# New Character Builder from WotC!



## Dausuul

WotC has just announced that on November 16th, they will be rolling out a new web-based character builder, which will replace the existing CB. Characters from the old CB can be imported; characters will be stored on WotC's servers; and Essentials and Dark Sun content will be included in the new release.

Some thoughts...

This could be a great opportunity to overhaul some of the CB's flaws. Hope they take it.
Since this one is web-based, Mac users just got access to the CB.
The old "buy a one-month subscription, download six months of updates, cancel subscription" trick won't work any more. And having your character stored on WotC servers is a strong incentive to keep paying. I wonder if there will be a way to export character files? Probably not.
What about custom character pics? Will those also be stored on the WotC server? Could end up taking a lot of space...
Any time the service goes down during gaming hours, there will be hell to pay.


*Mod Edit:*  Absolutely nothing wrong with your post.  I just hoped you'd view it as a favor that I put a link to the announcement here.  ~ Umbran

http://community.wizards.com/go/thr..._16th_Release_for_Web-based_Character_Builder


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## TerraDave

As I read this on my Mac, I see it as good news.

Not everyone will agree.


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## Keefe the Thief

Finally! Congrats to Mac Users!  I think this will open up lots of new directions for playing online together, and for integrating future DDI tools into a complete set. I foresee all tools to be online only, and tightly integrated into each other.

Aaah, the brain squirms with possibilities.


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## Almacov

This is as I feared.

I do not want the content I pay for to be tethered to and caged in WotC servers.

I'm out.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir

So they just went from getting a little bit of money from me a few times a year to getting no money from me at all.  No way am I paying a monthly sub for access to new material I'm likely not using, and holding my characters hostage in the meantime.

I'm not surprised -- they should have done it this way from the beginning -- but this is just another way of gouging the customer.  If the monthly content were worthwhile, people wouldn't subscribe and drop just to get the character builder updates.


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## avin

Grats on Mac users.

Grats on Wizards, for killing CB use when we are playing away from wireless.

Kill piracy and piss your paying customers... fantastic...


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## Umbran

Hm.  I may be joining a 4e game soon, but I don't know if I want a permanent subscription at this time.

So, tonight, I go get myself a 1-month subscription (if they still allow such) and do the download, just in case.  

(Actually, yes, they do still offer it.  No problem picking it up now if you feel the need.)

Of course, it occurs to me that this is _exactly_ the behavior they are hoping for.  If DDI has largely saturated, this would be a way to eke a few extra bucks out of it before the holiday season.  

During the holiday season, they hope to pick up new players with Essentials - all those new players will only ever see the web-based builder, so to them the change is not an issue.

By the way, the announcement can be found here:  http://community.wizards.com/go/thr..._16th_Release_for_Web-based_Character_Builder

A major point - the old builder will still function.  They will simply no longer be offering it for download, nor updating it with data from new releases.


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## Shazman

So you used to have to pay only if you wanted to get current updates for your character builder.  Now you have to pay every month to use it at all and have your character held hostage by WotC servers as well.  That's about the worst deal I can think of.  No thanks.  I'm out.


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## tuxgeo

Dausuul said:


> WotC has just announced that on November 16th, they will be rolling out a new web-based character builder, which will replace the existing CB. Characters from the old CB can be imported; characters will be stored on WotC's servers; and Essentials and Dark Sun content will be included in the new release.




Could you please provide a link to the announcement? I didn't see it readily on the D&D front page. 

Is there the slightest snowball's chance in H-E-double-Toothpicks that they are going to make the Web version free to use? 

Terms of Service are what, exactly? If I store my PC online, does it thereby become WotC's intellectual property, in the same way in which all postings to their Forums do? I'm beginning to dislike this prospect as I imagine it more fully.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir

Umbran said:


> Hm.  I may be joining a 4e game soon, but I don't know if I want a permanent subscription at this time.
> 
> So, tonight, I go get myself a 1-month subscription (if they still allow such) and do the download, just n case.




So long as it's not a Dark Sun game.


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## Jan van Leyden

Good thing my DDI subscription has just run out. This thing devalues DDI for me big time. With the sinking quality and amount of material in Dungeon and Dragon there doesn't remain much worth paying for.


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## Umbran

tuxgeo said:


> Terms of Service are what, exactly? If I store my PC online, does it thereby become WotC's intellectual property, in the same way in which all postings to their Forums do? I'm beginning to dislike this prospect as I imagine it more fully.




Is there any actual intellectual property in the Character Builder stats?  Assuming no house rules, I mean?


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## Keefe the Thief

ENworld invents the best phrases, i swear. I liked "WotC raped my childhood" when Dungeon and Dragon went digital, but "hold my characters hostage?" Brilliant!

Wait, i'll try it out: "Steam holds my savegames and achievements hostage."

I love it.


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## Umbran

Rodrigo Istalindir said:


> So long as it's not a Dark Sun game.




Nope.  And even if it was - it's a ten dollar purchase for one month.  Not a big deal.


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## Retreater

I'm out. I will not be renewing my DDI membership (which ran out at the end of Oct.) 

In fact, forcing players to purchase this monthly subscription is likely going to kill 4E playing in my group. (And before you say that WotC is not "forcing" it - consider that for new players the DDI Character Builder was a key enticing factor for playing 4E. Now - not so much.)

So now we have the following issues:

1) Books that are instantly errated and not worth the paper they are printed on.
2) WotC holding onto your characters and all of the errata so you have to pay $10 a month to access them.
3) Forcing you to play with a ready Internet connection

I hope this fails and they go back to the previous model. 

Retreater


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## Sunseeker

Cloud computing will be the death of us all.

That said, I think it's hilarious to hear people griping about "paying for material I'll never use" when they're only paying 10 bucks or less a month for it.  You were all abusing the system and you know it.  You are the pirates WOTC is trying to stop.  And now your whining that you can't steal from them anymore?  HA!

Really guys?  I buy one manual, it's 40 bucks(lets just go with MSRP, not ebay), two, now it's 80, get a nice set of all the core books, I'm staring down well over 200.  I want power books?  tack on another 30 a piece, pretty soon I'm looking down the barrel of easily $500 in books, magazines and supplements.

or, I could pay 10 bucks a month for ALL of that information, and it would take me over 4 years to total up to that amount.  Which we all know more books, more supplements, more magazines would be released.  Hell, a new edition may come out and you'll have to repeat the whole process all over again.

As much as I don't like the flaws in this system, based on the cost alone, it is still WELL worth it.  And I personally will enjoy not having to deal with buggy updates and just know that when I log in to the website, it will be fully updates and ready to go.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir

Keefe the Thief said:


> ENworld invents the best phrases, i swear. I liked "WotC raped my childhood" when Dungeon and Dragon went digital, but "hold my characters hostage?" Brilliant!
> 
> Wait, i'll try it out: "Steam holds my savegames and achievements hostage."
> 
> I love it.




Bad analogy.  Steam doesn't charge you a monthly fee to access content you paid for, and WotC isn't selling you the character generator, only access to it.


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## Shazman

Rodrigo Istalindir said:


> So long as it's not a Dark Sun game.




And you're not planning on using any Essentials stuff as well.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir

Umbran said:


> Nope.  And even if it was - it's a ten dollar purchase for one month.  Not a big deal.




They diddled around and never got the CB updated with Dark Sun (and now we know why), so if you want it (which, since we're starting up a DS game, I kinda did) in the CB, the new online-version is the only way you'll get it.


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## Umbran

Shazman said:


> Now you have to pay every month to use it at all and have your character held hostage by WotC servers as well.




Were you working directly from your character builder on your laptop during sessions, or did you work from a printout?

If you have a printout, your character is not held hostage.  You have a copy of the data.


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## Votan

On the upside, the sluggish performance issues I have the with character builder on my PC will go away.

On the downside, I do hope that they can keep the server up.  I do not know about the rest of you, but i get a non-trivial number of "the site is closed for maintence" issues with the main WotC site and I am rather hoping to never see this with an online tool.


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## MarkB

I'm cautiously optimistic about this change - ever since the character builder and compendium got properly up and running, I've considered them worth the price of admission alone.

However, that opinion is contingent upon those tools being updated regularly - which, hopefully, will be easier with web-based tools. If they can maintain updates at the rate they've achieved for most of this year, I'm all for the new DDI, but if the sort of month-plus service drop-outs we experienced in October become the norm, I'll readily let my subscription lapse.


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## renau1g

Shazman said:


> So you used to have to pay only if you wanted to get current updates for your character builder.  Now you have to pay every month to use it at all and have your character held hostage by WotC servers as well.  That's about the worst deal I can think of.  No thanks.  I'm out.




So...I'm agreeing with Shazman here? The sky really is falling  

Seriously though, when the inevitable 5e comes out I'm sure they'll drop 4e like nothing and move on to the new "revenue stream" and if you want to keep playing the old system, tough beans.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir

shidaku said:


> Cloud computing will be the death of us all.
> 
> That said, I think it's hilarious to hear people griping about "paying for material I'll never use" when they're only paying 10 bucks or less a month for it.  You were all abusing the system and you know it.  You are the pirates WOTC is trying to stop.  And now your whining that you can't steal from them anymore?  HA!
> 
> Really guys?  I buy one manual, it's 40 bucks(lets just go with MSRP, not ebay), two, now it's 80, get a nice set of all the core books, I'm staring down well over 200.  I want power books?  tack on another 30 a piece,
> pretty soon I'm looking down the barrel of easily $500 in books, magazines and supplements.
> 
> or, I could pay 10 bucks a month for ALL of that information, and it would take me over 4 years to total up to that amount.  Which we all know more books, more supplements, more magazines would be released.  Hell, a new edition may come out and you'll have to repeat the whole process all over again.
> 
> As much as I don't like the flaws in this system, based on the cost alone, it is still WELL worth it.  And I personally will enjoy not having to deal with buggy updates and just know that when I log in to the website, it will be fully updates and ready to go.




Careful with the 'pirates' name calling there, skippy.  Some of us have no problem paying for what we use.

I was in a 4e campaign for around a year.  Played an eladrin rogue.  So for my $10/month, I got use out of the PHB (which I'd bought in hardcover) and a small fraction of Martial Power (which I also bought in hardcover).  I didn't fire up the Compendium hardly at all, didn't use the monster builder, didn't use any source material in CB (eg, Forgotten Realms stuff) that wasn't directly applicable to my character, etc.  

When the campaign ended, I let my subscription drop (well, actually, finally got around to canceling some months later).  If by some miracle that campaign resurrected itself, I could still fire up the character builder and continue to play, level, etc.  If I wanted access to Martial Power X or whatever, I'd happily pay to update to that (and buy that book, too).

Why should I be expected (in the future) to have to pay on a monthly basis to use updates I have no need for *and that I'm clearly not using*?

Now, if they changed the subscription model to allow a single account to access select material, eg. pay $2 to unlock Martial Power X for your login, and then access it for free, that would be fine.  But they have no interest or incentive to do that.


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## renau1g

Umbran said:


> Were you working directly from your character builder on your laptop during sessions, or did you work from a printout?
> 
> If you have a printout, your character is not held hostage.  You have a copy of the data.




The problem is that they do have it long-term. Say in March next year ddi isn't bringing in revenue like it was a year before (when content was stronger in Dungeon/Dragon) and the Hasbro execs squeeze WotC to get more $'s from the initiative. They jack up the price to $20/month. If you decide it's not worth it, you do lose all your characters. You can print them all out, but I personally have over 100 PC's. Also, from my understanding there's currently no export feature (even to a PDF) and free options aren't searchable so your SOL there. Don't worry though, export features coming... _soon_ 

Oh, and same thing with sharing features, coming _soon_. They've actually reduced functionality from the current CB, which astounds me.


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## falcarrion

How many feet does Wotc have to shoot?


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## MarkB

A few subsidiary questions occur:

Is there anything to stop multiple people from "sharing" the same account? IP-address restrictions, or simply prevention of multiple simultaneous logins?
Can I export a character and send it to someone else, to be view on their Character Builder? One of the boons of the Character Builder has been sending characters via e-mail or memory stick, so that the DM can review them in advance, or simply so that the players without printers can have someone else print out their character.
Will there be storage restrictions per account? I don't imagine this being an issue, but I'd rather not find WotC telling me "hey, you - get off o' my cloud" simply because I'd made one too many PCs.


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## Sunseeker

Rodrigo Istalindir said:


> Careful with the 'pirates' name calling there, skippy. Some of us have no problem paying for what we use.



Watch who you're calling 'skippy', son.  It was directed at the several posts on the first part of this page of people clearly admitting to abusing the system in order to get several months of updates in one, then cancel their sub.  If you didn't do it, then it wasn't directed at you.



> I was in a 4e campaign for around a year. Played an eladrin rogue. So for my $10/month, I got use out of the PHB (which I'd bought in hardcover) and a small fraction of Martial Power (which I also bought in hardcover). I didn't fire up the Compendium hardly at all, didn't use the monster builder, didn't use any source material in CB (eg, Forgotten Realms stuff) that wasn't directly applicable to my character, etc.



You chose to buy the books, nobody forced you.  Why you did so could be for a variety of reasons.  I for one, love the art in the books, which I don't get online(as least not as much of).  Paying for DDI is like paying for a TV subscription, just because you don't watch channel 100, doesn't mean you should pay less for the service.  

And generally speaking, getting to cherry pick your service vs packages, generally becomes more expensive.



> When the campaign ended, I let my subscription drop (well, actually, finally got around to canceling some months later). If by some miracle that campaign resurrected itself, I could still fire up the character builder and continue to play, level, etc. If I wanted access to Martial Power X or whatever, I'd happily pay to update to that (and buy that book, too).



You could likewise, just open your book and make it with pen and paper as I did for years before I signed up to DDI.  10 bucks a month for pre-filling my sheets and writing all that detail on there?  that's a fair trade in my book.



> Why should I be expected (in the future) to have to pay on a monthly basis to use updates I have no need for *and that I'm clearly not using*?



Ya don't need it?  Ya don't want it?  Don't buy it.  Sure, you'll have to make your characters the old fashioned way, but hey, you don't want to pay for the service, that's your choice.



> Now, if they changed the subscription model to allow a single account to access select material, eg. pay $2 to unlock Martial Power X for your login, and then access it for free, that would be fine. But they have no interest or incentive to do that.



Of course not, and even if they did, they would likely charge you such a sum as to make the $10 monthly fee look like the better deal.


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## Umbran

renau1g said:


> If you decide it's not worth it, you do lose all your characters. You can print them all out, but I personally have over 100 PC's.




100 PCs?  Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd guess you're rather in excess of what they expect from the typical gamer.  

No business model works for all customers.  So, clearly, this one has a flaw if you have over 100 PCs that you don't print out to hard copy as you update them.  Compare that to the ease of not having to support an installed client, and gaining... all the Mac users, and I expect it is still a win for them.


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## Canor Morum

I wouldn't worry too much about not being able to export characters.  There will surely be an option to print a sheet.  You can use a program like CutePDF to then convert it to a PDF.  The same way you can with the current Character Builder.  

Of bigger concern is needing to level a character up or create a new one if you do not have access to internet.  Of course this can be done with pencil and paper but that defeats the whole purpose of paying for the character builder in the first place.

I expect there will eventually be a way to access characters and share the information whether you are logged in or not (paying or not), similar to WoW's Armory.

If they applied this same model to monster creation, encounter/adventure/world creation it would be great for DMs.

Personally I think the online model would be better suited for play with a virtual tabletop.



Edit:

*"How does this effect login, where you could have 5 downloads per login?"*

"You have to be logged in to your account to access your characters in the new Character Builder."






Well, so much for that idea.  Can't say I like that at all.




Source: http://community.wizards.com/go/thr..._for_Web-based_Character_Builder_-_Discussion


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## Chronosome

My main issue:

I play more intermittently than I like, and only subscribe to DDi when my game is active (for me, this was an expensive lesson to learn). I do like to use Character Builder and Adventure Tools during interims to work on my game, but if I'm going to have to pay for the privilege I'd just as soon not.

I don't mind paying for content, but having to pay to access what is essentially (ha) a character spreadsheet is a deal-breaker for me.


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## Ourph

So far I've been a big fan of the CB because I knew I could keep what I was paying for once WotC moved on to another ruleset or online model. Now that WotC has changed that particular fact, I don't see any reason to keep my DDI subscription going. I'm not interested in renting my character building software.


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## Canor Morum

Some more clarification from the FAQ...

"*Q: If I end my subscription, what happens to the characters I’ve created or imported to the Character Builder?*"

"A: Characters you’ve created on the new version or imported from the  older version of the Character Builder will remain in our database for  twelve months after the subscription expires. If you renew your  subscription within that twelve month period, you will be able to access  your characters again."



OUCH. 

Source: FAQ for Character Builder


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## renau1g

MarkB said:


> A few subsidiary questions occur:
> [*]Can I export a character and send it to someone else, to be view on their Character Builder? One of the boons of the Character Builder has been sending characters via e-mail or memory stick, so that the DM can review them in advance, or simply so that the players without printers can have someone else print out their character.
> [/LIST]




Paolo mentioned you currently can't do this, but _soon_ you will be able to send to other users.



Umbran said:


> 100 PCs?  Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd guess you're rather in excess of what they expect from the typical gamer.
> 
> No business model works for all customers.  So, clearly, this one has a flaw if you have over 100 PCs that you don't print out to hard copy as you update them.  Compare that to the ease of not having to support an installed client, and gaining... all the Mac users, and I expect it is still a win for them.




Oh, I'm not saying I'm the typical user, just happen to DM a few games and keep all the PC's on my computer for safekeeping. I also expect it's a net win for them long term, but that also doesn't mean I can't be disappointed. I build a lot of PC's/plan games while traveling for work, many times with intermittent/non-existent internet. Now I can't. That reduces my benefit, so I stopped my sub. Now, I also realize that gaining the 10% of comp users who use MAC's is a boon, although I suspect that many(all?) of those users can Boot Camp or Dual Camp or whatever you call it to access the program in the past. I'm thinking they're hoping to gain those ppl who jumped on every 6 months or so to grab an update, plus remove pirates and when they make their new edition remove the competition of their prior edition, thereby continuing to protect their revenues.


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## falcarrion

this new CB with run on silverlight. Bang ! Another foot shot.
And here is why:

Looks like HTML5 caught Microsoft’s full attention this past week. The company announced this week that they will be shifting away from Silverlight and focus on HTML5.

Microsoft’s Server president, Bob Muglia, confirmed that the company will be focusing their web efforts/support on HTML5. “HTML is the only true cross platform solution for everything, including the iOS platform,” he said.


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## whydirt

Considering how much trouble I've had getting the standalone CB to update correctly, I think this is great news.  I'm sorry that other people see this as a bad move, but I think a web-based application will be more convenient for most paying customers.


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## ProfessorCirno

Stupid, _stupid_, *stupid* move.

Steam works because 1) It's free, and 2) it has offline capabilities.  This has neither.  I and most people I know play directly from the CB because of how convenient it is to have a living character sheet right there in front of you.  Even assuming the servers will _never_ go down (which is a pipe dream for any form of software), no offline capabilities means that this method of gameplay is shot.

This is all assuming servers will never go down.  I'm fairly certain WotC has proven by now that they _aren't that good_ with their web-based software.

Also tying the character sheets to it is an equally bad move.  I'm going to wager that most if not all people on these forums have old character sheets from perhaps years ago lying around.  Not anymore!  After 12 months, it's sunk.

Lastly - and worst of all - if a new edition was made, then people could still fire up the ol' CB and make their character.  Not anymore!  Once/if a new edition comes out, the CB is dead, dead, dead.

Oh, and I wonder if this is why they weren't putting Dark Sun and Essentials stuff on CB - to add an extra "incentive" to buy this new service?  Despicable.

I can see the desire in having this so that people don't have to download the CB.  So they don't have to program for Mac or whatever else.  But this is by and far not the answer.  The CB was one of the major selling points of 4e - it was quite frankly brilliant.

They just shot it in the face.


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## Sunseeker

ProfessorCirno said:


> Also tying the character sheets to it is an equally bad move. I'm going to wager that most if not all people on these forums have old character sheets from perhaps years ago lying around. Not anymore! After 12 months, it's sunk.




If we're going to defame WotC, lets defame them for the right things shall we?

It's 12 months AFTER your subscription ends, assuming it does NOT get renewed in that time.  Assuming your subscription does not end, or you renew it within that time, nothing will ever be lost.


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## Scribble

Umbran said:


> 100 PCs?  Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd guess you're rather in excess of what they expect from the typical gamer.
> 
> No business model works for all customers.  So, clearly, this one has a flaw if you have over 100 PCs that you don't print out to hard copy as you update them.  Compare that to the ease of not having to support an installed client, and gaining... all the Mac users, and I expect it is still a win for them.




Yeah- my guess is the amount of increased subscribers they gain from users who can now use the CB, users who now decide they want a full time subscription, will offset the amount lost because of the switch.

It might also push more people into buying books instead of doing the one month download all the new stuff at low cost, trick- which nets them more gains.

Some might leave D&D altogether out of spite, but I don't think that will be a huge thing... Although angry gamers never do failt o amaze me...

All in all I think it pushes the DDI closer to what it was intended to be... A way to support the physical products, as opposed to a way to get 12 months worth of books for 10 bux.

As for me... I'm happy with the change. It allows me to access the CB from many more computers, and not have to worry about brining my character on a thumb-drive or something.  Once they enable export/sharing characters even better.

All my friends that I game with have internet access, and I'm pretty much always in a location that has it... And if not I have a phone with an unlimited data package that can link to my comp and give me access.

I also have been paying for a yearly subscription from the start, so not being able to buy a month long subscription every few months doesn't bother me either.


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## falcarrion

Heres my opinoin of what they should have done.
Webbase cb with a one time cost to access it. If you want updates unlocked small fee like 1 to 2 dollars.
The Ablility tp print out a pdf.
An apple app that lets you down load character from the cloud to an iphone, itouch or ipad.
An android apk that does the same thing for the tablets and phones.
Sell pdfs of the books again.

They would make a nice amount from the app and apk alone.
They would be making money off the pdfs.
They would make money off the website.


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## MarkB

shidaku said:


> If we're going to defame WotC, lets defame them for the right things shall we?
> 
> It's 12 months AFTER your subscription ends, assuming it does NOT get renewed in that time.  Assuming your subscription does not end, or you renew it within that time, nothing will ever be lost.




Plus, you'll still have the printed version of your character sheet to put away in a cupboard and rediscover years later - and converting that into a full-fledged CB version would be a trivial process of data-entry. Probably a lot easier than, e.g., finding a 3-year-old 3e character sheet and then trawling through all your books trying to track down all the class features you selected and work out what they all do.


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## ProfessorCirno

shidaku said:


> If we're going to defame WotC, lets defame them for the right things shall we?
> 
> It's 12 months AFTER your subscription ends, assuming it does NOT get renewed in that time.  Assuming your subscription does not end, or you renew it within that time, nothing will ever be lost.




That really doesn't change my post at all.  At all.


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## Sunseeker

ProfessorCirno said:


> That really doesn't change my post at all. At all.




Then you are clearly here only to defame WotC and would likely do so regardless of the moves they make.


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## Dausuul

Canor Morum said:


> "*Q: If I end my subscription, what happens to the characters I’ve created or imported to the Character Builder?*"
> 
> "A: Characters you’ve created on the new version or imported from the  older version of the Character Builder will remain in our database for  twelve months after the subscription expires. If you renew your  subscription within that twelve month period, you will be able to access  your characters again."




Ugh. Now that's just dumb--the shortsighted logic MMOs used to follow until they learned better: "If we threaten to delete their old characters, it'll force them to renew their subscriptions!"

Of course, what the MMO industry eventually figured out was that people will drop out and you can't stop them, and it's better to focus on making it easy to return. Disk space is cheap and character files are small--it could well cost more money to build and maintain the processes that purge old characters than it would to just keep the characters on file.

D&D needs to be more like World of Warcraft.


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## fireinthedust

Umbran said:


> Were you working directly from your character builder on your laptop during sessions, or did you work from a printout?
> 
> If you have a printout, your character is not held hostage.  You have a copy of the data.





hahaha, there is the rub that reminds me of why I quit 4e some time back


1)  Electricity costs money.  Always having a computer on means sucking up oil, burning coal, and draining energy from my kids' grand-kids.

2)Print out sheets:  ink costs cash.  I'm the host, so the players print out here.  

CB does the math, so no erasing changes.  All changes are in ink, so all sheets must be re-done.  That includes every. single. item.   If the PCs so much as pick up a torch, I have to go online to update that, print it out in glorious technicolour, and pay out the nose for new ink, a new printer, paper, and the electricity to run my computer?


Incidently, PCgen for Pathfinder is FREE.  It doesn't have regular updates beyond the core book.  Then again, the SRD is also FREE.  

When I wrote my last adventure for halloween, the entire thing was done on a Word document, with cut and paste monsters from the internet.  

Monster Builder 4e may let me generate my own monsters, but how do I put them together in one document for an adventure?  I'm not that tech savvy, and I decided not to search the program for a stat-block maker/exporter, as I can save way more money by getting out.

Lovely system, but it's too much cash.  That's silly.

I'd rather use Pathfinder, it's less money for me the consumer.


----------



## Scribble

Dausuul said:


> Ugh. Now that's just dumb--the shortsighted logic MMOs used to follow until they learned better: "If we threaten to delete their old characters, it'll force them to renew their subscriptions!"
> 
> Of course, what the MMO industry eventually figured out was that people will drop out and you can't stop them, and it's better to focus on making it easy to return. Disk space is cheap and character files are small--it could well cost more money to build and maintain the processes that purge old characters than it would to just keep the characters on file.
> 
> D&D needs to be more like World of Warcraft.




I get the feeling 12 months is the "official line," but the reality will probably be different.

One of the developers said this as "at least 12 months."

I think they'll probably be there indefinitely, but they need a length of time to fall back on so if someone comes back say, 3 years later and their info is missing, they can't flip out and sue or something.


And I have to wonder... If you haven't been using the CB for over a year are those character really that important to you?

I'd say most users who know they won't be re-newing will probably print out the characters they really care about and let the rest chill. Kind of like we did back in the day, when we leave random characters we've made rotting on a shelf somewhere.


----------



## MarkB

Dausuul said:


> Ugh. Now that's just dumb--the shortsighted logic MMOs used to follow until they learned better: "If we threaten to delete their old characters, it'll force them to renew their subscriptions!"
> 
> Of course, what the MMO industry eventually figured out was that people will drop out and you can't stop them, and it's better to focus on making it easy to return. Disk space is cheap and character files are small--it could well cost more money to build and maintain the processes that purge old characters than it would to just keep the characters on file.
> 
> D&D needs to be more like World of Warcraft.




That's probably exactly how it will work out in practice.

To my knowledge, no currently-running major MMO has ever deliberately deleted the character files of a lapsed player - but almost all of them include a cut-off duration in their terms of use after which they will no longer guarantee to maintain those files, just as WotC is doing. This is probably simply to cover themselves legally in case of accidental data loss.

Likewise with WotC, I'd expect the 12-month limit to be applied in practice more in terms of a warranty expiration than an automatic records purge.


----------



## Sunseeker

fireinthedust said:


> 1) Electricity costs money. Always having a computer on means sucking up oil, burning coal, and draining energy from my kids' grand-kids.



I know we all want to be enviro-friendly, but this is just a little silly.  Books are made at the expense of trees, shouldn't you stop using those too?



> 2)Print out sheets: ink costs cash. I'm the host, so the players print out here.



I got a printer on sale nearly a year ago for $50 bucks, the ink it came with has lasted till now and is still fine.  It's your choice to let players print at your home.  My groups tell me to use my own paper, so I do.  The cost of ink per page is so minimal, you're pretty much saying you can't afford the paper itsself.



> CB does the math, so no erasing changes. All changes are in ink, so all sheets must be re-done. That includes every. single. item. If the PCs so much as pick up a torch, I have to go online to update that, print it out in glorious technicolour, and pay out the nose for new ink, a new printer, paper, and the electricity to run my computer?



Now you're just being silly.  You know as well as I do that there is plenty of empty space left on a CB sheet print out on which you can write temporary modifiers, or add items.  Short of leveling up, you can do everything you need to on the sheet just as you could on any older D&D sheet.

And claiming you'll need to buy a new printer?  Come on man.  My buddy prints out B+W sheets on an HP printer that's gotta be 10 years old.


----------



## Dausuul

MarkB said:


> That's probably exactly how it will work out in practice.
> 
> To my knowledge, no currently-running major MMO has ever deliberately deleted the character files of a lapsed player - but almost all of them include a cut-off duration in their terms of use after which they will no longer guarantee to maintain those files, just as WotC is doing. This is probably simply to cover themselves legally in case of accidental data loss.
> 
> Likewise with WotC, I'd expect the 12-month limit to be applied in practice more in terms of a warranty expiration than an automatic records purge.




If so, that's perfectly reasonable--but in that case they should be phrasing it as "We do not guarantee to maintain your data after 12 months."

As for how important the character is to me, I doubt I'd play a character again who'd been offline for 12 months, but I sure would like to be able to get the sheet back! People get attached to their favorite characters. I still have fond memories of the PC I played in my first college campaign, lo these many years ago, and would dearly love to have her old character sheet back. One of the advantages to storing characters in electronic form is that they're less likely to get lost in the shuffle.


----------



## RangerWickett

I like the Steam model. My dream version of the D&D subscription would be:

*Dungeons & Dragons Insider*

*1. Free Demo.* You can create an account for free, and play with the basic character builder that can store one 1st level character at a time for free, and access monsters of up to 3rd level. There would be occasional freebies added to this, like sample adventures and such, because you want to let prospective customers try out your product.



