that none of them were without a lot of bugs upon role out.

Why? Because QA can't find everything and QA can only simulate, not actually run with all users. I'm not a regular QA person, I was brought in on projects because I'm an end user with some skills. My normal position is not to build, code and load test and I was brought in after roll out because of issues that weren't found. 

I'll give an example, in a major database there were a number of bugs. I was assigned to help QA test prior to an update. I crashed it with a fatal error in my first half hour that was undiscovered because I was trying to do something they hadn't thought of. 

Yay for me, right? Well, I hammered around in it myself, running it through edge cases I could think of, and QA handled it. But when the update went live? Boom! An error surfaced around what I had tested that I had approached from multiple angles and it still wasn't found.   

Add in that people were pre-building disappointment before it was ever released and the general lack of patience in our society it's not surprising people are upset, but that doesn't make all the expectation reasonable. It appears updates are happening fast and furious as things develop. 

But hey, pitchforks and torches are more fun, right? 

Also, all the complaints about Silverlight I find rather funny. Just because someone read on the internet that brand new *platform B* is all the rage doesn't make it a good business decision to go that route. The number of people who feel the need or run the "latest & greatest" is relatively few. From what I see and ask around, Silverlight seems to have made a lot of sense. 

Don't get me wrong, missing features and such are a pain, but what should have been expected in a brand new roll out vs. the expectations some had? Some times a little patience is all it takes. Jumping to conclusions within 24 hours of a rollout (or even before, as some have) is ridiculous. 

Heck , I didn't experience any of the issues last night that people were complaining about  even earlier in the day. 

Sometimes a little information/background is worse than none.


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## Prestidigitalis (Nov 18, 2010)

I actually think the old Windows-based CB deserved more criticism than the web version does.  The page layouts were poorly designed and the windows and sub-windows didn't scale or adjust properly when run on small screens such as those found on netbooks.  (I could name a number of other egregious design issues but those were the biggest.)  When you don't even try to meet standard best practices in your design -- well, that's when my own blood starts boiling.


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## malraux (Nov 18, 2010)

If a large number of unknown bugs were going to be an issue, perhapse WotC shouldn't have also pulled the old CB.  Having some form of a CB available isn't that unreasonable.


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## Herschel (Nov 18, 2010)

The old one is still there though. They didn't delete it or change it, they just didn't put a lot of resources in to trying to shoe horn a lot of things in it wasn't made to handle. 

I have numerous dislikes in the offline builder too that I hope will change online (and some layout things already have).


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## the Jester (Nov 18, 2010)

Herschel said:


> Unrealistic expectations from armchair computer "experts".




I would say instead that the problem is that WotC replaced a popular and functional program with a version that is barely usable at best. It's not about armchair experts, it's about _losing utility_ compared to the old version.

Simply dismissing peoples' concerns doesn't acknowledge that there is a damn good reason for the disappointment in the new CB, especially given how much "the new cool tool" was talked up in advance, and how misleading all the update talk was for the couple of months before it came out. They led people to believe that Essentials and DS were going in the CB... only to put them in the _new, less-usable_ CB.

People are feeling disappointed that this is a giant step backwards. Personally, I'd have been happy if the new CB was _almost_ as good as the old, but it's ridiculously unfinished and buggy. I'd also have been happy if they were maintaining support on the old CB until the new one's issues were worked out.

Instead, it's like someone took away my keg of Guinness and replaced with a keg of near-beer... that only dispenses that about half the time.


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## Danzauker (Nov 18, 2010)

The biggest issue with the new CB?

- It costs the same as the old one. *

- It does less than the old.

Quite simple.



* Actually it costs more, on average. If I only was interested in PHB/DMG/MM I and didn't care for rule updates or other books, I could just subscribe for a month, download the old CB, and use to my heart content. There was nothing illegal with this, regardless of what some people inexplicabilly say.

Now, in order to use the new CB, I'm foced to keep a running subscription, getting updates for new products even if I can not care less about them...


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 18, 2010)

Luckily, I am not an armchair computer expert. I actually develop software for a living.

The problem with the CB is that they are releasing a new app that is immediately replacing the old app, but the new app is worse on several aspects. The new CB as an open beta? THat would be fine by me. I wouldn't even worry all that much about the issues. But they are claiming that this is a full release. But it is a step back in several key areas. Stability and performance leave a lot to be desired. And the old Character Builder? Support ended. I don't get new material for it. So it wasn't taken away, but it's perceived utility is shrinking, too (but then, I don't have to pay for that anymore, if I don't want to.)

The UI design itself also doesn't convince me. There are too many dialogs popping up for trivial tasks like selecting feats or powers. The old CB's interface allowed a far more "exploratory" style of character creation, not constraining me at every step to do just one thing. Maybe you think this is a subjective thing, but I don't think so - the general guideline in UI design point in a different direction then what the CB does.


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## Herschel (Nov 18, 2010)

But the old Character Builder wasn't a "functional" program, it was rather limited. I can't imagine trying to shoe horn Essentials and Dark Sun option in it. And the layout would have been an absolute mess if they had. 

I find the new layout an improvement already, even with some things I'm not the happiest about. I also disliked the old character sheet layout for the most part except the power cards. I much prefer the new second page and even the front page I find a big improvement.


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## Scribble (Nov 18, 2010)

I think it's a little of both... 

The big issues seem to be:

New CB  doesn't do everything it CAN do that old CB did... 
New CB has some apparent server issues causing constant crashes for some.

These are compounded by the fact that a large portion of the audience was already unhappy about the switch to online only, plus a delay in getting ANY type of CB update with Essentials and DS in it...


Taken by themselves the issues are annoying, but dealable... It's the fact that the audience was already unhappy I think that just makes it seem as horrible as it seems to many users.


I think once they fix that server issue, and add back in at least some of the BIG missing features, a lot of the "This is horrible!" cries will die down.


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## Piratecat (Nov 18, 2010)

Herschel said:


> Seriously. How many people complaining about the initial bugs at role out have actually done any QA testing?



I have. And I can very categorically say that the CB was not ready to ship two days ago. It is loaded with what I'd categorize with "A" bugs that would normally stop release.

I understand fully that there will be a constant stream of known issues and tweaks. When I can log on and find show-stoppers within the first five minutes, though, that's a sign of either insufficient QA or (much more likely) a set-in-stone release date that the development team couldn't realistically hit. 

Either way, I have a new product that does less and performs less reliably than the product it replaced. That's not okay for me, and I'm pretty sure my standards aren't unrealistically high. So please don't blame customers for complaining.


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## Moorcrys (Nov 18, 2010)

Prestidigitalis said:


> I actually think the old Windows-based CB deserved more criticism than the web version does.  The page layouts were poorly designed and the windows and sub-windows didn't scale or adjust properly when run on small screens such as those found on netbooks.  (I could name a number of other egregious design issues but those were the biggest.)  When you don't even try to meet standard best practices in your design -- well, that's when my own blood starts boiling.




I don't. The Windows-based program allowed me to create a character. At the moment, the web based version doesn't. I spent a couple hours trying to create a character last evening and it would crash every time I tried to pick a skill, then would crash when I tried to recover the character on the load in screen.

I am a huge fan of 4e and have no problem with how they implement the web-based builder. Use silverlight or whatever, I'm fine with it. I do have a problem with the fact that it was released as bug-ridden as it is. I have no problem rolling with some errors and glitches while they get it running, but I can't build characters with it and that to me is worse than the old, functioning, character builder.

Of course it's going to be fixed over time, and that's great. And if it's worked just fine for some, fantastic. But there are obviously a significant number of people who can't even load the program, or who cannot run it consistently without it crashing. That's not whining or unreasonable frustration and they're not making it up to be difficult or stir up some mud - there is an expectation of basic functionality that isn't being delivered on for a significant number of people. Sure, give Wizards some leeway, but the CB not up on their website as an Alpha test. People have every reason to be upset with this kind of product delivery.

Cheers.


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## Ryujin (Nov 18, 2010)

Herschel said:


> But the old Character Builder wasn't a "functional" program, it was rather limited. I can't imagine trying to shoe horn Essentials and Dark Sun option in it. And the layout would have been an absolute mess if they had.
> 
> I find the new layout an improvement already, even with some things I'm not the happiest about. I also disliked the old character sheet layout for the most part except the power cards. I much prefer the new second page and even the front page I find a big improvement.




The key is that CBC was functional ENOUGH for the people who used it, on a regular basis. The current CB doesn't even come up to that standard. Stating that the old programme wasn't "functional" is a rather counter intuitive tack to take, when the new version is even less so.

And sorry, but my experience in testing is somewhat limited. I have almost none in software testing though I did extensive hardware testing, from a manufacturer/distributor point of view, for a goodly amount of time in the computer industry. I know how my clients would have reacted, if I'd replaced a well-loved product with something that didn't at least meet the same performance requirements, while asking for the same money.


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## darjr (Nov 18, 2010)

Herschel said:


> The old one is still there though. They didn't delete it or change it, they just didn't put a lot of resources in to trying to shoe horn a lot of things in it wasn't made to handle.
> 
> I have numerous dislikes in the offline builder too that I hope will change online (and some layout things already have).




Hmmm.. care to provide an official download link? Last I heard they removed it and took down the update servers for it. They did 'delete' it.


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## Prestidigitalis (Nov 18, 2010)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Luckily, I am not an armchair computer expert. I actually develop software for a living.




A lot of us do.


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## The Little Raven (Nov 18, 2010)

I have developed software for a living, and I am normally much more forgiving than the armchair experts you are talking about.

I am severely displeased with the Character Builder. It has a lot of potential, I will admit, but in its current form, it is a dozen kinds of failure. Good thing for them I'm not refund-happy, and will let my subscription run its course (next June), but if it doesn't improve by leaps and bounds quickly, it will be my last subscription.


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## Herschel (Nov 18, 2010)

darjr said:


> Hmmm.. care to provide an official download link? Last I heard they removed it and took down the update servers for it. They did 'delete' it.




It's still on the machines of people that subscribed/downloaded it while it was the current tool. The new tool that replaces the old one is out so they're not "selling" the old one any more.


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## Danzauker (Nov 18, 2010)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> The UI design itself also doesn't convince me. There are too many dialogs popping up for trivial tasks like selecting feats or powers. The old CB's interface allowed a far more "exploratory" style of character creation, not constraining me at every step to do just one thing. Maybe you think this is a subjective thing, but I don't think so - the general guideline in UI design point in a different direction then what the CB does.




Being a professional developer, too, I have some comments regarding the design.

The biggest thing I can see from a design standpoint is: why the hell do I have to choose defender/leader/striker/controller/all BEFORE choosing my class? Is there really anyone that thinks that way when building characters?

OK, I admit that with 20+ classes available one can feel the need to filter out a class based on role, or does not remember if an Avenger is a striker or a leader, but it could well have been handled by a drop box filter!!

IMHO, it's a wasted click. An in interface design, EVERY wasted click counts, it's one of the first thing you're taught in UI designing.

The CB is not an introductory product. You've gor the Red Box for that. It's for people that PLAY the game. and need an easy, reliable and quick took to wade through the myriad of powers and feats that make up the game.

If you want to implement functions to help newbie, do it through a tutorial or a "guided character build", but, please, allow me to disable role selection by default!!!

What would make the CB great is some sort of REAL "assistive technology" in building a character.

Are you are making a two-weapon fighter? OK, give me some way to filter powers that work well or enhace two weapon fighting. Are you making a greatsword fighter? Allow me to filter the powers that have the "Weapon: heavy blades" entry.

THIS would be a killer piece of software. Something that gives you what deadtrees can not.


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## malraux (Nov 18, 2010)

Herschel said:


> It's still on the machines of people that subscribed/downloaded it while it was the current tool. The new tool that replaces the old one is out so they're not "selling" the old one any more.




That's pretty weak.  The whole point is that WotC should have continued to provide the old CB even if in a depreciated state while working out the new one.


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## Scribble (Nov 18, 2010)

Danzauker said:


> Being a professional developer, too, I have some comments regarding the design.
> 
> The biggest thing I can see from a design standpoint is: why the hell do I have to choose defender/leader/striker/controller/all BEFORE choosing my class? Is there really anyone that thinks that way when building characters?




I can say there definitely are... I constantly hear/read people saying things like- Hey we need another defender, can you make a defender?

Even when I build from a non rules first perspective- (especially now that they seem to be broadening what the role/class combo means) it seems like the natural thought pattern:

I'm a big guy that smashes stuff- (lots of damage) so striker... And I am uncivilized- Barbarian...

 So it's a useful feature- but I do agree they should have let you be able to turn it off, or offer other options to filter.


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## Herschel (Nov 18, 2010)

The new one is "worked out" for release. While I think a couple of bugs could have been better prepared for, it appears at least they're being taken care of quickly enough. I had no problems with it last night except for trying to figure out how to do the human stat boost on an imported character. Not a big deal. 

It's not where I want it yet, nor is it where I expect it to be. The Little Raven had a good take: if the obvious improvements don't happen, then yeah, I won't re-subscribe, but there's a lot of indicators they will be and a number of things have been fixed already in basic useability.


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## Herschel (Nov 18, 2010)

Scribble said:


> I can say there definitely are... I constantly hear/read people saying things like- Hey we need another defender, can you make a defender?
> 
> Even when I build from a non rules first perspective- (especially now that they seem to be broadening what the role/class combo means) it seems like the natural thought pattern:
> 
> ...




Turning it off would be a feature i could like, but I agree with you. It's especially nice for a newer player coming in to an established group or people building for LFR/Organized Play.


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## nerfherder (Nov 18, 2010)

Prestidigitalis said:


> A lot of us do.



Yup.  For the last 20 years.  Coding, testing (including load testing), designing, architecting, config management, quality management, release management for a number of organisations of different types (internal depts, software houses, large-scale bespoke systems for customers).


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## Sagiro (Nov 18, 2010)

While I have an instinctive sympathy toward WotC (and software developers in particular), I cannot get behind the OP.  The biggest issue with the new CB is that it's unstable.  I'm not going to comment on its feature set, or about the decision to stop work on the old CB.  I'm just talking about crashes here.

Look, I developed video games for almost 20 years, and I'm very familiar with the development process.  I understand that decisions get made for mysterious and non-optimal reasons.  I've shipped games with bugs.  And I'm fully aware that bugs will show up under the weight of 100,000 or 1,000,000 users, that didn't show up when you had 50 testers doing QA.  

But the new Character Builder simply should not have been released when it was.  Crash Bugs are "Priority 1"; in my places of employ, we would not have been _allowed_ to ship a product with as many Priority 1 bugs as the CB has -- or even 1/10th as many.  You just don't do that.   I've worked hellish hours for weeks on end just to eliminate the last _tiny handful_ of crashes, on projects significantly more complex than the Character Builder.

The product I'm seeing personally, and reading about on-line, is still in early Beta.  It's months away from shipping.

The correct model could have been to release it _explicitly_ as a public Beta.  Tell folks:  "This is going to crash a whole lot.  Help us find the bugs that will only manifest under the stress of thousands of users, so we can get you a polished and nearly-bug-free product faster!"   That would have gone a long way toward ameliorating the loss of good will we're seeing now.

I feel badly for the folks writing the code.  I can almost guarantee they knew this would happen, but it wasn't up to them when to ship.


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## Festivus (Nov 18, 2010)

I really just have a couple major concerns about security with the site, simple things they could do to build my confidence.  The performance and bugs will be worked otu in time, yes.  However, I pointed these out and have yet to hear of any action or plan of action for them:

* Wrap sessions in SSL and use encrypted cookies - Right now, you use the same user name and password to set up your credit card information as you do to log into DDI.  DDI isn't a secure site, there is no padlock.  This is something they *should* be able to fix with relative ease, but have not yet done so (it's been this way since launch... really silly)

* Don't divulge critical internal workings of code when an error occurs is another.  That should also be easy to fix, it's a setting on the server.  I have seen enough crash dumps to be able to tell you where they store the databases on their servers, what kind of database and web server they are using, and a few other juicy details (like the field name for the login name).

I am waiting for the letter to arrive in my mailbox when they have a breach... because it's going to happen sooner rather than later with them.


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## Scribble (Nov 18, 2010)

Sagiro said:


> But the new Character Builder simply should not have been released when it was.  Crash Bugs are "Priority 1"; in my places of employ, we would not have been _allowed_ to ship a product with as many Priority 1 bugs as the CB has -- or even 1/10th as many.  You just don't do that.   I've worked hellish hours for weeks on end just to eliminate the last _tiny handful_ of crashes, on projects significantly more complex than the Character Builder.




What I wonder is if the crash bugs aren't really bugs in the software... By example a while back I installed a new version of a program I'd been using for ever. After I installed the program my computer started crashing, and things went haywire... 

I thought it was the program, but in the end it turned out to be some RAM that went bad... Once I replaced the RAM everything was fine. It just was a coincidence that it happened at the same time I installed the program I guess.


Now in the case of the CB- I haven't had any of the crashes people have been describing. The only time I got the system to crash was when I was playing around with the zoom feature.

This to me sounds like it's not a problem with the actual software, but as they say a server, a problem with the specific server. I'm wondering if it could be something as silly as my RAM issue... Maybe a part of the server went bad, and they're trying to figure out what it is?

I don't know enough about IT to say if my thoughts are off base.


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## Herschel (Nov 18, 2010)

I think they were in a no-win situation with the release announcement though. Announce it as an open beta, and the screaming that it's not a finished product would be happening. And people would still be screaming for resources to be spent updating teh "dead" one. Was the deadline too strict? Maybe, but it's also likely been pushed back at least once too if you look at the timing. Decisions like release dates aren't generally made by anyone actually working on the software. 

That said, I haven't experienced any of the crashing people are talking about but I don't deny it's happening, and I do like they have a contingency built in if/when it does.


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## Sagiro (Nov 18, 2010)

Herschel said:


> I think they were in a no-win situation with the release announcement though. Announce it as an open beta, and the screaming that it's not a finished product would be happening...



Why do you think that?  The world of computer games is filled with public Betas, and no one bats an eye.  If anything, you get players/users who are excited to be part of the development process, and to offer suggestions for improvements.  

Honestly, for any multiplayer endeavor (which the CB is), I don't see a way to avoid a public Beta; it's the only way to properly stress-test your servers.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 18, 2010)

The Windows based version doesn't stop working when they decide to push hotfix  on a live system, either.


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## Ryujin (Nov 18, 2010)

Scribble said:


> What I wonder is if the crash bugs aren't really bugs in the software... By example a while back I installed a new version of a program I'd been using for ever. After I installed the program my computer started crashing, and things went haywire...
> 
> I thought it was the program, but in the end it turned out to be some RAM that went bad... Once I replaced the RAM everything was fine. It just was a coincidence that it happened at the same time I installed the program I guess.
> 
> ...




I would be very VERY surprised if we're talking about a single server here. It could be that one server, out of a cluster, is having issues but my gut tells me it's a load balancing issue.



Herschel said:


> I think they were in a no-win situation with the release announcement though. Announce it as an open beta, and the screaming that it's not a finished product would be happening. And people would still be screaming for resources to be spent updating teh "dead" one. Was the deadline too strict? Maybe, but it's also likely been pushed back at least once too if you look at the timing. Decisions like release dates aren't generally made by anyone actually working on the software.
> 
> That said, I haven't experienced any of the crashing people are talking about but I don't deny it's happening, and I do like they have a contingency built in if/when it does.




That's why you release it as an open Beta (I still think it's more Alpha than Beta), while maintaining basic support of the offline builder. It softens the blow, to the point that a lot of people would have to find something else to complain about.

As to crashing: I had quite a nice user experience with it, when I signed on at 6:00am yesterday. Once the Western Hemisphere woke up, the whole thing went into the dumper.


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## Herschel (Nov 18, 2010)

Sagiro said:


> Honestly, for any multiplayer endeavor (which the CB is), I don't see a way to avoid a public Beta; it's the only way to properly stress-test your servers.




I agree with you here but I can definitely see why they didn't, whether I agree with the decision or not.


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## the Jester (Nov 18, 2010)

Sagiro said:


> The correct model could have been to release it _explicitly_ as a public Beta.  Tell folks:  "This is going to crash a whole lot.  Help us find the bugs that will only manifest under the stress of thousands of users, so we can get you a polished and nearly-bug-free product faster!"   That would have gone a long way toward ameliorating the loss of good will we're seeing now.






Herschel said:


> I think they were in a no-win situation with the release announcement though. Announce it as an open beta, and the screaming that it's not a finished product would be happening. And people would still be screaming for resources to be spent updating teh "dead" one.




The smart thing would have been to release it as an open beta _while continuing to support the old CB._ Discontinue its support only when the new version is _as good or better than_ the "Classic" Builder.

That way, subscribers lose nothing. Yes, WotC has to expend the resources to keep updating the old CB until the new one is ready for prime time, but really, the CB is the biggest part of what most groups want out of their subs. Failing to give it good support is costing them a lot of good will and quite a few subscribers seem to be canceling over it. While they are developing a replacement they should be supporting what customers are paying for- and basically, the new CB is waaay still in development.


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## Scribble (Nov 18, 2010)

I think if they at least left the old one up for downloading for at least until they got the major bugs worked out in the new one, it would count for something... Even if they didn't update it with new info.


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## TerraDave (Nov 18, 2010)

You do not have to know how something works to expect it to work. Especially when you pay for it.


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## darjr (Nov 18, 2010)

The beta test thing is what they seem to be doing for the VTT.


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## Raunalyn (Nov 18, 2010)

I'm not really all that disappointed with the new CB. Yes, it has a few bugs (like the Half-Elf dilletante power being at-will instead of encounter), but they were very quick to respond when I reported it.

Then, with their annoucenent about the VTT, I can officially say that I'm pretty excited about all of this.


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## Scribble (Nov 18, 2010)

darjr said:


> The beta test thing is what they seem to be doing for the VTT.




I wonder if there is someone there saying: "NOWWWWW Do you guys see why I said we need to do public beta tests?!?!?!"


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## the Jester (Nov 18, 2010)

darjr said:


> The beta test thing is what they seem to be doing for the VTT.




And thank God for that.


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## DEFCON 1 (Nov 18, 2010)

the Jester said:


> The smart thing would have been to release it as an open beta _while continuing to support the old CB._ Discontinue its support only when the new version is _as good or better than_ the "Classic" Builder.




But here's the $64,000 question...

Just how difficult was it to try and build the add-ons to the classic CB to accommodate the changes that came to the game via Dark Sun and Essentials (i.e. the DS Themes, and the new level ability structure of Essentials)? 

Since we can now see that the WotC digital team has been spending their time on both the online CB and the new VT (and based upon one of the FAQs, a soon-to-be-announced online Monster Builder too)... if for the sake of argument they didn't have the time/manpower available to try and juryrig the classic CB to accept the DS/Essentials stuff... what would have made people happier?

- Release a buggy online CB now that has everything programmed into it and up-to-date.

- Open the online CB to a beta... and update the classic CB with _ONLY_ new crunch from the magazines and/or non-problematic items/feats from Dark Sun and Essentials?

If it was just not feasible to make the old Builder work COMPLETELY with the entirety of Dark Sun and Essentials... how pissed off would folks have been knowing they would not be able to create Dark Sun or Essentials characters for another one to four months while they tried to get the "beta version" of the online Builder bug-free?

Maybe some folks would have preferred that.  I don't know.  But it's real easy to just say "update the old one!" without knowing exactly how much time and effort would be spent to make that actually come true.


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## darjr (Nov 18, 2010)

DEFCON 1 said:


> But here's the $64,000 question...
> 
> Just how difficult was it to try and build the add-ons to the classic CB to accommodate the changes that came to the game via Dark Sun and Essentials (i.e. the DS Themes, and the new level ability structure of Essentials)?
> 
> ...




Actually that question has been answered for us. The new builder is in silverlight in part because they started with the old one. I don't have a link to where that was stated but I think it was in the podcast. Also there are a few people who have seen bugs from the old builder appear in the new, which isn't a clincher, but does point to the origins of the new builder being the old one.


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## john112364 (Nov 18, 2010)

My biggest issue right now is that after 3 days I still can't make a character with the CB2. 

Day 1: _Crash crash crash!_ I figured "OK there's a lot of people trying out the new toy. I'll try again tommorow."
Day 2: Early morning seemed to be a good time. Picked up my character where it crashed yesterday. Finished it up, try to print, _Crash! _Ok starting to get annoyed now. I have to go so that's all for day 2
Day 3: I get a nice pretty BLANK FRIKKING SCREEN! WTF! Why am I paying them money when I can't even access it! 
I know that the CB is not the reason we play dnd and I am perfectly able to play without it. But WotC is taking my money for a tool that doesn't work and that is my issue. 

Ok rant over.


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## malraux (Nov 18, 2010)

john112364 said:


> My biggest issue right now is that after 3 days I still can't make a character with the CB2.
> 
> Day 1: _Crash crash crash!_ I figured "OK there's a lot of people trying out the new toy. I'll try again tommorow."
> Day 2: Early morning seemed to be a good time. Picked up my character where it crashed yesterday. Finished it up, try to print, _Crash! _Ok starting to get annoyed now. I have to go so that's all for day 2
> ...




I've found that switching browsers can help.  Currently the CB2 does as you describe for me in Safari, but will work in Firefox.


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## Obryn (Nov 18, 2010)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> The problem with the CB is that they are releasing a new app that is immediately replacing the old app, but the new app is worse on several aspects.



Bingo.  This is, IMO, the core issue.  It's a replacement of something - admittedly imperfect - with something actually, demonstrably worse.  I don't feel like we need to take a soft approach with WotC or call this a Beta or use the excuse that it's brand new and bound to have bugs.  The previous character builder wasn't perfect, but it was a lot better than this one.

WotC's replacing and competing with its own product here, and it's _absolutely, 100% fair_ to make comparisons between the two - including pricetag and functionality.

-O


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## OnlineDM (Nov 19, 2010)

Obryn said:


> Bingo.  This is, IMO, the core issue.  It's a replacement of something - admittedly imperfect - with something actually, demonstrably worse.  I don't feel like we need to take a soft approach with WotC or call this a Beta or use the excuse that it's brand new and bound to have bugs.  The previous character builder wasn't perfect, but it was a lot better than this one.
> 
> WotC's replacing and competing with its own product here, and it's _absolutely, 100% fair_ to make comparisons between the two - including pricetag and functionality.
> 
> -O




This is my problem, too.  More on my blog, but in a nutshell I think it's a lousy experience for them to release a program that's worse than the old option right now.  That's a bad experience for their good, paying customers.  

One reasonable solution would have been to release the new Builder as a beta to DDI subscribers and to keep the old Builder available for download.  The even better solution would have been to keep updating the downloadable Builder with Essentials and Dark Sun until the online Builder was out of beta, but I would have been more understanding if they just said, "Listen, we're focusing our efforts on the online Builder, so the old one won't get any updates.  But this new one is in beta right now."

That's exactly what we've got right now, except that they're not calling the online Builder a beta release.  They're saying, "Tah dah, here's our new and improved product!"  And it's a step backward in many important ways.  If they had just called it a beta release, the backlash would have been diminished, in my opinion.


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## Henry (Nov 19, 2010)

Herschel said:


> But the old Character Builder wasn't a "functional" program, it was rather limited.




Silly me, using it to prep pre-gens for at least two Gamedays, my own character and one other person's character for two home campaigns, and numerous other trial-characters just for the fun of it. Guess I shouldn't have been able to use the thing to actually, y'know, GET GAMING DONE because it wasn't "functional." 

The old CB was a pretty slick piece of software, despite several improvements needed, and I did get a good bit of use out of it. The new web app is on the border between painful and useless to me - I'm not waiting an extra two seconds between every single button press like I'm wading through virtual molasses. I was gradually disappointed between the diminished usefulness of the revised compendium, then the gradually less interesting Dungeon and Dragon mag content, and the web app was my last straw. I still have the character builder, updated through psionic power, but as I'm playing a Dark Sun game right now I'm using a fill-in PDF sheet and prety much getting what I need done. 

Loving 4E and the Essentials game material, but the software support went from great (under 3E and PCGen's licenses) to good under 4E and DDI, down to positively useless to me as of now. Maybe the virtual tabletop will signal a change in positive innovations, but seeing as how I do all my gaming in person currently I really don't need it. I'll keep my ear to the virtual ground though and see if things improve.


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## Kralin Thornberry (Nov 19, 2010)

How about the biggest problem with it is that it doesn't work a majority of the time that I attempt to use it?

And no, I'm not a computer/software designer/engineer/anything, but I am a paying customer that is NOT satisfied with this inferior piece of dog crap that they have handed to us.


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## Nork (Nov 19, 2010)

The online CB isn't CB version 2.0, it is CB 2, an entirely new product.

Planning to have CB 2 eventually replace CB 1 and ending support for CB 1 is fine.

Not planning to support updates for CB 1 version 1.'it-bleeping-works' while at the same time launching CB 2 version 1.0 is not fine.

Now they've got angry users with show-stopping version 1.0 issues with the new software, and they've pulled the rug out from under them on their old software by not updating it.

Why would people pay for that?   Seriously.  Why.

Wizards has consistently demonstrated gross incompetence at handling software.