*2. The Astral Sea.* If you subscribe, you gain access to The Astral Sea. This is the primo online package. As long as you're subscribed, you have full access to the character builder, monster builder, and so on, and can create and store any number of things on their servers. 

You can browse Dragon and Dungeon online, or purchase the pdfs for $1 an issue. Likewise, while you're online you can browse the actual rulebooks (not just the rules compendium), and you can purchase the pdfs for $3 - $10.

When you purchase a book or magazine on The Astral Sea, you can download it to your computer. There would be an offline program -- The Material Plane -- that lets you easily track your offline material. More on that in #4 below.



*3. Gaming Group.* The idea is that the DM has the main account, and the players can use whatever the DM acquires for the group. There would need to be an option to buy a gift subscription, like if a player has money but wants somebody else to run the game. Also, make it easy for players to buy books for the group to use.

You can assemble a gaming group, tying them to your subscription. In a given month, you can have up to 6 people in your gaming group. If you're full and you drop somebody, you either have to wait a month to add the new guy, or you spend an extra $1 a month per extra person. 

People in your gaming group just need to have free accounts, not paid accounts. While they're online, they can use the full character builder, and can browse any ebooks or magazines you have purchased, because those are part of the group's shared bookshelf. They can't browse the other books or use the monster builder or adventure tools, though, and they can't download pdfs unless they want to purchase them for themselves. When someone in a group owns a pdf of a book, it's cheaper for others in the group to buy it.



*4. The Material Plane.* This is the offline-use program, which any subscriber can get for free. It lets you download and keep track of monsters and characters you've made. Additionally, whenever you do log in, it checks what books and magazines your group has access to. The offline character builder would let you make characters using any off those resources, plus all the free 1st level stuff.

(This is another way to discourage piracy. Sure, you can pirate the pdfs of the books, but unless you actually purchase them through the Astral Plane, your Material Plane character builder program won't be able to use them.)



*5. Gaming Apps.* Eventually, they need character sheet apps for cell phones. This is where I see the game going in the next 5 years. Every player makes a PC -- maybe through their phone, but probably on a computer -- then has their phone at the game table, using it as their character sheet. When you take damage or use a power, you tap the screen a few times and keep track of it. 

As things get better, they could make it so a GM could sync up with his players' phone-based character sheets. Maybe the GM is running from a laptop, and he wants to see a character's current status. He just clicks a button, and the character sheet pops up.

(They can put in a dice roller if they want, but I prefer to use real dice, thank you very much.)


----------



## Shazman

shidaku said:


> Watch who you're calling 'skippy', son.  It was directed at the several posts on the first part of this page of people clearly admitting to abusing the system in order to get several months of updates in one, then cancel their sub.  If you didn't do it, then it wasn't directed at you.
> 
> 
> You chose to buy the books, nobody forced you.  Why you did so could be for a variety of reasons.  I for one, love the art in the books, which I don't get online(as least not as much of).  Paying for DDI is like paying for a TV subscription, just because you don't watch channel 100, doesn't mean you should pay less for the service.
> 
> And generally speaking, getting to cherry pick your service vs packages, generally becomes more expensive.
> 
> 
> You could likewise, just open your book and make it with pen and paper as I did for years before I signed up to DDI.  10 bucks a month for pre-filling my sheets and writing all that detail on there?  that's a fair trade in my book.
> 
> 
> Ya don't need it?  Ya don't want it?  Don't buy it.  Sure, you'll have to make your characters the old fashioned way, but hey, you don't want to pay for the service, that's your choice.
> 
> 
> Of course not, and even if they did, they would likely charge you such a sum as to make the $10 monthly fee look like the better deal.




How in the world is it abusing the system?  It's not some loophole.  It's not copying copyrighted material.  WotC is well aware that someone can have access to years worth of material by purchasing a one month subscription.  It's been like that from the beginning.  WotC is aware of it, and their customers are aware of it. I would even say it was a selling point for the CB. Clearly, is was designed to work that way because WotC could have done it differently or changed it much sooner than now.  They chose not to.


----------



## Mistwell

I think most of the objections voiced in this thread would be solved by the ability to export your characters - which WOTC says they are working on.

Once you can export (you can already import) your character no longer just lives on their servers.  You can subscribe just when you are actively playing, and use all your old characters even if it's more that 12 months since your last subscription (assuming you exported them before shutting your subscription down).


----------



## Herremann the Wise

shidaku said:


> Then you are clearly here only to defame WotC and would likely do so regardless of the moves they make.



ProfessorCirno is a well known supporter of both 4e and Pathfinder and as far as I have seen has no axe to grind in regards to WotC vs Paizo or any other such rubbish. He just seems to be calling it as he sees it.

Shidaku, you assume too much and need to take the WotC defender shields down. Can you at the very least see why "some" people might be upset regarding this? Do they need to have their opinion corrected by you? Some people do not like and will not tolerate a subscription model. Wotc must have at least sensed that this move would be somewhat controversial.

[And as an aside so you don't confuse my direction, I am a subscriber to the DDI and have been since its inception and will more than likely continue to be into the future. This move will not affect me, however, I agree with many of ProfessorCirno's points as well as others such as Rodrigo Istilindur.]

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


----------



## falcarrion

shidaku said:


> I got a printer on sale nearly a year ago for $50 bucks, the ink it came with has lasted till now and is still fine.  It's your choice to let players print at your home.  My groups tell me to use my own paper, so I do.  The cost of ink per page is so minimal, you're pretty much saying you can't afford the paper itsself.




Now your being silly. Just because your ink has lasted a year doesn't mean it is the same for everyone. It depends on the person using it, how often they use it, the size of the cartridge and the cost of replacing it. For some people 20 or 30 dollars a month is alot. With the way things are right now, alot of people are looking for ways to save money any way they can.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

As a Mac user, I look at this and give it: two thumbs _sideways_.  It may improve over time- I'll keep looking- but I'm no fan of having my stuff almost exclusively in someone else's hands.  I've got 3-4 terabytes of storage to work with, a few hundred PCs won't take up a blip of space.



> I know we all want to be enviro-friendly, but this is just a little silly. Books are made at the expense of trees, shouldn't you stop using those too?




I like to be environment friendly too (I was in Greenpeace for a while, I recycle, etc.), but as yet, its not exactly clear that computers, etc. are greener than books, at least not yet.

Look at the list of stuff that it takes to construct and power a computer: precious metals like gold or platinum (mostly strip-mined), copper and sometimes aluminum (also strip mined), solvents & carcinogens to produce the plastics (petrochemical and paper production run neck & neck as polluting industries), and the fuel to run them, either in batteries (rechargeables use rare elements like lithium, largely found in nice places like China, whose record on environmental and human rights issues is well-known) or in DC (coal, gas, oil, nuke, etc.).

And lets be honest...even if the stuff is electronically stored, we're still printing a lot of stuff up anyway, so we're not exactly paperless.

As for recycling, both paper and computers have recyclable elements, but the infrastructure for recycling paper is currently far more well developed than for computers and all the stuff that goes along with them.  I have a recycling bin in my yard, and another half-dozen paper recycling locations within a few blocks of where I live, at churches, schools and what have you.  I have to drive miles to recycle a computer, and a few more to recycle a rechargeable battery.

Oh, there may come a time when computers are green, but that time isn't now.


----------



## tuxgeo

tuxgeo said:


> Terms of Service are what, exactly? If I store my PC online, does it  thereby become WotC's intellectual property, in the same way in which  all postings to their Forums do? I'm beginning to dislike this prospect  as I imagine it more fully.






Umbran said:


> Is there any actual intellectual property in the Character Builder stats?  Assuming no house rules, I mean?




How about fictional characters? If WotC can bring novels in-house and republish them, they must own them. 
If I write a novel about humans and elves and dwarves who are fighters and clerics and mages, with names like Mogsquith the Divulginator, or whatever I like, but use the _online_ character builder to create and store their specifics, could WotC sue me for royalties for using those characters if I ever get it published?


----------



## Sunseeker

Herremann the Wise said:


> ProfessorCirno is a well known supporter of both 4e and Pathfinder and as far as I have seen has no axe to grind in regards to WotC vs Paizo or any other such rubbish. He just seems to be calling it as he sees it.
> 
> Shidaku, you assume too much and need to take the WotC defender shields down. Can you at the very least see why "some" people might be upset regarding this? Do they need to have their opinion corrected by you? Some people do not like and will not tolerate a subscription model. Wotc must have at least sensed that this move would be somewhat controversial.




Oh, I am vehemently against cloud computing. I have spent long hours of heated debate arguing against it with anyone from the casual user to the experienced IT professional. It's a dangerous slope that leads us deeper into the ever growing dependence upon others for what should be things we can accomplish ourselves. It allows people to distance themselves from knowing how things actually work in favor of allowing "someone else" to deal with it.

The reason I have seemed to closed to hearing their opinions is that this topic started out with the pirate talk of "how dare they prevent me from stealing from them!" with posters freely admitting that they, and others they know, pay 10 bucks for thousands dollars in books worth of data. With that as setting the stage for this discussion, I simply can't stand it, I am in fact, in the process of buying more books because the new game i'm starting the DM has made it clear that we can do whatever we want, so long as we have a book to take it from.

And while I don't like THAT either, I enjoy playing D&D, and so I make sacrifices to continue playing the things I enjoy. Given this choice, I would rather not have my characters stored on their servers. And I'm certainly not writing any backgrounds into my characters if I have to store them remotely.

BUT, I do enjoy the service the CB provides, and even if it's online, I'll still pay to use it, and the other tools, and will always remember that mathematically, it's a much better deal.



falcarrion said:


> Now your being silly. Just because your ink has lasted a year doesn't mean it is the same for everyone. It depends on the person using it, how often they use it, the size of the cartridge and the cost of replacing it. For some people 20 or 30 dollars a month is alot. With the way things are right now, alot of people are looking for ways to save money any way they can.



If 20-30 is too much a month, you may want to consider a cheaper hobby, or start telling your players to chip in for ink if they want to use your printer.  But then, that would make you like WotC, charging for the use of a service.



Shazman said:


> How in the world is it abusing the system? It's not some loophole. It's not copying copyrighted material. WotC is well aware that someone can have access to years worth of material by purchasing a one month subscription. It's been like that from the beginning. WotC is aware of it, and their customers are aware of it. I would even say it was a selling point for the CB. Clearly, is was designed to work that way because WotC could have done it differently or changed it much sooner than now. They chose not to.



No, they didn't.  Now, they did.  Maybe it simply took them longer than they were planning, perhaps the dip in sales others have mentioned really made them get this out sooner than they had planned.  No matter how you roll it, we all know that what was going on was abusing the system.  Even if it was "ok" to do, simply because nobody stopped you, doesn't make it the right thing to do.


----------



## Herremann the Wise

shidaku said:


> The reason I have seemed to closed to hearing their opinions is that this topic started out with the pirate talk of "how dare they prevent me from stealing from them!" with posters freely admitting that they, and others they know, pay 10 bucks for thousands dollars in books worth of data. With that as setting the stage for this discussion, I simply can't stand it, I am in fact, in the process of buying more books because the new game i'm starting the DM has made it clear that we can do whatever we want, so long as we have a book to take it from...
> 
> No, they didn't.  Now, they did.  Maybe it simply took them longer than they were planning, perhaps the dip in sales others have mentioned really made them get this out sooner than they had planned.  No matter how you roll it, we all know that what was going on was abusing the system.  Even if it was "ok" to do, simply because nobody stopped you, doesn't make it the right thing to do.



Do you think that WotC would not have planned and built this option into their model? What you are calling piracy and abuse, would seem to be more a concession to less affluent gamers. Without that option those gamers would not have as fully embraced 4e - perhaps significantly enough so that WotC's market research decided that that option _must _be in the model. By taking away that option, WotC are obviously moving to "phase two" of their digital plan.

There is a huge gulf of difference between paying WotC to gain access to the resources they make available, and not paying WotC and downloading those resources from the internet. I'm almost positive that it could be reasonably argued that this phase two move will increase/encourage higher levels of genuine piracy of their material.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


----------



## falcarrion

shidaku said:


> If 20-30 is too much a month, you may want to consider a cheaper hobby, or start telling your players to chip in for ink if they want to use your printer.  But then, that would make you like WotC, charging for the use of a service.




Thats just funny. 
First I'm a player not a DM. The groups I play with don't play at my house.
 They don't use my ink or my printer. I have been playing since 1982. So I know the expence of this hobby. But i understand how tight things are for people now adays. 20 a month can be alot for some people right now. For who the money can be spent better elsewhere. If you think this hobby is for the rich your wrong.


----------



## Vartan

Rodrigo Istalindir said:


> Now, if they changed the subscription model to allow a single account to access select material, eg. pay $2 to unlock Martial Power X for your login, and then access it for free, that would be fine.  But they have no interest or incentive to do that.




That would be pretty sweet.


----------



## Shazman

shidaku said:


> Oh, I am vehemently against cloud computing. I have spent long hours of heated debate arguing against it with anyone from the casual user to the experienced IT professional. It's a dangerous slope that leads us deeper into the ever growing dependence upon others for what should be things we can accomplish ourselves. It allows people to distance themselves from knowing how things actually work in favor of allowing "someone else" to deal with it.
> 
> The reason I have seemed to closed to hearing their opinions is that this topic started out with the pirate talk of "how dare they prevent me from stealing from them!" with posters freely admitting that they, and others they know, pay 10 bucks for thousands dollars in books worth of data. With that as setting the stage for this discussion, I simply can't stand it, I am in fact, in the process of buying more books because the new game i'm starting the DM has made it clear that we can do whatever we want, so long as we have a book to take it from.
> 
> And while I don't like THAT either, I enjoy playing D&D, and so I make sacrifices to continue playing the things I enjoy. Given this choice, I would rather not have my characters stored on their servers. And I'm certainly not writing any backgrounds into my characters if I have to store them remotely.
> 
> BUT, I do enjoy the service the CB provides, and even if it's online, I'll still pay to use it, and the other tools, and will always remember that mathematically, it's a much better deal.
> 
> 
> If 20-30 is too much a month, you may want to consider a cheaper hobby, or start telling your players to chip in for ink if they want to use your printer.  But then, that would make you like WotC, charging for the use of a service.
> 
> 
> No, they didn't.  Now, they did.  Maybe it simply took them longer than they were planning, perhaps the dip in sales others have mentioned really made them get this out sooner than they had planned.  No matter how you roll it, we all know that what was going on was abusing the system.  Even if it was "ok" to do, simply because nobody stopped you, doesn't make it the right thing to do.




If you actually had to do something special to "abuse" the system, I may agree with you.  You don't have to hack into WotC's computers or get a special pass code from a WotC employee to download every update released for the character builder so far.  All you have to do is buy a subscription and update the character builder. That's it.  You don't even have to know that you are getting all that info for a month subscription.  If someone sees the character builder, downloads the demo, buys a subscription, and updates the character builder, they get everything whether they want it or not and whether they know it or not.  If this "abuse" is so easy and ingrained into their model that you can do it unwittingly, I don't see how you can claim it's "abusing" the system.


----------



## nerfherder

shidaku said:


> No matter how you roll it, we all know that what was going on was abusing the system.  Even if it was "ok" to do, simply because nobody stopped you, doesn't make it the right thing to do.



I disagree.  WotC offered software for an amount of money, and I paid them that money and downloaded the software.  No abuse whatsoever.


----------



## MerricB

fireinthedust said:


> Monster Builder 4e may let me generate my own monsters, but how do I put them together in one document for an adventure?  I'm not that tech savvy, and I decided not to search the program for a stat-block maker/exporter, as I can save way more money by getting out.




How you can post on the internet is beyond me, because it seems your tech-savviness is approaching zero. The export stat block function in Monster Builder has been its best features for me: many a stat block have I inserted into a Word document which I've then used to run my adventure from.



> Incidently, PCgen for Pathfinder is FREE.




After fuming against computer technology because it uses power and you have to reprint character sheets, you suggest using... computer technology? The mind boggles.

Your basic reasons for not using the 4E DDi tools are:
* You play Pathfinder
* You have trouble using computers

Goodbye.


----------



## MerricB

nerfherder said:


> I disagree.  WotC offered software for an amount of money, and I paid them that money and downloaded the software.  No abuse whatsoever.




Quite right. 

(I say this as someone who has been a subscriber since the beginning, and who will continue to be a subscriber as long as the service offers me something... although it's on shaky ground at present).

That Wizards is changing its services to something that it probably should have been from the beginning isn't that much of a surprise to me. Do I dislike the new Silverlight-version of the CB? Well, I'll have to see it, but at present I don't consider it as useful as the old.

Wizards' biggest problem is trying to get back the good will they squandered whilst implementing this change - the lack of updates in the couple of months beforehand - when coupled with what is to many a downgrade of the service? Not good.

Cheers!


----------



## delericho

Dausuul said:


> The old "buy a one-month subscription, download six months of updates, cancel subscription" trick won't work any more.




There goes the only money WotC were getting from me. I understand why this has been done, and don't blame them in the slightest for doing so, but it's a really bad move _for me_.



> What about custom character pics? Will those also be stored on the WotC server? Could end up taking a lot of space...




Could be a major problem in the making. When I created my most recent character, I did a Google image search to get a suitable picture. The copyright for that picture is owned by someone.

Now, as long as I'm importing that picture into my copy of the Character Builder for my use, and not distributing it to anyone, the copyright implications are so minor as to be ignored.

But surely it becomes a problem if people start uploading custom images to the WotC servers (copyright _someone_) and then WotC start making those files available for download?


----------



## fireinthedust

shidaku said:


> I know we all want to be enviro-friendly, but this is just a little silly.  Books are made at the expense of trees, shouldn't you stop using those too?




Silly?  Trees grow back in a decade, fossil fuels require eons and entire forests.

Trees die once, the book lasts maybe longer than I will; this happens once.
Every second I spend looking at a book online, or re-accessing or making changes to a character, I'm spending energy.  Over and over again.  




> I got a printer on sale nearly a year ago for $50 bucks, the ink it came with has lasted till now and is still fine.  It's your choice to let players print at your home.  My groups tell me to use my own paper, so I do.  The cost of ink per page is so minimal, you're pretty much saying you can't afford the paper itsself.




Not really.  Color and paper and suchnot is expensive.  Players can print things off themselves, but my experience is that most don't.

And when you're printing off every character, five or six sheets each, for seven players, on a dinky home printer *every game or level*, it adds up.

This is similar to typing one page after another until a novel is finished.  Just keep at it, and keep them all handy in a folder.  They add up over the course of even a few game nights.



> Now you're just being silly.  You know as well as I do that there is plenty of empty space left on a CB sheet print out on which you can write temporary modifiers, or add items.  Short of leveling up, you can do everything you need to on the sheet just as you could on any older D&D sheet.




Not everything.  And leveling up is a huge issue, as is adding more items.  it changes the sheet.



> And claiming you'll need to buy a new printer?  Come on man.  My buddy prints out B+W sheets on an HP printer that's gotta be 10 years old.




That's great.  Where I live, however, the cost of an ink cartridge is the same as a printer.  Literally, last time I checked, it's cheaper to just buy a new printer than buy ink cartridges.  I'm not making this up.

There's a very good chance you make more money than I do, and that you don't have children.  I'm literally counting coins, and money is tight.  I can't afford to waste even a few dollars I don't have to.  

And the CB has so much in the way of pictures and wasted space on the sheets, I wonder if the makers have stock in printer companies.


----------



## GandalfMithrandir

OK, the way I see it, this thread is degenerating.

Examples:


> Your basic reasons for not using the 4E DDi tools are:
> * You play Pathfinder
> * You have trouble using computers
> 
> Goodbye.




and arguing about how much it cost to print off sheets, a lot of people do not make very much money and still game, for that reason it is harder to print stuff off, especially if ink and paper costs a lot for them, depending on where they live, I know people that are really rich and play D&D, I also know people that are dirt poor that also play D&D, one of whom bought a crappy 3.0 players handbook for a pathfinder game because that is all he could afford at the used bookstore. That guy can't even afford a printer in the first place, let alone continue to print off of it, that's just the way it is, and I don't see any point in argueing about how he should by a printer. Also the ability to afford a printer and ink and paper depends on the printer, some printers use more ink, or just get used more, and so the cost of ink is higher because more is used.

I think what I'm trying to say is that there are a lot of variables in peoples resources and ability to do things, and I, personally, do not think it is productive to argue about these differences, because they are, they are most likely not going to change, and they are different to each person.


----------



## MerricB

GandalfMithrandir said:


> Examples:




Well, one example 



> I think what I'm trying to say is that there are a lot of variables in peoples resources and ability to do things, and I, personally, do not think it is productive to argue about these differences, because they are, they are most likely not going to change, and they are different to each person.




Indeed. Personally, I'm just as likely to create my own PC using Word or pen & paper as use the CB. I don't think inability to use the CB through lack of resources is a killer at all to enjoyable play of 4E - although the rules updates _might_ be making it more so, but obsoleting sections of previous rulebooks.

Mind you, I would have *loved* a good monster builder during 3E days, especially one that had all the monsters in it already and was good at levelling them up. It's the most used feature of the 4E MB for me.

Cheers!


----------



## renau1g

I'm also miffed they strung us along for two months with an update coming and supplemental tools coming that were "exciting" and had the staff and VCL's all tingly with giddiness. Then they say our new tools aren't even new, they're just a degredation of your current tool which many people were quite happy with. Sorry, but that's not something that makes me happy, combining that with the communication issues, and the extremely declining quality of the ezines, and their reduction in content = me paying more for less than I got for this price a year ago. In this current economy I have less income for gaming (combined with a newborn) so this is an easy decision for me.


----------



## aboyd

shidaku said:


> That said, I think it's hilarious to hear people griping about "paying for material I'll never use" when they're only paying 10 bucks or less a month for it.  You were all abusing the system and you know it.  You are the pirates WOTC is trying to stop.



I'm uncomfortable with this.  We're now calling the _paying_ customers "pirates" because $10/month is a good value?  That's piracy?

"Whoa!  I found a bargain, but I'm nervous to take it, because hey, piracy."


----------



## renau1g

shidaku said:


> If 20-30 is too much a month, you may want to consider a cheaper hobby, or start telling your players to chip in for ink if they want to use your printer.  But then, that would make you like WotC, charging for the use of a service.




The cost of D&D has *never* been 20-30 a month, so if you think this should be the way the hobby is, you really should go play WOW. I've played since 2e and I purchased the PHB for 3e and guess what... that's all I had to buy. Heck...I didn't even need that, I had the SRD and needed nothing else to play.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

shidaku said:


> Then you are clearly here only to defame WotC and would likely do so regardless of the moves they make.




Hah hah, yes.

My entire post was literally about how Character Builder was an amazingly fantastic tool but *I exist only to defame WotC!*

Alternate view: the changes are terrible and many other 4e fans across this and other forums think so.


----------



## Sunseeker

Herremann the Wise said:


> Do you think that WotC would not have planned and built this option into their model? What you are calling piracy and abuse, would seem to be more a concession to less affluent gamers. Without that option those gamers would not have as fully embraced 4e - perhaps significantly enough so that WotC's market research decided that that option _must _be in the model. By taking away that option, WotC are obviously moving to "phase two" of their digital plan.



WotC made money for years selling books, with absolutely no digital component.  Considering the status of WotC's websites, I suspect that they simply designed it poorly, hoping people would be more honorable.  Since they were not, things have changed.



> There is a huge gulf of difference between paying WotC to gain access to the resources they make available, and not paying WotC and downloading those resources from the internet. I'm almost positive that it could be reasonably argued that this phase two move will increase/encourage higher levels of genuine piracy of their material.
> 
> Best Regards
> Herremann the Wise



Yes, there are different levels of piracy, full on stealing, and abuse of a bad system.



falcarrion said:


> Thats just funny.
> First I'm a player not a DM. The groups I play with don't play at my house.
> They don't use my ink or my printer. I have been playing since 1982. So I know the expence of this hobby. But i understand how tight things are for people now adays. 20 a month can be alot for some people right now. For who the money can be spent better elsewhere. If you think this hobby is for the rich your wrong.




I know this hobby isn't for the rich, but I do know that it's easier to support with a fatter wallet.  



fireinthedust said:


> Silly?  Trees grow back in a decade, fossil fuels require eons and entire forests.



"trees" don't grow back in a decade.  If you compare the wood growing now, with the wood from 30 years ago, the quality difference is HUGE.  



> Trees die once, the book lasts maybe longer than I will; this happens once.
> Every second I spend looking at a book online, or re-accessing or making changes to a character, I'm spending energy.  Over and over again.



One book is not all that's being made, a million books are being made.  Nobody cuts down "one tree".  

Honestly, I can't believe you're arguing that we should preserve fossil fuels and cut down forests.  It's so paradoxical I think my head hurts.



> Not really.  Color and paper and suchnot is expensive.  Players can print things off themselves, but my experience is that most don't.



Wow, lazy players you have then.  If they don't print it off, then their laziness shouldn't be rewarded by the GM printing it off.



> And when you're printing off every character, five or six sheets each, for seven players, on a dinky home printer *every game or level*, it adds up.
> 
> This is similar to typing one page after another until a novel is finished.  Just keep at it, and keep them all handy in a folder.  They add up over the course of even a few game nights.




Don't reward laziness.  I don't.



> Not everything.  And leveling up is a huge issue, as is adding more items.  it changes the sheet.



Yes, but to be honest I can't imagine that one would have SO many items on their sheet as to fill up all the space left by the character builder.



> That's great.  Where I live, however, the cost of an ink cartridge is the same as a printer.  Literally, last time I checked, it's cheaper to just buy a new printer than buy ink cartridges.  I'm not making this up.



No, I believe you, I even used to sell them(and I didn't even get a discount!).



> There's a very good chance you make more money than I do, and that you don't have children.  I'm literally counting coins, and money is tight.  I can't afford to waste even a few dollars I don't have to.
> 
> And the CB has so much in the way of pictures and wasted space on the sheets, I wonder if the makers have stock in printer companies.



Doubtful I make more money, but no I don't have children.  Bet lets not bring them into it, if you're going to bring your children up as "why you can't afford" these things, then that's a whole other kettle of fish.

And the CB actually has a lot of options for compressing the text, try out some of the features.


----------



## IronWolf

renau1g said:


> The cost of D&D has *never* been 20-30 a month, so if you think this should be the way the hobby is, you really should go play WOW. I've played since 2e and I purchased the PHB for 3e and guess what... that's all I had to buy. Heck...I didn't even need that, I had the SRD and needed nothing else to play.




So true.  One of the great things about D&D (or your system of choice) is you can pick up a couple of core books and have hours and hours of entertainment from those books.  The RPG hobby can be as cheap or as expensive as one wants to make it, I certainly hope RPG players always have that choice.


----------



## renau1g

shidaku said:


> Yes, there are different levels of piracy, full on stealing, and abuse of a bad system.






			
				www.thefreedictionary.com said:
			
		

> pi·ra·cy  (pr-s)
> n. pl. pi·ra·cies
> 1.
> a. Robbery committed at sea.
> b. A similar act of robbery, as the hijacking of an airplane.
> 2. The unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material: software piracy.
> 3. The operation of an unlicensed, illegal radio or television station.




Hmm...none of them spells out purchasing an offered program or service from a corporation. There's nothing abusive of the way people were doing things. I never partook in it because I hated waiting for the newest stuff so I bought the yearly subscription. That's way better for WotC than people just as easily stealing it on the variety of sites.


----------



## MerricB

shidaku said:


> WotC made money for years selling books, with absolutely no digital component.  Considering the status of WotC's websites, I suspect that they simply designed it poorly, hoping people would be more honorable.  Since they were not, things have changed.




I don't think the honourable status of people actually has much to do with it. 

I have a sneaking suspicion that Wizards would have liked the purely online version from the beginning, but the failure of Gleemax took away a lot of the resources that would have otherwise been devoted to the online character builder.

Then too, I believe that designing a standalone program is quite a bit easier than the online version.

Cheers!


----------



## OnlineDM

fireinthedust said:


> CB does the math, so no erasing changes.  All changes are in ink, so all sheets must be re-done.  That includes every. single. item.   If the PCs so much as pick up a torch, I have to go online to update that, print it out in glorious technicolour, and pay out the nose for new ink, a new printer, paper, and the electricity to run my computer?




I'm bummed about the change to the Character Builder, but this comment struck me as strange.  When I get a new item for my Character Builder-generated character sheet, I write it on there - there are plenty of blank spaces for new inventory.  If it's an item that changes some of my attack bonuses or defenses or the like, I cross out the old number and write the new one.  Every couple of levels, I'll do a full re-print in order to have things nice and clean.  That has never felt onerous to me, personally.



fireinthedust said:


> Monster Builder 4e may let me generate my own monsters, but how do I put them together in one document for an adventure?  I'm not that tech savvy, and I decided not to search the program for a stat-block maker/exporter, as I can save way more money by getting out.




Not that this matters for you since you don't use the program any more, but in the Monster Builder you can right click on the name of a monster and copy it as Rich Text or an image and then paste that into your Word document (I use Rich Text for my exports, personally).


----------



## Herremann the Wise

shidaku said:


> Herremann the Wise said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Do you think that WotC would not have planned and built this option into their model? What you are calling piracy and abuse, would seem to be more a concession to less affluent gamers. Without that option those gamers would not have as fully embraced 4e - perhaps significantly enough so that WotC's market research decided that that option must be in the model. By taking away that option, WotC are obviously moving to "phase two" of their digital plan.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> WotC made money for years selling books, with absolutely no digital component.
Click to expand...


And they should continue to do so? I'm not getting your point here.



			
				shidaku said:
			
		

> Considering the status of WotC's websites, I suspect that they simply designed it poorly, hoping people would be more honorable.  Since they were not, things have changed.



I think many would agree that the CB is the pinnacle of D&D software produced by WotC. To say something as easily changeable as the subscription model was poorly planned seems extreme. How much analysis and finance personnel must this have gone through before getting approved? I can guarantee you more than what you are saying.