None of the promised pieces of software are difficult pieces of software to write.  Yet those pieces of software either turn into vaporware or don't work as well as they ought to work.

Wizards of the Coast is doing something super duper wrong.

They need to stop it.   'It' being doing software or doing software badly.  Either one works.

With as weak as the Dragon and Dungeon articles have been for quite some time, pulling the plug on their software and redirecting that money towards better articles might add more value to a DDI subscription.

I've already gone back to doing characters on paper since the day essentials came out.  I'd be happy simply to have some quality rules and adventures use with my pencil and paper character.


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## Glyfair (Nov 19, 2010)

Piratecat said:


> I understand fully that there will be a constant stream of known issues and tweaks. When I can log on and find show-stoppers within the first five minutes, though, that's a sign of either insufficient QA or (much more likely) a set-in-stone release date that the development team couldn't realistically hit.



I agree.  I only hit the 5 minute mark because of how long it takes to load.

It took me two simple steps to have a crash (a constantly repeating crash).  Step 1 - Choose create a custom character.  Step 2 - Choose to create an Eberron character.  Crash.

Sorry, that doesn't count as being ready to go out the door.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 19, 2010)

Nork said:


> The online CB isn't CB version 2.0, it is CB 2, an entirely new product.
> 
> Planning to have CB 2 eventually replace CB 1 and ending support for CB 1 is fine.
> 
> Not planning to support updates for CB 1 version 1.'it-bleeping-works' while at the same time launching CB 2 version 1.0 is not fine.



I see the strategy why they would try to do this. Essentials and Dark Sun are now big assets that came out this year. If you add them to the old character builder, it means giving "easy" access back to pirates to it.
If they can constrain the material to a software they can lock down better, the fact that there are many pirated copies out there will not negatively impact their DDI subscriptions much any longer. If you want the newest hot stuff, you need the subscription. 
It would have been a great plan, if the new character builder was ready at the release of D&D Essentials. It wasn't. It would have been good if it was ready now. It seems it isn't either.


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## Oldtimer (Nov 19, 2010)

Herschel said:


> Unrealistic expectations from armchair computer "experts".



I've been a professional software developer for over 32 years now. I regularly lecture about software development processes and software testing. There is no way the thing launched on Tuesday would have gotten a "go" at any sane go-live meeting. Pushing garbage like that live tells me that WotC has absolutely no quality process in place. Or ignoring it completely.

But let me just sit back in my armchair and watch this train wreck...


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## Danzauker (Nov 19, 2010)

Scribble said:


> I can say there definitely are... I constantly hear/read people saying things like- Hey we need another defender, can you make a defender?
> 
> Even when I build from a non rules first perspective- (especially now that they seem to be broadening what the role/class combo means) it seems like the natural thought pattern:
> 
> ...




Ok, I admit I didn't meet anyone, but if there are people building characters that way, then it's ok to have something to support that feature.

What I wanted to say is that CB starts in a sort of "walkthrough" mode: it asks "do you want to play a controller, a defender or what?". And then filters tha classes based on your choices.

That's fine, but I think the process should have gone farther. "You chose to be a fighter? You'd like to be the guy that smashes foes with a big axe or the one that fights with shield ans sword?" and so on.

This, for novices, would be the excellent software piece. For regular players, free browsing and filtering of game elements is the best thing. Regular players already know the basics enough to build a character on their own. The killer feature then is powerful and robust filtering, because with hundreds of feats and powers, many of them have been updated in time, it's almost granted you can not remember them all.


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## wedgeski (Nov 19, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> I've been a professional software developer for over 32 years now. I regularly lecture about software development processes and software testing. There is no way the thing launched on Tuesday would have gotten a "go" at any sane go-live meeting. Pushing garbage like that live tells me that WotC has absolutely no quality process in place. Or ignoring it completely.



All it tells me is that there are exigencies which the software developers and project managers of DDI have absolutely no control over, whatsoever, and which override any priorities they hold dear as to the state of the software they want to release.

Once upon a time in a planning meeting, someone somewhere decided the CB2 would launch with Essentials. Confidence was expressed by the DDI project manager at the time that such a deadline could be met... so much confidence, in fact, that no contingency was put in place for Essentials and/or Dark Sun support in the existing CB. Or perhaps it was simply a cost issue, we'll never know.

Now what has happened is that, for whatever reason, CB2 isn't ready for prime time (and for god's sake, buggy as it is, it's not the train-wreck this board would have you believe), but the schedule had to win. DDI support for Essentials was absolutely dependent on CB2, so it had to be released. Perhaps there was statistical evidence that people were actually changing their spending habits because DDI was lagging (and I mean proper evidence, not the deluge of threats to quit posted on boards like this), or perhaps some manager somewhere had staked his job on it.

We can argue forever about what went wrong (planning? feature creep? poor development methodologies? poor testing? simple bad luck because 10% of developer time was lost due to the 'flu?) but we'll probably never know the truth. Landing at a point where you're sure that the software team is inept is understandable, but unfair.


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## avin (Nov 19, 2010)

Q&A for software programs is 50% part of my job at this moment.

CB wasn't ready to launch.


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## Herschel (Nov 19, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> I've been a professional software developer for over 32 years now. I regularly lecture about software development processes and software testing. There is no way the thing launched on Tuesday would have gotten a "go" at any sane go-live meeting. Pushing garbage like that live tells me that WotC has absolutely no quality process in place. Or ignoring it completely.
> 
> But let me just sit back in my armchair and watch this train wreck...




Spoken like every other software developer I've ever talked to. Now you know what the end user feels like. Developers always talk about how their product is better and they can do a better job, yet in the end, they're all about the same. That's not a knock, it's human nature, and there's a lot of good developers out there but end users' opinions of software is usually quite different than the developers' in my experience working with stuff for Fortune 5 companies. 

I also know some times there are issues not with teh soiftware itself, but servers, etc. in the chain. Yet people, even IT people, jump on the software first (ie: system crashing).

Also, it's not like developers/programmers are in complete control of a project. I'd venture a pretty good hypothesis that the deadline was already pushed back once on teh project and they weren't given a second "extension". There are deadlines they are forced to meet. 

I talked to my son who tried it opening day and he said he had one "crash", and he just refreshed and went on with creating some characters. No other problems. 

Are there bugs? Sure. Were there going to be? Of course. It it surprising a few weren't found prior to release? That's a matter of opinion, there's a couple I was surprised about, but they appear to be already worked on. That said, the program isn't an "epic failure" or any of that other hyperbolic garbage, it has some bugs that are being worked out. It's the same stuff I hear about Microsoft products every time a new one is released.


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## Herschel (Nov 19, 2010)

Henry said:


> Silly me, using it to prep pre-gens for at least two Gamedays, my own character and one other person's character for two home campaigns, and numerous other trial-characters just for the fun of it. Guess I shouldn't have been able to use the thing to actually, y'know, GET GAMING DONE because it wasn't "functional."




LoL, so it worked for Essentials and Dark Sun characters? It only worked for "older" stuff, and if that's all you wanted, then yeah, it was good enough. But there was a whole new setting AND a whole new set of builds/classes/style of character needing support. 

The shifting goal posts are pretty funny. Those screaming they have no confidence in WotC delivering useful digital tools and decrying the new character builder is an "epic failure" are the same ones claiming the update to the current version would have been just peachy.


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## Jhaelen (Nov 19, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> There is no way the thing launched on Tuesday would have gotten a "go" at any sane go-live meeting. Pushing garbage like that live tells me that WotC has absolutely no quality process in place. Or ignoring it completely.



Well, being a software developer myself, I have to say: go-live meetings are rarely sane. 

If a software project is late (particularly a large one), it is often decided to release it prematurely, simply to get in some cash to be able to actually finish it. Promised features are cut from the initial release and the short respite gained is used to work on the first in a long succession of service packs.

Anyone remember Windows Vista? It was a similar situation. Windows 7 resembles what they'd _really_ wanted to release if they'd had been allowed more time.


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## Danzauker (Nov 19, 2010)

Jhaelen said:


> Anyone remember Windows Vista? It was a similar situation. Windows 7 resembles what they'd _really_ wanted to release if they'd had been allowed more time.




Windows Vista is a perfect comparison to the state of CB as presented now.

Fortunately, we could keep Windows XP and go on with our business in my company, and we're only recently migrating to Seven...

Microsoft has the de facto monopoly of OS software on retail computers. And even they could not pass unharmed through the Vista fiasco. There's no way WotC can make me pay for crappy software. When and if CB will be ready, I could pay for it. I think it's reasonable and easy to understand.


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## nerfherder (Nov 19, 2010)

Herschel said:


> Spoken like every other software developer I've ever talked to. Now you know what the end user feels like. Developers always talk about how their product is better and they can do a better job, yet in the end, they're all about the same.



My experience of working in the industry is that there is a huge span of skills and competence between developers, testers, managers, and all the other people that are involved in any IT project.  I've seen projects succeed because the team was highly motivated, professional and focussed, and I've seen projects flounder because a manager wouldn't stand up to customers that argued amongst themselves and wouldn't commit enough of their time to agreeing requirements.



> I also know some times there are issues not with teh soiftware itself, but servers, etc. in the chain. Yet people, even IT people, jump on the software first (ie: system crashing).



Whereas when I was talking to another IT professional just before the launch, we were debating whether it would be load on the database server or the network infrastructure that caused the biggest problems.  We assumed that the software itself would be relatively bug-free, because that's the easiest component to test.



> Also, it's not like developers/programmers are in complete control of a project. I'd venture a pretty good hypothesis that the deadline was already pushed back once on teh project and they weren't given a second "extension". There are deadlines they are forced to meet.



The most difficult part of making an IT project successful isn't the technology; it's people.  Specifically, managing the stakeholders - from the WotC accountants to the customers.  Your hypothesis is probably correct - and it's also probably more complicated than that.


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## Festivus (Nov 19, 2010)

nerfherder said:


> My experience of working in the industry is that there is a huge span of skills and competence between developers, testers, managers, and all the other people that are involved in any IT project.  I've seen projects succeed because the team was highly motivated, professional and focussed, and I've seen projects flounder because a manager wouldn't stand up to customers that argued amongst themselves and wouldn't commit enough of their time to agreeing requirements.
> 
> 
> Whereas when I was talking to another IT professional just before the launch, we were debating whether it would be load on the database server or the network infrastructure that caused the biggest problems.  We assumed that the software itself would be relatively bug-free.
> ...




I see this every day at my work.  We have a team of developers who know Visual Studio very well, but ask them to take a look at something written in a different language on a different platform and they give me the deer in headlights look.

If only WotC would have taken my suggestion and partnered with developers of product that are already out there, proven to work they would have saved  time and had a more robust product.  I fear for the VTT, they have not had any experience in this realm compared particularly to the competitor products.  And what about tools like Masterplan.

My best guess with performance has a lot to do with sub-optimal queries, lock contention, and performance issues with the database overall.  We run a large website at my work, with very large databases and thousands of customers.  When we first brought the latest version of the site online it was horribly slow.  We bought the knowledge (read: Consultants) to fix the latency issue when our developers could not find anything further to tune.


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## nerfherder (Nov 19, 2010)

Festivus said:


> My best guess with performance has a lot to do with sub-optimal queries, lock contention, and performance issues with the database overall.  We run a large website at my work, with very large databases and thousands of customers.  When we first brought the latest version of the site online it was horribly slow.  We bought the knowledge (read: Consultants) to fix the latency issue when our developers could not find anything further to tune.




I used to specialise in database performance tuning, and your experience doesn't surprise me.  I've seen otherwise clever developers select the full contents of a table into an array, sort in memory and then discard the unwanted results.  I explained to him about WHERE and SORT clauses in his SQL, and that screen suddenly loaded up much quicker...

There is a huge difference between knowing how to use a tool, and knowing how best to use that tool (or even knowing which tool to use - I've pulled out critical pieces of PL/SQL and rewritten them in C because they did a lot of calculations).


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## IronWolf (Nov 19, 2010)

Jhaelen said:


> If a software project is late (particularly a large one), it is often decided to release it prematurely, simply to get in some cash to be able to actually finish it. Promised features are cut from the initial release and the short respite gained is used to work on the first in a long succession of service packs.




Dropping some features to speed up a release is common and certainly helps one get some additional cash to finish what you first set out to do.  Releasing extremely buggy software early is hard to justify in any scenario.  You risk alienating customers with a buggy release hurting the whole reason you were releasing in a not complete state to begin with.  It is a difficult balance to reach and it looks like WotC made the wrong call in this case.

An open beta would have served them so much better technically and PR wise if they didn't have the appropriate amount of internal staff for adequate testing.  Folks that want to get a peak at the initial product, can file bug reports and even simulate load more accurately.  All the while others can just avoid it until it is ready for mainstream.


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## Oldtimer (Nov 19, 2010)

Herschel said:


> Spoken like every other software developer I've ever talked to. Now you know what the end user feels like. Developers always talk about how their product is better and they can do a better job, yet in the end, they're all about the same.



I don't really understand what you're trying to say here. Why do you assume that I don't know end users? I've been a consultant in this business for over three decades. As a developer, lead developer, project leader, systems analyst, system architect, and other roles I've forgotten about. In small companies and in large. I've had my share of good launch days and bad. I've had happy end users and miserable ones.

I just don't get what that dismissive tone is all about.



> That said, the program isn't an "epic failure" or any of that other hyperbolic garbage, it has some bugs that are being worked out.



"hyperbolic garbage"?? Sure, we can have different opinions of what constitues a failure, but that hardly qualifies you to dismiss all other opinions as garbage.

The launch of CB2 is an epic failure by most normal standards. If you are happy with paying for that, more power to you. But I don't understand why your are getting so worked up over the fact that other, more demanding customers, think it's a piece of crap.


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## Herschel (Nov 19, 2010)

LoL, I'm not the one getting worked up. I'm not the one screaming "OH GAWDS IT'S TEH FAIL!!!!!!" 

*See my warning below. ~ PCat*

Stuff happens, constructive discourse is good, but this overblown nonsense about how the new Character Builder is a 'direct tool of Satan' or whatever is pretty silly.


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## Danzauker (Nov 19, 2010)

Herschel said:


> LoL, I'm not the one getting worked up. I'm not the one screaming "OH GAWDS IT'S TEH FAIL!!!!!!"
> 
> Stuff happens, constructive discourse is good, but this overblown nonsense about how the new Character Builder is a 'direct tool of Satan' or whatever is pretty silly.




This is a hyperbole of yours.

Most professional people here (developers, IT techicians, softere architects...) are just saying: "by all our experience, this CB crappy". Which I agree, BTW.

You might not agree, you might think it deserves your money or anything, of course.

In any case, I think that something released in that state deserves a beta tag at most, and I would be ashamed of asking money for it.

YMMV.