Do you think there is a lack of honour in unsubscribing and resubscribing further down the track? I'm not getting were honour enters the equation. Do you think that WotC would allow their bottom line to be so heavily influenced by such a thing as the "honour" of their consumers? 



			
				Shidaku said:
			
		

> Herremann the Wise said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There is a huge gulf of difference between paying WotC to gain access to the resources they make available, and not paying WotC and downloading those resources from the internet. I'm almost positive that it could be reasonably argued that this phase two move will increase/encourage higher levels of genuine piracy of their material.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, there are different levels of piracy, full on stealing, and abuse of a bad system.
Click to expand...


Abuse of a bad system? Firstly you are assuming the system is bad or poorly designed (I dare counter that it was in fact very carefully planned) and then secondly, you are saying that allowing a consumer to purchase this system in a manner that's best value/most suitable for them is abuse! The only abuse I can gauge from this is that being metred out to logic.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


----------



## ProfessorCirno

MerricB said:


> I don't think the honourable status of people actually has much to do with it.
> 
> I have a sneaking suspicion that Wizards would have liked the purely online version from the beginning, but the failure of Gleemax took away a lot of the resources that would have otherwise been devoted to the online character builder.
> 
> Then too, I believe that designing a standalone program is quite a bit easier than the online version.
> 
> Cheers!




Funny - and, now, sadly - enough, the offline version they were forced to make due with is a thousand times better then their online version that they wanted.

Speaking of which, things the online CB does not have in comparison:

No exporting
No houserules
No altering magic items
No adding feats or powers to characters (Do you add expertise automatically to character?  Not anymore!)
No sharing characters with others (Hello, now gigantic DM workload!)
No offline usage
No viability with popular websites such as iPlay4e
No usage when servers are down

This isn't some vast and terrible conspiracy against WotC.  It's WotC taking a powerful, awesome, and incredibly useful tool, and then shooting it - and themselves - right in the face.  That's why people are pissed; because Character Builder added a ton to their games, and now it's being taken behind the shed for _no given reason_.


----------



## ExploderWizard

I knew this was the direction that electronic tools would take eventually. I am glad to have realized that I can enjoy tabletop rpgs without them.

WOTC no longer has products that interest me with or without these new online tools. 

Being dependent on such things for your tabletop gaming puts WOTC in a position to tell you what rules to use, when to "upgrade", etc. I will bet that all characters stored in "the cloud" will be conveniently converted to 5E for you when they decide it's time for your campaign to move on.


----------



## MerricB

ProfessorCirno said:


> Funny - and, now, sadly - enough, the offline version they were forced to make due with is a thousand times better then their online version that they wanted.




You exaggerate. Surely, only 999 times better? 



> Speaking of which, things the online CB does not have in comparison:
> 
> No exporting
> No houserules
> No altering magic items
> No adding feats or powers to characters (Do you add expertise automatically to character?  Not anymore!)
> No sharing characters with others (Hello, now gigantic DM workload!)
> No offline usage
> No viability with popular websites such as iPlay4e
> No usage when servers are down




Looking down that list of things that the new CB doesn't have, my reaction to a few of them is "It had them before? Since when?" - particularly those relating to House Rules and Magic Items. 

The no offline usage is the only factor that really, really annoys me. I have my laptop with me when I play games; I rarely have internet access.

Cheers!


----------



## Hussar

Just to inject a bit of a ray of hope here, although this is probably wishful thinking on my part - an online CB would integrate very, very sweetly with an online virtual tabletop.  

One could always hope.  

But, yeah, I gotta say, the fact that I can't export characters is a non-starter for me.  What's the point?  Why do they not have this feature?


----------



## darjr

> As far as I can remember, themes are the only rules mechanic that is limited to a setting. Races, classes, etc can be used across all settings.
> 
> The D&D home campaign setting includes everything (except themes). Once published material will expand themes to other settings, we'll make them available, for now it doesn't make a lot of sense.




From Whoops! Browser Settings Incompatible

Thats a good sign.


----------



## Spatula

fireinthedust said:


> Monster Builder 4e may let me generate my own monsters, but how do I put them together in one document for an adventure?



You right click on a monster. Just like the information panel on the right tells you to do.


----------



## WalterKovacs

ProfessorCirno said:


> Funny - and, now, sadly - enough, the offline version they were forced to make due with is a thousand times better then their online version that they wanted.
> 
> Speaking of which, things the online CB does not have in comparison:
> 
> No exporting
> No houserules
> No altering magic items
> No adding feats or powers to characters (Do you add expertise automatically to character? Not anymore!)
> No sharing characters with others (Hello, now gigantic DM workload!)
> No offline usage
> No viability with popular websites such as iPlay4e
> No usage when servers are down
> 
> This isn't some vast and terrible conspiracy against WotC. It's WotC taking a powerful, awesome, and incredibly useful tool, and then shooting it - and themselves - right in the face. That's why people are pissed; because Character Builder added a ton to their games, and now it's being taken behind the shed for _no given reason_.




Since it is basically a new program built from the ground up instead of a modified version of the existing system, it is being put up with limited functionality. They were not going to update the old version anymore, because, for them, this is a better method (it makes more sense for WOTC financially, and it has a larger potential market since it runs on Macs and you technically needed an internet connection for the old builder anyway, although now you need it more often).

The lack of functionality may seem to some as something they may never get around to, but instead is probably a case of not wanting to have ANOTHER delay before giving a character builder that handles Essentials (and Dark Sun). If the alternatives were:

(a) Put the new product out this month without some of the functionality that is important, but not core

or

(b) Delay it another month and put it out with the ability to export, etc

The latter isn't exactly a good idea. Also, they likely want to see what bugs crop up when users use the current "basic" system before adding functionality that could introduce more errors to the mix.

I understand how it can be difficult to trust "we'll add that stuff in later" or even more cryptic "not at this time" language after delayed updates and unfinished earlier software promises, but it seems much more likely that some of the features are merely things that aren't fully functional yet, and have been disabled for the initial release to make sure it gets out on time.

As for iPad, I did a search on how to address it, and I stumbled upon a weird program that enables Flash and stuff like it, by doing a weird workaround (it runs a browser on a computer on their end and sends the image to the iPad and back again). I'm not sure how well it will work with the builder (it was able to play a video from Blip, which iPad can't normally do) but if it does I'll post a link to the app here. I'm going to start DM'ing a Dark Sun campaign soon, so I'll probably get the players to make them directly on my account. If I can do that off my iPad it would be a lot easier than having to go over to their place, or vice versa to work on one of our computers.


----------



## fanboy2000

Lets see here, when I make a new character I use my Mac to open-up the program at home and make my PC. Then I print out the PC and play it at the game at the store where I have no internet. Frankly, I'm good to go.

As a DM, I rarely looking at my player's sheets prior to seeing them in hardcopy at the game. With the CB, any problems are minor and can be corrected easily by the next session.

Wizards made a major change to the CB, and it's unlikely to affect me in any significant way. Of course, 2/3 of my players don't use it anyways.

As always, the big changes rarely affect me in any negative or postive way.

Maybe I should change my screen name to "Meh" boy2000.



falcarrion said:


> How many feet does Wotc have to shoot?



Presumably, one for every person who cares about D&D, given that no action is going to please everybody. A lot of people care about D&D, so Wizard's gets a lot of criticism from D&D players. I suspect that, on some level, they're glad that people care enough to get as rilled-up as they do.

Take me for example. I don't get rilled-up over many of the things they do, but D&D (any RPG, actually) is the first thing that gets cut from the entertainment budget when money gets tight. I'll put off buying Martial Power 2 (been doing so for months), but I'll still see Tron: Legacy opening weekend at the Century 21 in San Jose.


----------



## wedgeski

Dausuul said:


> D&D needs to be more like World of Warcraft.



Blizzard only *guaranteed* to keep your characters for six months, but in practice they keep them indefinitely for exactly the reasons you mention.

In this case, since you _will be able to_ export and print out your characters before ending your subscription to the DDI (something you most assuredly cannot do in a MMO), and then just re-enter them if you decide to re-subscribe after the 12 months, this is, as usual, a tiny issue blown out of all proportion by this board.

Edit: changed tense on the export thing.


----------



## Walking Dad

ProfessorCirno said:


> Funny - and, now, sadly - enough, the offline version they were forced to make due with is a thousand times better then their online version that they wanted.
> 
> Speaking of which, things the online CB does not have in comparison:
> 
> No exporting
> No houserules
> No altering magic items
> No adding feats or powers to characters (Do you add expertise automatically to character?  Not anymore!)
> No sharing characters with others (Hello, now gigantic DM workload!)
> No offline usage
> No viability with popular websites such as iPlay4e
> No usage when servers are down
> 
> This isn't some vast and terrible conspiracy against WotC.  It's WotC taking a powerful, awesome, and incredibly useful tool, and then shooting it - and themselves - right in the face.  That's why people are pissed; because Character Builder added a ton to their games, and now it's being taken behind the shed for _no given reason_.




All he said.

The biggest issue I have with no longer having an offline CB is the amount of errata. Building a character becomes very difficult if you not only look through your book (I like it this way), but also all your Dragon magazines for the feats and powers here and there and re-checking everything with the big errata pdf, that is not sorted after classes, powers and races, but only after book. Looking if a single warlord power has been errated is quite difficult. You have not even the classes bookmarked.

Yes, the compendium has the updated rules, too, but it is also online only


----------



## Walking Dad

wedgeski said:


> Blizzard only *guaranteed* to keep your characters for six months, but in practice they keep them indefinitely for exactly the reasons you mention.
> 
> In this case, since you _will be able to_ export and print out your characters before ending your subscription to the DDI (something you most assuredly cannot do in a MMO), and then just re-enter them if you decide to re-subscribe after the 12 months, this is, as usual, a tiny issue blown out of all proportion by this board.
> 
> Edit: changed tense on the export thing.




This is a joke, right? The frequency rules are errated makes using a year old character fully unpractical. Look at the last update, where you have to re-enter manually the human at-wills and which ability bonus the 'essentialed' races get. A year old character is worthless in a living online document D&D has become.


----------



## evilref

ProfessorCirno said:


> Speaking of which, things the online CB does not have in comparison:
> 
> No exporting



  Initially, it's become a priority for an early update. If it's not out by the end of Jan then i'll be irritated as a general sense but it won't affect me personally.  







ProfessorCirno said:


> No houserules



 No creation of 'new stuff' but it's also down to be added after release. You can't create new stuff very well in the existing CB either.  







ProfessorCirno said:


> No altering magic items



 I've not seen any post saying this can't be done. I might have missed one but just went through all of PaoloM's posts on the wizards site and didn't see this.  







ProfessorCirno said:


> No adding feats or powers to characters (Do you add expertise automatically to character?  Not anymore!)



  Again, I've not seen this said anywhere. I've seen people assuming it because of the 'House Rules' aspect, but I think that's an inference rather than an implication. 







ProfessorCirno said:


> No sharing characters with others (Hello, now gigantic DM workload!)



 See exporting above  







ProfessorCirno said:


> No offline usage



  Point. Doesn't affect me personally and I find some of the twisted arguments about this to be disengenous but it's definitely a limitation. Albeit, if it had had this from the part there'd be no issue. I think it's because it was offline and is going on that there's a perception of devaluing the product (even if it leads to a better tool suite overall).  







ProfessorCirno said:


> No viability with popular websites such as iPlay4e



  Given the mention of exporting as .dnd4e files, I wouldn't be surprised to see iplay4e able to make use of them sometime after the release of that feature.  EDIT: And I was right, there's apparently no change in the format of the .dnd4e files so no reason iplay4e et al can't accomodate it. 







ProfessorCirno said:


> No usage when servers are down



 Point again.    Overall I'm happy with the launch of the new tool because of what it implies for the future. The design of it is far better than the existing tool, the character sheet is very  nicely laid out and overall I believe i'll have a better product for my needs in the long run.


----------



## Minifig

Sad.. very, very sad.. one of the things I like about the other character builder is that we can use it on laptops when we're not connected to the internet. 

This has destroyed the character builder for my D&D Group.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

evilref said:


> *snip*




The problem is, you're telling us to trust the company that just spent two months utterly failing at updating their past devices (and the dm tools haven't seen an update in ages) and is known for being rather terrible at web-based software.


----------



## evilref

ProfessorCirno said:


> The problem is, you're telling us to trust the company that just spent two months utterly failing at updating their past devices (and the dm tools haven't seen an update in ages) and is known for being rather terrible at web-based software.




I'm not telling you any such thing so please don't put words into my mouth. I was correcting your blanket statements with information from the FAQ and the posts of PaoloM. It's up to you and any customer or potential customer whether they decide to 'trust' that information (and by extension how important that trust is for them).


----------



## zoroaster100

I'd prefer to have an off-line Character Builder in case the server is down or I have no access to the internet for some reason, but generally will have no problem using an online tool.  I'm not really upset about the change as I figured this was inevitable each time I would read a post from someone on the boards giving advice to folks to just buy one or two core books and subscribe for a month to get all content for $10.  It was an unsustainable business model and they had to find a way to make people buy all the books for content they want OR subscribe long term rather than just for a month here or there.


----------



## Maggan

To me this sounds interesting. More and more of my computer tasks are managed in online services that I can reach from every computer available. So for me this makes the service more accessible and more useful.

And I almost exclusively use MacOS as my computing platform. That and iOS.

I do realise that I am not representative though, since I pretty much have a couple of computers with internet connection available at all times both at work and at home. And all my friends have computers, so if we're gaming at their place then even if I forgot my portable(s), I can use their equipment.

The one thing I'm miffed about is the Silverlight thing. Makes it not compatible with the iOS devices at my disposal. Ah well, they will move to HTML5 in the end anyway.

As for storing my characters, I would just print them out. No use having a datafile if I don't subscribe to the service. And paper character sheets were ok for me to "store" PCs on before this announcement, and this doesn't change that.

So it's interesting and probably more useful to me than the stand-alone.

/M


----------



## Jdvn1

I'll probably end up making and printing a few characters at a few different levels to last me 6-9 months, and end up paying for another month when I run out of characters or I need to make a major update of a character. Tweaking a character's magic items is pretty easy, and I'm sure I can work something out with my GM to streamline the process.

I just wish it wasn't in Silverlight, but I'm not going to pay for every month anyways.


----------



## Stormtower

Subscription = cancelled.  I want my offline CB or nothing, and I want unfettered access to my character files on my own hard drive.  Bye, WotC.


----------



## gourdcaptain

I have canceled my DDI subscription. Or I would, if it weren't for the fact that whenever I try to use their site I get server errors trying to get there. And we trust can these guys with running an online application?


----------



## Umbran

MerricB said:


> Then too, I believe that designing a standalone program is quite a bit easier than the online version.




There will be exceptions, but in general it is easier to design for a browser based solution, because most of the compatibility issues are handled for you by the browser.  You get to code to a small number of browsers (which are more and more following the standards), instead of a broad variety of individual client-machine operating systems and configurations. 

And code updates are far, far simpler for browser-applications than for installed-client applications.


----------



## renau1g

zoroaster100 said:


> I'd prefer to have an off-line Character Builder in case the server is down or I have no access to the internet for some reason, but generally will have no problem using an online tool.  I'm not really upset about the change as I figured this was inevitable each time I would read a post from someone on the boards giving advice to folks to just buy one or two core books and subscribe for a month to get all content for $10.  It was an unsustainable business model and they had to find a way to make people buy all the books for content they want OR subscribe long term rather than just for a month here or there.




There's an easier option than spending 6+ month redeveloping your tools from the ground up. They could put a token (or something like that) that requires validation every X days or so. If you don't connect and validate an up to date connection, they could limit the features (I believe MS does this). That I would be more than ok with as I understand they need to make money. I don't like that I likely will have no choice once 5e comes out (which it certainly will) but convert all my PC's to the newest shiny as I'm pretty sure WotC won't throw their money away supporting an outdated (in their opinion) system.


----------



## Walking Dad

gourdcaptain said:


> I have canceled my DDI subscription. Or I would, if it weren't for the fact that whenever I try to use their site I get server errors trying to get there. And we trust can these guys with running an online application?




Only the homepage. Seems to happen to many people in Europe.

---

I don't like to be unable to build a character while being offline. Using the monthly errata file to re-check every class feature, power and item is a real workload. Why cannot they make at least a better bookmarked errata or ordering them after topics and not after books. Having all changes to all Warlord level 3 powers, for example, would be a big help.

As it is now, you have to pay and be online or have to play without errata with no revised editions on the horizon.


----------



## amethal

Mistwell said:


> I think most of the objections voiced in this thread would be solved by the ability to export your characters - which WOTC says they are working on.
> 
> Once you can export (you can already import) your character no longer just lives on their servers.  You can subscribe just when you are actively playing, and use all your old characters even if it's more that 12 months since your last subscription (assuming you exported them before shutting your subscription down).



I agree completely. This one change would make the new CB much more attractive to a whole bunch of people.

So I wonder why the CB doesn't already have this feature, or at least a reasonably firm date for introducing it.

Two possible reasons - either it is harder to do than it first seemed, or WotC have decided that whilst the feature is in the best interests of customers, it is not in the best interests of WotC - make me wonder whether there will be a considerable delay in introducing it.

On the bright side, the anecdotal evidence of a number of people cancelling their subscriptions as a result of this should ease the strain on the servers for those who remain.


----------



## Stormtower

amethal said:


> On the bright side, the anecdotal evidence of a number of people cancelling their subscriptions as a result of this should ease the strain on the servers for those who remain.




Happy to help reduce the load on WotC's servers.  *goes to boot up Hero Lab for Pathfinder*


----------



## darjr

gourdcaptain said:


> I have canceled my DDI subscription. Or I would, if it weren't for the fact that whenever I try to use their site I get server errors trying to get there. And we trust can these guys with running an online application?






> I contacted CS about the 'Error' and they cancelled my auto renew within 6 hours. Just shot them and email and done-ski! Hope that helps, everyone running into 'Error' screens.




For those with the error.


----------



## Jor-El

Here they built up all the anticipation, and held off on updates, and told everyone to be patient, and gave the impression that something was coming that was going to knock everyone's socks off....

and the usual PR fail occurs. 

I wonder if this would have gone over better if they'd just learn how to freakin' communicate?


----------



## Njall

Jor-El said:


> Here they built up all the anticipation, and held off on updates, and told everyone to be patient, and gave the impression that something was coming that was going to knock everyone's socks off....
> 
> and the usual PR fail occurs.
> 
> I wonder if this would have gone over better if they'd just learn how to freakin' communicate?




Nah, I don't think it's a PR failure. PaoloM has been answering quite a bit of questions since the announcement, yesterday. 
There's only so much you can do.
Frankly, the "new" CB is a net loss for me, and no amount of PR or marketing is going to change that: we used the old CB a lot while playing, both as a rules reference and to teach new players the game, and we don't have an internet connection where we play. 
Furthermore, I don't have a Mac, so I couldn't care less that Mac users can now use the CB. 
In addition, when 5e is released, I doubt they'll keep the tools up. I don't like the fact that we may grow accustomed to a service and then suddenly WotC can simply pull the rug from under our feet whenever they choose.
In addition, the fact that the "new" CB lacks key features, like an export feature at launch, makes me think that it was rushed out of the door, probably because they tried to put DS and Essentials in the old CB and found out that it was too much of a hassle, so they just decided to put out the online CB even if it wasn't ready for launch. 
I'm not angry or anything, I just don't think DDI is worth 10$ month for me, now. 
It's not like any amount of PR or marketing will make me forget that they're trying to rent me ( rather than sell me ) something that doesn't even have all the features of the old product, for the same monthly price.


----------



## ExploderWizard

What's funny is that the new model encourages sharing (functionality wise) more than the old one. 

There were several of us in my regular group with DDI accounts. They could level up their own character as a player then send the file to me to look over prior to the next session. 

With the new system the only way a player can share character data with a DM is via login information thus actually encouraging whole groups to share an account _more _now than ever. 

I won't be doing this because I don't care enough about Dark Sun, Essentials, or future products to resubscribe but for a company that intent on combatting piracy WOTC sure does know how to make things more attractive to pirates.


----------



## wedgeski

Walking Dad said:


> This is a joke, right? The frequency rules are errated makes using a year old character fully unpractical. Look at the last update, where you have to re-enter manually the human at-wills and which ability bonus the 'essentialed' races get. A year old character is worthless in a living online document D&D has become.



If you consider D&D to be a "living online document" and your character must absolutely positively be as up-to-date as possible, then you won't mind paying for the tools which help you achieve that, will you? So what's your problem?


----------



## renau1g

He can't always be online therefore can't access the tools in a way that he could previously. In the past those wihtout always on internet, or those who traveled for work without internet (like myself) could waste time building their PC's offline but with the most up to date rules. Now we can't.


----------



## Herschel

Shazman said:


> Now you have to pay every month to use it at all and have your character held hostage by WotC servers as well.




LoL, is Paranoia in a cross-marketing deal with WotC for campaign ideas?

"Come friends, we must save Pondo the Zamphir Assassin from the dreaded WotC servers before mike mearls discovers his whereabouts! I want to play him this Saturday but alas, the evil WotC Overlord has stricken all recollection of him from my mind and I didn't want to pay the price of a frappacino for access to him and teh rest of their content!"


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

While I'm in solidly in the "I'm not buying this (even though I own a Mac)" crowd, I have to ask...

If you're so concerned about 24/7 access to your character and don't want to mess with pencil & paper, why not just make a spreadsheet?  Sure, it won't have access to all the errata, but it will handle all of those math cascades that happen when you change your PC.


----------



## Njall

Dannyalcatraz said:


> While I'm in solidly in the "I'm not buying this (even though I own a Mac)" crowd, I have to ask...
> 
> If you're so concerned about 24/7 access to your character and don't want to mess with pencil & paper, why not just make a spreadsheet?  Sure, it won't have access to all the errata, but it will handle all of those math cascades that happen when you change your PC.




I guess it's because, if I go through the effort of creating an excel spreadsheet, what's the point of paying for the CB then? I can just use the spreadsheet and be done with it.
I see a lot of people saying that offline access is not a big deal. 
Aside from the fact that for some people it is, indeed, a big deal, the point is not how big of a deal it is: the point is that what they're doing makes the CB actively worse rather than better and adds nothing whatsoever to compensate for that, so that the new CB feels like a downgrade, rather than an upgrade. 
That's a dealbreaker, for me at least.


----------



## renau1g

Herschel said:


> LoL, is Paranoia in a cross-marketing deal with WotC for campaign ideas?
> 
> "Come friends, we must save Pondo the Zamphir Assassin from the dreaded WotC servers before mike mearls discovers his whereabouts! I want to play him this Saturday but alas, the evil WotC Overlord has stricken all recollection of him from my mind and I didn't want to pay the price of a frappacino for access to him and teh rest of their content!"




I couldn't resist this...[MENTION=78357]Herschel[/MENTION] - from your now-closed thread.


----------



## Herschel

renau1g said:


> He can't always be online therefore can't access the tools in a way that he could previously. In the past those wihtout always on internet, or those who traveled for work without internet (like myself) could waste time building their PC's offline but with the most up to date rules. Now we can't.




Yeah, it will stink in these cases. I just don't see how it isn't a good move overall for WotC though. 

There's always collateral damge in change. Hopefully the number caught will be few and more people will gain a benefit from it. It sucks to be in teh group caught, but I'm guessing this will be less painful to regular subscribers than other changes.

Heck, I've been trying to update the Monster Builder for a few days now and have yet to successfully have it work after a few months hiatus from using it. Web based will make that problem go away.


----------



## karolusb

ProfessorCirno said:


> Stupid, _stupid_, *stupid* move.
> 
> Lastly - and worst of all - if a new edition was made, then people could still fire up the ol' CB and make their character. Not anymore! Once/if a new edition comes out, the CB is dead, dead, dead.
> 
> Oh, and I wonder if this is why they weren't putting Dark Sun and Essentials stuff on CB - to add an extra "incentive" to buy this new service? Despicable.




I am not a fanboy here, I have declared that all future characters in my game would be made by hand.  I dislike many many elements of it.  As a guy with a DDI subscription since before you had to pay, and ~$500 of (4E) D&D books, I hate that they are shafting me to get at those who subscribe twice a years and never buy books.  They needed a solution to those guys.  Just wish they had done it some other way.  

I would wager the new CB was supposed to be out timed with essentials (that is when the spotty updating of the old CB began). Essentials, by dramatically altering character format (and dark sun with the addition of themes) both involved programming tasks, tasks that would have been wasted manpower on a version they knew was dead.  Updating psionic power (which it appears they also originally weren't going to do) was simply database tasks, and much easier to implement.  It was not a holiday plot.  If they could have rolled this out three months ago I am certain they would have.  

I do lament the change.  I forsee no future where the CB supports any relevant houserules (you can't even export characters, exporting custom magic items?  not gonna happen).  I make all my monsters from scratch and/or alter them in the monster builder.  Every single one.  I suspect the new cloud system will not be friendly to that.  While I don't allow comps at the table for players (too much distraction), I frequently monster on the fly while GMing.  This part would annoy me less if I hadn't downloaded the most recent, very buggy, and presumably final version of the monster builder (I didn't need or what MM3 stats, but I would really like it if a print out would show correct movement speeds and resistances).  

The text export in the OCB was super awesome.  I have a hard time believing that the data can't easily be exported this way, which puts me on the conspiracy side of the fence when it comes to the export feature.  

I am not giving up yet, I will remain cautiously pessimistic.  Maybe I will love it.  And if not, essentials characters certainly don't need a computer to make.


----------



## ExploderWizard

Herschel said:


> "Come friends, we must save Pondo the Zamphir Assassin from the dreaded WotC servers before mike mearls discovers his whereabouts! I want to play him this Saturday but alas, the evil WotC Overlord has stricken all recollection of him from my mind and I didn't want to pay the price of a frappacino for access to him and teh rest of their content!"




Nay, this reasoning be flawed! Thou art but a tenant player upon the WOTC manor. As such ye may not own characters. What be not yours is thus impossible to hold hostage from thee. Instead ye may rent them from thy master for a monthly fee. Should thou decide to forgo paying your rent as a loyal tenant thy rented characters shall be witheld from your use until the rent be paid.


----------



## Festivus

Retreater said:


> I'm out. I will not be renewing my DDI membership (which ran out at the end of Oct.)
> 
> In fact, forcing players to purchase this monthly subscription is likely going to kill 4E playing in my group. (And before you say that WotC is not "forcing" it - consider that for new players the DDI Character Builder was a key enticing factor for playing 4E. Now - not so much.)
> 
> So now we have the following issues:
> 
> 1) Books that are instantly errated and not worth the paper they are printed on.
> 2) WotC holding onto your characters and all of the errata so you have to pay $10 a month to access them.
> 3) Forcing you to play with a ready Internet connection
> 
> I hope this fails and they go back to the previous model.
> 
> Retreater




The books being instantly errated isn't that for off from being erratad once a month.  The PHB is so useless now I never look at it, it sits in a box now and the Rules Compendium has taken it's place.

On the point of character vaulting, can't you still reference the printed page?  They are also saying at some point there will be an export ability (no doubt with an import), so I don't think that's an issue.  What you are paying for with your DDI is partly the convenience of having them store it for you.  What would happen now if you lost your local HDD?  Do you have your CB characters backed up somewhere?  Many folks don't.

There is nothing that says you can't play the game without using a computer.  There are still books, you still have the old CB software, you can still print out the character sheets.  If they said you can't play without paying for our specialized d47 online die roller, well then yes, you might have an argument.

I can't see where any of the points you raise would be an issue for a new player to accept.  It's not being forced, period.  WoTC has always offered alternative ways to build characters, right down to power cards.  

Now that the software will work for Mac users, this is grand news for everyone, we should be celebrating that tools are accessible to a far wider audience than before... plus I bet this is just the first (needed) step towards offering some more really useful tools.

Visualizer: Probably will come to fruition
VTT: I have renewed hope that this change is a direct result of a need to drive that (something akin to Maptool I would hope, only with integrated 4E rules base)
Online (only) Monster Builder: I bet that is the next tool to come out
Online Map Builder: A tool to build maps online using database of dungeon tiles (much like what PyMapper can do, only tightly integrated)
Integrated Adventure Content: This is the thing that will tie everything together.  Soon we will see adventures from Dungeon and probably retail released that all work seamlessly with the online tools.

Yeah, pie in the sky, but all that stuff can kind of be lined up like that and knocked down in steps, with online CB being the first and key step.  I guess I am optimistic


----------



## UngainlyTitan

Festivus said:


> snip a lot of stuff i agree with
> 
> Visualizer: Probably will come to fruition
> VTT: I have renewed hope that this change is a direct result of a need to drive that (something akin to Maptool I would hope, only with integrated 4E rules base)
> Online (only) Monster Builder: I bet that is the next tool to come out
> Online Map Builder: A tool to build maps online using database of dungeon tiles (much like what PyMapper can do, only tightly integrated)
> Integrated Adventure Content: This is the thing that will tie everything together. Soon we will see adventures from Dungeon and probably retail released that all work seamlessly with the online tools.
> 
> Yeah, pie in the sky, but all that stuff can kind of be lined up like that and knocked down in steps, with online CB being the first and key step. I guess I am optimistic



 I think I share your optimism  and go a step further online organised play.


----------



## abyssaldeath

Festivus said:


> VTT: I have renewed hope that this change is a direct result of a need to drive that (something akin to Maptool I would hope, only with integrated 4E rules base)




I have renewed hope as well. Ever since the CB came out, but before VTT went on indefinite hold, I was scratching my head trying to figure out how these seemingly standalone products were suppose to integrate with one another. It just seemed like it would be incredibly clunky. Now with the CB being 100% online I can totally see these separate apps working together seamlessly as they will all be accessing the same exact database.


----------



## Minifig

I hope at least before you all are canceling your DDI subs you're mentioning WHY you're canceling them in a huge thread on the official WOTC forums so they get an idea of peoples outrage.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> I guess it's because, if I go through the effort of creating an excel spreadsheet, what's the point of paying for the CB then? I can just use the spreadsheet and be done with it.




Yes, and?

Save yourself some money and have a nice spreadsheet that you can use any time for the investment of some time and effort and occasionally checking errata...

Or pay for WotCs insta-updating errata and sacrifice offline utility...at least for now.

I don't see it as a contest, even with the old CB- errata updates don't thrill me that much.  Much of what I've seen of it should have been caught before the books got printed, and I can take care of that in my head without rewarding a seemingly lax proofreading process.


----------



## malraux

Festivus said:


> Now that the software will work for Mac users, this is grand news for everyone, we should be celebrating that tools are accessible to a far wider audience than before... plus I bet this is just the first (needed) step towards offering some more really useful tools.
> 
> Visualizer: Probably will come to fruition
> VTT: I have renewed hope that this change is a direct result of a need to drive that (something akin to Maptool I would hope, only with integrated 4E rules base)
> Online (only) Monster Builder: I bet that is the next tool to come out
> Online Map Builder: A tool to build maps online using database of dungeon tiles (much like what PyMapper can do, only tightly integrated)
> Integrated Adventure Content: This is the thing that will tie everything together.  Soon we will see adventures from Dungeon and probably retail released that all work seamlessly with the online tools.
> 
> Yeah, pie in the sky, but all that stuff can kind of be lined up like that and knocked down in steps, with online CB being the first and key step.  I guess I am optimistic




Not to rain on your parade, but note that it has apparently taken WotC a year and change to port CB from one platform to another very similar platform, and even doing that is incomplete.  I'm sure the monster builder will come out next, but how long will that take?  Will it ever get around to moving out of beta and addressing its shortcomings?  Yes there's a lot of potential for awesome stuff, but at best, WotC DDi team is barely able to keep its head above the water, at least based on their progress so far.


----------



## Festivus

malraux said:


> Not to rain on your parade, but note that it has apparently taken WotC a year and change to port CB from one platform to another very similar platform, and even doing that is incomplete.  I'm sure the monster builder will come out next, but how long will that take?  Will it ever get around to moving out of beta and addressing its shortcomings?  Yes there's a lot of potential for awesome stuff, but at best, WotC DDi team is barely able to keep its head above the water, at least based on their progress so far.




I dunno, all I see are rainbows, lollipops and puppies everywhere!

I don't think it's a port.  I think it's a complete rewrite of the system, keeping only some of the database on the back end.  If it was a port, it wouldn't be that tough to adjust the offline CB product.  This new version, taking lessons learned from the prior one, could be far more nimble than the old one, allowing for faster adaptability to new things they do with the game.  I really think Essentials and Dark Sun moreso, threw a curveball at the CB software as it was.  

So again, glass half full, I say they were very fast in coming out with this.  If they had more time, I bet they wouldn't have gone with Silverlight and used something a bit more cross platform friendly, but that would have meant delays to get people hired in or trained to support a different model than the comfortable platform not far off from what they already know.


----------



## Njall

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Yes, and?
> 
> Save yourself some money and have a nice spreadsheet that you can use any time for the investment of some time and effort and occasionally checking errata...
> 
> Or pay for WotCs insta-updating errata and sacrifice offline utility...at least for now.
> 
> I don't see it as a contest, even with the old CB- errata updates don't thrill me that much.  Much of what I've seen of it should have been caught before the books got printed, and I can take care of that in my head without rewarding a seemingly lax proofreading process.




Maybe I value my time more than my money, when it comes to gaming. 
Or at least, I did before the CB went online only. 
There's a reason if people pay for stuff like hero lab and the CB: they don't want to spend time and energy creating a program themselves when they can just pay someone else to to it for them. 
Now, I'm happy for you if you didn't use the CB and this decision doesn't impact you in any significant way, but there's plenty of us out there that liked it quite a bit because it saved us enough time and energy to justify the investment.


----------



## abyssaldeath

malraux said:


> Not to rain on your parade, but note that it has apparently taken WotC a year and change to port CB from one platform to another very similar platform, and even doing that is incomplete.  I'm sure the monster builder will come out next, but how long will that take?  Will it ever get around to moving out of beta and addressing its shortcomings?  Yes there's a lot of potential for awesome stuff, but at best, WotC DDi team is barely able to keep its head above the water, at least based on their progress so far.



Actually they said they've been working on this for 6 months.


----------



## malraux

abyssaldeath said:


> Actually they said they've been working on this for 6 months.




The last significant project to come out was the MB in August last year.  So it could be that they spent a bunch of other time doing random stuff before starting this project, but I don't think that helps the idea that WotC's DDi team will suddenly be putting out tons of new applications.


----------



## Remathilis

Thanks WotC

I was starting to get excited about Essentials and considered getting a 1-month to get the Essentialized CB and MB. Fudge That!

I can safely say I no longer need the Essential books for Christmas. Back to Pathfinder for me.

So long and thanks for all the fish.


----------



## Festivus

Remathilis said:


> Thanks WotC
> 
> I was starting to get excited about Essentials and considered getting a 1-month to get the Essentialized CB and MB. Fudge That!
> 
> I can safely say I no longer need the Essential books for Christmas. Back to Pathfinder for me.
> 
> So long and thanks for all the fish.




This is puzzling to me.  So the offline CB doesn't have Essentials in it, I can understand not wanting to subscribe to DDI.  I don't mean for this to be a personal attack, but dropping D&D Essentials in favor of the Pathfinder system because of the lack of an offline Character Builder from the publisher of the game sounds more like you were looking for a reason not to switch.  Paizo doesn't offer a character builder in any form at all, and both game systems have third party character builders available to them.

Based on the amount of feedback, I would not be surprised if WoTC came up with some sort of an option for these people, but it's probably not coming any time soon.


----------



## Njall

Festivus said:


> This is puzzling to me.  So the offline CB doesn't have Essentials in it, I can understand not wanting to subscribe to DDI.  I don't mean for this to be a personal attack, but dropping D&D Essentials in favor of the Pathfinder system because of the lack of an offline Character Builder from the publisher of the game sounds more like you were looking for a reason not to switch.  Paizo doesn't offer a character builder in any form at all, and both game systems have third party character builders available to them.
> 
> Based on the amount of feedback, I would not be surprised if WoTC came up with some sort of an option for these people, but it's probably not coming any time soon.




Eh, I don't think so, especially considering that PaoloM esplicitly stated that an offline CB is out of the question.


----------



## JoeGKushner

Festivus said:


> This is puzzling to me.  So the offline CB doesn't have Essentials in it, I can understand not wanting to subscribe to DDI.  I don't mean for this to be a personal attack, but dropping D&D Essentials in favor of the Pathfinder system because of the lack of an offline Character Builder from the publisher of the game sounds more like you were looking for a reason not to switch.  Paizo doesn't offer a character builder in any form at all, and both game systems have third party character builders available to them.
> 
> Based on the amount of feedback, I would not be surprised if WoTC came up with some sort of an option for these people, but it's probably not coming any time soon.




Sounds more like frustration with WoTC then JUST the Essentials bit.


----------



## RLBURNSIDE

What _are _decent options for 4e in terms of third party character building software?


----------



## renau1g

I believe HeroLab offers support for 4e, but not sure if it references teh compendium or not, so if it does, the whole web tools may ruin it.


----------



## Festivus

RLBURNSIDE said:


> What _are _decent options for 4e in terms of third party character building software?




Herolab - 4th Edition - Hero Lab - Lone Wolf Development

Heroforge - HeroForge Software - Downloads

Those were what I was thinking of anyhow.  There are probably others.


----------



## AdmundfortGeographer

Maggan said:


> The one thing I'm miffed about is the Silverlight thing. Makes it not compatible with the iOS devices at my disposal. Ah well, they will move to HTML5 in the end anyway.



Silverlight is my beef as well. I feel bad for WotC jumping on Silverlight as Microsoft is walking away from it. It's like their technology endeavors are perpetually ill-fated.

Maybe there will be some authoring conversion tool provided by MS to convert Silverlight projects into HTML5 someday.


----------



## Hussar

I've seen a couple of comments about IP.

Really?  Do you actually give a rats petoot about your character's name and whatnot, to the point where it should be protected IP?

Do you ever store your characters in any other online format?  There's already a bajillion online character vaults all over the Net.  Why is it when WOTC does it, suddenly there's this hue and cry about IP?  Wander over to pretty much any online gaming forum and they have vaults there.  Does anyone start complaining about Obsidian Portal?  Heck, doesn't En World have a character vault floating around here somewhere?

I'm thinking that WOTC has bigger fish to fry than your dual dagger wielding heavily tanned elf.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Maybe there will be some authoring conversion tool provided by MS to convert Silverlight projects into HTML5 someday.



Don't hold your breath- they've orphaned programs before, not bothering to make a converter to transfer/translate data from one of their own programs to another.

I lost a lot of data when Microsoft decided to make Excel its spreadsheet of choice, abandoning other earlier programs when a wave of CPU upgrades happened.


----------



## MerricB

Eric Anondson said:


> Silverlight is my beef as well. I feel bad for WotC jumping on Silverlight as Microsoft is walking away from it. It's like their technology endeavors are perpetually ill-fated.
> 
> Maybe there will be some authoring conversion tool provided by MS to convert Silverlight projects into HTML5 someday.




To be fair, Wizards would have no idea when embarking on this project that Silverlight might soon be dead. Meanwhile, the other major alternative - Flash - has been extremely heavily panned by Apple. Why go with it?

HTML5 is not yet an option. It certainly wasn't 6 months ago.

Cheers!


----------



## Njall

Hussar said:


> I've seen a couple of comments about IP.
> 
> Really?  Do you actually give a rats petoot about your character's name and whatnot, to the point where it should be protected IP?
> 
> Do you ever store your characters in any other online format?  There's already a bajillion online character vaults all over the Net.  Why is it when WOTC does it, suddenly there's this hue and cry about IP?  Wander over to pretty much any online gaming forum and they have vaults there.  Does anyone start complaining about Obsidian Portal?  Heck, doesn't En World have a character vault floating around here somewhere?
> 
> I'm thinking that WOTC has bigger fish to fry than your dual dagger wielding heavily tanned elf.




Eh, I don't know. Frankly, I don't care. But, for example, some of the players I know are wannabe fantasy writers. I don't think they'd like the fact that a company might decide to take their character's name and use it as a minor pc in a novel, especially if they wanted to use it for a short novel themselves. 
I know it's pretty unlikely, maybe to the point of being just paranoia, but I can see why some of them would prefer to avoid the possibility altogether.


----------



## Danzauker

Not happy at all.

First, I'm really mad at having people say that those who sign up for a month every year and get the whole bunch of stuff instead of subscibing every month are "pirates", "without honor" or "abusing the system".

Sirs, that'x exactly what I've been doing until now, and I feel greatly offended by this terms. Some are derogatory, and some are outright crimes punished by law in most countries. The next time I'll hear someone bring up them again I'll ask for moderation.

Signing up for a month only, is just how the system works. I signed up only when something that really interested was up, nominally FR and Eberron.

I don't feel ashamed at all by using the rules fairly at my advantage. This is called min-maxing. People should be used to the term.

Next time what? I'll be accused of "abusing the system" because I wait 6 months for DVDs to end in the discount bins instead of buying them on release day at full price?

Back to the main topic: as many other people I don't have (nor do I want) online access all the time to use a CB. Sure, it would be nice as an additional but not exclusive feature. But for a paying application I want it to be usable offline, too. Others already stated more than valid reasons for this, so I won't repeat them.

So, even if that was just 10 bucks every six months, unless they get really better with the magazines so that it's worthy for me to subscribe just for them, they're going to lose even that circa 2 dollars a month they used to get from me.

Plus, but that's minor. I'm a 99% Linux user. Moving to Silverlight is of no use to me (no more than sticking to .NET, actually). Heck, since they moved to browser-based software, they could at least use real cross-platform sytems!!!


----------



## Minifig

You know it occurs to me that maybe people would be more inclined to pay for the offline creator if they.. I don't know.. updated it more than once per 4-8 month period.

It's stupid that they think that this will prevent piracy.

Update your client more often and MAYBE people will want to pay for it.


----------



## Lord Ernie

Minifig said:


> You know it occurs to me that maybe people would be more inclined to pay for the offline creator if they.. I don't know.. updated it more than once per 4-8 month period.
> 
> It's stupid that they think that this will prevent piracy.
> 
> Update your client more often and MAYBE people will want to pay for it.



Mate, I have no idea what you're talking about here, but the CB was updated once per month. That may have glitched once or twice (and the new webtools provide an explanation, valid or not, as to why), but by and large, the updates came on a montly basis. Stating that they didn't update their software enough is the reason for people pirating it is not only disingenuous, but makes me believe you don't know much about software piracy. In general, people pirate things because it makes them able to get things that cost money for free, but also simply because they can - providing them with incentive not to helps, but it does not in any way stop piracy.

As to those that used to update once or twice per year for $10: I wouldn't call you pirates, cheaters, without honor, or similar insults - you were just being smart with your money. It's what the old system allowed for, and frankly, it was WotC's own fault that's how their update system worked. 

However, I believe it's also the major reason for this change. Whatever the old system allowed for, it's hard to believe it was their original intent to give people access to the content of several books and their in-house developed tool, all of which costs them development time - and thus money - for $10 every few months. As a business model, the old system was more or less retarded - you could legally get your hands on a lot of content for a fraction of the actual cost. Worse, just by violating the Terms of Use (which is a hard to check offense by any measure), you could spread this very cheap content around to 5 other people. Again: retarded.

Given that they couldn't just stop the service without pissing off and losing a whole lot more customers, switching to a subscription-based system really seems like the best move they had. Yeah, it pisses off some people, but it brings in more (those using Macs), fixes the problem with the business model I mentioned above, and gives them opportunities for further tools and faster updates as an extra bonus.



Danzauker said:


> Plus, but that's minor. I'm a 99% Linux user. Moving to Silverlight is of no use to me (no more than sticking to .NET, actually). Heck, since they moved to browser-based software, they could at least use real cross-platform sytems!!!



Their reasons for Siverlight are valid, and their lead dev has been posting on the WotC forums with explanations as to why. It may not be great for Linux and iPod/iPad users such as myself, but given the timeframe in which they were asked to come up with a new solution (6 months), developing the whole thing from scratch in another environment simply doesn't look feasible to me. Take it from someone who makes their living doing software development: writing complex programs takes time.


----------



## ProfessorCirno

Misread it


----------



## Angellis_ater

ProfessorCirno said:


> The problem is, you're telling us to trust the company that just spent two months utterly failing at updating their past devices (and the dm tools haven't seen an update in ages) and is known for being rather terrible at web-based software.




Not only that. Let's take a "whole system" look at this. Where are the Adventurers Tools we were supposed to get? The downloadable PDFs? The VTT (a running joke if ever) or any or ALL of the other things we were promised were coming with 4E... at launch.

But never mind. I've played 4E for 2+ years, enjoyed it, but this is honestly got the feeling of "last straw" to it.


----------



## UngainlyTitan

Eric Anondson said:


> Silverlight is my beef as well. I feel bad for WotC jumping on Silverlight as Microsoft is walking away from it. It's like their technology endeavors are perpetually ill-fated.
> 
> Maybe there will be some authoring conversion tool provided by MS to convert Silverlight projects into HTML5 someday.



 As someone who has worked with MS technologies for 20 years or so, MS never really walks away from an API, at least not while they still serve some utility and even then one get the libraries and docs for years after they officially stop supporting it. 

As for Silverlight, silverlight is now their favoured platform for windows 7 mobile development and I could see WPF being folded in to Silverlight. Finally, Silverlight in regard to the Character Builder is only the Client side layer. The server side is plain old .NET. So there is no reason when browser support for HTML5 is more uniform and we are closer to the final standard being set it should be fairly tivial to port the client element to HTML5


----------



## Lord Ernie

Angellis_ater said:


> Not only that. Let's take a "whole system" look at this. Where are the Adventurers Tools we were supposed to get? The downloadable PDFs? The VTT (a running joke if ever) or any or ALL of the other things we were promised were coming with 4E... at launch.
> 
> But never mind. I've played 4E for 2+ years, enjoyed it, but this is honestly got the feeling of "last straw" to it.



Not to be a WotC apologist or whatever you call it, but most of those were supposed to be developed by an external developer WotC was paying to do the work - and they botched it completely.

This does also explain why communication about all this has been so sporadic and poorly handled: before, they promised things before they were available, and messed up horribly. It disappointed a lot of people, and as your post and others show, is still a sore point for many people (myself included).  So now they only communicate on things they are absolutely sure about, and don't make advanced promises on release dates or extra features. 

Is this the best way to handle things? I doubt it. But I prefer short-time announcements and actual products over being promised the world and getting squat.


----------



## vagabundo

Yey all going well the CB will work on my ubuntu comps... all going well.

EDITOh for ubuntu/linux users check out moonlight. There is a firefox plugin. It worked on some of the test apps. Al-though there is no guarantees of course..


----------



## Danzauker

vagabundo said:


> Yey all going well the CB will work on my ubuntu comps... all going well.
> 
> EDITOh for ubuntu/linux users check out moonlight. There is a firefox plugin. It worked on some of the test apps. Al-though there is no guarantees of course..




Yes I know, but hopes are low. The CB is developed with Silverlight 4, while Moonlight is Silverlight 2 fully compliant and Silverlight 3 as beta.


----------



## Qualidar

Lord Ernie said:


> Yeah, it pisses off some people, but it brings in more (those using Macs),




I don't think that's necessarily true. While it will definitely please 4e players who are Mac people, if the character builder is a _make or break_ factor for a Mac user, they moved on to other games 2 years ago. 

I suspect they will loose a lot of people around the edges: those DMs that were passing out the CB to their groups are still D&D players, and still might buy the occasional book of interest. If they decide to not pay the price, they're loosing entire groups (including the DM, who often is the main buyer of any content).


----------



## renau1g

Lord Ernie said:


> Yeah, it pisses off some people, but it brings in more (those using Macs), fixes the problem with the business model I mentioned above, and gives them opportunities for further tools and faster updates as an extra bonus.




It may _please_ many mac users, but most of the comment I've seen were that now it'd be easier to work with rather than use the various ways to boot Windows on Macs. I haven't seen any people who _didn't_ already subscribe saying this will push them to jump on board.


----------



## vagabundo

Danzauker said:


> Yes I know, but hopes are low. The CB is developed with Silverlight 4, while Moonlight is Silverlight 2 fully compliant and Silverlight 3 as beta.




Oh, well, I might try install windows firefox and the silverlight plugin under wine.


----------



## Stormtower

Festivus said:


> Paizo doesn't offer a character builder in any form at all, and both game systems have third party character builders available to them.




Incorrect actually; Paizo has officially partnered with Lone Wolf and their datasets through APG are available for Hero Lab.  It works great, and it works offline, and all files are stored on the local PC.  It's a really nice alternative for those of us leaving DDI and returning to Pathfinder for good.


----------



## Lord Ernie

Qualidar said:


> I don't think that's necessarily true. While it will definitely please 4e players who are Mac people, if the character builder is a _make or break_ factor for a Mac user, they moved on to other games 2 years ago.



Of course. That doesn't stop any of them them from coming back, nor does it stop existing players signing up for D&Di because now they can use the CB (I have seen some anecdotal evidence for this case), or new players from actually signing up when they see Macs are supported.

That said, my statement on Mac users was mostly speculation. What I can say is that I've seen complaints about and requests for full Mac functionality since more or less day 1. (both personally and on the forums) 



Qualidar said:


> I suspect they will loose a lot of people around the edges: those DMs that were passing out the CB to their groups are still D&D players, and still might buy the occasional book of interest. If they decide to not pay the price, they're loosing entire groups (including the DM, who often is the main buyer of any content).



Not necessarily. Keep in mind that while the Terms of Use forbid it - note that they have done so since the start - nothing stops you from sharing your login information with your players, who can use the online CB to build characters. Yeah, you may get your account banned, but I don't expect very careful monitoring and policing of those terms to happen; in the end, if WotC is overly heavy with the banhammer, they only end up smashing their own foot, if you allow me to mangle two expressions at once .

As I see it, there are three main groups of customers that may decide they no longer want the CB:

Those who downloaded the CB every 4-6 months to get access to the information, that decide a constant description is simply not worth it.
Those who have - for whatever reason - no reliable access to the internet when they are creating characters.
The group I will collectively call "the rest". People who dislike web services, distrust corporate policies, hate or can't use the platform, or otherwise feel moving it to a web-based environment is unacceptable.
Now, group nr.1 is a loss, but as these took advantage (as well they should) from the old system, it's not a big one. Group number three is the hardest to gouge, and may well be more than the small niche group I'm expecting them to be right now.

Group number two are the unavoidable loss, and the users I mostly feel for. There are perfectly valid reasons for not having easy internet access, and I've read several accounts of people who need to do lots of traveling (including people in the military) that simply have no use for the new model and will lose access to the new content published from now on as a result.  



renau1g said:


> It may _please_ many mac users, but most of the comment I've seen were that now it'd be easier to work with rather than use the various ways to boot Windows on Macs. I haven't seen any people who _didn't_ already subscribe saying this will push them to jump on board.



Odd. I have seen several people without Insider accounts post, saying that they will join up from now on. We must be looking at different threads.

All that said: the forum population is hardly a real representation of the actual one. The only evidence you'll get from them is anecdotal, and even then, the loudest voices will drown out the others. 

The best we can do is decide what we want to do for ourselves - I am gonna see for myself what the new builder looks like before I decide - and watch what happens with DDi membership in the months to come.


----------



## Maggan

Lord Ernie said:


> The best we can do is decide what we want to do for ourselves - I am gonna see for myself what the new builder looks like before I decide - and watch what happens with DDi membership in the months to come.




I'm already on a DDi break, since I'm running Masks of Nyarlathotep for Call of Cthulhu. So my D&D4 campaign is on hold for now. It might get back on track in summer or thereabouts, and then I will recheck the DDi offering.

/M


----------



## Festivus

Stormtower said:


> Incorrect actually; Paizo has officially partnered with Lone Wolf and their datasets through APG are available for Hero Lab.  It works great, and it works offline, and all files are stored on the local PC.  It's a really nice alternative for those of us leaving DDI and returning to Pathfinder for good.




I'll disagree with you, my statement is totally correct.    It wasn't an in house developed software package... it was written by a third party.  Sure Paizo provides the data, but the tool itself was not built by Paizo.  Paizo sells it on their site, and gives the data away, and Paizo probably uses the tool to input the data that they give away, but the code beneath and all the profits from the sale are no different than if I went to a software store (do they still have those?) and purchased it off the shelf.  None of the above is that important, other than to state that I disagree with you 

Paizo did what I wish WoTC would have done from the get go, license it out to a third party who could do a bang up job of it.

I can't help but wonder how much of the problems we are seeing (particuarly with the VTT not coming out) has to do with the lawsuit against Atari.


----------



## Herschel

MerricB said:


> To be fair, Wizards would have no idea when embarking on this project that Silverlight might soon be dead. Meanwhile, the other major alternative - Flash - has been extremely heavily panned by Apple. Why go with it?
> 
> HTML5 is not yet an option. It certainly wasn't 6 months ago.
> 
> Cheers!





But, but, I must prove my computer knowledge on the intarwebs!


----------



## Angellis_ater

Lord Ernie said:


> Not to be a WotC apologist or whatever you call it, but most of those were supposed to be developed by an external developer WotC was paying to do the work - and they botched it completely.
> 
> This does also explain why communication about all this has been so sporadic and poorly handled: before, they promised things before they were available, and messed up horribly. It disappointed a lot of people, and as your post and others show, is still a sore point for many people (myself included).  So now they only communicate on things they are absolutely sure about, and don't make advanced promises on release dates or extra features.
> 
> Is this the best way to handle things? I doubt it. But I prefer short-time announcements and actual products over being promised the world and getting squat.




Like I said, this is one of the "last straws" mainly because, as you put it forth, they've missed big time before.

Now, the MOST important thing to me, is that my non-book gaming is at the mercy of someone else. If they decide I log in from too many IPs (I use the CB from 4-5 different computers in a normal week, 2 laptops at home, 1 desktop at work and at home and at a friends) or for whatever reason, I am cut off. 

I gladly paid 60+ bucks a year for the updates and Dungeon Magazine because I knew I could keep using that stuff. Now, I'll either have to go back to buying books - and the constant feeling of paying for erratad books - or find some other solution.

We tried playign with just the books, but knowing the amount of errata that had been processed and released has made the PHB a joke - not only for what HAS been erratad, but because enough has been changed that you NEVER know what's right anymore.

Now, that was a problem we could overlook, since we had the CB to handle it all. Now we won't. So, from today the newly instituted rule will be that we use only the old CB, effectively making all future updates (for me) useless.

Now, if it had been better implemented, then perhaps I as a majority-Linux user could've seen some use (the removed need to Virtualbox a Windows installation for example) out of it. Now, with Silverlight (4 of all version as well...) that's kinda screwed too.

So, it's essentially about the future usability of a system. I'm paying for a game, like ALL other roleplaying games, I tend to come back and replay older games. All the books I have, that we play from time to time, are still useful. The D&D books won't FEEL as useful. So it's an emotional, and personal, reason for disliking this.

That and the series of broken promises. Ditching the OGL still lingers...


----------



## falcarrion

Festivus said:


> I'll disagree with you, my statement is totally correct.    It wasn't an in house developed software package... it was written by a third party.  Sure Paizo provides the data, but the tool itself was not built by Paizo.  Paizo sells it on their site, and gives the data away, and Paizo probably uses the tool to input the data that they give away, but the code beneath and all the profits from the sale are no different than if I went to a software store (do they still have those?) and purchased it off the shelf.  None of the above is that important, other than to state that I disagree with you
> 
> Paizo did what I wish WoTC would have done from the get go, license it out to a third party who could do a bang up job of it.
> 
> I can't help but wonder how much of the problems we are seeing (particuarly with the VTT not coming out) has to do with the lawsuit against Atari.




Lone wolf software does have 4ed and 3.5 ed as well as the Pathefinder data.


----------



## darjr

The 4e part of Lone Wolfs software, I think, requires a DDI account and access to the compendium.


----------



## Festivus

falcarrion said:


> Lone wolf software does have 4ed and 3.5 ed as well as the Pathefinder data.




Yeah, I know this (I even posted a link above to it).  My entire point is that Paizo didn't develop the software, Lone Wolf did (or whomever).  WoTC developed a tool in house, and the data it proprietary requiring a DDI login to access.  The 4E 3rd party software probably allows you to enter it yourself manually, but I have no idea on that front, nor do I care.  

I don't mind the CB being online, and as I stated in another thread, it sounds like the VTT might be back on the table and this was one of the reasons for making it online... I am totally fine with that too.

For those not interested in DDI... there are options as I posted.


----------



## DEFCON 1

Angellis_ater said:


> Where are the Adventurers Tools we were supposed to get? The downloadable PDFs? The VTT (a running joke if ever) or any or ALL of the other things we were promised were coming with 4E... at launch.



How many times does WotC have to say "the VTT is not something we are working on at that this time" before people like you stop trying to use it as an excuse to justify your opinions?

The VTT has NOTHING to do with the current situation.  If you choose or not choose to subscribe to DDI... it should be because of what you CURRENTLY CAN GET FOR THE MONEY YOU SPEND ON IT.  That's all.

If you currently subscribe to DDI _EVEN THOUGH_ at one point they said two years ago that a VTT was in the works (and then subsequently cancelled)... it says that you did so because you wanted it for the PRODUCTS YOU WERE GETTING AT THE TIME YOU SIGNED UP.  So man up and stop using the VTT as a piece of ammo in your barrage aimed at WotC.

You want to be pissed off because you signed up for DDI to get an updated offline Character Builder, and that is not something you will be getting anymore?  That's cool.  Fine with me.  Well within your right and nothing I can fault you for.  But getting pissed off because they still aren't producing stuff they told you there weren't producing?  Ridiculous.  And many of us will call you on that.


----------



## Dr_Ruminahui

renau1g said:


> It may _please_ many mac users, but most of the comment I've seen were that now it'd be easier to work with rather than use the various ways to boot Windows on Macs. I haven't seen any people who _didn't_ already subscribe saying this will push them to jump on board.




Well, I don't know if anecdotal evidence does it for you, but we have a mac user in my gaming group who fully intends to start subscribing when it become available on the Mac.

I'm also a Mac user but am already a subscriber - I use it on my work computer.  I look forward to being able to having monster builder on my mac - though my mac is so old, I fear I may not be able to run the new tools.  That said, I should be getting a newer computer next year, which should fix that issue.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the change.  From what I could see, the old CB was becoming increasingly rigid and simply couldn't impliment the new changes to characters without being significantly reworked.  I'm glad they decided to spend that money/effort on instead developing a system that was more flexible and would more easily allow 4e to try other new and interesting character design philosophies.  The fact that it allows mac support (something my gaming group has wanted from day 1) is an added bonus.

I'm particularly eager to see what the new MB is like - for me, its the biggest "value item" of my subscription (dragon/dungeon might as well not exist, personally), and the changes that were implemented to allow MM3 monsters simply weren't very compatible with many earlier monsters.


----------



## renau1g

DEFCON 1 said:


> How many times does WotC have to say "the VTT is not something we are working on at that this time" before people like you stop trying to use it as an excuse to justify your opinions?




I want those hologramed hardcovers you mentioned in the other thread. Those sound awesome .