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## Piratecat (Nov 19, 2010)

*Read this before posting further in this thread.

We're at the point where any insulting, condescending, or dismissive posts are going to get their authors booted off the boards for a bit. Attempting to make clever personal attacks while denying you're doing so isn't something we have a lot of patience for. It's fine if you don't agree with someone, but we expect you to treat them with respect.

Post accordingly, please.*


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## Oldtimer (Nov 19, 2010)

Herschel said:


> I'm not the one screaming "OH GAWDS IT'S TEH FAIL!!!!!!"



Neither am I. [_Post redacted by admin; crossed over with warning._]

I am merely pointing out that as software launches go, this is a failure. Nothing hyperbolic about that.


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## Herschel (Nov 19, 2010)

Danzauker said:


> This is a hyperbole of yours.




Numerous threads say it's not hyperbole on my part. 

The fact remains it's software rolled out that has/had some bugs, bugs that are being fixed as we speak (type?). I don't see anyone saying it's perfect, but I do see some people taking a wait & see approach and that aren't having huge issues with it. 

I think an open Beta would have been a better way to go about it, but it wasn't my call and I can see why they didn't go that route. I understand why they didn't keep running updates oin the old Character Builder. If the bugs and issues don't get markedly better when my subscription runs out I'll examine it at that time rather than internet yelling that I'm cancelling it now. 

I don't generally consider myself to be more patient than the next person, but the internet is what it is.


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## Danzauker (Nov 19, 2010)

Herschel said:


> The fact remains it's software rolled out that has/had some bugs, bugs that are being fixed as we speak (type?).




Which is exactly what I'm saying.

It's a software with bug. MAJOR bugs, IMHO. Bugs that causes it to crash, in some cases quite often and predictabily, by various accounts.

I have no doubt that someone is fixing the bugs. I wold be quite surprised of the opposite. But I fail to see how this is a redeeming thing. It's just their job.

The simple hard facts are that now subscribers are paying for a buggy program. I can completely understand why people are upset.


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## Sunseeker (Nov 19, 2010)

Danzauker said:


> The simple hard facts are that now subscribers are paying for a buggy program. I can completely understand why people are upset.




Your expectations for bug-less software are unrealistic.  Even some of the the longest running programs STILL have bugs.  Software that is tested, retested again and again STILL have bugs.  And yes, sometimes those are serious bugs, bugs that cause the program to crash, freeze, or all around perform poorly.

These are programs that have been established for years.  To expect a brand new program to work 100% on several different browsers on several different operating systems is like asking for pigs to sprout wings and fly.  it's just not going to happen.

Could it had worked better?  Probably.  Would it be perfect?  Not a chance.


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## Imaro (Nov 19, 2010)

shidaku said:


> Your expectations for bug-less software are unrealistic. Even some of the the longest running programs STILL have bugs. Software that is tested, retested again and again STILL have bugs. And yes, sometimes those are serious bugs, bugs that cause the program to crash, freeze, or all around perform poorly.
> 
> These are programs that have been established for years. To expect a brand new program to work 100% on several different browsers on several different operating systems is like asking for pigs to sprout wings and fly. it's just not going to happen.
> 
> Could it had worked better? Probably. Would it be perfect? Not a chance.




I don't think anyone is calling for 100% bug free (and it's a little disingenuous that you cut out the part of his post that talks about MAJOR bugs)... I think what most people expected was a program that had at the minimum... less bugs and equal functionality to the one that was replaced... otherwise how is the consumer in anyway not getting less for the money they are continuing to pay?


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## Scribble (Nov 19, 2010)

It's true that a lot of software, even well established software has bugs, but I think what made this a bigger issue in this case is that people were already upset about the two month delay in ANY kind of CB update. They were already upset about the transition from local to web based. 

Now combine THIS with the news that a product they were already upset about to begin with would be lacking several features the old one had- 

AND they've been asked to be patient while WoTC gets those things updated? 

I'm pretty sure they got themselves in a position where they basically had little choice in the matter, but I'm also pretty sure that even they know that wasn't going to happen... People would already be upset.

Now finally combine ALL of that with the fact that the for some reason whether a software issue, or a hardware issue or whatever... The software continuously crashes for a large percentage of users...

The launch was pretty much a failure. It might have been doomed to be a failure from the start because of unhappy customers to begin with, but if they had at least managed to get the thing running without the crashes before launch it would have been easier to get things running smoothly again and get people happy again...


Taken individually none of these things are really THAT big of a deal, and will probably all work themselves out soon enough... But altogether... Oye... I'd hate to be that Champagne guy right about now (I think that's his name...)


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## Sunseeker (Nov 19, 2010)

Scribble said:


> It's true that a lot of software, even well established software has bugs, but I think what made this a bigger issue in this case is that people were already upset about the two month delay in ANY kind of CB update. They were already upset about the transition from local to web based.



Most people admit to playing only once a month.  Often less.  Are you really going to tell me that they NEEDED this program in SUCH A HURRY because they were going to play _in a month_?



> Now combine THIS with the news that a product they were already upset about to begin with would be lacking several features the old one had-
> 
> AND they've been asked to be patient while WoTC gets those things updated?



Oh my, they were asked to be patient.  It's not like the program ceased to function, it's not like WotC was burning the books they owned.  They were, wait for it...trying to make a replacement.  And D&D players _just couldn't wait._




> I'm pretty sure they got themselves in a position where they basically had little choice in the matter, but I'm also pretty sure that even they know that wasn't going to happen... People would already be upset.



Because they'd spent weeks, months, tromping around fuming about how HORRID the CB is was for not being updated, how terrible it was that WotC wasn't supporting it RIGHT NOW, how this is going to destroy D&D, how this will be the end of Wizards, how they were going to stop buying WotC products if they didn't get their cookie RIGHT NOW.

Do you have any idea what that sounds like on the other end?  Nobody wants to support customers like that.



> Now finally combine ALL of that with the fact that the for some reason whether a software issue, or a hardware issue or whatever... The software continuously crashes for a large percentage of users...



On the first day.  I've never had a piece of software that I couldn't crash on the first day.  And I'm not even a hardcore user.  



> The launch was pretty much a failure. It might have been doomed to be a failure from the start because of unhappy customers to begin with, but if they had at least managed to get the thing running without the crashes before launch it would have been easier to get things running smoothly again and get people happy again...



Those fans who were complaining, they will NEVER be happy, look at the complaints about the VTT program, it's not even out and people are complaining about it, complaining it should have been something else, that it should do this, that it won't do that, people like that will never be satisfied.


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## Imaro (Nov 19, 2010)

shidaku said:


> Most people admit to playing only once a month. Often less. Are you really going to tell me that they NEEDED this program in SUCH A HURRY because they were going to play _in a month_?
> 
> 
> Oh my, they were asked to be patient. It's not like the program ceased to function, it's not like WotC was burning the books they owned. They were, wait for it...trying to make a replacement. And D&D players _just couldn't wait._
> ...




These statements make me ask... you are aware that people were *PAYING* during this time right? I mean if I go to a store and purchase a book, whether I am going to use the info in it as soon as I get home or not is irrelevant to whether the store should give me my product in new condition once I hand over my money. I am not understanding your logic at all here.... they're acting entitled to what they paid for and... are wrong for it.  Huh?


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## Piratecat (Nov 19, 2010)

shidaku said:


> Those fans who were complaining, they will NEVER be happy, look at the complaints about the VTT program, it's not even out and people are complaining about it, complaining it should have been something else, that it should do this, that it won't do that, people like that will never be satisfied.



See, this is the danger of tarring everyone with the same brush; I think your premise is flawed.  

I'm a fan who's complaining about the online character builder's design, reliability and stability. I'm often satisfied and I'm pretty easily made happy; that doesn't mean I can accept a piece of software in the pre-release condition that the online character builder currently is. Dismissing the furor as "oh, THOSE people, they'll never be happy" is simply not true.


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## Scribble (Nov 19, 2010)

shidaku said:


> Most people admit to playing only once a month.  Often less.  Are you really going to tell me that they NEEDED this program in SUCH A HURRY because they were going to play _in a month_?




Who said anything about needing or not needing. I'm talking about what actually happened.

A delay caused people to be upset- justifiably or not it did.



> Oh my, they were asked to be patient.  It's not like the program ceased to function, it's not like WotC was burning the books they owned.  They were, wait for it...trying to make a replacement.  And D&D players _just couldn't wait._




 Sure- again whether justifiably or not, they were already upset about being told they would need to wait, now they're being told they need to wait again.

It compounds the upsetness.



> Do you have any idea what that sounds like on the other end?  Nobody wants to support customers like that.




Yes- I spent rthe last 2 years as a client service manager... Most of my customers were like that.



> On the first day.  I've never had a piece of software that I couldn't crash on the first day.  And I'm not even a hardcore user.
> 
> Those fans who were complaining, they will NEVER be happy, look at the complaints about the VTT program, it's not even out and people are complaining about it, complaining it should have been something else, that it should do this, that it won't do that, people like that will never be satisfied.




Yep- again whether justified or not people were already upset. The crashes, whether they would happen anywhere or not, just added to it.

It's like a perfect storm situation.

Each of those issues is dealable, but when you combine them... Mark Whalberg dies.  Or something.


----------



## Sunseeker (Nov 19, 2010)

Imaro said:


> These statements make me ask... you are aware that people were *PAYING* during this time right? I mean if I go to a store and purchase a book, whether I am going to use the info in it as soon as I get home or not is irrelevant to whether the store should give me my product in new condition once I hand over my money. I am not understanding your logic at all here.... they're acting entitled to what they paid for and... are wrong for it. Huh?




You know, I have serious doubts that they were, considering how many people have openly admitted to only subscribing for a month, to update their CB with several months worth of updates.  So yes, to be honest, I don't think many of them were.

The people who've paid for years, for the most part, seem to be continuing to stick with it.


----------



## nerfherder (Nov 19, 2010)

nerfherder said:


> The most difficult part of making an IT project successful isn't the technology; it's people.  Specifically, managing the stakeholders - from the WotC accountants to the *customers*.






Scribble said:


> It's true that a lot of software, even well established software has bugs, but I think what made this a bigger issue in this case is that people were already upset about the two month delay in ANY kind of CB update. They were already upset about the transition from local to web based.
> 
> Now combine THIS with the news that a product they were already upset about to begin with would be lacking several features the old one had-
> 
> ...




Exactly.


----------



## Imaro (Nov 19, 2010)

shidaku said:


> You know, I have serious doubts that they were, considering how many people have openly admitted to only subscribing for a month, to update their CB with several months worth of updates. So yes, to be honest, I don't think many of them were.
> 
> The people who've paid for years, for the most part, seem to be continuing to stick with it.




Yeah, you really are painting with a broad brush... now many of those with complaints weren't paying (whatever nebulous definition you've decided upon for this term) for the CB either... 
only they were even if it was a 1-month or 3-month subscription. They gave WotC money for product and services plain and simple. Now someone who got it off a torrent... they didn't pay for it. 

The funny thing about people who have "paid for years" is that most of them don't have a choice because they weren't told this was coming ahead of time so they could make an informed decision... and contrary to your anecdotal evidence I see more longterm subscribers complaining about the rollout of the online CB than I do defending it as a good thing.


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## Darkthorne (Nov 19, 2010)

I'm was a yearly subscriber that shut off my auto-renew in the past couple of weeks. Most of my use was the cb, the new one was promised to be updated in Oct, which is wasn't. It was being canned instead. They then started to sell us on the "new and shiney" version that was to be better and faster. Not only have I yet to see either, I'm given the exact opposite. Even if it runs near 98%, it's no longer user friendly like the discontinued one was (summaries & the like, ability to use offline if no internet connection as I may not be playing at my home and my current guy may die in the middle of a session). To use this version I need to have my character planned out to begin with on paper or somewhere else. If it's already somewhere else what value add is WOTC giving me with this program? Now after everyone goes nuts over the release of this product WOTC comes along and goes "Look at this new shiney over here" being the VTT. A stage magician does the same thing, it's called a distraction. While I may pay to see a magician for entertainment & misdirection that is not what I gave money to WOTC for. 

If WOTC wants my money they need to seriously wow me, not the same old same old. WOTC needs to provide programs that seriously impress me, so that I can overlook what I see as a bait & switch. (not saying that was their intention, but that is my perception) People can disagree with me & think it's not a big deal which is fine, but do you want to pay for my subcription for me?


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## Herschel (Nov 19, 2010)

shidaku said:


> Most people admit to playing only once a month. Often less. Are you really going to tell me that they NEEDED this program in SUCH A HURRY because they were going to play _in a month_?
> 
> 
> Oh my, they were asked to be patient. It's not like the program ceased to function, it's not like WotC was burning the books they owned. They were, wait for it...trying to make a replacement. And D&D players _just couldn't wait._
> ...




Must spread XP.


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## darjr (Nov 19, 2010)

shidaku said:


> You know, I have serious doubts that they were, considering how many people have openly admitted to only subscribing for a month, to update their CB with several months worth of updates.  So yes, to be honest, I don't think many of them were.
> 
> The people who've paid for years, for the most part, seem to be continuing to stick with it.




Maybe, but I do note that on the wotc boards there were plenty of long term DDI subscribers, like myself, who have cancelled, or asked for a multi-month refund. I was in the midst of my 2nd year long subscription.


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## Obryn (Nov 20, 2010)

shidaku said:


> Those fans who were complaining, they will NEVER be happy, look at the complaints about the VTT program, it's not even out and people are complaining about it, complaining it should have been something else, that it should do this, that it won't do that, people like that will never be satisfied.



I'll just cut to the end here.  I don't think you've been paying much attention over the past few months.  Me, Piratecat, MerricB, Scribble, etc. have been pretty serious 4e/WotC boosters.

I'm not complaining because I hate WotC, and I've been extremely happy with 4e, DDI, and all the rest since KotS was released.

I'm complaining because, after a long delay when a tool I'm paying for would have been useful, it's been replaced by an objectively worse application, with severe bugs and a slow & clumsy UI.  As a customer, that's my right.  As it stands, I ended up reupping my subscription because I'm finding that even a broken CB is better than no CB for my Dark Sun game, but while WotC has my money, they've lost a good portion of my goodwill along with it.

I'm a customer, not a passive consumer of content.

-O


----------



## Tarek (Nov 20, 2010)

I don't know about you, but I've had dozens, possibly even hundreds of pieces of software I've used over the years, most of it released commercially. Very little of that software crashed or was completely unusable on Release Day, and those that were were quickly discarded in favor of software that did the same thing and didn't crash regularly.

I don't expect it to be bug free. I do expect it to be stable enough to use and the bugs to be minor or rare enough that they can easily be worked around until a fix comes out.