----------



## DEFCON 1

renau1g said:


> I want those hologramed hardcovers you mentioned in the other thread. Those sound awesome .




I'm sorry, reanu1g... I got word from James Wyatt that those also got cancelled.    But they will be offering an option in the new Character Builder to display it in 3D.


----------



## Arlough

DEFCON 1 said:


> How many times does WotC have to say "the VTT is not something we are working on at that this time" before people like you stop trying to use it as an excuse to justify your opinions?
> 
> The VTT has NOTHING to do with the current situation. If you choose or not choose to subscribe to DDI... it should be because of what you CURRENTLY CAN GET FOR THE MONEY YOU SPEND ON IT. That's all.
> 
> If you currently subscribe to DDI _EVEN THOUGH_ at one point they said two years ago that a VTT was in the works (and then subsequently cancelled)... it says that you did so because you wanted it for the PRODUCTS YOU WERE GETTING AT THE TIME YOU SIGNED UP. So man up and stop using the VTT as a piece of ammo in your barrage aimed at WotC.




I look at it as being more along the lines of WotC is now promising (or at the very least, heavily implying) that, though the functionality of this tool will be limited at launch, good things are coming down the line for all those who sign up.
This, to me, is suspiciously similar to the line they used when they first released DDI and the line they used when they bumped the cost of DDI up $20 or so bucks (the latter being more of a slap in the face, because they justified the bump by saying they were on the brink of releasing _something amazing_ [heard those words recently too...])

Now, I would like to say here that I am not at all effected by this, but I am bothered by it.
It is indicative to me that WotC's profit model is less concerned about producing and selling content (settings, modules, etc.) and more concerned with producing and selling rules (books, errata, books of errata, subscriptions to the latest errata, new more powerful rulebooks, etc.)
It bothers me because I thought they really had something good going for them where they could recover from the broken promises of the 3e & 3.5e OGL system, but instead they went with the M:tG model again. Selling power-creep and litigation.

It is just a sad litany of lost opportunities.


----------



## JoeGKushner

Hussar said:


> I've seen a couple of comments about IP.
> 
> Really?  Do you actually give a rats petoot about your character's name and whatnot, to the point where it should be protected IP?
> 
> Do you ever store your characters in any other online format?  There's already a bajillion online character vaults all over the Net.  Why is it when WOTC does it, suddenly there's this hue and cry about IP?  Wander over to pretty much any online gaming forum and they have vaults there.  Does anyone start complaining about Obsidian Portal?  Heck, doesn't En World have a character vault floating around here somewhere?
> 
> I'm thinking that WOTC has bigger fish to fry than your dual dagger wielding heavily tanned elf.




that's pretty short sighted no?

What if it allows you to build monsters? And then your mosnters become WoTC IP.

I mean, does no one remember gleemax and all of the awesome jobs WoTC did there?

Stop thinking of it as just the now and open your eyes to the potential, just the potential mind you, that whatever you do with not just the CB, but all the tools, is WoTC to do with as they please.


----------



## Herremann the Wise

DEFCON 1 said:


> How many times does WotC have to say "the VTT is not something we are working on at that this time" before people like you stop trying to use it as an excuse to justify your opinions?
> 
> The VTT has NOTHING to do with the current situation.  If you choose or not choose to subscribe to DDI... it should be because of what you CURRENTLY CAN GET FOR THE MONEY YOU SPEND ON IT.  That's all.
> 
> If you currently subscribe to DDI _EVEN THOUGH_ at one point they said two years ago that a VTT was in the works (and then subsequently cancelled)... it says that you did so because you wanted it for the PRODUCTS YOU WERE GETTING AT THE TIME YOU SIGNED UP.  So man up and stop using the VTT as a piece of ammo in your barrage aimed at WotC.
> 
> You want to be pissed off because you signed up for DDI to get an updated offline Character Builder, and that is not something you will be getting anymore?  That's cool.  Fine with me.  Well within your right and nothing I can fault you for.  But getting pissed off because they still aren't producing stuff they told you there weren't producing?  Ridiculous.  And many of us will call you on that.




You have a point here but again, if you take the post you're answering in context, I think he was referring more to a history of WotC disappointments (in response to a previous post again). The historical accumulation of shot feet as it were that WotC is racking up does seem to be a significant issue for a section of customers. WotC have been pretty hit and miss in delivering what they say they are delivering.

[Besides which, I think a lot of us _really _like(d) the idea of the VTT; having it vaporized was and still is a huge disappointment.]

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Do you actually give a rats petoot about your character's name and whatnot, to the point where it should be protected IP?



Personally, yes.  But then again, I'm an entertainment lawyer who also does all kinds of things like write, paint, etc., so I'm kind of a stickler.


> Do you ever store your characters in any other online format?




Nope, except for those that are inseparably stored as part of some game, such as a character in a MMORPG.


----------



## JoeGKushner

It is a history of either not knowing what your talking about or essentially lying to the customer and rarely following up on it.

While I loved the Rouse being here, after the whole PDF thing for a dollar or two when you buy the hardcover book, did anyone from WoTC come out and go, "Hey, we too love the Rouse but really, that just isnt' going to happen because we're not smart enough to figure out a way to do it. But hey, TRUST on on THIS!"

It's great that there are so many people willing to take WoTC at face value.

After being told months ago that Dark Sun and Essentials was coming to the CB but not being told, hey, it's not the CB you use, I don't believe a word they say.


----------



## mudbunny

JoeGKushner said:


> While I loved the Rouse being here, after the whole PDF thing for a dollar or two when you buy the hardcover book, did anyone from WoTC come out and go, "Hey, we too love the Rouse but really, that just isnt' going to happen because we're not smart enough to figure out a way to do it. But hey, TRUST on on THIS!"




Actually, they did come out and say (paraphrased)  "while this is a nice idea, it is not feasible for us to do. The checks it would require to make sure that the right person got the right code (and no more) would be overly complicated."


----------



## JoeGKushner

mudbunny said:


> Actually, they did come out and say (paraphrased)  "while this is a nice idea, it is not feasible for us to do. The checks it would require to make sure that the right person got the right code (and no more) would be overly complicated."




Alrighty then. One in their favor.

And I'll be honest, the negative stuff is easier to recall.

Because it seems to happen often and with big things that have big results.

I already shut off my auto-renewal.

I'll wait to see for a few months how the new CB rolls out. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be missing much with Dungeon and Dragon magazines outside of some previews which, since I don't have the CB, won't matter much to me at all at that point.

I hope, seriously, I hope that the people who are projecting light and WoTC having technical expertise and that WoTC soon is actually 'soon' but...


----------



## EvilFleet

tuxgeo said:


> How about fictional characters? If WotC can bring novels in-house and republish them, they must own them.
> If I write a novel about humans and elves and dwarves who are fighters and clerics and mages, with names like Mogsquith the Divulginator, or whatever I like, but use the _online_ character builder to create and store their specifics, could WotC sue me for royalties for using those characters if I ever get it published?




Someone raised a similar issue on another board, only they were concerned that WoTC would take their character/adventure ideas and incorporate them into their own novels/published adventures.

For something like this to happen, some poor intern at Wizards would essentially have to go through over 40,000 "Tell Me About Your Character" stories.  No one could do more than a fraction of that before jumping into the nearest sphere of annilhilation.  

If you're really concerened, change the names of the characters in your novel.


----------



## fanboy2000

JoeGKushner said:


> It is a history of either not knowing what your talking about or essentially lying to the customer and rarely following up on it.



What I think they have is a history of changing direction after either 1) there's been an official announcement or 2) after there have been hints dropped. I suspect that, to you, this is the same as not knowing what their talking about. 

Also, sometimes Wizard's is outright misquoted. (E.g., there was an erroneous "we're not working on 4e" quote going around just before 4e was announced.)



> It's great that there are so many people willing to take WoTC at face value.



I don't know about other people, but I'm not taking anything Wizard's at face value. But I do recognize that _everything_ they say is subject to a high level of scrutiny. Because of this, I think it is a tough argument to make that a marketing strategy of saying nothing is preferable to a marketing strategy of keeping the customer informed. Both strategies on their own are going to cause a loss customers.

There is, in fact, someone on this board that explicitly stated before the announcement that they were canceling because there was no communication from Wizards.



> After being told months ago that Dark Sun and Essentials was coming to the CB but not being told, hey, it's not the CB you use, I don't believe a word they say.



I don't know. I don't want them to become Apple. I.e., say nothing until it's out the door. But I think that's going to be the end result of all of this. I bought one piece of software from Apple after getting tired of waiting from a new version. A month later the new version was announced and released the same day.


----------



## UngainlyTitan

JoeGKushner said:


> that's pretty short sighted no?
> 
> What if it allows you to build monsters? And then your mosnters become WoTC IP.
> 
> I mean, does no one remember gleemax and all of the awesome jobs WoTC did there?
> 
> Stop thinking of it as just the now and open your eyes to the potential, just the potential mind you, that whatever you do with not just the CB, but all the tools, is WoTC to do with as they please.



 If WoTC is reduced to using my monsters and my campaing ideas then things are bad.

Gleemax was an interesting set of ideas badly executed. It is interesting that WoTC are still seeking to implement some of those ideas. There is some evidence that they are learning from their mistakes. It is a pity that htey are making so many of them.


----------



## tuxgeo

_


			
				tuxgeo said:
			
		


			How about fictional characters? If WotC can bring novels in-house and republish them, they must own them. 
If I write a novel about humans and elves and dwarves who are fighters  and clerics and mages, with names like Mogsquith the Divulginator, or  whatever I like, but use the online character builder to create and store their specifics, could WotC sue me for royalties for using those characters if I ever get it published?
		
Click to expand...


_


EvilFleet said:


> Someone raised a similar issue on another board, only they were concerned that WoTC would take their character/adventure ideas and incorporate them into their own novels/published adventures.
> 
> For something like this to happen, some poor intern at Wizards would essentially have to go through over 40,000 "Tell Me About Your Character" stories.  No one could do more than a fraction of that before jumping into the nearest sphere of annilhilation.
> 
> If you're really concerened, change the names of the characters in your novel.




Why should I have to do that? Does WotC own my characters on their servers unless I do? 

As I understand the situation, it is entirely possible for lawsuits to be filed up to seven years after the fact. (Yes, please do correct me about the timing, there; that's mostly a guess.) 
Given that, there is no need for "some poor intern at Wizards" to go through the slush pile; instead, all they have to do is see what sells like crazy, and see if those characters are on their servers. They wouldn't sue about something that didn't sell squat, because there's no money in that; so the high-sellers would _self-select_ for scrutiny. 
We non-WotCites can only wish there were 40,000 high sellers every week. . . .


----------



## GMforPowergamers

EvilFleet said:


> For something like this to happen, some poor intern at Wizards would essentially have to go through over 40,000 "Tell Me About Your Character" stories.  No one could do more than a fraction of that before jumping into the nearest sphere of annilhilation.




the way mor likely way that would go would be that a WotC writer would have a similar idea as ((we will use me as this example)) I do. Lets say both of us make female tiefling Swordmages named Ember who specilize in fire magic... well there are only so many fire powers and feats so of cource they look similar.

Just becuse my character was on there server as of Nov 21st and the books Ember are in (soon to be a movie, and suplment...boy did she take off) 2012, can I sue and say they stole my idea?

Those 'we own your stuff stored here' is more to prevent my example then to cause other problems...


----------



## Ahrimon

Someone did bring up the problem of art ownership.  If they have an original piece of art that they crop for a character picture and then WotC takes it uses it somewhere else.

It's a fringe case.  But for some, it could be a very important one.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Just becuse my character was on there server as of Nov 21st and the books Ember are in (soon to be a movie, and suplment...boy did she take off) 2012, can I sue and say they stole my idea?




The simple answer is yes.

_Proving_ they stole your idea, OTOH, is another matter entirely.


----------



## JoeGKushner

ardoughter said:


> If WoTC is reduced to using my monsters and my campaing ideas then things are bad.
> 
> Gleemax was an interesting set of ideas badly executed. It is interesting that WoTC are still seeking to implement some of those ideas. There is some evidence that they are learning from their mistakes. It is a pity that htey are making so many of them.




It has little to do with ideas I'm afraid and more to do with IP ownership in WoTC as attack dog to protect themselves in these cases.


----------



## Maggan

EvilFleet said:


> If you're really concerened, change the names of the characters in your novel.




I'd say, if you are really really concerned, don't use another companies tools (rules, concepts, online tools) at all when creating your characters if you hope to capitalize on the creations later.

Of course, if that is you concern, you should never ever speak online about your creations until you have secured said capitalization.

/M


----------



## nnms

I've been playing a lot of Essentials stuff lately and then DMing.  Today I opened up the CB to make a non-Essentials character for a one off (Eladrin Fey Pact Warlock).  I got to the feat section and was overwhelmed.  I've been DMing 4E since it came out and have played my share as well, but things are getting out of hand.

If the new character builder has some sort of better way of dealing with feat choices, I'll be impressed.  If it doesn't, I'm going to stick with Essenials classes and the two Heroes of books for choosing feats.

Perhaps some sort of feature questionaire.  Like I want to "hit more often" or "add a power" or "boost a class feature" or "multiclass" or "do more damage" and then it shows you all the feats that do that for the class/race combination you've chosen.


----------



## UngainlyTitan

JoeGKushner said:


> It has little to do with ideas I'm afraid and more to do with IP ownership in WoTC as attack dog to protect themselves in these cases.



 I am afraid I do not follow, could you explain please?


----------



## evilref

Dannyalcatraz said:


> The simple answer is yes.
> 
> _Proving_ they stole your idea, OTOH, is another matter entirely.




The problem with the fearmongering touched on in some of the posts leading to this one, and with rampant tinfoil hattery on the wotc boards is that you need an understanding of copyright law and how it's applied to understand how ludicrous the 'they want to take our stuff' argument is (aside from the many difficulties involved in it). And for those who want to use it in their latest mud-throwing contest, it appeals to fear and people's uncertainty. Like political attack adds, the attack is easy, disproving it is hard.


Take for example the boilerplate 'You grant us the right to use anything you write on our forums'. Unless I've missed it (which could happen but my search was fairly extensive), this has never been succesfully used as a defence for a company taking someone's idea/writing and using it for themselves).

In assorted jurisdictions it wouldn't even be accepted as a defence. It's also open to all sorts of issues whereby the rights for X are owned by Y and the creator cannot give X away to Z in the first place because Y owns it.

What the boilerplate does is help protect the companies that have it from frivolous law suits. It means if they show a screenshot of their bulletin boards and it happens to be your forum post, then they have a stronger defence case if you try and sue them for it.

What amuses me most about the 'they're going to take our stuff' idea (aside from the very idea that said stuff is worth taking in the first place), is that that boilerplate is seen on thousands of websites. Such as Paizo's.


----------



## Herschel

Things to remember:

D&D is WotC’s legal property, not ours. 

Any idea you or I have is shared by (minimum) scores of others independently. None of us are uber-original creative masterminds. We’re unique, just like everyone else.  

WotC has to account for as many gamers as possible, which includes the vast number of incredibly cheap/entitled ones. 

This is going to cause suckage for many others. It’s unfortunate it has to be this way. 

There is good and bad in every option. Hopefully the good outweighs the bad for more people than not.


----------



## rjdafoe

ardoughter said:


> If WoTC is reduced to using my monsters and my campaing ideas then things are bad.
> 
> Gleemax was an interesting set of ideas badly executed. It is interesting that WoTC are still seeking to implement some of those ideas. There is some evidence that they are learning from their mistakes. It is a pity that htey are making so many of them.




It is hard to remember what is fact and fiction right now but even if this was not said by WotC, it would not be hard to do and would not require a person any time besides running a reporting tool against the data.  Now, separating good things and bad is another story. 

I have read they have already said they are going to mine the data for future products. For instance - if a particular build of a class is popular they have said that they would come out with more stuff for it.

So it exists already, as a tool that mines the data that you are saving.


----------



## UngainlyTitan

rjdafoe said:


> It is hard to remember what is fact and fiction right now but even if this was not said by WotC, it would not be hard to do and would not require a person any time besides running a reporting tool against the data. Now, separating good things and bad is another story.
> 
> I have read they have already said they are going to mine the data for future products. For instance - if a particular build of a class is popular they have said that they would come out with more stuff for it.
> 
> So it exists already, as a tool that mines the data that you are saving.



 I do not really see a connection between your post and the one of mine you are quoting. I do not really disagee with your thesis but it has little to do with the position of others on the value of their character ideas or campaign concepts.


----------



## rjdafoe

ardoughter said:


> I do not really see a connection between your post and the one of mine you are quoting. I do not really disagee with your thesis but it has little to do with the position of others on the value of their character ideas or campaign concepts.





The data is all their to be mined - adventure information, monster information, etc.

I expect the same rules to apply as they did on Gleemax.  They can use any of your ideas that you put out there.


----------



## mudbunny

At the risk of inflaming further unfounded (IMO) worries over IP theft, Paolo has said that one of the things that they will be able to do is to look at how many people are making (for example) Mul fighthers, and be able to adjust upcoming gragon article accordingly.


----------



## rjdafoe

mudbunny said:


> At the risk of inflaming further unfounded (IMO) worries over IP theft, Paolo has said that one of the things that they will be able to do is to look at how many people are making (for example) Mul fighthers, and be able to adjust upcoming gragon article accordingly.




I beleive that is what I was saying, I just couldn't remember hwo had said it.  I also beleive the terms will be like Gleemax so yes, some people will have a problem with it.

Chances are the CB will not have much data to mine, but the MB and (if) any other Adventure Tools - that is a legitimate concern for some people.

IMO that was one of the failures of Gleemax.


----------



## evilref

rjdafoe said:


> The data is all their to be mined - adventure information, monster information, etc.
> 
> I expect the same rules to apply as they did on Gleemax.  They can use any of your ideas that you put out there.




And today Senator Bob did not deny he stole money from a baby.

A) Mining doesn't mean read. The time to actually read 'stuff' rather than go 'how many fighters are using tide of iron...click' is exponentially higher.

B) Why are you fearmongering without substance?

C) Where's your fearmongering on Paizo for having exactly the same language on their forums? (Or Apple, or Sony or...)


----------



## Scribble

rjdafoe said:


> Chances are the CB will not have much data to mine, but the MB and (if) any other Adventure Tools - that is a legitimate concern for some people.
> 
> IMO that was one of the failures of Gleemax.




My guess is they are not interested in stealing people's ideas for use. I'm thinking it's entirely about protecting themselves from lawsuits from enraged gamers who thought they stole their idea.


----------



## UngainlyTitan

rjdafoe said:


> The data is all their to be mined - adventure information, monster information, etc.
> 
> I expect the same rules to apply as they did on Gleemax. They can use any of your ideas that you put out there.



Just so we are clear, I did not give a rats ass then and I do not now. My issues with Gleemax were, the name, the name and I could not nevigate it. It was a mess to navigate and I frequently could not log in. 
But I though the underlying idea was quite good.

The big copyright issues are; people with commerical quality material are forfetting their rights to material on such sites. I think there is no way around this as long as the hosting organisation is also publishing similar material. If WoTC allow the users to retain full copyright then they could be subject to law suits where their published material has some similarity with fan material.

It is why a lot of authors do not (or claim not to) visit fanfiction sites.

On the other hand if one is an unknown and capable of creating commercial quality material it could be very worth while to put some of it on such a site. 
It will build your reputation much like modding in the pc/console games arena.


----------



## DEFCON 1

ardoughter said:


> It is why a lot of authors do not (or clain not to) visit fanfiction sites.




And why Weird Al absolutely refuses to read or listen to anyone's "brilliant" parody ideas.

He knows as well as we do how litigation-happy we are in this country.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Data Mining is a pretty technical term. It has little do with someone looking through text files manually and trying to understand what you wrote and "repurposing" your ideas. It's about collecting statistical data and trying to identify trends and patterns. Like "There are a lot of Mul Fighters created these days." or "Hey, since the last errata, 65 % of the users are equipping weapons with the vicious enhancement"


----------



## avin

evilref said:


> A) Mining doesn't mean read. The time to actually read 'stuff' rather than go 'how many fighters are using tide of iron...click' is exponentially higher.




Doesn't mean, but can be done.



evilref said:


> B) Why are you fearmongering without substance?




Why are you blindly trusting Wotc?



evilref said:


> C) Where's your fearmongering on Paizo for having exactly the same language on their forums? (Or Apple, or Sony or...)




I'm a DDI subscriber, I'm dming 4E... but if I had to introduce my daughter I'd do it to Paizo, not Wizards. Wotc has a bad habit of misleading and lying.

Now, to be fair, I'm not really concerned about what Wizards is going to do with character's data. I don't think they will steal ideas from it.

Monsters, on the other hand...


----------



## JoeGKushner

DEFCON 1 said:


> And why Weird Al absolutely refuses to read or listen to anyone's "brilliant" parody ideas.
> 
> He knows as well as we do how litigation-happy we are in this country.




And this is what I'm saying. I'm not saying WoTC is out to steal your brilliance! But they will do whatever they think they need to in order to protect themselves.

Which is why I'm 100% positive that WoTC will claim ownership overanything you do with the current tools and any tools coming down the line.


----------



## UngainlyTitan

JoeGKushner said:


> And this is what I'm saying. I'm not saying WoTC is out to steal your brilliance! But they will do whatever they think they need to in order to protect themselves.
> 
> Which is why I'm 100% positive that WoTC will claim ownership overanything you do with the current tools and any tools coming down the line.



 So let them, if you really have publishable grade material then keep it to yourself but for anything that is not commercial grade then why the hell not. Also there is value is putting commerical grade stuffup there to secure a rep if it is actually successfull enough as a gaming network site.


----------



## evilref

avin said:


> Why are you blindly trusting Wotc?




It's not blind at all.

I've been working in publishing and specifically with copyright issues for years. This is what I do for a job. 

I know exactly what would happen if WotC did exercise their claim in the manner the fearmongering is aimed at suggesting and how bad it would be. 

Companies go out of their way to try and avoid copyright offences  because when they happen they can get very public and very messy.

This is nothing but fearmongering without substantiation. But, given you're questioning it...



avin said:


> I'm a DDI subscriber, I'm dming 4E... but if I had to introduce my daughter I'd do it to Paizo, not Wizards. Wotc has a bad habit of misleading and lying.




Why are you trusting Paizo given the same legal claim is made on their website?

_Users posting messages to the site automatically  grant Paizo Publishing the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable,  nonexclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt,  publish, translate, sublicense, copy and distribute such messages  throughout the world in any media._

Or Apple..or Sony...or hundreds of companies. None of which have exercised it in the manner you're suggesting. Because they'd get crucified in court.


----------



## evilref

JoeGKushner said:


> And this is what I'm saying. I'm not saying WoTC is out to steal your brilliance! But they will do whatever they think they need to in order to protect themselves.
> 
> Which is why I'm 100% positive that WoTC will claim ownership overanything you do with the current tools and any tools coming down the line.




1) I highly doubt they'd claim ownership given, in the US for example, there are specific steps in place regarding the transfer of copyright.

_A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation      of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum      of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed      or such owner's duly authorized agent._

 2) Hundreds if not thousands of companies use the same boilerplate writing (you grant us the right to use...). For three off the top of my head, Sony, Apple and Paizo. To date there is not a single example of one exercising it as anything other than a defence against frivolous law suits.

  3) I can claim ownership over everything you write, that doesn't mean it's going to be held up in court. There is no precedent to support the boilerplate text used on websites to actually grant the owner of the forum the right to use your copyright for itself. Quite the opposite given how copyright trends have been going.

  4) The boilerplate specifically falls down because many individuals simply cannot grant such a right to anyone else.

5) The negative PR to such would be huge. As in Hasbro-stock affecting huge. Corporations do not like lawsuits they are likely to lose or that have a negative PR attached. Particularly when, in this example, they'd actually have positive PR from, you know, buying the supposed writing (assuming anything is ever put up that's worth publishing...and that it was seen by someone at the company who felt such).

etc. etc. etc.

This is uninformed fearmongering and is no more justifiable than political attack adds

Senator Bob did not deny today that he stole money from the union pension fund.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Basically, I'm in agreement with the above.

While I did say that proof is key, it is equally true that boilerplate is essentially a deterrent, like a small creature puffing itself up to appear larger.

AFAIK, no case in US intellectual property law has ever been decided _merely_ on the strength of a company's boilerplate.


----------



## catsclaw227

Pseudopsyche said:


> It's not clear to me where Microsoft is going with Silverlight.  My impression, which could easily be wrong, is that they will support it or a version of it with Windows 7 Phone, "but HTML is the only true cross platform solution for everything, including (Apple’s) iOS platform" according to the guy in charge of their server and tools business.






MerricB said:


> To be fair, Wizards would have no idea when embarking on this project that Silverlight might soon be dead. Meanwhile, the other major alternative - Flash - has been extremely heavily panned by Apple. Why go with it?
> 
> HTML5 is not yet an option. It certainly wasn't 6 months ago.




Silverlight is not dead.

I am not sure if this has been mentioned yet, I didn't read the next 6-7 pages yet, but the quote about their "strategy shift" with regards to Silverlight was taken way out of context.  

Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President in the Microsoft Developer Division, and a serious developer himself clarified things here.



			
				Scott Guthrie said:
			
		

> Over the last week there has been a lot of confusion/concern about Silverlight that occurred from an interview given at the PDC conference last week.  A few days ago Bob Muglia (President of our Server and Tools Division) posted a blog post on the Silverlight Team blog that helped clarify what he said in the interview that caused the controversy.  You can read his post here.
> 
> Three of the things that he explicitly said in the interview (and which were reported in the article - but unfortunately lost in the public reaction to it) were:
> 
> 
> Silverlight is very important and strategic to Microsoft.
> We’re working hard on the next release of Silverlight, and it will continue to be cross-browser and cross-platform, and run on Windows and Mac.
> Silverlight is a core application development platform for Windows, and it’s the development platform for Windows Phone.
> 
> In his blog post he expanded more to discuss some of the core areas we are focusing on with Silverlight going forward:
> 
> *Client Apps *(both inside and outside the browser) - with a particular emphasis on enterprise business applications
> *Apps that run on Devices* - Silverlight is now the client programming model for Windows Phone and Windows Embedded (which includes things like TVs)
> *Media Solutions* – Silverlight will continue to pioneer premium media capabilities and experiences
> 
> The "strategy shift" comment he made in the interview was intended to be about us increasing our focus on the above three areas as key scenarios where we think we can really differentiate and add a ton of value with Silverlight.  These are not new areas but rather core things we’ve always focused on with Silverlight and are the primary scenarios customers use it for today.  You’ll see even more focus on these areas in future Silverlight releases.
> 
> Where our strategy has shifted since we first started working on Silverlight is that the number of Internet connected devices out there in the world has increased significantly in the last 2 years (not just with phones, but also with embedded devices like TVs), and trying to get a single implementation of a runtime across all of them is no longer really practical (many of the devices are closed platforms that do not allow extensibility).  This is true for any single runtime implementation - whether it is Silverlight, Flash, Java, Cocoa, a specific HTML5 implementation, or something else.  If people want to have maximum reach across **all** devices then HTML will provide the broadest reach (this is true with HTML4 today - and will eventually be true with HTML5 in the future).  One of the things we as a company are working hard on is making sure we have the best browser and HTML5 implementation on Windows devices through the great work we are doing with IE9.
> 
> This by no means should be interpreted as Silverlight not being important.  We all know the importance of having the richest possible experiences for key platforms and form-factors, and the value that consumers (both end-users and enterprise) attribute to it. This is not just a true statement for Microsoft platforms - but has obviously been demonstrated by many others as well (Apple being an example).  Silverlight is a strategic technology from Microsoft that enables developers to build those, and we think our investments and focus (in particular with the above three areas) provides us with an incredibly compelling and differentiated platform to do so.  We’ll be sharing more details about some of the great Silverlight improvements coming in the future soon.


----------



## Hussar

JoeGKushner said:


> that's pretty short sighted no?
> 
> What if it allows you to build monsters? And then your mosnters become WoTC IP.
> 
> I mean, does no one remember gleemax and all of the awesome jobs WoTC did there?
> 
> Stop thinking of it as just the now and open your eyes to the potential, just the potential mind you, that whatever you do with not just the CB, but all the tools, is WoTC to do with as they please.




Who cares?

I mean seriously.  If you actually wanted to write a monster book for sale, don't use these tools.  Seems pretty simple to me.  Actually, that's not even true.  You could use these tools, just don't save them to the WOTC servers.

Considering you'd have to go through the GSL to produce some sort of 4e monster book in the first place, I think it's not a big deal.  If you want to publish 4e stuff, you don't have a lot of choice about giving WOTC some control over your IP.  This tool in no way actually changes that.


----------



## JoeGKushner

Hussar said:


> Who cares?
> 
> I mean seriously.  If you actually wanted to write a monster book for sale, don't use these tools.  Seems pretty simple to me.  Actually, that's not even true.  You could use these tools, just don't save them to the WOTC servers.
> 
> Considering you'd have to go through the GSL to produce some sort of 4e monster book in the first place, I think it's not a big deal.  If you want to publish 4e stuff, you don't have a lot of choice about giving WOTC some control over your IP.  This tool in no way actually changes that.




Some people are comfortable with it.

But as the tools continue to roll out (hopefully the tools will continue to roll out), WoTC stance has to be the same in order to protect themselves.

For those who are fine with it, not a problem. For those who don't even think about it... well, think about it. I'm not saying burn the servers to the ground and some think that you can fight the boilerplate if it came to a legal case, but be aware that WoTC will probably own you information by default.

And in terms of data mining, I'm sorry, if Google gets busted mining people's data in more depth than they should, people think WoTC isn't going to be doing 'deep' digs? Log in times, length of log ins, location of log ins, etc...? Those of you who think it's just going to be seeing what types of characters are made are indeed trusting souls that the world needs more of.


----------



## evilref

JoeGKushner said:


> For those who are fine with it, not a problem. For those who don't even think about it... well, think about it. I'm not saying burn the servers to the ground and some think that you can fight the boilerplate if it came to a legal case, but be aware that WoTC will probably own you information by default.




Why are you continuing to spread this misinformation? I genuinely don't understand why. Either you don't understand how copyright works, in which case you're just spreading uninformed opinion. Or you do, in which case this is some malicious attempt to spread negativity about WotC and their services.

You also seem to be missing the replies which call out your opinion as being false and provide evidence (or actual legal experience in this field) to support that. 

In short, other than 'stuff' WotC already owns (obviously) no boilerplate text on any website can grant them ownership over any material created by someone else using that website.

This is yet more fearmongering.


----------



## Dice4Hire

JoeGKushner said:


> And in terms of data mining, I'm sorry, if Google gets busted mining people's data in more depth than they should, people think WoTC isn't going to be doing 'deep' digs? Log in times, length of log ins, location of log ins, etc...? Those of you who think it's just going to be seeing what types of characters are made are indeed trusting souls that the world needs more of.




Seriously, who really cares if WOTC gathers that kind of information? Google was caught gathering data on wireless networks, which could include stuff like credit card numbers, and the like.

Apples and Oranges.


----------



## Angellis_ater

DEFCON 1 said:


> How many times does WotC have to say "the VTT is not something we are working on at that this time" before people like you stop trying to use it as an excuse to justify your opinions?
> 
> The VTT has NOTHING to do with the current situation.  If you choose or not choose to subscribe to DDI... it should be because of what you CURRENTLY CAN GET FOR THE MONEY YOU SPEND ON IT.  That's all.
> 
> If you currently subscribe to DDI _EVEN THOUGH_ at one point they said two years ago that a VTT was in the works (and then subsequently cancelled)... it says that you did so because you wanted it for the PRODUCTS YOU WERE GETTING AT THE TIME YOU SIGNED UP.  So man up and stop using the VTT as a piece of ammo in your barrage aimed at WotC.
> 
> You want to be pissed off because you signed up for DDI to get an updated offline Character Builder, and that is not something you will be getting anymore?  That's cool.  Fine with me.  Well within your right and nothing I can fault you for.  But getting pissed off because they still aren't producing stuff they told you there weren't producing?  Ridiculous.  And many of us will call you on that.




Ahem. Hi! *waves hand* Did you read my post? Perhaps you meant to take the quote from my post out-of-context to prove a general point - which is fair if you'd called that out.

Now, in the post itself, that was used for two things:
1. To prove that WotC has a less than stellar reputation for "keeping their word" on things.
2. To show that a reason to feel uneasy about continuing to use a service can be determined by a chain of events.

Allow me to illustrate. I tell you I'm gonna do something. A lot of times. And then I don't. So when I say "I'm gonna do this" - isn't my previous behavior a fair indicator of why you wouldn't trust me?

Another point of illustration here (note, this is an example, albeit taken a little too the extreme to illustrate a point) - if I kick you in the face every day and one day I push you, and you flip and waste my ass - it's not that single push in itself which is the reason, it is the compilation of all the events that have come before. 

Taken out of context, killing someone for a single push, would seem ludicrous and most definately paint the "killer" as an insane ass. But in context, there is more to it than just a single push.

So, please - take things in context. I've not been paying for 2 years for DDI because I wanted PDFs, the VTT (which is completely useless to me since I game in the physical space) or any of my cited examples. I've been paying because I got something very nice out of it and I have appreciated Dragon, Dungeon, the CB, the MM and the Compendium.

But I do view this as a diminishment in usability, specifically for the future. The rules in the CB+the PHB are good even when WotC moves to 5th Edition. The online version? Not at all.


----------



## JoeGKushner

evilref said:


> Why are you continuing to spread this misinformation? I genuinely don't understand why. Either you don't understand how copyright works, in which case you're just spreading uninformed opinion. Or you do, in which case this is some malicious attempt to spread negativity about WotC and their services.
> 
> You also seem to be missing the replies which call out your opinion as being false and provide evidence (or actual legal experience in this field) to support that.
> 
> In short, other than 'stuff' WotC already owns (obviously) no boilerplate text on any website can grant them ownership over any material created by someone else using that website.
> 
> This is yet more fearmongering.






> 1) I highly doubt they'd claim ownership given, in the US for example, there are specific steps in place regarding the transfer of copyright./




Highly doubt is not legal advice. It either is or is not. 



> A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly authorized agent.



 Are you saying this is true even if WoTC specifically states anything created with their software is theirs? Would not using the WoTC software in and of itself mean you are accepting what they are providing as law? And if not, are you willing to go to court with it?



> .2) Hundreds if not thousands of companies use the same boilerplate writing (you grant us the right to use...). For three off the top of my head, Sony, Apple and Paizo. To date there is not a single example of one exercising it as anything other than a defence against frivolous law suits.



 So they're not going to claim overnship but can because everyone does it? It's either one of the other no?



> 3) I can claim ownership over everything you write, that doesn't mean it's going to be held up in court. There is no precedent to support the boilerplate text used on websites to actually grant the owner of the forum the right to use your copyright for itself. Quite the opposite given how copyright trends have been going.



 Yes, because in America corporations never have copyright laws extended or changed directly benefiting them. There are no so called 'Mickey Mouse' Laws. Ys indeedy. In addition, since YOU personally cannot see the data, I don't think the common user is worried about the other common users who cannot see their data, unless WoTC screws that part up and accounts are vastly easy to hack, but rather, with data harvesting, they can do a variety of things.



> 4) The boilerplate specifically falls down because many individuals simply cannot grant such a right to anyone else.



 Doesn't this point with #2 collide a little? The companies, thousands of them by your numbers, are so stupid that they can't legally protect themselves eh?



> 5) The negative PR to such would be huge. As in Hasbro-stock affecting huge. Corporations do not like lawsuits they are likely to lose or that have a negative PR attached. Particularly when, in this example, they'd actually have positive PR from, you know, buying the supposed writing (assuming anything is ever put up that's worth publishing...and that it was seen by someone at the company who felt such).



 Yeah, it would be like Music Companies suing people who illegally download files... oh wait... It would be like WoTC suing people who've illegally uploaded PDFs... oh wait... it would be like WoTC taking down PDFs oh wait....

If you have some actual legal links of boilerplate failing, I would seriously like to review them. Otherwise from my, and it is limited, understanding, you are entering a contract by using WoTC software, like you are with any software, and putting you head in the lion's mouth.

For the vast majority of people, this won't matter one bit. For some, it will. Now if WoTc comes out and says that they claim no ownership, well, that would be stupid because sooner or latter someone's going to make something that will be similiar to what WoTC makes and they'll find themselves on the defensive end. So either the boilerplate works, or it does not work.


----------



## evilref

JoeGKushner said:


> Highly doubt is not legal advice. It either is or is not.




I can only conclude you didn't actually grasp what I was expressing here. You cannot transfer the copyright of something you have created (and obviously is copyrightable, and you have the right to copyright etc. without a signed document). Ergo I doubt that WotC will claim ownership over such things because the law does not allow them to.



JoeGKushner said:


> Are you saying this is true even if WoTC specifically states anything  created with their software is theirs? Would not using the WoTC software  in and of itself mean you are accepting what they are providing as law?  And if not, are you willing to go to court with it?




This is where your generalities have to be more specific and why I have to question why you're doing this fearmongering in the first place.

1) Using software doesn't mean I have to accept what they've provided as law. I can use software and not agree with the company's legal interpretation of my rights and how they interact with said software. Were Adobe, for example, to claim the ownership of anything I created in Photoshop as theirs. Or Microsoft to claim ownership of anything I write in Word that doesn't mean by using that software I have transfered those rights to them. Nor does it mean they can enforce that claim in court. Sure, they could sue to try and enforce it but past precedent and case law would not substantiate it. 

2) What are you actually arguing here? Are you arguing the concept of a character (which has no copyright protection), are you arguing the numbers on the sheet (again no protection for said numbers) or are you arguing that they can own the background of said character which I write in a journal entry (which they hypothetically could claim but could not enforce without a signed transfer of ownership).

3) Yes, I'd be willing to go to court to protect my rights. 



JoeGKushner said:


> So they're not going to claim overnship but can because everyone does it? It's either one of the other no?




Or not. You seem to have missed what I wrote, again. I'll try and make it clearer. The standard text I was referencing, and have quoted previously, (to use Paizo's text as an example) is this:

_Users posting messages to the site automatically  grant Paizo Publishing the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable,  nonexclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt,  publish, translate, sublicense, copy and distribute such messages  throughout the world in any media._


As a defence against a frivolous lawsuit (I post X to Y website and then sue them for publishing my writing) it's excellent. As a defence for them taking a short story I write and then publishing it...it has great gaping holes in it. I assume, of course, that you're flying this same flag of fear mongering against Paizo for using the above text?
No? Didn't think so. Why is it you're doing this again.



JoeGKushner said:


> Yes, because in America corporations never have copyright laws extended  or changed directly benefiting them. There are no so called 'Mickey  Mouse' Laws. Ys indeedy. In addition, since YOU personally cannot see  the data, I don't think the common user is worried about the other  common users who cannot see their data, unless WoTC screws that part up  and accounts are vastly easy to hack, but rather, with data harvesting,  they can do a variety of things.



This is a great piece of fearmongering here. Well, maybe they'll get the law changed to protect them. You then delve into the hacking of data. I assume, of course, you have a blog where you post that no one should put anything on the internet for fear it will be hacked. Or copied and used by someone else.

Ohh, wait, maybe google will start to publish your emails, because you're using their software that means...

Codswallop.




JoeGKushner said:


> Doesn't this point with #2 collide a little? The companies, thousands  of them by your numbers, are so stupid that they can't legally protect  themselves eh?




Every garage I've been to has a sign stating (to paraphrase) 'Owners leave their cars here at their own risk and <name of garage> cannot be held liable for any loss or damage>. Which is great for what it is. Unless say the garage collapses because it was improperly constructed. Or an employee of the garage is the one to crash into your car or... Broad defences are written as such to try and avoid loopholes, however, claiming something is not the same as actually having it. Add in the difference in international copyright laws and the point you're banging on about becomes decidedly weaker.

And they can legally protect themselves, but protecting themselves is not the same as depriving others of rights which a court and the law deems they should have. Which is what you're arguing.



JoeGKushner said:


> Yeah, it would be like Music Companies suing people who illegally  download files... oh wait... It would be like WoTC suing people who've  illegally uploaded PDFs... oh wait... it would be like WoTC taking down  PDFs oh wait....




You think WotC were wrong to sue people for illegally distributing their files? Well, that explains a lot. Moreover, again, you're misrepresenting my point.

Fundamentally I believe you are using generalised language to spread the 'fear' of WotC stealing people's ideas (while ignoring the realities of the publishing industry, the nature of the software involved and all manner of other complications, legal and otherwise).

So, why? Why are you doing this? Why aren't you doing it about Apple, or Sony or say Paizo?

Why aren't you posting how people should be scared of posting character ideas, or adventure ideas onto Paizo's website for fear Paizo will 'own' their ideas?


----------



## JoeGKushner

evilref said:


> I'm going to deal with one point because you are quite blatantly fearmongering.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm fairly sure you actually understand this point but in case you're genuinely unable to comprehend it, i'm going to break it down into simple concepts.
> 
> 
> 1) A Character I create using the Character Builder - statistics only. WotC can absolutely 'claim' ownership over this, albeit it has no protected status. It's a collection of numbers.
> 
> 2) The character's background that I write into the journal section (etc.). I cannot legally transfer my ownership of this without a signed document attesting to such. Ergo while hypothetically they (or even you) could claim ownership of it, there's no legal precedent to support it. No signed contract, no transfer.
> 
> If you don't understand the difference and given your admitted 'limited understanding', maybe you should study up on this subject before spreading your misinformed opinions on the matter?




Isn't the 'signed contract' the very fact that you're using the software and have aggred to it's TOS?


----------



## evilref

JoeGKushner said:


> Isn't the 'signed contract' the very fact that you're using the software and have aggred to it's TOS?




I changed my post to go through your points one by one as I figured I was doing you a disservice by not answering them, but to take this one as it's very simple.

No.


----------



## JoeGKushner

evilref said:


> I changed my post to go through your points one by one as I figured I was doing you a disservice by not answering them, but to take this one as it's very simple.
> 
> No.




No? Do you have a reference point for that? I'd been lead to believe that violating terms of service from installed/used software was not a good thing.


----------



## evilref

JoeGKushner said:


> No? Do you have a reference point for that? I'd been lead to believe that violating terms of service from installed/used software was not a good thing.




Firstly you're shifting the goalposts here. I assert that a TOS does not replace a signed ownership of copyright. Your point is regarding the violation of terms of service. This thread hasn't been about violating TOS at all.

As for your point, it depends on what you mean by 'not a good thing', what the TOS is and what's being violated. There have been rulings that violating Terms of Use agreements are, and are not, criminal matters. Recent rulings have been something of a slippery slope in the US (and one in particular I could see being cast down by the Supreme Court). I could, for example, create a website and state under the Terms of Use that anyone who accessed it who was not called Vizzini was violating my TOS and, as such in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2)(C). On the other hand, the Lori Drew case saw Judge Wu find that breaking a website's TOS did not automatically mean you had commited a criminal offence (it's a complicated issue, wikipedia's page has a decent summary if you don't want to read the actual ruling).

This is also a pretty broad subject and somewhat out of context. The user, for example, isn't violating the Terms of Use as outlined through the general thread. It's a question of whether the terms of use grants the company copyright ownership of everything created using that software (or, specifically, created and/or stored).

The closest case for this specifically is Powers vs Facebook. http://pub.bna.com/eclr/08cv05780_051109.pdf

The key line is '_Defendants correctly assert that Facebook does not have a copyright on user content_'


----------



## JoeGKushner

Thanks for the link. I agree that the part you note is very relevant. 

Has there been a case where Facebook has tried to claim user content and been denied by the user via a C&D?

In terms of TOS, this is another interesting one;

http://www.inquisitr.com/41108/ioc-sends-cd-to-awia-committee-member-over-olympic-photos-on-flickr/

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/po...tee-tries-prohibit-olympic-photos-flickr-then


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Or to put it a different way, a company trying to claim copyright transfer via ToS is going to be considered "overreaching"; its interpretation
"overbroad" and possibly even abusive.  Courts don't like that kind of exercise of power, and seldom uphold those clauses in favor of the contract drafter, absent the parties being found to be in roughly equivalent bargaining positions (i.e., both parties are in business together; both are experienced in the rules of the contract's matter; both parties had legal departments that could/should have made them aware of the meaning of specific clauses, etc.).

Here, the bargaining positions are definitely NOT equal.

However, as someone else pointed out, if you really are that concerned about the issue, don't use the service & software.

Unsatisfactory?  Put "Copyright held & retained by (your real name)" in each PCs name block.  That should put WotC on notice, at the very least.


----------



## RLBURNSIDE

*Sucky thing is that*

because they're actually introducing extremely good / better feats such as Superior Will, the new Weapon Expertise feats and errata to powers such as DC, our group will probably have no choice but to keep subscribing to DP Insider.

Oh well...but there is no way we're paying for more than one/two accounts (one for the players, and one for the DM) to play this game properly. Sue me. You cannot force people to upgrade like this without them finding a way to keep their costs down. The fox gets faster, so must rabbits. It's the way of things. We will adapt.


----------



## Saracenus

A point I think is being missed:

By putting data in the cloud WotC is doing a very smart thing and separating its data from the user interface (UI).

Right now, when I download CB (which was created using the .NET dev tools), the data is formatted for that program and local on my computer. Anything I create there is also local to my computer. I have to expend effort to make sure all my [computers] have the same data that I have created (this goes the same for the Monster Builder too).

Under the new web based CB I am only downloading a front end (built with silverlight) and accessing the data up in the cloud. WotC's data and my own created material.

Now, if Microsoft does dead end silverlight, while that would be a major bummer, its not a complete disaster... the data is still accessible by a different front end that WotC can design using whatever tools are appropriate.

My biggest concern involves how they are normalizing their data. Right now, if I search for Hags in the compendium most of them will *not *show fey as their origin in the stackblock but if I search for all things fey, they will show up in the search list as fey (their statblocks still show natural, elemental, immortal, etc.).

This means the statblocks are being generated not from data in the database tables but from an image blob. This explains why all the statblocks prior to MM3 didn't change. Instead of changing the formatting once and calling the data up to fill it, they would have to change each statblock image blob.

This decision saved them development time in the beginning but screwed them when it came time to make big changes or add material to the system. To add a single monster you have to add all the data twice, once for the search fields and a second time for the image blob.

This means they have a greater chance for errors to creep in and any changes now require at least twice as much work.

Getting back to the web based CB, if the data base is "atomized" properly meaning the data is broken down to its smallest parts and is format neutral then WotC can more efficiently update said info because you are just entering data and not formatting it. Instead, the front end takes the data and formats it into usable information, i.e. your character.

Because your character is just a collection of data points, other front ends can access it in new and interesting ways. Say a combat tracker that just has to point at the unique identifier for you PC (PC id#?) and wham, all the info is dumped into the app. You could give your DM your unique ID and wham it drops into his combat tracker program. That would be without having to export it out into the .DnD4e format and then import it into the new app.

I am not glossing over the problems that on-line only presents to folks, I am merely pointing out there is a legitimate advantage to putting all the data up in the cloud. In the end it might be better for almost everyone that it is. Time will tell us if this is true.

Right now I am on a 3 month subscription to see how this shakes out. I will make my informed decision at that point if the new system is working for me or not.

My Two Coppers,


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Because I don't use DDI, I ask this question:

How stable has it been?  As in, how many times (if any) and for how long has it been inaccessible for one reason or another?

That would seem to be one of the most crucial questions- being unable to access your PC while offline is headache enough, but if you can't get to it while online...


----------



## Saracenus

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Because I don't use DDI, I ask this question:
> 
> How stable has it been?  As in, how many times (if any) and for how long has it been inaccessible for one reason or another?
> 
> That would seem to be one of the most crucial questions- being unable to access your PC while offline is headache enough, but if you can't get to it while online...




Really this is two questions:

1) How stable has the WotC D&D site been for you.
2) How stable has your internet connection been in general.

Question 2 is going have variance based upon service used, location, etc. For me personally, my up time on Comcast has been good in my area. My problems have generally been fixed rapidly (except the two times squirrels chewed through my cable line to the house, that took a couple of days each time).

Question 1 is easy to answer, for the most part the WotC website has been up and running. A few times I have run into problems but not very often.

Does Question 1 predict what will happen with the DDI cloud, maybe. Let's face it, putting CB on line is going to increase the load on WotC's servers. Will they handle it (did the devs allocate enough server resources for the demand?)? Remains to be seen. Will the system they have been testing privately hold up to the initial public surge on Nov. 16th... we will see.

If WotC has messed up this last part, I am sure they will take measures to fix it, because if people cannot access the tools they have paid for, they will be uproar. I would pity the poor CustServ agents that day.

In all likelihood, the system will work and there will not be a problem. I am not promising it, but considering they have managed to keep their website running most of the time, I am reasonably confident they can handle the DDI Cloud.


----------



## Mad Hamish

Saracenus said:


> A point I think is being missed:
> 
> By putting data in the cloud WotC is doing a very smart thing and separating its data from the user interface (UI).




Really that's something that should be done in all programming.
It's been a long time architecture idea that you have 3 layers
presentation
business objects
raw data interface

so that you isolate where things need to change you limit the areas where they need to change and you can have multiple different presentation layers without having to redo the business logic and raw data.
If they haven't been doing it for the character builder then I wouldn't trust them to be able to do a distributed application.


----------



## rjdafoe

evilref said:


> And today Senator Bob did not deny he stole money from a baby.
> 
> A) Mining doesn't mean read. The time to actually read 'stuff' rather than go 'how many fighters are using tide of iron...click' is exponentially higher.
> 
> B) Why are you fearmongering without substance?
> 
> C) Where's your fearmongering on Paizo for having exactly the same language on their forums? (Or Apple, or Sony or...)





Look.  I don't care.  I jsut said that there are people that have a problem with it.  I don't.

But, the fact is - they are fully capable of doing it.  It is not like other companies have never done this before and I would think that most people could not afford to prove they did it anyways.

It is just a thing about control of your data.  Alot of people have an issue with that.


----------



## Saracenus

Mad Hamish said:


> Really that's something that should be done in all programming.
> It's been a long time architecture idea that you have 3 layers
> presentation
> business objects
> raw data interface
> 
> so that you isolate where things need to change you limit the areas where they need to change and you can have multiple different presentation layers without having to redo the business logic and raw data.
> If they haven't been doing it for the character builder then I wouldn't trust them to be able to do a distributed application.




Except the database normalization is an ongoing process.

There is just no way to account for all the new ways the D&D devs are going to add to the database model. And frankly there is a limit to how much normalization you can do initially because as some point you just have to do it or it doesn't get done.

The real question is not can they be trusted because the the first model wasn't perfect (believe me it wasn't and I believe the initial CB was an outsourced project that got brought in house) but did they take away the lessons to be learned from the limits of their first effort.

The fact that they went with silverlight to help migrate the .net architecture tells me they made a trade off on time vs. flexibility on the front end. They have done a new front end in 6 months and have brought in Mac users to the fold, but sacrificed the ability to run on iPads and Linux boxes because silverlight won't run in those environments.

However, it doesn't tell me what they are doing on the back end with the data being accessed. I am sure those folks here on the list with silverlight experience can speak to the issues of how data is created and interacted with in that architecture.

It is my understanding that having the front end separate from the data means eventually they could move off of silverlight and/or use other interfaces for the same data.

Here is the other part, now that stand alone CB is no longer supported, the man-hours being spent on it can be shifted to cloud CB, MB and new tools. Once stand alone MB is stopped, we should see a quicker turn around on tools. If they have done a better job with their Database architecture then we should see vast improvements on the timeliness of updates.

Lets face it, WotC didn't have the man-power or money to support the old system and build the new perfectly. Frankly, I would rather they spend time and resources on something new that will improve delivery of services than keep older product alive that cannot.

Again, I am not addressing the obvious failures of WotC's communication of what they are trying to accomplish to their customers. In that I give them an F.

But I can see some positive in what they are doing. So, cautiously I am waiting to see if they can deliver.

My two coppers,


----------



## renau1g

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Because I don't use DDI, I ask this question:
> 
> How stable has it been?  As in, how many times (if any) and for how long has it been inaccessible for one reason or another?
> 
> That would seem to be one of the most crucial questions- being unable to access your PC while offline is headache enough, but if you can't get to it while online...




Personally, I've not experienced any issues with downloading the updates to the software. Some users have experienced problems with wizards.com/dnd  but I've personally never experienced it. to be honest, I've never had an issue with that. Now, I fully expect on the 16th the servers will be overloaded and it will be hell. I hope that it cools down after, but I'm also expecting a million angry threads about slow load time, maybe servers not working/pages not loading,etc. I mean if all/most of the 41k subscribers jump on at approx. the same time, are the servers ready for it?


----------



## renau1g

Saracenus said:


> Once stand alone MB is stopped, we should see a quicker turn around on tools.




Wait...I've obviously missed something...they ever supported the MB in the first place?


----------



## mudbunny

renau1g said:


> I mean if all/most of the 41k subscribers jump on at approx. the same time, are the servers ready for it?




According to PaoloM, they have tested the servers with several times the total number of subscribers all accessing the tool at once.


----------



## abyssaldeath

mudbunny said:


> According to PaoloM, they have tested the servers with several times the total number of subscribers all accessing the tool at once.



Stress tests are all well and good, but they don't quite live up to real world tests. Just ask any MMO ever launched or was just given a major update. Given the nature of DDI though any problems will most likely occur with the authentication server before any other problems with the rest of the site were to happen.


----------



## JoeGKushner

abyssaldeath said:


> Stress tests are all well and good, but they don't quite live up to real world tests. Just ask any MMO ever launched or was just given a major update. Given the nature of DDI though any problems will most likely occur with the authentication server before any other problems with the rest of the site were to happen.




Hell, just ask the people who tried to cancel their DDI accounts when news when live and they couldn't because the servers were down.


----------



## fanboy2000

Dannyalcatraz said:


> How stable has it been?  As in, how many times (if any) and for how long has it been inaccessible for one reason or another?
> 
> That would seem to be one of the most crucial questions- being unable to access your PC while offline is headache enough, but if you can't get to it while online...



The CB and MB have never been inaccessible to me when had access to my computer. While the Compendium does go down occasionally for the monthly updates, I have rarely needed to access it during those times. Generally speaking, I download Dungeon and Dragon ASAP. Typically, when I've used DDI, it's been the offline offerings.

Ironic, given my MacBook Pro is connected to the internet 99% of the time.


----------



## Herschel

RLBURNSIDE said:


> because they're actually introducing extremely good / better feats such as Superior Will, the new Weapon Expertise feats and errata to powers such as DC, our group will probably have no choice but to keep subscribing to DP Insider.
> 
> Oh well...but there is no way we're paying for more than one/two accounts (one for the players, and one for the DM) to play this game properly. Sue me. You cannot force people to upgrade like this without them finding a way to keep their costs down. The fox gets faster, so must rabbits. It's the way of things. We will adapt.





So you feel entitled to cheat the system because you don't want to pay for a tool or service you want to use and you're upset WotC is taking steps to make that harder? The problem isn't WotC here.


----------



## Sunseeker

Herschel said:


> So you feel entitled to cheat the system because you don't want to pay for a tool or service you want to use and you're upset WotC is taking steps to make that harder? The problem isn't WotC here.




It's cheating, but it's also not cheating.  It's YOUR account, and as such, short of outrightly violating the terms of the account, you're entitled to use it as you please.  If you wish to make it a group account, then it is a group account, if you wish to allow 5 different people access to it, then 5 different people have access to it.

Although at first glance this may seem like people are cheating, what generally happens, such as in the case of MMO accounts, is that the "other" members generally find they enjoy the service, and then go on to subscribe on their own.  

If WotC gave say, a free trial of some kind, say, 2 weeks, I have little doubt they would get many more subscribers.


----------



## MarkB

shidaku said:


> If WotC gave say, a free trial of some kind, say, 2 weeks, I have little doubt they would get many more subscribers.




Perhaps they might be more inclined to do so, now that it would not result in giving away unlimited use of their most popular software tool.


----------



## Sunseeker

MarkB said:


> Perhaps they might be more inclined to do so, now that it would not result in giving away unlimited use of their most popular software tool.




Wouldn't surprise me.  A "recruit-a-friend" system would also be very effective to this end.  "Give a free month to your friend, get a free month if they subscribe for X months!"


----------



## Herschel

shidaku said:


> Although at first glance this may seem like people are cheating, what generally happens, such as in the case of MMO accounts, is that the "other" members generally find they enjoy the service, and then go on to subscribe on their own.




Except WotC gave out the first three levels in the original CB for free to anyone who wanted to download it and they got what they got, so your point loses validity based on proof in the market in this instance.


----------



## Sunseeker

Herschel said:


> Except WotC gave out the first three levels in the original CB for free to anyone who wanted to download it and they got what they got, so your point loses validity based on proof in the market in this instance.




Except it doesn't because I wasn't talking about a singular program.  Not to mention a program you can use offline, and one that is easily cracked open and made full for free.  

I was talking about their new service, where everything is online.


----------



## Herschel

And gamers are going to change how?


----------



## Sunseeker

Herschel said:


> And gamers are going to change how?




I don't recall suggesting they would.  You simply can't hack an online-subscription service, where no data is stored on your computer.


----------



## MarkB

shidaku said:


> I don't recall suggesting they would.  You simply can't hack an online-subscription service, where no data is stored on your computer.




Except by sharing the account. But you're suggesting that players who do that will be inspired to sign up new accounts themselves, when players offered similar tasters in the past did not. What's the new factor here?


----------



## renau1g

Players will have _all_ the rules instead of a small subset of them? Wasn't the demo pretty limited (as most demos are) with its content? Heck I know the HeroLab demo is very limited and doesn't really inspire me to buy it.


----------



## Sunseeker

MarkB said:


> Except by sharing the account. But you're suggesting that players who do that will be inspired to sign up new accounts themselves, when players offered similar tasters in the past did not. What's the new factor here?




As renau1g says, because they'll have access to all the features, not just a quick glimpse at them.  Think of it like those 10-day trials for games.  The only thing you're limited to, is time, you could(and for many games there are guides on how) beat the whole game in one day.  You see enough of the content to know it's fun and you enjoy it, so you buy it.

Don't tell me that you've never bought a movie you rented first?


----------



## The Little Raven

shidaku said:


> It's YOUR account, and as such, short of outrightly violating the terms of the account, you're entitled to use it as you please.  If you wish to make it a group account, then it is a group account, if you wish to allow 5 different people access to it, then 5 different people have access to it.






> You may not ... share your Account with anyone, unless you are a parent or guardian, in which case you may permit one child to use the Account _instead_ of yourself.




Sharing is an outright violation.


----------



## Hussar

RLBURNSIDE - You want to keep up with current gaming information right?  And you want to be able to share that with the group.  What's stopping you from buying the books?  It's a one time cost, gains you access to all the information and it can never be taken away from you.

Oh, right, you can't do it for ten bucks once in a while...

Look, at the end of the day, WOTC has to ask itself, does it want someone like RLBURNSIDE as a customer?  What do they get out of it?  Their entire library downloaded for ten bucks every six months or so?  It's not even worth the accounting costs to make that available.  Now, I'm picking on RLBURNSIDE here, but, there's been more than a few people make the same comment.  That not being able to download the entire library means they won't play the game anymore.

Really?

REALLY?