The DDI Online Character Builder is neither stable nor major bug free. Not at launch, not currently, probably not for some time in the future. If it's a hardware/networking problem, then that should have been anticipated. If it's software programming/development, then it should have been held back.

And I completely fault Wizards of the Coast for this. Organizationally, the company seems to treat their programming team like an appendix, an afterthought, instead of a serious, professional software development effort. Wizards is way out of their field of competence when it comes to software.


----------



## AllisterH (Nov 20, 2010)

I should point out that WOTC seems to have no trouble with either Magic online OR Duels of the planeswalkers so I don't think WOTC is incompetent with software...


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## The Little Raven (Nov 20, 2010)

Obryn said:


> I'll just cut to the end here.  I don't think you've been paying much attention over the past few months.  Me, Piratecat, MerricB, Scribble, etc. have been pretty serious 4e/WotC boosters.
> 
> I'm not complaining because I hate WotC, and I've been extremely happy with 4e, DDI, and all the rest since KotS was released.




Me, too. I've got a reputation as an edition warrior. I often give WotC more slack in software matters due to personal experience as a software developer.

However, slack goes only so far, and the state of the CB at release goes well beyond the slack I can give. If it were my company putting out that program, I would be ashamed that customers were paying for it.

I wanted to like it. I wanted it to be awesome. Optimism is better for the heart and mind than pessimism. Unfortunately, the furthest towards optimism I can go is realism, and the reality is that this was a completely awful launch.



AllisterH said:


> I should point out that WOTC seems to have no trouble with either Magic online OR Duels of the planeswalkers so I don't think WOTC is incompetent with software...




I should point out that Magic Online has had a rather troubled history and was originally developed by another company, then taken over by Wizards in 2.0. Duels of the Planewalkers was not developed by Wizards, but a third-party company. The CB is an in-house project. I understand Wizards aren't primarily a software company, but as the number of in-house software increases, they're going to be judged on the same standards as such.


----------



## avin (Nov 20, 2010)

Back home I finally tried it on my PC, cause almight portable online CB refuses to work properly on my netbook...

I seriously give it a try... but it's bad... man, it's really annoying... I wish they could at least make a similar product but I can stand it.

Sent an e-mail to my players saying we won't use essentials and Dark Sun stuff.

And I'm having nightmares about MB online...


----------



## Herschel (Nov 21, 2010)

And I was back in it for a while tonight, updated a couple of characters, imported another, printed all three of them with no problems whatsoever.


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## nerfherder (Nov 21, 2010)

Herschel said:


> And I was back in it for a while tonight, updated a couple of characters, imported another, printed all three of them with no problems whatsoever.




I'm sure that the majority of Toyota drivers have never experienced any problems with the brakes or accelerator pedals either.


----------



## Holy Bovine (Nov 21, 2010)

shidaku said:


> The people who've paid for years, for the most part, seem to be continuing to stick with it.




No, they aren't.  

See?  I have just as much evidence as you too!


----------



## Herschel (Nov 21, 2010)

nerfherder said:


> I'm sure that the majority of Toyota drivers have never experienced any problems with the brakes or accelerator pedals either.




Funny you should use that analogy:
Toyota's acceleration problem could be customer-based

http://sg.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-AW224_DRIVER_NS_20100713184815.gif

Report: Many of Toyotaâ€™s Acceleration Problems Due to Driver Error | 80beats | Discover Magazine

It appears the majority of the problems were driver error, not mechanical, and in other cases where the problem was shifting floor mats (which happened in my Saturn too). Sure there are some problems, but those problems include users. (Toyota pedals are very close together, for example, which is great for efficiency and performance, but not for people with sloppy foot placement/control)

The Audi "acceleration issues" from a number of years back were also found to be mostly driver error.

I was able to make the Character Builder crash once this morning by continually pressing update buttons after making a change but before it actually accepted them. Is this the program's fault or me being (in this case intentionally) impatient?


----------



## nerfherder (Nov 21, 2010)

The point being that just because you didn't experience any problems tonight doesn't mean that they don't exist, and that other people aren't experiencing them.

There have been far too many crashes reported by people that generally post positive things about WotC and want DDi to be successful for them all to be written off as user error.


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## nerfherder (Nov 21, 2010)

Herschel said:


> Funny you should use that analogy:
> Toyota's acceleration problem could be customer-based
> 
> http://sg.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-AW224_DRIVER_NS_20100713184815.gif
> ...



And yet it still cost the company around $5bn.

Of course, the problem with using an analogy on a message board is that someone will _always_ spend more time picking apart the specific analogy, rather than addressing the main point.


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## Obryn (Nov 21, 2010)

avin said:


> And I'm having nightmares about MB online...



Oh, I'm sure the limit of 20 custom monsters will rock.  

-O


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## malraux (Nov 21, 2010)

Herschel said:


> I was able to make the Character Builder crash once this morning by continually pressing update buttons after making a change but before it actually accepted them. Is this the program's fault or me being (in this case intentionally) impatient?




The program's.  Taking seconds or longer to respond to user input is crazy.


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## Herschel (Nov 21, 2010)

Huh, better tell these fortune 5 companies some of their financial databases are bad then. In one database I use many changes take longer than the Character Builder to accept single data point/status changes.


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## Herschel (Nov 21, 2010)

nerfherder said:


> And yet it still cost the company around $5bn.
> 
> Of course, the problem with using an analogy on a message board is that someone will _always_ spend more time picking apart the specific analogy, rather than addressing the main point.





LoL, it took me all of 10 seconds to have those links because I already knew the answer from paying attention to the world around me. I'm not going to spend much time doing research on an internet message board debate. 

And you seem to be missing the main point: Nobody said it was bug-free, but the mass of nerd rage is also likely in part due to server, connection, personal computer and PEBKAC errors, not issues with the program itself.  How is it I've been usuing it multiple times and not having any issues if it's such a "failure" of a program?


----------



## Theo R Cwithin (Nov 21, 2010)

Herschel said:


> And you seem to be missing the main point: Nobody said it was bug-free, but the mass of nerd rage is also likely in part due to server, connection, personal computer and PEBKAC errors, not issues with the program itself.  How is it I've been usuing it multiple times and not having any issues if it's such a "failure" of a program?



In all fairness, a lot of the nerdrage seems to be aimed more at the reduced functionality, inferior UI, and inability to use it offline, rather than exclusively at poor performance.


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## nerfherder (Nov 21, 2010)

Herschel said:


> And you seem to be missing the main point: Nobody said it was bug-free, but the mass of nerd rage is also likely in part due to server, connection, personal computer and PEBKAC errors, not issues with the program itself.  How is it I've been usuing it multiple times and not having any issues if it's such a "failure" of a program?



"The program" is irrelevant.  The user experience of the system, and the expectations surrounding that are what matters.  WotC can control everything up to their link to the internet, are responsible for the choice of technology imposed on the end user's machine (i.e. web browser), and should be influencing the end user through various communications and stakeholder management.

If too many customers _believe_ that the fault is WotC's, then they lose goodwill, no matter whose fault it actually is.

Just like Toyota


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## malraux (Nov 21, 2010)

Herschel said:


> Huh, better tell these fortune 5 companies some of their financial databases are bad then. In one database I use many changes take longer than the Character Builder to accept single data point/status changes.




yeah, any sort of UI that takes 10+ seconds to respond is a bad app.  The fact that it happens in several different apps doesn't change the fact that the CB is also a bad app.


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## malraux (Nov 21, 2010)

Herschel said:


> And you seem to be missing the main point: Nobody said it was bug-free, but the mass of nerd rage is also likely in part due to server, connection, personal computer and PEBKAC errors, not issues with the program itself.  How is it I've been usuing it multiple times and not having any issues if it's such a "failure" of a program?




For a few days, it wouldn't run at all on my system.  And since the program is heavily reliant on a server client connection, complaining about connection problems is a complaint about the program itself.


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## ShaggySpellsword (Nov 21, 2010)

I feel like the new CB is MUCH slower than the original.  I admit, maybe that's just my perception based on how annoyed I am at losing out on the ability to share an account with my gaming group, keep my subscription in order to have access to the builder, use the builder while on break at work (which blocks WotC's site), and keep track of as many character builds as I want to tinker with for as many campaigns and potential campaigns as I want.

So, I'm going to test it.  Using just my personalized playing print-out of my character (a 12th level Tiefling Hybrid Barbarian/Paladin/Turathi Highborn) I will rebuild my PC with both programs and see how long it takes from a blank desktop screen to printing the sheet.

I've loved the value for my money that DDI has given so far and feel that WotC has been great at customer support and service thus-far.  I wanted to give the new on-line character builder a chance, and this will test weather or not I have been.


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## Ryujin (Nov 21, 2010)

Herschel said:


> LoL, it took me all of 10 seconds to have those links because I already knew the answer from paying attention to the world around me. I'm not going to spend much time doing research on an internet message board debate.
> 
> And you seem to be missing the main point: Nobody said it was bug-free, but the mass of nerd rage is also likely in part due to server, connection, personal computer and PEBKAC errors, not issues with the program itself.  How is it I've been usuing it multiple times and not having any issues if it's such a "failure" of a program?




I can't answer that question. All that I can say is that, after more than a quarter century in everything from computer manufacturing to user support, I had multiple crashes. 

In addition to the reduced functionality when compared to the original CB, which in and of itself makes it useless for my gaming group, we also have the necessity for an Internet connection, which makes it useless for my gaming group at one of two locations in which we play, and the change from a locally run application with a local database, to a remote database, which has likely resulted in the majority of issues that users are complaining about.

In other words whether the currently experienced issues are a direct result of poor coding or poor server infrastructure is largely immaterial, as the change in how this application is accessed is on Wizards. The previous app largely worked, for the majority of users.


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## Herschel (Nov 21, 2010)

malraux said:


> yeah, any sort of UI that takes 10+ seconds to respond is a bad app. The fact that it happens in several different apps doesn't change the fact that the CB is also a bad app.




Outside of taking 8-10 seconds to initially load (which the offline version took longer) I haven't experienced any delay of 10 seconds. Heck, my imports have taken under 5 seconds. Updates within the builder only take a second for me.


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## IronWolf (Nov 21, 2010)

Herschel said:


> Outside of taking 8-10 seconds to initially load (which the offline version took longer) I haven't experienced any delay of 10 seconds. Heck, my imports have taken under 5 seconds. Updates within the builder only take a second for me.




At this point we pretty much know that your experience with the character builder has been positive.  That's great! It sounds like you are getting reasonable performance response out of the application and it is working as you expect for imports and such.  

Unfortunately it seems many people are not having the snappy response times, are not satisfied with how the imports are handling their characters and are not happy with the functionality they feel they have lost with this move to an online CB.  Many people here with long history of being very supportive of WotC are saying there are certain aspects of this online version they are not happy with.  Many of these are saying they are not happy with it in its current form at release but hold hope that will improve.

Neither side is wrong - either those that love the new CB or those that hate the new CB.  Not everyone will be pleased and the constant it works for me going against the it doesn't work for me is not going to change anyone's experience with the application.  

Me posting that it is working poorly for me and not including all the functionality I desire is not going to suddenly make your experience with it be poor.  Just as your posting that it works great for you and lacks no functionality for your usage is suddenly going to make it better for me.

There is really nothing to gain from this back and forth.  People have different expectations and therefore will feel differently about the online CB as well as any other product that is out on the market.  People's expectations are not the same.


----------



## Herschel (Nov 21, 2010)

Ryujin said:


> In other words whether the currently experienced issues are a direct result of poor coding or poor server infrastructure is largely immaterial, as the change in how this application is accessed is on Wizards. The previous app largely worked, for the majority of users.




The problem was that it worked for non-subscribers and non-regular subscribers. I haven't house-ruled anything so so far I haven't had any functionality issues I didn't have with the old one.


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## Ryujin (Nov 21, 2010)

Herschel said:


> The problem was that it worked for non-subscribers and non-regular subscribers. I haven't house-ruled anything so so far I haven't had any functionality issues I didn't have with the old one.




There are other ways to handle that, rather than pulling the whole thing back to their servers, which I'm sure you're aware of given your stated experience in the industry. 

One simple thing that could have been incorporated, wasn't. That would be permitting the upload of house-ruled characters, without displaying the house-ruled content. At this point I can't even upload my characters, without first editing them to remove house-rules. Seems to me that, from a programming standpoint, that would be rather simple. That's leaving aside the whole, you know, GIVING THE CUSTOMER AT LEAST WHAT HE ALREADY HAS issue.


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## Dice4Hire (Nov 21, 2010)

nerfherder said:


> Of course, the problem with using an analogy on a message board is that someone will _always_ spend more time picking apart the specific analogy, rather than addressing the main point.




Actually the real problem I am seeing on Enworld recently is the drive-by put-down posts, of which the Toyota post was one.


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## nerfherder (Nov 21, 2010)

Dice4Hire said:


> Actually the real problem I am seeing on Enworld recently is the drive-by put-down posts, of which the Toyota post was one.



Then report it, and the moderators will take any action they think is necessary.


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## rjdafoe (Nov 21, 2010)

DEFCON 1 said:


> But here's the $64,000 question...
> 
> Just how difficult was it to try and build the add-ons to the classic CB to accommodate the changes that came to the game via Dark Sun and Essentials (i.e. the DS Themes, and the new level ability structure of Essentials)?




Not hard at all, seeing how people right now have it in the old "Classic" CB.  They chose not to release the updates to the old builder and strung everyone along.


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## rjdafoe (Nov 21, 2010)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I see the strategy why they would try to do this. Essentials and Dark Sun are now big assets that came out this year. If you add them to the old character builder, it means giving "easy" access back to pirates to it.
> If they can constrain the material to a software they can lock down better, the fact that there are many pirated copies out there will not negatively impact their DDI subscriptions much any longer. If you want the newest hot stuff, you need the subscription.
> It would have been a great plan, if the new character builder was ready at the release of D&D Essentials. It wasn't. It would have been good if it was ready now. It seems it isn't either.




Except, as it turns out, the stuff they are trying to protect is not protected at all int he new version and was at least minimally protected in the old product.


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## john112364 (Nov 21, 2010)

Since my gripe earlier in the thread, I have tried the CB2 and it works great now. I've made up a new character, imported one from CB1 made changes etc. Hopefully they have fixed the bugs and it will work as it should now. Maybe now they can add back in some of the functions that we're used to have. Is anyone else still having bug problems or are we still on old complaints? 

And I still have an issue with it being on line only. At the house we usually play at, there is no wireless connection. We used to take out my laptop and someone else's netbook (both _legally_ loaded with CB1 ) and make up characters for those without a DDI account. Now everything will slow down due to only one computer in the house. And that one is on another floor than the room we usually play in, further adding inconvieniance. I know this isn't a deal breaker as I truly enjoy 4e, but when you have a convienience taken away that you have enjoyed since the beginning you are going to be upset, especially since I am paying for it.


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## Dungeoneer (Nov 21, 2010)

I too work in software development as a programmer.  And I am *astonished* by the suggestion that end users are not qualified to criticize the program they are using.  

If anything it's developers, QA testers and other people close  to the project who are not qualified.  IT people tend to give program development some slack, since they know it is a difficult process.  End users just know whether or not the software helps them do what they want to do.

Isn't that the whole point?

OH, I know, software development is _hard_.  There's so much that can go wrong at every level, from requirements to writing code to testing to project mismanagement and impossible deadlines.  

You'll get no argument from me: creating functional, useful, easy-to-use software that works 99% of the time is difficult job.

But you know what?  If you're involved in software development, *that is your damn job.  *So quit making excuses and make it happen.  

WotC is a professional company writing professional software that will be utilized by tens of thousands of users.  If they don't think that they are up to that challenge, they need to outsource it to somebody who is.

In the meantime, when Earl from Kentucky can't import his houseruled Dark Sun character into the new CB without crashing, he has a right to be cheesed off.  He is, after all, the customer who is paying for this service.  He doesn't have to know how it works, or how hard it is to make it work.  He just has to know that it _does _work for what he wants to do.

And as of today, Earl from Kentucky knows that the new CB doesn't work.

On a side note: I've been trying, and failing, to think of another situation where a company basically switched off its old program virtually without notice two weeks before launching version 2.0.  It's like Microsoft telling Windows 7 users "No more updates are forthcoming, as we are developing Windows 8, which you will be required to switch to at the end of the month!"

Really bizarre.

I hear all these defenses along the lines of "it was too hard to implement the new stuff in the old CB!"  Really?  Harder _than developing entirely new software?_  Seriously.

Anyway, the argument rings even more hollow when I've got most of Dark Sun, including themes, up and running in my old skool CB right. now.


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## rjdafoe (Nov 21, 2010)

Dungeoneer said:


> I hear all these defenses along the lines of "it was too hard to implement the new stuff in the old CB!" Really? Harder _than developing entirely new software?_ Seriously.
> 
> Anyway, the argument rings even more hollow when I've got most of Dark Sun, including themes, up and running in my old skool CB right. now.





I agree.  You know what is even funnier - their customers adding the content that they said they could not.  Do a google search if you want to.  It is not hard to do at all.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 22, 2010)

Since I've never used either version of the program, I don't have a side in this fight.

But it seems painfully obvious to me that where there's smoke there's usually fire, and there are simply too many normally pro-4Ed, pro-CB posters- including a LOT with actual skill in the field of programming- complaining about the bugginess of this new offering for there not to be _something_ wrong.

Oh yeah- its also 100% valid for end users of ANY product to critique its ability to do the job that it was purchased to do.


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## evilref (Nov 22, 2010)

rjdafoe said:


> I agree.  You know what is even funnier - their customers adding the content that they said they could not.  Do a google search if you want to.  It is not hard to do at all.




 At the point said people have added all of essentials, you'll be right. Until then they've added the 'easy' stuff, which were made easier by the frameworks already being in place in the Classic CB.


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## Obryn (Nov 22, 2010)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> But it seems painfully obvious to me that where there's smoke there's usually fire, and there are simply too many normally pro-4Ed, pro-CB posters- including a LOT with actual skill in the field of programming- complaining about the bugginess of this new offering for there not to be _something_ wrong.
> 
> Oh yeah- its also 100% valid for end users of ANY product to critique its ability to do the job that it was purchased to do.



Yep.  I certainly don't have any kind of ulterior motives here.  I want WotC to succeed, I want 4e to go on for years, and I really don't mind giving them my money.  I even honestly like change - I think Essentials is new and daring, and am glad it's a part of 4e now.

Anyways, I can honestly say that the new CB hasn't crashed on me yet.  So I don't have that particular critique on either of my systems under any browser.  (Tried so far on Win7 x64, Vista x64, Chrome, and Firefox 3.6.)  So I'm not seeing that particular problem.  It's also attractive, and I like how it changes based on the campaign you're using.

It is, however, quite slow.  It's buggy on data and math.  Workable combinations don't work.  Sheets and cards can't be customized, and there's zero house rule support - not even the minimal support offered in the old one.  It sometimes hangs for 10 seconds or so for no apparent reason.  And the interface makes me want to scream.  Look, the original CB was not a marvel of ergonomics, but I defy anyone to tell me that the new equipment/marketplace screens are an improvement over the old CB. 

-O


----------



## Scholar & Brutalman (Nov 22, 2010)

I think the biggest issue is obvious when you start it up: it says "Version=0.1.115.0". This is an early beta, and they know it.

And as an early beta, it's not too bad: it runs, you can make at least some characters with it, it doesn't crash too often. But as something that's supposed to be a replacement of the offline CB it's completely inadequate.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 22, 2010)

rjdafoe said:


> Except, as it turns out, the stuff they are trying to protect is not protected at all int he new version and was at least minimally protected in the old product.



It's not? How so?


----------



## Nikosandros (Nov 22, 2010)

Dungeoneer said:


> Anyway, the argument rings even more hollow when I've got most of Dark Sun, including themes, up and running in my old skool CB right. now.



I've seen this mentioned many times. Could you give me a pointer in the right direction?


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## Dungeoneer (Nov 22, 2010)

Nikosandros said:


> I've seen this mentioned many times. Could you give me a pointer in the right direction?



You need a freely available program called CBLoader which allows you to modify your CB's data XML files in the comfort of your own home.  Once you have that there are posters on the SomethingAwful/Trad Games forums who have been putting together packages for DS and Essentials.  There's a big honking D&D 4e thread that you just have to wade through.  Hopefully once the 'update' is complete, they'll put it out there in a convenient, easy-to-get-to location.


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## Obryn (Nov 22, 2010)

Dungeoneer said:


> You need a freely available program called CBLoader which allows you to modify your CB's data XML files in the comfort of your own home.  Once you have that there are posters on the SomethingAwful/Trad Games forums who have been putting together packages for DS and Essentials.  There's a big honking D&D 4e thread that you just have to wade through.  Hopefully once the 'update' is complete, they'll put it out there in a convenient, easy-to-get-to location.



But does it include Essentials classes?


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## Holy Bovine (Nov 22, 2010)

Obryn said:


> Yep.  I certainly don't have any kind of ulterior motives here.  I want WotC to succeed, I want 4e to go on for years, and I really don't mind giving them my money.  I even honestly like change - I think Essentials is new and daring, and am glad it's a part of 4e now.
> 
> Anyways, I can honestly say that the new CB hasn't crashed on me yet.  So I don't have that particular critique on either of my systems under any browser.  (Tried so far on Win7 x64, Vista x64, Chrome, and Firefox 3.6.)  So I'm not seeing that particular problem.  It's also attractive, and I like how it changes based on the campaign you're using.
> 
> ...




This is my take almost 100% but I have had it crash about 10 times over the 5 characters I have attempted to make.  The pause after each 'click' annoys me to the point that I don't like using the program - where with the old CB I made characters _because I found the process fun_.  The CBC was an actual source of amusement to me - an added and delightful benefit that is now gone.  The 'Marketplace in the online CB is a nightmare to me.  I do not understand how to find anything in it.

But I guess, according to the OP, I am not qualified to critique a program like this as I wasn't one of the developers.  Or some such nonsense like that.  Or maybe I'm not the kind of customer WotC needs?  At this point WotC isn't doing much to convince me they are a company _I_ need so we'll see how this all pans out.


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## Mallus (Nov 22, 2010)

So I monkeyed around with the new CB a little more. It seems more stable, and I recreated/saved my current 12th level paladin PC without any trouble -- well, except for the "no house rules support at all" thing. I was pleased to discover you can take multiple Domain Feats from different gods by choosing one, then changing your deity, and them choosing another (just like in the old CB).

I can't, for the life of me, understand why WotC didn't make the current version an open beta and let the community bang away at it for a few months. That's really, really, hard to explain. 

As for the, ahem, somewhat unprofessional quality of the release code... that just says to me the project was resource-starved. It smacks of insufficient budget, not a lazy dev team (I like to think kindly of dev teams...).


----------



## gourdcaptain (Nov 22, 2010)

Obryn said:


> But does it include Essentials classes?




Not yet, but they're not done working on it yet.


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## Dungeoneer (Nov 22, 2010)

Obryn said:


> But does it include Essentials classes?



They're focusing on Dark Sun for the moment.  Which is fine by me, TBH.  I don't think Essentials is a product for me.  At any rate I have no idea how difficult it will be to square with the existing XML structure.


----------



## Obryn (Nov 22, 2010)

Holy Bovine said:


> The pause after each 'click' annoys me to the point that I don't like using the program - where with the old CB I made characters _because I found the process fun_.  The CBC was an actual source of amusement to me - an added and delightful benefit that is now gone.  The 'Marketplace in the online CB is a nightmare to me.  I do not understand how to find anything in it.



Yep, that's exactly right.

I would sit around and make random characters with cool concepts while watching TV.  It feels a lot more like a chore now.

I don't just want a tool - I want a _toy_.  And the flashy graphics imply to me that WotC knows it.  Making characters should be fun - a bit of a mini-game in its own right.  Right now, it's barely passable as a tool for me, but it's an utter failure as a toy.



gourdcaptain said:


> Not yet, but they're not done working on it yet.



If they do, sign me up!  I need both, not just Dark Sun stuff.

-O


----------



## Dice4Hire (Nov 22, 2010)

Am I wrong or are we discussing illegal actions here?


----------



## rjdafoe (Nov 22, 2010)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> It's not? How so?




It's all in an unprotected file sitting on your computer. That is all I am going to say about that.

The old CB had encryption for the file. This one doesn't. The content does not sit on their servers as it turns out. This is why alot of people have said that the online CB is basically the same as the old CB.


----------



## rjdafoe (Nov 22, 2010)

evilref said:


> At the point said people have added all of essentials, you'll be right. Until then they've added the 'easy' stuff, which were made easier by the frameworks already being in place in the Classic CB.




So where is the too hard stuff? 

Show me something in essentials that is not easily added?  I know someone right now that can make an esentials Mage - and it works better than the online CB.

 I can add my own custom content right now. We could have had that, through the UI all along.


----------



## evilref (Nov 23, 2010)

Dice4Hire said:


> Am I wrong or are we discussing illegal actions here?




The file being distributed has certainly been created using methods that violate wizards terms of use (which may or may not constitute fraud, see US vs Wiseguys), there's also the potential copyright violation with the downloadable file being distributed. There could be a fair use argument for it, but that'd have to be hashed out in a court because it's not a clearcut issue. 

Your own modification of the file may be deemed to be a violation of the US DMCA or EU Copyright Directive (if you fall into either jurisdiction). I can read the DMCA in two different ways with regards to this.


----------



## Dungeoneer (Nov 23, 2010)

Dice4Hire said:


> Am I wrong or are we discussing illegal actions here?



Yes, you are wrong.  Nothing prevents you from modifying programs you legally downloaded that are sitting on your computer.  

I suppose that peeking under the hood nullifies the warranty and means that I can no longer get support for the product, but, let's face it, that wasn't an issue anyway.


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 23, 2010)

Dungeoneer said:


> Yes, you are wrong.  Nothing prevents you from modifying programs you legally downloaded that are sitting on your computer.
> 
> I suppose that peeking under the hood nullifies the warranty and means that I can no longer get support for the product, but, let's face it, that wasn't an issue anyway.




Actually, most software licenses explicitly exclude that sort of thing.


----------



## Dungeoneer (Nov 23, 2010)

Ryujin said:


> Actually, most software licenses explicitly exclude that sort of thing.



Fortunately, most software licenses don't mean a thing.  Corporations are not legislative bodies.  Are you or anyone else seriously going to sit here and argue that popping open a text editor and poking around in the guts of a data file on your own computer is 'illegal activity'?


----------



## Dice4Hire (Nov 23, 2010)

Dungeoneer said:


> Fortunately, most software licenses don't mean a thing.  Corporations are not legislative bodies.  Are you or anyone else seriously going to sit here and argue that popping open a text editor and poking around in the guts of a data file on your own computer is 'illegal activity'?




I have reported this thread, so I guess we'll see what the mods think.


----------



## Oldtimer (Nov 23, 2010)

Dice4Hire said:


> Am I wrong or are we discussing illegal actions here?



Absolutely not. We are discussing modification of a program we own. Nothing illegal about it. Against the wishes of WotC, certainly, but not against any law.


----------



## the Jester (Nov 23, 2010)

Dice4Hire said:


> Am I wrong or are we discussing illegal actions here?




IANAL, but the only potential lawbreakin' I see here is in distributing the copyrighted material in the Essentials and Darksun books.


----------



## Grabuto138 (Nov 23, 2010)

Danzauker said:


> The biggest issue with the new CB?
> 
> - It costs the same as the old one. *
> 
> ...




It does not cost anything, as a thing-in-itself. Anyone who is sending money to WOTC is doing so because they have bought a subscription to a variety of online content. I know that you really dig the original CB and that is what you thought your were buying. But you were wrong. You paid for access to a random name generator, the Rules Compendium, Dragon and Dungeon etc. You really need to get over what you thought you were buying and come to terms with what you actually were buying.

Don't get me wrong, the new CB is pretty much useless to me in its current form. But I bought a subscription, not a thing. So argueing along these lines is a red herring.


----------



## Grabuto138 (Nov 23, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> Absolutely not. We are discussing modification of a program we own. Nothing illegal about it. Against the wishes of WotC, certainly, but not against any law.




Just curious, why are you so confident that yuu own the program?


----------



## Oldtimer (Nov 23, 2010)

Grabuto138 said:


> Just curious, why are you so confident that yuu own the program?



Because I bought it, perhaps? You know, like in offer, acceptance, and payment. Little things like that.


----------



## Dice4Hire (Nov 23, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> Because I bought it, perhaps? You know, like in offer, acceptance, and payment. Little things like that.




Did you read the terms of use? I doubt they say anything like that.


----------



## Oldtimer (Nov 23, 2010)

Dice4Hire said:


> Did you read the terms of use? I doubt they say anything like that.



Just curious, but what makes you think that the Terms of Use have any legal standing?


----------



## Dice4Hire (Nov 23, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> Just curious, but what makes you think that the Terms of Use have any legal standing?




Just curious, but why do you think you can just use things like the CB as you see fit? 

I really do not get why some people think they can just take things they want, and that a minor payment of any amount of money entitles them to taking whatever they like. Paying one day to enter an amusement park does not give the customer the equivalent of a yearly pass. Or a lifetime one. 