It's THAT important to you to have an entire library before you'll play the game?  What did you do in 3e?  Or any other RPG that certainly never gave you any access even remotely like this?  

As I said, why on earth would any RPG company want to keep these customers?


----------



## JoeGKushner

Why did they want them before?



Hussar said:


> RLBURNSIDE - You want to keep up with current gaming information right?  And you want to be able to share that with the group.  What's stopping you from buying the books?  It's a one time cost, gains you access to all the information and it can never be taken away from you.
> 
> Oh, right, you can't do it for ten bucks once in a while...
> 
> Look, at the end of the day, WOTC has to ask itself, does it want someone like RLBURNSIDE as a customer?  What do they get out of it?  Their entire library downloaded for ten bucks every six months or so?  It's not even worth the accounting costs to make that available.  Now, I'm picking on RLBURNSIDE here, but, there's been more than a few people make the same comment.  That not being able to download the entire library means they won't play the game anymore.
> 
> Really?
> 
> REALLY?
> 
> It's THAT important to you to have an entire library before you'll play the game?  What did you do in 3e?  Or any other RPG that certainly never gave you any access even remotely like this?
> 
> As I said, why on earth would any RPG company want to keep these customers?


----------



## Dice4Hire

Hussar said:


> As I said, why on earth would any RPG company want to keep these customers?




Well, first, they are customers, and WOTC has to ask whether 10 buck every few months is worth nothing all the time. Will the 10 bucks every so often people join the full program or quit? Time will tell.

But we, as always, have to realize that DDI has lots of customers that are not here, and are apparently not on WOTC's forums either.


----------



## rjdafoe

Herschel said:


> So you feel entitled to cheat the system because you don't want to pay for a tool or service you want to use and you're upset WotC is taking steps to make that harder? The problem isn't WotC here.




I wish this would just die.  I really do.

You are not going to stop people from sharing their accounts if they want to.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

You cannot stop cheating a system, you can only hope to contain it.

There is in economics a concept of "optimal level of criminal behavior"- the level at which it becomes more expensive to stop criminal behavior and enforce the law than it is to let the behavior happen.  That same kind of analysis can be applied to any behavior you wish to monitor or modify, and is the kind of mental economic calculus goes into policies that tell store clerks not to try to stop shoplifters & thieves, leaving that duty to store security and police.

Here we have a product that by its very nature is very easy to break the terms of use by sharing accounts.  Beyond a certain point, it doesn't make sense to safeguard against that behavior.

Simply put, do an analysis of estimated losses due to cheating on these accounts, figure out some reasonable and affordable security measures, and set a price for the service that takes all of that into account (just like any other product) and just accept the income stream you're getting.

This may increase the price, which may cause a rise or even spike in cheating the system, but eventually, this kind of behavior will normalize into a constant level.


----------



## Hussar

Dice4Hire said:


> Well, first, they are customers, and WOTC has to ask whether 10 buck every few months is worth nothing all the time. Will the 10 bucks every so often people join the full program or quit? Time will tell.
> 
> But we, as always, have to realize that DDI has lots of customers that are not here, and are apparently not on WOTC's forums either.




There comes a time when nickel and dime customers are simply not worth the time and effort.  If all WOTC is getting out of someone is twenty bucks a year, and that person in turn is getting WOTC's entire library, well, why bother?

To JoeGKushner - I would say that they did not want them before.  The way things were set up, some people took advantage of what was being offered, but, I highly doubt that WOTC was specifically courting someone who would buy, for example, a Basic boxed set (more or less a loss leader) then spend ten bucks to download the entire D&D library.

I'm thinking that they were more interested in the guys who were regular customers.  We've seen it in this thread already - people complaining that they can no longer get the entire library for ten bucks every six months or so.   And then turning around and complaining that the hobby will be too expensive.  

How much money do you think it takes for WOTC to get a single hardback supplement out the door?  How many of these twenty bucks a year "customers" would it take to make that profitable?

At some point, you have to say, "No, no more.  We are simply not making enough money off of this to continue."  That's just smart business.


----------



## Saracenus

Dice4Hire said:


> Well, first, they are customers, and WOTC has to ask whether 10 buck every few months is worth nothing all the time. Will the 10 bucks every so often people join the full program or quit? Time will tell.
> 
> But we, as always, have to realize that DDI has lots of customers that are not here, and are apparently not on WOTC's forums either.




You are looking at the cost equation from a vary narrow focus here. 

The cold hard truth is not all customers are equal, nor are all customers necessarily desired. If _*all *_customers were the only desired outcome then what you posit would be *material *to WotC's business strategy for D&D.

On the other hand development costs (to both create and maintain) a service (DDI) in support of their main product (Printed D&D) have upsides and downsides.

It's not just a mater of anti-piracy or a constant revenue stream that WotC is moving their service into the cloud. The cost of designing stand alone products that contain elements of your database and distributing them to a lot of different locations is inefficient and wasteful. For the size team they have having all the data in one place (one DB) vs. multiple locations reduces the complexity of their task. 

Imagine having to create 4 or 5 programs, each with their own database, that have to work flawlessly together in order to interact with one another. If the databases shared any data, they would have to be updated separately (meaning you enter the data multiple times). The users have to make sure all programs are updated concurrently for them to interact. 

Now imagine having a single location for all that data (no duplication of the data) and you just have to design a user interface to interact with the data. Further any information created using the data (characters, monsters, traps, new feats, new powers, etc.) is in this single location. I want new functionality, I design a new UI (or update an old one) that interacts with the data.

There are tons of reasons to move to the cloud data model and the benefits of it probably outweigh the continued patronage of those that have been getting an out sized reward for intermittent revenue that WotC gets from them. 

The fact is, they only need a few folks that subscribe twice a year to commit to a full year to make up for the ones that leave (1 customer adopting for every 5 that leave).

I am going to bet that WotC's plans for increased functionality of the DDI tools means they believe that more people are going to want the tools. A sneak peak is easy to do, just offer a free weekend were folks can come try them out (no more brain dead and outdated "free" version of CB) you can show them the whole ball of wax all at once. Then close the wall and see who comes back with dollars in hand.

So, in short, yep WotC isn't stupid in regards to costing out their products. They know what targets they have to hit and for the most part they can hit them.

Unfortunately their communication of why these choices they made are better in the long term for customers is pretty dismal. Instead the narrative is about people's fear and anger at the changes. They could have done a hell of a better job of this and they haven't.

My two coppers,


----------



## Herschel

rjdafoe said:


> I wish this would just die. I really do.
> 
> You are not going to stop people from sharing their accounts if they want to.




Yet many of those same people are complaining because of the 20 character limit, etc. which is likely being implemented in part because of people sharing accounts. 

Cheap gamers and their feelings of entitlement are a problem. At some point, a product needs to change or be discarded when too many are taking advantage of the system. 

WotC is a business, and in order to provide products/services, businesses need to make money. Why should they provide a service/product with insufficient RoI? Cheap people have a negative effect on those of us who aren't, yet claim some sort of superiority for doing so. 

If someone provides you with a product or service you find useful, then pay for it. Quit expecting something for (near) nothing or something will not be provided for long.


----------



## Imaro

Herschel said:


> Yet many of those same people are complaining because of the 20 character limit, etc. which is likely being implemented in part because of people sharing accounts.
> 
> Cheap gamers and their feelings of entitlement are a problem. At some point, a product needs to change or be discarded when too many are taking advantage of the system.
> 
> WotC is a business, and in order to provide products/services, businesses need to make money. Why should they provide a service/product with insufficient RoI? Cheap people have a negative effect on those of us who aren't, yet claim some sort of superiority for doing so.
> 
> If someone provides you with a product or service you find useful, then pay for it. Quit expecting something for (near) nothing or something will not be provided for long.




I find this a weird philosophy that you keep espousing.  WotC is a company, and they should be concerned with making as much profit as they can... yet I as a consumer shouldn't look for the best deal for my money with the product and system they have offered... just seems like a double standard there to me.


----------



## Arlough

Imaro said:


> I find this a weird philosophy that you keep espousing.  WotC is a company, and they should be concerned with making as much profit as they can... yet I as a consumer shouldn't look for the best deal for my money with the product and system they have offered... just seems like a double standard there to me.




The entire premise of the free market model that he is mentioning is founded on 4 base assumptions.  Three that economists all teach, and one that they probably would all agree on, but that I think still needs to actually be stated and not implied.

Consumers are...

Rational
Well informed
Self Maximizing
and the fourth assumption is that companies are as well.

I personally believe that the model falls apart, because the first three assumptions are incorrect, but doesn't completely collapse because the fourth assumption is also incorrect.

In this case, I believe that Hasbro is asking for short term (less than 5 year) profit maximization.  This may work or it may drive people away.  That really depends on luck, and how rational and self maximizing they are.  Since there is no way, with the current model, for consumers to be well informed, we are really just playing the odds.

I, on the other hand, have decided to stick with 4e pre-Essentials, because I don't want to continue buying rules, I would rather spend my money on content.  And since WotC is appears to be much more interested in selling rules over selling content, then I probably will not buy any more products from them once I get Psionic Power.  That is my self maximization.


----------



## Herschel

The point is a company can only be expected to provide a product or service when it's profitable to do so. 

If you want a product or service, pay for it or lose it. They don't owe you a product, they produce a product you may want so they can make a living. 

The best 'deal for your money' is paying for the product or service you use/enjoy the most, not 'stealing' what you can.


----------



## Sunseeker

Arlough said:


> The entire premise of the free market model that he is mentioning is founded on 4 base assumptions. Three that economists all teach, and one that they probably would all agree on, but that I think still needs to actually be stated and not implied.
> 
> 
> Consumers are...
> Rational
> Well informed
> Self Maximizing
> and the fourth assumption is that companies are as well.
> 
> I personally believe that the model falls apart, because the first three assumptions are incorrect, but doesn't completely collapse because the fourth assumption is also incorrect.



From my retail experience, I tend to agree.  Customers DO try to get the best deal, but it is usually through guilt-tripping, bullying, or complaining.  Rarely is it though rational thought and good information, the few customers who actually go and get well informed, usually do get the better deal.  The same is usually true for companies, though in reverse, as they generally try to cheat, lie, and abuse the customer though emotional responses, not through sound and rational tactics. 



> I, on the other hand, have decided to stick with 4e pre-Essentials, because I don't want to continue buying rules, I would rather spend my money on content. And since WotC is appears to be much more interested in selling rules over selling content, then I probably will not buy any more products from them once I get Psionic Power. That is my self maximization.



I really don't buy content and I don't buy many rules either.  Partially, because as one of my GMs taught me, "if you wanna play it, buy the book", which is really a cool and fair deal.  I wanted to play a deva, so I bought PHB2 and Divine Power, it was unreasonable of me to expect him to buy all the books, and between me and 3 other players, we bought a variety of different books and now have quite a group collection for our DM to use in games.
I don't buy content because I think it's dumb.  I can create a fantasy setting, why pay $30 for a book with one?  Sure, it's got all the encounters and stuff pre-designed, but hey, I love to do that.

In regards to essentials, I'm still on the fence.  I'll likely integrate some aspects of it into a game at some point if people want to use them, otherwise there's enough of it I don't like to not buy it.

Although all of this is good self-maximization, the rational thought part of the equation means that if we want to keep getting anything, WotC needs to see the interest.  Which warrants the occassional impulse buy in my book, be it on Minis, books, or what have you.


----------



## RLBURNSIDE

*Self-maximization*

IS why people share. And Wotc or any other company that delivers online goods, unless we're talking about huge data rates and bandwidth costs, means that those of us who would buy an insider account to print out our sheets with the latest errata or power cards or feats are maximizing our use of the system by sharing an account. It costs pennies in extra bandwidth for a new sub, or conversely saves only pennies in terms of real cost. It's like the DVD printing business. It's like having a mint. Just print more money. Their costs don't go up substantially in server costs if the number of subscribers doubled over night. 

A company making a physical product, say, making 2x as many jeans, needs to ship them, package them, quality control them. This is done (or rather NOT, in Wotc's case) at the publisher's end, once. For online-only material, costs don't double, only profits, when the userbase multiplies. This is the digital era, and the rules for maximizing your return are more complex than traditional "physical" models. 

Back when there were 5 CB downloads a month max, it would make sense to have two Insider accounts per group, at least. Now, that incentive is taken away because there is no added value for having different logins. Sure, you get 20 more characters per account, but most users won't need more than 1, and even if everyone paid for their own accounts at my table to print out their own sheet, they would still keep them on the DM's account because he has our "masters" and likes to keep control over them. Which makes sense.

What added value is there in paying 20 bucks a month just to reprint your character, when it isn't the version you can actually use in-game? Our official sheets all live in one place, and don't get touched otherwise.

We don't even level that fast, and we play every week. Also, until something's in the builder we usually don't use it. Because whatever's on your sheet is what goes. If there's a house rule or a DM overrule to something, that's an exception. But the only way to retrain to that new feat is by having a character builder that accounts for it. It's just too much annoyance / hassle to play this game with 6 players for the DM to make sure all their bonuses on each of their power cards add up. That's the job of the tool. The tool doesn't function any better by paying for it twice, which is the real problem. They are trying to fleece people out of common-sense buying power. 

I buy two pairs of pants, I need to do laundry half as often. What's the benefit for our group to have more than 2 insider logins? None. Don't assume that cost is even a factor necessarily. People I know don't need another account for logging in, handling customer issues, credit card charges, annoying things like not getting updates when you're expecting them, not being able to cancel your account easily, having it "assumed" that you will auto-renew. Hey, guess what, shoving subscriptions down people's throats makes people angry and not want to give you their credit card numbers.

Don't call people cheap because they're not suckers. It is common sense to share accounts, when the game is played as a group we share the costs of the books, the minis, the pizza, and yes, our damn character printing software, which we use for about 5 minutes each every two months. I use it more, because I'm a freak, but that's my own business. The others at my game table I doubt use it as much, even those who have their own accounts. They certainly don't know the latest / greatest combos and scour the forums for any new way to tweak their character.

Either you're hardcore or you're casual or somewhere in between, but usually only the DM and the hardcore players really need an account, and that's reflected in the stats. If there are 41k subs, there must be around 1/4 million people who've used the builder here and there to print out a +1 on their sheets once in a while. No matter how cheap / good a deal DP Insider is, those casual gamers will probably never sub to a dnd company for access to mostly DM materials and a character building software they can already access. Not all DMs allow people to just print out their own sheet at home and bring it game day. They vet the sheets, and like to keep track of what retrains you make, etc. It is this model of a Dnd group account synergy that those of you calling us "cheap" will never understand. 

There is NO way 7 or 8 people will pay for an account at one table. Just not going to happen. So, they can get over it. Also no way to enforce 1 person / account. It's be surprised if this new online model doesn't actually reduce the number of subs for this very reason.


----------



## Nytmare

I'm sad.  I leave for work for six or seven months, and when I come back I discover that, for the first time in three long decades, I'm no longer a part of D&D's target audience.

It's going to suck getting used to making characters the old fashioned way again.


----------



## Hussar

Imaro said:


> I find this a weird philosophy that you keep espousing.  WotC is a company, and they should be concerned with making as much profit as they can... yet I as a consumer shouldn't look for the best deal for my money with the product and system they have offered... just seems like a double standard there to me.




This is a false assumption.  Companies are not, and should never be, "concerned with making as much profit as they can".  

Companies should be concerned with making a stable, consistent, reliable revenue stream, that is a big as possible.

That's the problem with the once in a while subscribers.  Sure, WOTC gets a money bump every six months or so, after a new book releases, from a bunch of people subbing and then leaving.  Ok.  Fine.  But, how do you budget around that?

Do you presume that there will be that bump every time?  What happens if there isn't the bump and you need that revenue to pay off your advertisers?  What happens if the bump comes just before year end and your budget goes all pear shaped and the powers what be above you cut your operating budget for next year because you have enough cash this time around?

Or, do you presume that the money won't be there?  Then, what good is it?  What do you spend it on?  You can't rely on it, so, it's only good for one time expenditures.  There's just only so much you can spend on hookers and blow.  

Given the choice between a reliable, but smaller revenue stream and a larger but unreliable revenue stream, good businesses, the ones that want to be in business ten years down the line, take the former.

Nytmare - how are you no longer part of WOTC's target audience?  How has this change suddenly forced you away from paying money towards the hobby?  Presuming you play 4e, and you want 4e material, how has this change altered that fact?

Or, is it just because you can't pop in every six months or so and spend ten bucks for a hundred bucks worth of material?  Cos, if that's the case, why would WOTC want to keep you as a customer?


----------



## rjdafoe

Herschel said:


> Yet many of those same people are complaining because of the 20 character limit, etc. which is likely being implemented in part because of people sharing accounts.
> 
> Cheap gamers and their feelings of entitlement are a problem. At some point, a product needs to change or be discarded when too many are taking advantage of the system.
> 
> WotC is a business, and in order to provide products/services, businesses need to make money. Why should they provide a service/product with insufficient RoI? Cheap people have a negative effect on those of us who aren't, yet claim some sort of superiority for doing so.
> 
> If someone provides you with a product or service you find useful, then pay for it. Quit expecting something for (near) nothing or something will not be provided for long.




I have had (2) 1 year long subs and I have not cancelled. My sub is not up until March of next year.  I just don't feel that I have been cheated by those people that only subbed a few times a year.  I don't blame them, just as I don't blame the people who buy something 6 months later and pay less than 1/2 the price of what I payed for.

BTW, go listen to the podcast.  The real reason for the change is to protect their content from piracy.  That is almost all they talk about.  Everything else is incidental.  They also go into how to protect their content from 3rd party people.  I am sure this is how the record industry sounded when MP3s started getting popular.

You guys can talk all you want about this change being about those people who have "cheated" the system all you want.  It can't get any more specific than from The Director of the D&D Studio.


----------



## Nytmare

Hussar said:


> Nytmare - how are you no longer part of WOTC's target audience?  How has this change suddenly forced you away from paying money towards the hobby?  Presuming you play 4e, and you want 4e material, how has this change altered that fact?
> 
> Or, is it just because you can't pop in every six months or so and spend ten bucks for a hundred bucks worth of material?  Cos, if that's the case, why would WOTC want to keep you as a customer?




I will be changing over from a full time DDI subscriber to a full time non-subscriber.  I've held out since the beginning of 4E because I was expecting things to more or less to move in one direction, and it has steadily moved in a different one.

I buy pretty much every book, and because of the character builder, there are several that have only been opened once or twice.  I started paying for Dragon and Dungeon when they went digital and haven't read a single one.

I am _wholeheartedly_ a software and media pirate.  That being said, I spend a mint on the video games, software, movies, comics, and music that I want to support.  WOTC is currently getting the lion's share.    

I absolutely detest rented and subscription based entertainment, and I don't want to be in a situation where the convenience of having a digital secretary tallying to hit bonuses and keeping track of a list of feats is going to cost me X dollars every month for the rest of my natural life.  I despise that business model, and it makes me sick to think about how well it works on people in general.

The character builder spoiled me.  I was expecting it to finally get around to being more mod-community friendly, but made due.  My games are production value heavy, and the amount of time I saved with the character builder translated into more time I could spend on making my game prettier.  Now that I've lost that extra time I don't know what I'm going to do.  

More than anything it's frustrating cause I've spent so much time (oh my god so much time) integrating the now defunct character and monster builders into my routine it almost feels like I should start with a clean slate somewhere where things aren't quite so chaotic.

I know that the books are still good, and I know that there's nobody holding a gun to my head forcing me to change, but I want to play a game where I have access to stable support because I'm playing the game, not because I'm paying dues in a club.


----------



## Hussar

But, what support did you lose?

You still have all the material, up to what's just currently being released.  So, the only thing you're actually missing out on is the next book.  Since you already admit that you have more material than you need, why would becoming a non-DDI subscriber have any effect whatsoever on your game?

Now, I totally understand not liking the new business model and not wanting to support it.  That's fine.  But, what I don't understand is why this would change anything else.  You go from buying regularly and playing regularly to quitting completely just because the character builder is not updated regularly?

I'll admit I didn't use the CB all that much, but, how much did you use the CB to build your adventures anyway?  Since NPC's aren't built the same as PC's, what help is the CB to you during prep time as a DM?  The monster builder?  Sure, I can see that.  But wasn't the monster builder always online?  Was it also downloadable?

I'm just a bit confused why a DM would actually care about this.


----------



## garyh

The monster builder has always been OFFline.  Presumably it'll be going online like the CB.

As a DM, I use the CB to track my players' characters.  I play a bunch, too, so I use if for that, but it certainly still is useful for DM's.


----------



## Nytmare

Hussar said:


> But, what support did you lose?
> 
> I'm just a bit confused why a DM would actually care about this.




I've spent a significant percentage of my my 4E D&D time making and polishing an excel spreadsheet/visual basic DM tool.  

You could take the character synopsis from the character builder and import it into the spreadsheet and it would generate character and power cards (_pretty_ ones mind you, cause I was a triple art major) that I could cut out and stick into plastic sleeves.  

On top of that the spreadsheet had a "DM screen" that took information from each character and made a side by side synopsis of each character and their what I should expect from different skill and defense DCs.

I could import monster stat blocks from the adventure tools into the part of the spreadsheet that handled encounters.  A single combat encounter could be loaded into the initiative calculator on the fly in about 2 minutes; and an entire evening's worth could be prepped in about 10.  Typing all of that information in from books would be a day long project, and therefore kind of a waste.

The character builder and adventure tools completely changed the ways in which I was able to prep and run my games.  When I'm between work projects, my D&D game seriously becomes my full time, 60+ hour a week job.  Not having to enter all of this information in by hand meant that I could burn all of that extra time on props and the making the game better.

Now, my magnum opus sits and collects dust, and I either try to find a new balance between doing data entry, and book keeping, and making props; or I find something else to do.  I'm really not sure what it's going to be.


----------



## Walking Dad

I wish they would compile their Dragon (rules) stuff and the random stuff (powers in miniature sets ) in 1 or 2 hardcopies a year...

So you could actually use their rules by buying books... and don't say that feats and powers are optional. In 3e, only the 3 core books were presumed in new supplements. Now the books assume everyone has DDI.


----------



## DEFCON 1

Nytmare, I really have to ask... what exactly has been D&D's target audience for the past 30 years that you now longer now fit into?

It can't be that D&D's target audience is now people who are willing to "rent" software... because 1) there was no software to rent for like 25 of those 30 years, and 2) you don't HAVE to "rent" any software to play D&D.

So what other part of the D&D target audience are you talking about?

Seems to me that it's not that you are no longer a part of D&D's target audience... but rather just that you are no longer satisfied with what DDI will give you going forward, because the upcoming changes being made will not give you what you need.  Which is fine and cool... I think we all understand that this is the case for many people... but it's just the "no longer a part of the target audience" bit of overdramatization that make some of us roll our eyes a bit.


----------



## sigfile

Herschel said:


> Yet many of those same people are complaining because of the 20 character limit, etc. which is likely being implemented in part because of people sharing accounts.



Nah, it's because the character data is getting housed on WotC servers, and giving every user the ability to consume infinite space on those servers is a bad plan.  Paolo goes in to it a bit here.

I wouldn't be overly shocked to see the character limit bump up a bit after the initial release.


----------



## Alan Shutko

Others have pointed out on that thread the disk space requirements are pretty minimal, and that's probably not the biggest reason.  True, it would be possible to script a denial of service and try to take up lots of space, but there are many ways around that.  There are enough free sites out there that offer GBs of space that I think the space argument is a red herring.


----------



## garyh

sigfile said:


> Nah, it's because the character data is getting housed on WotC servers, and giving every user the ability to consume infinite space on those servers is a bad plan.  Paolo goes in to it a bit here.
> 
> I wouldn't be overly shocked to see the character limit bump up a bit after the initial release.




There are a lot of numbers between 20 and infinity.  I'd be much happier with 100, which is a lot closer to 20 than it is to infinity, and I have over 300 characters on my hard drive currently.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

I have over 150 typed into my Palm PDA.


----------



## Votan

garyh said:


> There are a lot of numbers between 20 and infinity.  I'd be much happier with 100, which is a lot closer to 20 than it is to infinity, and I have over 300 characters on my hard drive currently.




Agreed.  I really think the realization that you can't stat a character from level 1 to 30 was a bit of a tipping point in my thinking.  Now, an export/import function would help (a lot) but isn't available at start-up.

Now I like the online app. I compute from a lot of places and many of these places have clunky computers.  A central online repository would be of greast value to me (and, by the way, I currently subscribe and do so yearly).

But the limit seems odd.  Imagine 100 slots.  In one campaign I havbe six saved characters (@different levels and so forth).  I can easily imagine hitting 20.  I can't imagine hitting 100 and an export function would remove any residual concern.

Sure, people might share accounts.  But the goal of good digital rights management is to balance protecting the IP with making the content user friendly.  What was painful here is that they are so close to a good equilibrium . . .


----------



## Ahrimon

Nytmare said:


> I've spent a significant percentage of my my 4E D&D time making and polishing an excel spreadsheet/visual basic DM tool.
> <snip lots of neat stuff>




It sounds like you know your way around VB.  So, may I suggest that you use this situation to take your tool to the next level?  VB has a web access object.  Add it into your program.  Make your program pull the relivant information from the compendium.

Not everything will work right away.  And it does put a large development hurdle in front you.  But who knows, you might have a lot of fun doing it.  Monster information will definately be available.  Character information won't be right away.  Once they add export capability then you'll have the character files available from your players.  And if they add character sharing, then you'll even have access to the characters from the cloud.

Hopefully it will be a viable solution to the situation you find yourself in.


----------



## Ahrimon

For those upset about not being able to take a character from lvl 1 to lvl 30 I have to point out that (I assume) wotc is assuming everyone knows about the "view at level" function in the CB.

I myself only discovered it a few months ago.  If you level a character organically, makeing all necissary choices at each level, the CB file saves that.  Then you can always go back and select a specific level to view.  I've never played outside of heroic so I normally make my characters at 10th level then say I need the 6th lvl version, I just go to view at level, select 6th and I get the 6th lvl character sheet.  Items are the only place where things can get tricky.  The builder actually tracks what level you add items.  So if you level a 1st lvl character straight to 10th, add an item that they should have gotten at 3rd and then view the character at 4th, the item won't be there.

It doesn't take long to get the hang of though.

I put my money on them assuming we all know about and use this.


----------



## Hussar

garyh said:


> There are a lot of numbers between 20 and infinity.  I'd be much happier with 100, which is a lot closer to 20 than it is to infinity, and I have over 300 characters on my hard drive currently.






Dannyalcatraz said:


> I have over 150 typed into my Palm PDA.




Totally, totally not flinging poo here, honest question.

Why?  What do you use this for?

As a DM, building characters is pointless, since NPC's don't work that way, and how many characters do you actually need?


----------



## garyh

Hussar said:


> Totally, totally not flinging poo here, honest question.
> 
> Why?  What do you use this for?
> 
> As a DM, building characters is pointless, since NPC's don't work that way, and how many characters do you actually need?




A few reasons.  Characters I'm currently playing of course.  Also, characters I might play, characters I know I'll never play but want to see how they could work, multiple versions of what the characters I'm playing might look like at various levels with different options chosen, 4e-ified versions of characters I've played in previous editions, attempts to model characters from fiction.

I've enjoying making characters I knew I'd never play since I got into D&D with 2e.  The CB just makes that a lot easier.  For some of us, it's FUN to just create characters.


----------



## Scribble

garyh said:


> For some of us, it's FUN to just create characters.




You people are creepy... 

I have a friend like that...  For your sakes I hope the "really soon" they indicated for exports pans out.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Hussar said:


> Totally, totally not flinging poo here, honest question.
> 
> Why?  What do you use this for?
> 
> As a DM, building characters is pointless, since NPC's don't work that way, and how many characters do you actually need?




What garyh said...


garyh said:


> A few reasons.  Characters I'm currently playing of course.  Also, characters I might play, characters I know I'll never play but want to see how they could work, multiple versions of what the characters I'm playing might look like at various levels with different options chosen, 4e-ified versions of characters I've played in previous editions, attempts to model characters from fiction.
> 
> I've enjoying making characters I knew I'd never play since I got into D&D with 2e.  The CB just makes that a lot easier.  For some of us, it's FUN to just create characters.




...plus some others.

It gives me something to do when I don't have a novel or sketchbook or instrument handy.  I did this even without an available PDA (and still use _actual paper_ for some)- I have 3-4 folders of D&D PCs dating back to AD&D, 2 folders of HERO PCs dating back to the original version of that game, and a big binder of PCs covering those I liked from GURPS, RIFTS, Ace, Mekton, Mechwarrior, WoD, and many other systems besides.

I sometimes write up PC versions of characters I'm writing about (in HERO, usually) to solidify the way I think they should work.

I'll even write up PCs just to get an idea out of my head so it won't distract me from other things- I have a tendency to have "problems" bouncing around up there until I "solve" them.

Sometimes, fiddling about with a new PC you have an idea that hasn't been played before.  A new wrinkle in a PC can sometimes keep a game fresh- I'm eagerly awaiting the opportunity to play another 3.5 Mage-Brute, for instance.

Besides, if someone came to me- in person, or more commonly online, and asked about PC design, I probably have some kind of answer...


----------



## tuxgeo

Scribble said:


> You people are creepy...
> 
> I have a friend like that...  For your sakes I hope the "really soon" they indicated for exports pans out.




Making new PCs can also be an intellectual challenge. Part of the challenge I recently faced when designing a Human Warlord was to avoid being bored out of my skull. (Sorry, was that too snarky for this thread?) One of the answers I came up with to address that challenge was to try to give him some quirks of speech, e.g. "Fervency For The Win!" and "I see what you ferved there; ferving is good! A fervor is you." And then declare an "Insightful" build, but actually take "Inspiring Presence." The little quirks add enjoyment to the process. (I'm restraining myself from naming him "Baxtor Rie," because I do possess at least that much taste.)