The Terms of Use are something that you supposedly read and definitely agreed to BEFORE you paid the money. The fact (or so you say) that there is no legal standing is beside the point. You agreed to the terms BEFORE you paid the money. So maybe WOTC cannot sue you.  That does not make it right.


----------



## Oldtimer (Nov 23, 2010)

Dice4Hire said:


> Just curious, but why do you think you can just use things like the CB as you see fit?



Because I bought it. I think we are going in circles here.

Look, companies are not legislators. They can write their various EULAs and stuff, but Contract Law and Consumer Rights still trumph those. Companies would like you to believe in their smoke and mirrors tricks, but you really shouldn't.


----------



## evilref (Nov 23, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> Because I bought it. I think we are going in circles here.
> 
> Look, companies are not legislators. They can write their various EULAs and stuff, but Contract Law and Consumer Rights still trumph those. Companies would like you to believe in their smoke and mirrors tricks, but you really shouldn't.




You didn't buy it, you subscribed to the service, there's a significant legal difference.

To make it clear, again, the legal matter is with regard to a file which contains copyrighted material and whether or not a piece of software which modifies the classic CB would fall under the DMCA. The DMCA was particularly far-reaching in its scope and, as such, there are 'things' which used to be fine which are now potentially unlawful.

There is no EULA, there is a terms of use agreement, this has a different legal standing. As for contract law coming ahead of a terms of use, terms of use are a form of contract. How binding depends on a court, but the US Government just succesfully prosecuted a company for fraud because of violating a website's terms of use (yes it was more complicated than that, but that aspect was the significant chilling effect to come out of the trial).

This is not 'a text editor' as someone mentioned above, there's a piece of software which is run to enable you to _then _use text editors to modify the CB, you then have to use that software to run the CB rather than the normal .exe; it's the use of that software that may be a DMCA violation. Likewise the distributed file contains extensive text from Dark Sun and Essentials, this is almost certainly a copyright violation (there could be a fair use argument but I don't believe it would wash given the nature of the file, its intended use and the copied text).


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 23, 2010)

Dungeoneer said:


> Fortunately, most software licenses don't mean a thing.  Corporations are not legislative bodies.  Are you or anyone else seriously going to sit here and argue that popping open a text editor and poking around in the guts of a data file on your own computer is 'illegal activity'?




Actually a software license is a contract. While we may not be talking about an actual legal infraction, we are talking about a breach of contract.


----------



## Dungeoneer (Nov 23, 2010)

Ryujin said:


> Actually a software license is a contract. While we may not be talking about an actual legal infraction, we are talking about a breach of contract.



Look, I have created a program.  It's called AutoThreadBaiter2.0.  It doesn't really do anything useful, but I've written a EULA which says that I get to eat any pets you may have and that running the program signifies acceptance.

If you use the program and don't let me eat your pets and I take you to court because "we have a contract that states I'm allowed to eat your pets," will I win?

This is an extreme example, but it points out the absurdity of this line of thinking.  Corporations can put any kind of nonsense they want in their EULA, but it's not binding and is unlikely to stand up in a court of law.  _If_ WotC wants to take me or a bunch of SomethingAwful forumers to court and try their luck, that's their business rather than yours.  

In the meantime, this thread has gotten WAY off track.  So: New Character Builder not as good as Old Character Builder.  RAWR.


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 23, 2010)

Dungeoneer said:


> Look, I have created a program.  It's called AutoThreadBaiter2.0.  It doesn't really do anything useful, but I've written a EULA which says that I get to eat any pets you may have and that running the program signifies acceptance.
> 
> If you use the program and don't let me eat your pets and I take you to court because "we have a contract that states I'm allowed to eat your pets," will I win?
> 
> ...




The very absurdity of that "EULA" invalidates the argument. A contract must be reasonable, to be enforceable. A contract, like the one that I have described, is enforceable.


----------



## IronWolf (Nov 23, 2010)

Ryujin said:


> Actually a software license is a contract. While we may not be talking about an actual legal infraction, we are talking about a breach of contract.




There is a large amount of debate about the enforceability of a EULA.  It isn't clear cut as the courts have ruled on specific EULAs and not EULAs as a whole.  So this subject is not not likely one that we are going to get agreement on here as even as far as the legal system is concerned there is debate about it.


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## I'm A Banana (Nov 23, 2010)

That should settle that.


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## Umbran (Nov 23, 2010)

*Ladies and Gentlemen,

The question of legality is for lawyers.  The question of breach of contract is also for lawyers.  Anyone who takes a discussion among poorly-identified duffers on a message board as good legal advice... shouldn't.  

If you aren't a lawyer, please stop telling folks what is, or is not, okay by contract or law.  You aren't an expert, and aren't in a position to pass judgments good for anyone other than yourself.  

Thanks for your attention.*


----------



## Danzauker (Nov 23, 2010)

EULA: by continuing you accept to consirer the following post by Danzauker (from here on called "the poster") as "tongue in cheek satire" and not "mod disagreeing" and thus consider the poster not liable of banning.




Lo, when, WHEN will we see the day when a similar mod post will be written where "lawyer" is changed to "developer"!!!!


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## Umbran (Nov 23, 2010)

Danzauker said:


> Lo, when, WHEN will we see the day when a similar mod post will be written where "lawyer" is changed to "developer"!!!!




When someone gives development advice that might get someone in trouble ("Format C:?  That's perfectly safe!  I do it all the time!  Go right ahead!") then maybe we'll step in.


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## Herschel (Nov 23, 2010)

Umbran, you do realize these are the intawebs, right? Everyone is a lawyer with a medical practice who programs super computers on the side.


----------



## Umbran (Nov 23, 2010)

Yeah, yeah.  Back to the real discussion now, please.


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## Obryn (Nov 24, 2010)

Umbran said:


> When someone gives development advice that might get someone in trouble ("Format C:?  That's perfectly safe!  I do it all the time!  Go right ahead!") then maybe we'll step in.



So, then, I shouldn't tell anyone how Control-W will allow them to add houseruled feats to the new, online CB? 

-O


----------



## TheClone (Nov 24, 2010)

I don't know if it has been mentioned before (11 pages are a lot to read), but my absolutely bigges issue with the CB is the flexibility and extensibility of character creation. One part is houserules feats and stuff. The other is that I can't have standard D&D characters with Themes or Wild Talent or Paladins in Dark Sun. That really sucks. After all it's MY campaign as the DM so I'd like to use what ever character creation rules I can find in any D&D setting and not only in those combination like Wizards sells them to use. They're forcing us to use exactly what they sell and that sucks. It ruins the whole app.


----------



## Herschel (Nov 24, 2010)

Not trying to be snarky, bu what part of "No Divine Power Source on Athas" surprises you about not having paladins in Dark Sun at roll-out? Will they add it in? Possibly, but this one doesn't surprise me at all until house rule support is in. 

I'm not sure I think they need to support house rules past stat differentials and feat allowances. The tool is probably best served for supporting their stuff and not trying to be able to add much house rule goofiness in. I'd say if you want to allow a paladin in Dark Sun, just make it a PHB one and re-skin it since that's what you'll have to do with a Paladin anyway.


----------



## MrMyth (Nov 24, 2010)

Herschel said:


> Not trying to be snarky, bu what part of "No Divine Power Source on Athas" surprises you about not having paladins in Dark Sun at roll-out? Will they add it in? Possibly, but this one doesn't surprise me at all until house rule support is in.
> 
> I'm not sure I think they need to support house rules past stat differentials and feat allowances. The tool is probably best served for supporting their stuff and not trying to be able to add much house rule goofiness in. I'd say if you want to allow a paladin in Dark Sun, just make it a PHB one and re-skin it since that's what you'll have to do with a Paladin anyway.




Because... you can't. Your non-Dark Suns paladin doesn't get access to themes. There is no way to toggle that on for home-campaign characters, and no way to toggle on divine characters for Dark Sun characters.

Now, this isn't a world-breaking flaw. It is the sort of thing I'm relatively confident _will _be addressed in time. But I think it is another example of the issues with the new CB - it will be a great program six months from now, but is a pretty disappointing program right now, and WotC has handled its release poorly.

For myself, I think Obyrn hit the nail on the head - trying to make characters with it, for me, just feels too much like work. Despite the fact that I like a lot of elements of the new design, new search filters, etc... the delays and sluggishness (especially with basic things like stat buy) does not make for a smooth experience. And that doesn't even count crashes, or elements that simply don't work yet.


----------



## Dausuul (Nov 24, 2010)

I bought my DDI subscription for access to the Character Builder and Adventure Tools. The Compendium is a nice little bonus; I don't give a crap about the rest.

The reason I keep paying for that subscription is to keep getting updates to the Character Builder and Adventure Tools. Right now, there are two ways I can look at the situation:

I have not gotten updates for a couple months and won't get any for some months to come.
The working Character Builder I was using has been replaced with a crappy, broken version.
If we were still getting updates for the old CB, until the new one was up to snuff--or if the new one had been up to snuff out of the box--I'd be happy. As it is, not so much. I'm sure Wizards is within the letter of the law here, but if you have to resort to telling your customers, "Look, legally speaking, you're getting what you paid for," you're not doing a very good job.

(Also, whose bright idea was it to post back to the server for every single tiny change? I mean, seriously, I add 1 to my character's Strength in point buy--we need a postback for that? It's called Javascript, people.)


----------



## I'm A Banana (Nov 24, 2010)

The legality of the thing is a red herring. A canard. A technicality. 

The long and short of it is, if the new CB doesn't provide the value you want, the value you paid for, you should probably ditch your subscription. 

The legal and technological fiddly bits don't matter.

If you're not getting your money's worth (which is a subjective, personal call), go spend it on something else.

And don't let anyone tell you that you're wrong to do what you please with your own income, whatever your reasoning.


----------



## the Jester (Nov 24, 2010)

Herschel said:


> I'm not sure I think they need to support house rules past stat differentials and feat allowances. The tool is probably best served for supporting their stuff and not trying to be able to add much house rule goofiness in.




Are you kidding? That's a total dealbreaker for a lot of their customers. They'd be insane not to try to integrate house rules support, at least on a minimal level. 

Even if all "house rules support" means is I can write up my own power cards, add bonus feats and inherent bonuses.


----------



## Theo R Cwithin (Nov 24, 2010)

Herschel said:


> I'm not sure I think they need to support house rules past stat differentials and feat allowances. The tool is probably best served for supporting their stuff and not trying to be able to add much house rule goofiness in.



Right, because the best games are standardized, non-customizable ones that cater to notoriously uncreative people like roleplayers.


.


----------



## Obryn (Nov 25, 2010)

I just wanted to reply to a rep comment...



> Yay, although I think the message you send by subscribing is more harmful than making a character by hand.



As a general rule, I don't buy something to send a message.  Or, for that matter, refrain from buying something.

Briefly, I resubscribed because, while I think the new CB is substandard and a huge step backwards, and parts of the UI are just execrable, it is still a useful enough tool for my money.  Barely.

So yeah.  I don't really buy or not-buy something as a form of direct communication and/or protest.  I buy or not-buy something based solely on whether or not I think it's worth the money charged for it.

-O


----------



## Ketjak (Nov 25, 2010)

*THIS guy is in charge?*

This is the head of the WotC digital studios:

Christiaan Champagne - LinkedIn

After his stint as a systems engineer at a casino game (slot machine) company, he was the "games and gaming lead" of a team that "stalled out before really getting started." Then he was laid off for 8 months, or at least concurrently while being a reservist signal officer.

This guy is well out of his depth. He's never led a software development team, let alone several teams making different products. He's maybe worked on some deliverable products as a _system engineer_ (read: core tech developer), but those are short-cycle slot machines (I have friends who work for IGT and other former coworkers whose company subs to IGT), not applications as complex as character builders. The machines he worked on have to pay out slightly less than they take in, is all. 

And he wasn't the project lead.


----------



## TheClone (Nov 25, 2010)

Herschel said:


> Not trying to be snarky, bu what part of "No Divine Power Source on Athas" surprises you about not having paladins in Dark Sun at roll-out? Will they add it in? Possibly, but this one doesn't surprise me at all until house rule support is in.
> 
> I'm not sure I think they need to support house rules past stat differentials and feat allowances. The tool is probably best served for supporting their stuff and not trying to be able to add much house rule goofiness in. I'd say if you want to allow a paladin in Dark Sun, just make it a PHB one and re-skin it since that's what you'll have to do with a Paladin anyway.




Yep, that's it. The house rules are not available. They were in the old CB. Yehaw, give a new version, reduce features and make me.. what? happy? No. I know there are no divine being on Athas. But I even can't do it with the "Home Campaign" thing. But it's MY game dammit! I want to use the rules I like and not the ones WotC likes me to use. Not everybody is using it this way, but many are. RPG is about freedom of play and not about moods of the publisher. For me it's absolutely a showstopper. It breaks the whole damn thing.




Ketjak said:


> This is the head of the WotC digital studios:
> 
> Christiaan Champagne - LinkedIn
> 
> ...




Thank you for digging this out. It explains a lot (but not everything). And let's me think the WotC "human resources" department is not doing its job properly.


----------



## Jhaelen (Nov 25, 2010)

Ketjak said:


> This guy is well out of his depth.



Says who?


Ketjak said:


> And he wasn't the project lead.



So?


----------



## Herschel (Nov 25, 2010)

the Jester said:


> Are you kidding? That's a total dealbreaker for a lot of their customers. They'd be insane not to try to integrate house rules support, at least on a minimal level.
> 
> Even if all "house rules support" means is I can write up my own power cards, add bonus feats and inherent bonuses.




I think you misunderstood what I meant. I'll expound a little.

Basically, you can write custom power cards or feat lines, but I don't think they should try to say, integrate the math in to the system. For example, say you wanted to give a player an old school Frost Brand. Take a basic power card for a +3 magic sword, then write in the properties "Gain resist 10 fire while wielding. Additional +3 attack & damage bonus aganist creatures with Fire, Demon or Devil keyword". The math on the card for attack and damage displays the properties for the +3 sword. No math is done for the custom element.

For a feat, you can againt write in what you want a feat to do, but if you want to put in a feat for 'uber-fortitude' that gives a +4 bonus to Fort then it should be in text only, not bother with trying to have it reflect in the actual stat blocks.

Inherent bonuses, stat "rolling" and additional/fewer feats are basics also, even though I think divine boons were introduced to alleviate extra feat need.

All these I think are ones that will be in the builder that aren't already.


----------



## Holy Bovine (Nov 25, 2010)

TheClone said:


> Yep, that's it. The house rules are not available. They were in the old CB. Yehaw, give a new version, reduce features and make me.. what? happy? No. I know there are no divine being on Athas. But I even can't do it with the "Home Campaign" thing. But it's MY game dammit! I want to use the rules I like and not the ones WotC likes me to use. Not everybody is using it this way, but many are. RPG is about freedom of play and not about moods of the publisher. For me it's absolutely a showstopper. It breaks the whole damn thing.




I had to check this out myself as I didn't actually believe it.  Sadly it is true that even if I select 'home campaign' I cannot use things like Themes or those psionic powers for Dark Sun.  This is just stupid.


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## Piratecat (Nov 25, 2010)

Holy Bovine said:


> Sadly it is true that even if I select 'home campaign' I cannot use things like Themes or those psionic powers for Dark Sun.  This is just stupid.



I'm hoping this changes when (if?) they add control of what content you're allowed to access. It reduces the program's utility for me. I want themes for my home game!


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## Scribble (Nov 25, 2010)

Holy Bovine said:


> I had to check this out myself as I didn't actually believe it.  Sadly it is true that even if I select 'home campaign' I cannot use things like Themes or those psionic powers for Dark Sun.  This is just stupid.




Seeing as it IS kind of dumb to not have that stuff, and certain other campaign modifying/personalizing things are missing (ie the missing items kind of have a similar theme) my guess is it's intentional because they're planning to release that ability in a DM side utility...  Possibly in conjunction with the VT...

Just- as usual they're being tight lipped about it.


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## Herschel (Nov 25, 2010)

You make a good point, Scribble. With magic item rarity now I'm guessing customization will go over to the DM tool side, although being able to copy the custom item in to the character builder for those who don't cut their power cards individually would be nice. It's something I never got to work right in the old CB either.


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## TheClone (Nov 25, 2010)

Herschel said:


> I think you misunderstood what I meant. I'll expound a little.
> 
> Basically, you can write custom power cards or feat lines, but I don't think they should try to say, integrate the math in to the system. For example, say you wanted to give a player an old school Frost Brand. Take a basic power card for a +3 magic sword, then write in the properties "Gain resist 10 fire while wielding. Additional +3 attack & damage bonus aganist creatures with Fire, Demon or Devil keyword". The math on the card for attack and damage displays the properties for the +3 sword. No math is done for the custom element.
> 
> ...




Yes and no. usually what you say is enough. It's just as the old CB did it. I personally like to have some more so that your custom powers have keywords, range and those "upper part stats" on the card. But it doesn't need to do the maths. but if they'll integrate the CB wit hthe VT this'll become a major drawback, so they really need to integrate the math at some point, but not now. Or maybe this is the reason why they didn't integrate it and they never will?



Holy Bovine said:


> I had to check this out myself as I didn't actually believe it.  Sadly it is true that even if I select 'home campaign' I cannot use things like Themes or those psionic powers for Dark Sun.  This is just stupid.




It's seldom to find people that actually pick up things from a discussion and basically change their opinion. Much appreciated.


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## UngainlyTitan (Nov 25, 2010)

Ketjak said:


> This is the head of the WotC digital studios:
> 
> Christiaan Champagne - LinkedIn
> 
> ...



 It is equally possible that he understands his job well enough but his management is the clueless part of the equation and they are placing impossible goals for the team.


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## regomar (Nov 25, 2010)

ardoughter said:


> It is equally possible that he understands his job well enough but his management is the clueless part of the equation and they are placing impossible goals for the team.




The results so far indicate a unhealthy combination of the two.

And while Im here, I'll just add my voice to the crowd of DDI subscribers who have let their subscription lapse due to this fiasco.  I've already upgraded my old, FUNCTIONAL character builder with the stuff WOTC wasn't able to do in months (no, not all of it, but Dark Sun is pretty much complete at the very least).  It's blatantly obvious that they have no idea what they're doing.


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## Scribble (Nov 25, 2010)

regomar said:


> It's blatantly obvious that they have no idea what they're doing.




Everything is blatantly obvious when you only base it on one portion of the story.


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## regomar (Nov 25, 2010)

Scribble said:


> Everything is blatantly obvious when you only base it on one portion of the story.




So if they know exactly what they're doing, you're telling me that they MEANT to release a buggy, less-functional, less SECURE program to paying customers?  They WANTED to have hordes of people unsubscribe?  They WANTED many of their biggest fans and the people that defended 4th ed in the face of everything to finally throw in the towel and stop apologizing for them?  

You're right!  Looking at it from their side, they're geniuses!


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## Scribble (Nov 25, 2010)

regomar said:


> So if they know exactly what they're doing, you're telling me that they MEANT to release a buggy, less-functional, less SECURE program to paying customers?  They WANTED to have hordes of people unsubscribe?  They WANTED many of their biggest fans and the people that defended 4th ed in the face of everything to finally throw in the towel and stop apologizing for them?
> 
> You're right!  Looking at it from their side, they're geniuses!




No- I'm saying we don't know the whole story- We don't know anything really.

So saying one reason something happened is blatantly obvious when we don't know everything that was involved is simply jumping to conclusions. 

What you've chosen to believe is blatantly obvious, based solely upon assumptions you have made.


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## Ketjak (Nov 25, 2010)

*Experience is the key*



ardoughter said:


> It is equally possible that he understands his job well enough but his management is the clueless part of the equation and they are placing impossible goals for the team.




Well, that may be so. The point I make about his not being a project lead until he was made "studio director" is that he had _no practical software development leadership experience_ before. That's critical when being given impossible deadlines, understanding the implications of a decision related to schedules or staffing or manpower, even as simple as understanding the effect of sick days on a project schedule. When given an impossible deadline, one can and should refuse to subject the team to failure. His leadership experience in the Army should have taught him that, which makes me wonder if he really led people even in the military.

That aside, though, he flat-out _lied_ in the podcast. Perhaps he was ordered to lie, in which case his inexperience tells again - never lie, either withhold information or tell the truth. But to say Silverlight (for example) was the choice because it allows them to develop for mobile platforms is disingenuous, a lie, or a display of ignorance because _Silverlight doesn't work on Android or iOS devices._

The fact that the data (remember, the material they wanted to protect against privacy) is unprotected in the Silverlight client is damning as well - either he knew it was unprotected and allowed it to ship, which undermines the key justification for an online-only CB, or he didn't know it was in there which means he doesn't understand his application.

Again, with experience he knows what questions to ask - but he has no practical software development leadership experience, and so doesn't know or was afraid to ask the right questions.

Now let's say he _was_ given a "ship or die" order that resulted in the buggy software we see being released on 16 NOV. This is speculation, but given no professional would release what was released except under duress and given the clearly cascading slips from Essentials release to October to November, my take is that management no longer had confidence in the team's ability to predict their own schedule. Given all the other evidence that points to lack of experience, this is the result of his (nor anyone else on the team's) inability to do what's called a "work breakdown structure" (a break down of the tasks required) to figure out what remains to be done to call the project complete... or at least hit a milestone like Alpha or Beta. (This also requires an understanding of the requirements for a milestone...)

To be clear, the alternative to not being able to do a work breakdown structure is not being _willing_ to do a work breakdown structure.

Of course, it's also entirely possible that they did a WBS but weren't able to estimate properly... which, if it happened, speaks to the inexperience of the entire team as well as the studio director and the project manager, since an experience project manager-type can start accounting for bad estimates.

I _am_ a project manager by trade. I am no Old Timer, having only been doing this for 16 years. I kick the tires of developers to see whether they are good enough to sub-contract and to analyze their process to see where it breaks, and I do continual process improvement on my own projects to see what's wrong and what's worth doing again, or more of. I have screwed up projects and swung in on a rope and saved the project from falling into lava, and while I haven't seen it all I've seen plenty.

This has many of the hallmarks of a screwed up project, mainly in terms of process and project management.

- Ket


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## UngainlyTitan (Nov 25, 2010)

Ketjak said:


> snip an analysis that I do not strongly disagree with....




But, my point is that we are; essentially, enganged in a form of Kremlinology where we are looking at events and trying to decern the dynamics behind them. The thing is we have no real information and in that context I think that it is a little unfair to point at one individual and say it is all his fault.

That said, I do agree that WOTC appear to exibhit all the systems of failed software projects the world over. 

The real key question is, can they learn from their mistakes?


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## wedgeski (Nov 25, 2010)

Ketjak said:


> Well, that may be so. The point I make about his not being a project lead until he was made "studio director" is that he had _no practical software development leadership experience_ before. That's critical when being given impossible deadlines, understanding the implications of a decision related to schedules or staffing or manpower, even as simple as understanding the effect of sick days on a project schedule. When given an impossible deadline, one can and should refuse to subject the team to failure. His leadership experience in the Army should have taught him that, which makes me wonder if he really led people even in the military.



How about you just give it a rest? Not liking the product is one thing, character assassination is quite another.


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## evilref (Nov 25, 2010)

This is getting ridiculous. How long before someone starts checking WotC staff credit records?


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## Truename (Nov 26, 2010)

Ketjak said:


> To be clear, the alternative to not being able to do a work breakdown structure is not being _willing_ to do a work breakdown structure.




There are legitimate, successful approaches to software development that don't involve a work breakdown structure.

I'm not defending WotC's software development approach, which does appear dysfunctional, and I'm one of those that has let his subscription lapse. But you're drawing conclusions from insufficient data, based on a narrowly-specific view of software development. It's unbecoming. Particularly the character assassination part.


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## Lokiare (Nov 26, 2010)

evilref said:


> This is getting ridiculous. How long before someone starts checking WotC staff credit records?




Good idea!


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## Lokiare (Nov 26, 2010)

Truename said:


> There are legitimate, successful approaches to software development that don't involve a work breakdown structure.
> 
> I'm not defending WotC's software development approach, which does appear dysfunctional, and I'm one of those that has let his subscription lapse. But you're drawing conclusions from insufficient data, based on a narrowly-specific view of software development. It's unbecoming. Particularly the character assassination part.




Are you serious? can you name a few? Without a WBS you can't readily estimate how much time it will take to work on a project, you also can't tell when you need to re-allocate resources to get a part that is lagging behind up to schedule.

One of the things this points to is that they used one of the so-called "agile" programming methods. Which pretty much allow the developers to break rules and make judgement calls which can throw a project wildly off track and behind schedule.


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## TheClone (Nov 26, 2010)

Scribble said:


> Everything is blatantly obvious when you only base it on one portion of the story.




You are right. But we do not get any message from "the other side". WotC is again leaving us in total darkness (maybe they are drow?) and is revealing absolutely nothing voluntarily. So we are up to speculation at some point and it's the only thing we can do to release your anger. So maybe WotC is learning soem day that PR is not only about saying nothing and releasing crude products but about dialog with the customer? Then we can see both sides of the story and understand why things are they way they are. This will happen most likely. It will only not happen if the problems their digital products have are really based on severe mistakes on side of WotC and the digital studios. And if that is true the anger will never stop and is more than understandable.


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## Truename (Nov 26, 2010)

Lokiare said:


> Are you serious? can you name a few? Without a WBS you can't readily estimate how much time it will take to work on a project, you also can't tell when you need to re-allocate resources to get a part that is lagging behind up to schedule.




I don't come here to argue about software methods, but this _is_ my area of expertise as an author and international speaker. In a nutshell, there are many ways to estimate.


For traditional phase-based projects, McConnell's _Software Estimation_ describes many ways of estimating projects without using a WBS.


Some Lean and Kanban variants use "Disney-line planning," in which they measure the average amount of time it takes to finish a single feature, then extrapolate a "it will take you xx days to finish items at this point in the queue" estimate.


And Scrum and XP (two examples of the Agile methods that you dismiss so readily) predict release dates by estimating stories and comparing the total in the team's backlog to the team's measured velocity. The more sophisticated teams adjust their predictions for risk and revise the scope of their projects every week so they can hit a predetermined release date.
 This doesn't even get to the heart of the issue, which is that hitting predefined scope/date targets is tangential to shipping successful software, but I'll stop here since we're way off topic as it is.


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## Lokiare (Nov 28, 2010)

Truename said:


> I don't come here to argue about software methods, but this _is_ my area of expertise as an author and international speaker. In a nutshell, there are many ways to estimate.
> 
> 
> For traditional phase-based projects, McConnell's _Software Estimation_ describes many ways of estimating projects without using a WBS.





Well since I don't have access to that book can you summarize a few of the methods mentioned?





Truename said:


> Some Lean and Kanban variants use "Disney-line planning," in which they measure the average amount of time it takes to finish a single feature, then extrapolate a "it will take you xx days to finish items at this point in the queue" estimate.



Since features differ in scope and time this method would yield variable numbers that wouldn't match the actual time needed. A work break down structure breaks the work down to its smallest part and then allows you to estimate each part, when added up they give you a very accurate view of how long it will take.





Truename said:


> And Scrum and XP (two examples of the Agile methods that you dismiss so readily) predict release dates by estimating stories and comparing the total in the team's backlog to the team's measured velocity. The more sophisticated teams adjust their predictions for risk and revise the scope of their projects every week so they can hit a predetermined release date.



Estimating stories? seriously? for this to be even remotely accurate they'd have to compare projects and assignments that were almost exactly the same in scope and time to find out how long it would take. This would be really inaccurate. Updating predictions is not a planning model, it is part of the process of working in a team/project environment (if your smart). They can still update a WBS every week, so basically that part doesn't change anything.



Truename said:


> This doesn't even get to the heart of the issue, which is that hitting predefined scope/date targets is tangential to shipping successful software, but I'll stop here since we're way off topic as it is.




The heart of the issue? It is not tangential to shipping successful software. It is essential! unless of course the management doesn't care if they have to work their developers 24/7 for the last few weeks to try to hit a deadline because the project wasn't properly planned and the developers abandoned tried and true methods to try a shortcut that then turned out to be a long cut...

To summarize my point: When using an agile method an exceptional group of developers can put out decent software on time. A standard group will invariably fail. Using a factory method both the exceptional group and the standard group will put out decent software on time.

I'm also not insulting "agile" development. It has its place. Things that need to be out in a short time, that will never need updates should use "agile" development. As far as the software WotC is developing is concerned they will constantly have to update the rules system and add new ways of doing things as long as they keep putting out new books, so a factory model would be a much better way in the long run...


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## Oldtimer (Nov 28, 2010)

Lokiare said:


> When using an agile method an exceptional group of developers can put out decent software on time. A standard group will invariably fail. Using a factory method both the exceptional group and the standard group will put out decent software on time.



This is simply, in my experience, untrue.



> I'm also not insulting "agile" development. It has its place. Things that need to be out in a short time, that will never need updates should use "agile" development. As far as the software WotC is developing is concerned they will constantly have to update the rules system and add new ways of doing things as long as they keep putting out new books, so a factory model would be a much better way in the long run...



I think you are confusing Agile methods with that ninties fad called Rapid Application Development. Agile is actually much more suited for a system in heavy flux than a more traditional Water Fall method.


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