----------



## avin

Why DMs care about CB?

- I have finally control over my player's sheets. I DM for 3 to 5 groups. Some players make mistakes on their sheets. Some plain cheat. Now I print their sheets.

- With CB I can consult items (shopping), powers and rituals offline.


----------



## Scribble

For my list of personal reasons to be happy about the switch:

My work laptop has Silverlight on it, so that means when I'm sent on business trips, and bored I can make a character. I would have had to bring my own laptop along as well as the work one before. Now I do not.


----------



## Sunseeker

Scribble said:


> For my list of personal reasons to be happy about the switch:
> 
> My work laptop has Silverlight on it, so that means when I'm sent on business trips, and bored I can make a character. I would have had to bring my own laptop along as well as the work one before. Now I do not.




I agree, it's nice to work on things for fun at work when you've got free time without installing junk on company computers.


----------



## MrMyth

Hussar said:


> Totally, totally not flinging poo here, honest question.
> 
> Why? What do you use this for?
> 
> As a DM, building characters is pointless, since NPC's don't work that way, and how many characters do you actually need?




Ever run a one-shot? I've got probably a score of characters floating about that I've written up as various pre-gens for different games. Plus a half-dozen of my own characters for the RPGA. I've probably played, since 4E started, 4 or 5 long term characters and another half-dozen in shorter games or adventures. Add in plenty more character ideas I've come up with and fleshed out a bit. Plus reference copies of my player's characters, in games that I have run. 

And of the above, often several versions of different characters at different levels. 

Now, not all of these are actually CB files. But there seem plenty of reasons, to me, for gamers to have lots of character sheets. WotC failing to provide for that is a pretty genuine lack on their part.


----------



## zoroaster100

I was o.k. with the CB being online until I heard about the 20 character limit.  That is a serious utility concern for me, especially without the export function.  I have over 20 characters saved now in the off-line CB.


----------



## RLBURNSIDE

*They could*

easily double it to 40 if they were actually super cereal about retaining us as customers, with a single sql query update probably.

"A bad RPG company touched me once...here let me show you on this outdated character sheet" == heheh


----------



## Jack99

You can still create all the characters you want with the new CB, if it is intellectual stimulation you are looking for. You just cant save them, and if passing time is all you need those extra slots for, well they arent stricly necessary.


----------



## garyh

Jack99 said:


> You can still create all the characters you want with the new CB, if it is intellectual stimulation you are looking for. You just cant save them, and if passing time is all you need those extra slots for, well they arent stricly necessary.




Eh, it's just not the same if it goes "poof" when you close your browser...


----------



## Jack99

garyh said:


> Eh, it's just not the same if it goes "poof" when you close your browser...




It is for me. As DM primarily, and player secondarily, I have perhaps made 200 different characters since 4e was launched, if not more. I do however only have 11 or so on my computer. The one I play, a handful of characters I would play if my ranger died, and a copy of the characters in my own campaign.

Everything else, I never save. I might make something, just to see how it looks, but I do not see an absolute need to save and save it for posterity. I seriously doubt that those people who have hundreds of characters ever get to reopen most of them.

Look, I am not saying I think 20 is more than enough. I think its too little as well. 50-100 should cover people's needs without risking any issues. I also bet they will up the limit quickly. 

I am however saying that some of the people complaining about their "needs" for hundreds of character slots are (grossly) exaggerating said need. IMO, of course. But hey, it's the Internet, the place where restraint doesn't exist.


----------



## Oldtimer

Jack99 said:


> Look, I am not saying I think 20 is more than enough. I think its too little as well. 50-100 should cover people's needs without risking any issues.



Just as a thought experiment, I zipped one of my characters and checked the file size... 20 kB.

So 50000 subscribers saving 1000 characters each would fit into 1 TB. I would assume WotC could afford a few terabytes of storage...


----------



## RigaMortus2

I haven't been keeping up with thread, but did I just read that correctly?  You can only store up to 20 characters?  If thats the case, then WotC has already made the decision for me whether I am going to be a DDi subscriber or not.

I am keeping this months subscription, because I am very curious and interested on messing with the new character builder.  But I don't think any amount of "wow" factor is going to want me to keep the subscription after this month.  This is a severe limit IMO.

I do hope I read that wrong...


----------



## Hussar

I think the issue isn't so much storage, it's retrieval.  Memory is so cheap that it's practically free.  But, if every time you boot up your CB, it queries every single character you have saved in the database, that's going to eat up bandwidth.

At least, that's my very, very uninformed guess.


----------



## RigaMortus2

I do have another question, and I think this was answered a while ago, so forgive me if it was (I forget the answer)...

Previously, the DDi subscription allowed for 5 downloads/updates for the Character Builder.  The intent was that you can share your log-in info with your gaming group, they can each get the CB and keep it updated, and each player (and DM) can use it for one cost, one log-in...

Will this still be the case?  Or would each player now have to subscribe to get access to the character builder?  If I am using the online CB, and my friend decides to mess with it at the same time, and he uses my log-in info, will it knock me off, or can multiple people (sharing the same account info) use the CB at the same time?

Now, assuming you CAN share the CB with one subscription/account...  If the character limit is 20 characters stored, that is only 5 characters per person per gaming group.  Ick...

Again, my apologies if this has already been answered and I missed it...


----------



## RigaMortus2

Hussar said:


> I think the issue isn't so much storage, it's retrieval.  Memory is so cheap that it's practically free.  But, if every time you boot up your CB, it queries every single character you have saved in the database, that's going to eat up bandwidth.
> 
> At least, that's my very, very uninformed guess.




Well, why not just load up the one you want access to, and not ALL of them at once?  Once you load it, it can store the info in cache so it doesn't take so long to re-load should you change characters...  Or are we expecting to see a WoW character selection screen?  Which would be cool IMO...


----------



## MarkB

garyh said:


> I've enjoying making characters I knew I'd never play since I got into D&D with 2e.  The CB just makes that a lot easier.  For some of us, it's FUN to just create characters.




Okay, this part I just don't get. Yes, the new CB has a character-file limit, and yes, it doesn't have character-file exports, but so what? Your character-file IS NOT YOUR CHARACTER.

The new system will still allow you to output a character to print - or to PDF file via a PDF-writer like CutePDF. And that print-out contains _every single piece of data_ you need to re-create that character from scratch.

If, at a later time, you find yourself wanting to go back and modify that intellectual-exercise character in the CB, it's going to take you, at worst, a maximum of ten minutes to re-build it based on the printed character sheet. That's less time than it'd probably take you just to nail down all the sources of your feats and powers if you were resurrecting a manually-created character.


----------



## IronWolf

Jack99 said:
			
		

> You can still create all the characters you want with the new CB, if it is intellectual stimulation you are looking for. You just cant save them, and if passing time is all you need those extra slots for, well they arent stricly necessary.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> garyh said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Eh, it's just not the same if it goes "poof" when you close your browser...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It is for me. As DM primarily, and player secondarily, I have perhaps made 200 different characters since 4e was launched, if not more. I do however only have 11 or so on my computer. The one I play, a handful of characters I would play if my ranger died, and a copy of the characters in my own campaign.
Click to expand...



While it certainly may not matter to you it does seem to matter to several of the people in this thread.  It seems quite "bad wrong fun" to say  because it isn't your style that others concerns are invalidated and not relevant.

Everyone has different ideas of what is fun.  So while a tool might meet all of your needs, it might not meet everyone's needs.  With that said, WotC will never be able to please all the people 100% of the time.  They just need to determine how the majority of people use the tool and then determine which limitations people comment about are going to warrant changes.


----------



## abyssaldeath

RigaMortus2 said:


> I do have another question, and I think this was answered a while ago, so forgive me if it was (I forget the answer)...
> 
> Previously, the DDi subscription allowed for 5 downloads/updates for the Character Builder.  The intent was that you can share your log-in info with your gaming group, they can each get the CB and keep it updated, and each player (and DM) can use it for one cost, one log-in...
> 
> Will this still be the case?  Or would each player now have to subscribe to get access to the character builder?  If I am using the online CB, and my friend decides to mess with it at the same time, and he uses my log-in info, will it knock me off, or can multiple people (sharing the same account info) use the CB at the same time?
> 
> Now, assuming you CAN share the CB with one subscription/account...  If the character limit is 20 characters stored, that is only 5 characters per person per gaming group.  Ick...
> 
> Again, my apologies if this has already been answered and I missed it...



The intent was never for you to share your account with others. People just jumped to that conclusion. The purpose of the five downloads was for you to be able to install the CB on up to five times on your own computers. 

That said, I don't believe that WotC is overly concerned with that behavior. Just know that they are not going to test out whether or not two people can be logged onto the same account and access the CB at the same time. A lot of these types of questions are jus going to have to wait till after the 16th.


----------



## Saracenus

Actually the official explanation of the 20 character limit for CloudCB is that it prevents automated script attacks that would create character after character in a Denial of Service attack on the WotC servers. Source (Paulo, lead dev on the DDI tools before they yanked all official response to a single person WotCTrevor I believe).

While this explanation is laughable at best, its the one they have provided. Having talked a friend who is a software developer, his basic take is this is to prevent folks from buying one login and having an entire group's PCs on that one account.

That being said, after the hue and cry raise over the lack of an export function, that has been moved up on the dev priority list. Once that is in place you will be able to archive off any "speculative" PCs to a local .DnD4e file and just import it back in when you want to work on it again.

WotC has also said they will review the 20 character limit at a future date (notice they didn't say soon).

I am not going to crawl through the bazillion threads on the WotC forums to find links for all of this.

My Two Coppers,


----------



## Jack99

Oldtimer said:


> Just as a thought experiment, I zipped one of my characters and checked the file size... 20 kB.
> 
> So 50000 subscribers saving 1000 characters each would fit into 1 TB. I would assume WotC could afford a few terabytes of storage...



I am not sure what your point is. I know you hate WOtC with a passion. Just because they can, does not mean they should. There might be other considerations - beyond those of how much space costs. 



IronWolf said:


> While it certainly may not matter to you it does seem to matter to several of the people in this thread.  It seems quite "bad wrong fun" to say  because it isn't your style that others concerns are invalidated and not relevant.
> 
> Everyone has different ideas of what is fun.  So while a tool might meet all of your needs, it might not meet everyone's needs.  With that said, WotC will never be able to please all the people 100% of the time.  They just need to determine how the majority of people use the tool and then determine which limitations people comment about are going to warrant changes.




I do not think I called B-W-F anywhere in my post. I just stated my own opinion, just like others have done, and pointed out that it was indeed still possible to use the CB to make hundreds of characters to "test" builds or make "thought experiments" - you just can't save more than 20 of those. I went further to explain that I do not think its necessary to be able to save all those characters, and that I doubt people actually use/look at all their characters, if they have several hundreds saved.

Again, I see no bad-wrong-fun. I can only say that if you still think it is there, it is not intended.


----------



## ForeverSlayer

In my opinion Wizards wants a service that virtually costs them only an employee's hourly wages and costs the customer everything.  Essentially they want something for nothing, while there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, they are taking a risk that could cost them their customers.  

What Wizard's really needs to focus on is gaining back that trust from it's customers.


----------



## Oldtimer

Hussar said:


> I think the issue isn't so much storage, it's retrieval.  Memory is so cheap that it's practically free.  But, if every time you boot up your CB, it queries every single character you have saved in the database, that's going to eat up bandwidth.
> 
> At least, that's my very, very uninformed guess.




Bandwidth? Of course it wouldn't download all the data for 1000 characters every time you started the CB. Does Word open all your documents on your hard drive every time you start it? CB would only need to download a small fraction of the data - enough to let you choose which character to open. Say 100 bytes worth of data per character - that would mean you download 100 kB (assuming 1000 characters) when you start the CB.

Compare that to the WotC D&D homepage (Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page) which is 78 kB of HTML and 2.8 MB of graphics and javascript (most of which your browser will cache).

Bandwidth should not be an issue here.


----------



## Oldtimer

Jack99 said:


> I am not sure what your point is. I know you hate WOtC with a passion. Just because they can, does not mean they should. There might be other considerations - beyond those of how much space costs.



The issue of storage space was suggested as a reason for the 20 character limitation. My point was that is not a very likely reason. Wasn't that fairly obvious?

Of course there could be other considerations. My point was that there must be, since storage space alone makes no sense.

I would appreciate if you don't ascribe hate or passion to me so lightly. My dislike of what WotC is doing has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. I'm an annoyed customer. Can't I be that without being described as a hatemonger?


----------



## garyh

Jack99 said:


> It is for me. As DM primarily, and player secondarily, I have perhaps made 200 different characters since 4e was launched, if not more. I do however only have 11 or so on my computer. The one I play, a handful of characters I would play if my ranger died, and a copy of the characters in my own campaign.
> 
> Everything else, I never save. I might make something, just to see how it looks, but I do not see an absolute need to save and save it for posterity. I seriously doubt that those people who have hundreds of characters ever get to reopen most of them.
> 
> Look, I am not saying I think 20 is more than enough. I think its too little as well. 50-100 should cover people's needs without risking any issues. I also bet they will up the limit quickly.
> 
> I am however saying that some of the people complaining about their "needs" for hundreds of character slots are (grossly) exaggerating said need. IMO, of course. But hey, it's the Internet, the place where restraint doesn't exist.




Actually, based on the fact I have hundreds of CB characters on my hard drive, and WotC is only allowing 20 in "the cloud," the Internet would actually seem to be the place where restraint exists in this case.  



MarkB said:


> Okay, this part I just don't get. Yes, the new CB has a character-file limit, and yes, it doesn't have character-file exports, but so what? Your character-file IS NOT YOUR CHARACTER.
> 
> The new system will still allow you to output a character to print - or to PDF file via a PDF-writer like CutePDF. And that print-out contains _every single piece of data_ you need to re-create that character from scratch.
> 
> If, at a later time, you find yourself wanting to go back and modify that intellectual-exercise character in the CB, it's going to take you, at worst, a maximum of ten minutes to re-build it based on the printed character sheet. That's less time than it'd probably take you just to nail down all the sources of your feats and powers if you were resurrecting a manually-created character.




Why should I have to spend _any_ of my time rebuilding a character every time I want to tinker with it when it takes about 100kb storage unzipped?  As ProfCirno said earlier, memory is so cheap that GMail offers gigs of it with a free e-mail account to a lot more people that have ever heard of DDI.

Look, a lot of us enjoy using the CB in a certain way, such as making tons of characters.  If others only use it for the 2 PC's they're actually playing at the moment and the 20 character cap doesn't impact them, good for them.  Really.  But for those of use who liked to use the Character Builder to _build characters_, and lots of them, this is a major issue.  Especially with no export feature at launch.  And no, printing to PDF doesn't count.


----------



## Jack99

Oldtimer said:


> The issue of storage space was suggested as a reason for the 20 character limitation. My point was that is not a very likely reason. Wasn't that fairly obvious?
> 
> Of course there could be other considerations. My point was that there must be, since storage space alone makes no sense.
> 
> I would appreciate if you don't ascribe hate or passion to me so lightly. My dislike of what WotC is doing has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. I'm an annoyed customer. Can't I be that without being described as a hatemonger?




Of course you can. But if I didn't have a life, I could link to at lot of your previous 742-odd posts, and your feelings towards just about anything WotC does should be quite clear. In short, my comment was based on your posting history, not just this last one. Now, if you say that I am wrong, and that you are not what I called you, then fair enough. I can only say that you come of as such - quite often.


----------



## tuxgeo

Oldtimer said:


> Bandwidth? Of course it wouldn't download all the data for 1000 characters every time you started the CB. Does Word open all your documents on your hard drive every time you start it? CB would only need to download a small fraction of the data - enough to let you choose which character to open. Say 100 bytes worth of data per character - that would mean you download 100 kB (assuming 1000 characters) when you start the CB.
> < snip >
> Bandwidth should not be an issue here.




To me, the interesting part is the amount of data downloaded when the online CB opens. Oldtimer is saying that it should be about 100 bytes per character, to show the user which characters are available. To me, this seems to suggest that WotC won't be storing our personalized character portraits online. 
I know that I have assigned non-standard portraits to more than one character, but the portrait files are stored on my local hard drive. I guess I'll have to trust that the online CB will point to the same files, so when I open the online version, it will show me the character portraits that I have selected without having to download another 13KB of image data for each PC. 
That's not a heavy bandwidth usage, there.


----------



## Umbran

Jack99 said:


> In short, my comment was based on your posting history, not just this last one. Now, if you say that I am wrong, and that you are not what I called you, then fair enough. I can only say that you come of as such - quite often.





*Jack, you're getting personal.  

The logic of his current position will stand (or not) on it's own.  You don't need (and shouldn't use) past history to discredit current points.  

That he dislikes WotC doesn't mean he isn't correct.  So, address the real point, please, instead of the character of the person speaking.  Thanks.*


----------



## IronWolf

Jack99 said:


> I do not think I called B-W-F anywhere in my post. I just stated my own opinion, just like others have done, and pointed out that it was indeed still possible to use the CB to make hundreds of characters to "test" builds or make "thought experiments" - you just can't save more than 20 of those. I went further to explain that I do not think its necessary to be able to save all those characters, and that I doubt people actually use/look at all their characters, if they have several hundreds saved.
> 
> Again, I see no bad-wrong-fun. I can only say that if you still think it is there, it is not intended.




No worries.  When I read your post it had just seemed you were dismissing the concerns of many here about the 20 character limit because you thought being able to build, but not save characters above the 20 limit would not be an issue - for you.  I completely respect that this limit poses no issue or limitation for your usage.

But that does not mean that the people that feel the need to save characters above 20 even if they are "test" characters is not a valid concern.  They've stated their usage of saved characters and clearly, not being able to save characters over and above the 20 character limit is an issue for them.   

It sounded to me like saying "I never save more than 20 characters, so a character limit of 20 should be of no concern to you."


----------



## IronWolf

Saracenus said:


> Actually the official explanation of the 20 character limit for CloudCB is that it prevents automated script attacks that would create character after character in a Denial of Service attack on the WotC servers. Source (Paulo, lead dev on the DDI tools before they yanked all official response to a single person WotCTrevor I believe).
> 
> While this explanation is laughable at best, its the one they have provided. Having talked a friend who is a software developer, his basic take is this is to prevent folks from buying one login and having an entire group's PCs on that one account.




Yeah, this is what gets me.  I posted on another thread using some rough numbers how long it would actually take to fill 1TB of disk space by repeatedly creating and uploading characters via script across 20 computers.  It wasn't happening overnight even with unlimited number of characters per account.  Plus there are far easier ways to DDoS a company's servers than this method.

Weak explanations instead of just saying why there is a limit is the harder pill to swallow in my opinion.  Just say that we have a low limit to help curb account sharing.  I have more respect for that than a bogus technical explanation that doesn't hold water.


----------



## Jack99

I didn't swing by this discussion to point fingers or brand people. I am sorry if I did. 

But I do think that these discussions come down to the faith that you have in WotC. Because every time, we have the same people (more or less) taking the same position in a given debate. Which makes these debates not about facts, but about what you feel and think. Which again explains why most end up accomplishing ... well nothing.

So, with that in mind, I want to say this.

I think the new CB looks good, but the limitations are  at best. 20 character limit and no export is horrible and almost laughable. No customization support pisses me off.

The fact that they use Silverlight that makes it impossible to run on my iPad annoys me to no end, since that would have been seven shades of awesome, if possible. 

The fact that it is online only is not a problem for me, as I always have Internet, wherever I go. I do see how some countries, or part thereof, might be less fortunate. But as evolution goes, isn't online the way to go? 

As mentioned, there are quite a few things that annoy me about the new CB. But I still have faith that within a reasonable timeframe, WotC will make this tool worth every penny. I also have faith that they are doing what they can to get things up and running and please as many people as humanly possible, within the limitations set forth by the high-ups and the technology. 

Is that a lot of faith? Perhaps. Is it blind? Well, I think not, but I am sure there are those that disagree. Luckily for me, the price of DDI is low - low enough to not really care. I mean, I pay $6 per month for ENworld, and get what? I couldn't tell you, but I know I pay the money because I like the site and want to chip in so that it continues to be around.

Cheers


----------



## Oldtimer

tuxgeo said:


> To me, the interesting part is the amount of data downloaded when the online CB opens. Oldtimer is saying that it should be about 100 bytes per character, to show the user which characters are available. To me, this seems to suggest that WotC won't be storing our personalized character portraits online.
> I know that I have assigned non-standard portraits to more than one character, but the portrait files are stored on my local hard drive. I guess I'll have to trust that the online CB will point to the same files, so when I open the online version, it will show me the character portraits that I have selected without having to download another 13KB of image data for each PC.
> That's not a heavy bandwidth usage, there.



If I was creating this tool, I would cache your character portraits in your local cache (the same way those 2.8 MB of graphics and javascript from the D&D homepage gets cached). Using local caching wisely is a great way to reduce bandwidth requirements.

So, again, I don't think bandwidth is the reason for the 20 character restriction.


----------



## abyssaldeath

Jack99 said:


> The fact that they use Silverlight that makes it impossible to run on my iPad annoys me to no end, since that would have been seven shades of awesome, if possible.



This is one issue that people bring up that annoys me. There is no one programing solution that will run on every internet device for this type of program. HTML5 is an unfinished product so it is ridiculous to use that language to make a program as complicated as the CB at the moment. For this type of program your options are pretty much Flash, Java and Silverlight, none of which are supported by the iPhone/iPad. So don't be annoyed by WotC for the decision to use Silverlight, be annoyed at Apple for being so strict and the developers of HTML5 for being way behind schedule.


----------



## Alan Shutko

A character sheet isn't that complicated nor does it need excessive richness on the client. There are plenty of existing web apps which are equally complex yet run on any current browser. Gmail, or google docs. 

I don't  blame either apple or wizards. Apple chose what to put on their devices, and Wizards chose to ignore the entire mobile installed base to pick a technology. (which includes apple, but also android, blackberry, nokia and even Windows Phone). I think that is a big missed opportunity. 

I think this decision was based less on what the character builder needs and more on what future tools will need.


----------



## mudbunny

I think that it is a mistake for people to assume that just because the CB is built in SilverLight, that everything else will be built in silverlight as well.

The new Compendium is built in html and java (IIRC), and the CB is built in SilverLight. Future tools will be built in whatever tis best for the tool.

As for the number of character restrictions. I too think that it is unnecessarily low. However, I find it far more acceptable to start low and then increase rather than to start high and decrease. 

Also, Google?? People actually are comparing WotC to Google and expecting WotC to be able to provide the same sort of web-presence that Google does?


----------



## garyh

mudbunny said:


> Also, Google?? People actually are comparing WotC to Google and expecting WotC to be able to provide the same sort of web-presence that Google does?




I'm not saying WotC needs to provide the same 7.5 GB of space for my PC's that GMail does for my e-mail.  But surely they could do better than the 2 MB of space they're allocating per account at launch.


----------



## catsclaw227

garyh said:


> Why should I have to spend _any_ of my time rebuilding a character every time I want to tinker with it when it takes about 100kb storage unzipped?  As ProfCirno said earlier, memory is so cheap that GMail offers gigs of it with a free e-mail account to a lot more people that have ever heard of DDI.



OK.... so I am not happy with the 20 PC limit.....

But did you (or ProfessorCirno, not sure which) actual try to compare Google's GMail server farm, storage, bandwidth resources and network operations center to what WOTC might have to support DDI?  We're talking magnitudes of difference.


----------



## garyh

catsclaw227 said:


> OK.... so I am not happy with the 20 PC limit.....
> 
> But did you (or ProfessorCirno, not sure which) actual try to compare Google's GMail server farm, storage, bandwidth resources and network operations center to what WOTC might have to support DDI?  We're talking magnitudes of difference.




True, which is why I followed up with this...



garyh said:


> I'm not saying WotC needs to provide the same 7.5 GB of space for my PC's that GMail does for my e-mail.  But surely they could do better than the 2 MB of space they're allocating per account at launch.




Seriously, WotC doesn't HAVE to be Google to do better than what they're offering.  We're talking 2 MB of storage while they're collecting actual monthly fees.


----------



## Alan Shutko

On the other hand, there are smaller startups with fewer employees that also provide larger amounts of space.  For free.

This is a commercial service that people pay for.  If Wizards has the resources to run their forums, they've got the resources to provide space for additional characters.  There are other ways to prevent denial of service attacks.  This isn't about Wizards being too poor or too technically backward to put together a service, because it's laughable to think that.  This is about keeping the limits low so that it's harder for people to share accounts.

FWIW, you can get redundant cloud storage really cheap these days from Amazon, Rackspace, or soon Google.  Amazon's price right now is $0.14 per GB.


----------



## JoeGKushner

catsclaw227 said:


> OK.... so I am not happy with the 20 PC limit.....
> 
> But did you (or ProfessorCirno, not sure which) actual try to compare Google's GMail server farm, storage, bandwidth resources and network operations center to what WOTC might have to support DDI?  We're talking magnitudes of difference.




Yeah. Like the price. Google charges how much for those GMail accounts again?


----------



## Grabuto138

It is very unlikely that WOTC has character limit to save storage space so I think the minutia about gmail etc. is mostly irrelevant.

Best case for WOTC is that every player who uses DDI is paying for an account. This is not likely to happen. Best case for people who expect to get whatever they want for free (ish) is to split one account for the entire playing group. I suspect that WOTC wants to find a sweet spot that accomodates their users but is not so wide open that it encourages sharing. I bet that the 20 character limit is more or less arbitrary. There was a meeting. Some people said "five" some people said "1,000". After the meeting they decided that 20 was a good starting number.

I am not making a value judgement here either way. As a DM I like to have my player's characters in the character builder. Then I need characters for one-offs and short-term games. And I have my own characters and test characters. I also keep "archtype" characters so if a player says, "a dwarf ranger using craighammers might be cool" I can say, "start with this and change whatever." I imagine even 100 characters would not be enough. I could probably delete most of them if I had to but I know the first time I am told I have reached the limit I will be annoyed.

On the other hand, I am really personally offended by alot of the complaining about expense that I have been reading. It is probably a character flaw on my part, I admit, so please do not take this as an attack. It is just that as hobbies go D&D is pretty cheap. Ever play Warhammer? Try woodworking and buy your first table saw. Tricking out a Honda Civic or restoring a Vespa scooter? Forget about it. Martial arts lessons. Weekly yoga. Model railroading. Recreational drinking and smoking (even if done at home instead of a bar). I just spent $1,000 for medical tests for one of my dogs. Xbox Live account and a Gamefly subscription. Netflix. D&D is pretty much the greatest hobby of them all. For $100 in books and $10 per month you can play forever (less if you go Rules Compedium + DDI).

I guess in the perfect world everyone who plays D&D will either buy the books they use or get a DDi subscription. Since this isn't a perfect world expect that WOTC is going to be constantly trying to find a balance between accomodating the customers and discouraging the freeriders.


----------



## lutecius

Grabuto138 said:


> It is very unlikely that WOTC has character limit to save storage space so I think the minutia about gmail etc. is mostly irrelevant.
> 
> Best case for WOTC is that every player who uses DDI is paying for an account. This is not likely to happen. Best case for people who expect to get whatever they want for free (ish) is to split one account for the entire playing group. I suspect that WOTC wants to find a sweet spot that accomodates their users but is not so wide open that it encourages sharing. I bet that the 20 character limit is more or less arbitrary. There was a meeting. Some people said "five" some people said "1,000". After the meeting they decided that 20 was a good starting number.



but that's not the reason wotc gave, is it?



> On the other hand, I am really personally offended by alot of the complaining about expense that I have been reading. It is probably a character flaw on my part, I admit, so please do not take this as an attack. It is just that as hobbies go D&D is pretty cheap. Ever play Warhammer? Try woodworking and buy your first table saw. Tricking out a Honda Civic or restoring a Vespa scooter? Forget about it. Martial arts lessons. Weekly yoga. Model railroading. Recreational drinking and smoking (even if done at home instead of a bar). I just spent $1,000 for medical tests for one of my dogs. Xbox Live account and a Gamefly subscription. Netflix. D&D is pretty much the greatest hobby of them all. For $100 in books and $10 per month you can play forever (less if you go Rules Compedium + DDI).



so...? many other hobbies (notably rpgs) are even cheaper or provide better value for money (like, say... the old CB). talk about irrelevance...


----------



## Hussar

> so...? many other hobbies (notably rpgs) are even cheaper or provide better value for money (like, say... the old CB). talk about irrelevance...




Name three.

Really.  Name three hobbies that five people can participate in that comes anywhere near the price of gaming on a per person/per hour basis.

I mean, good grief, when you break it down, gaming is so ridiculously cheap that it's darn near free.  I actually took a bit of time and looked at one of my campaigns - my World's Largest Dungeon campaign.  80 sessions, 240 (give or take) hours of gaming.  100 bucks for the module, 100 bucks for the core books, another 500 bucks (maybe) worth of supplements.

Seven hundred dollars for 5 people X 240 hours.  Fifty CENTS an hour per person?  

Show me a hobby that I can do for that kind of money.


----------



## Imaro

Hussar said:


> Show me a hobby that I can do for that kind of money.




Five people can play Guild Wars for less than the cost of the D&D books plus ongoing subscription to DDI ($20 * 5 = $100)... and also don't have the problem of allocating more time/effort/money/resources into actually finding a group to play. You know I find it interesting that this isn't ever factored into the "cost" of D&D when people compare it to other hobbies. The books are virtually useless unless you can find a group of like-minded individuals to devote time and effort to play. I'm not saying D&D isn't a good value per dollar but there are other factors involved if one is trying to compare it to other leisure activities.

EDIT: For a leisure activity, often times D&D demands alot of work to get started and maintain.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Really. Name three hobbies that five people can participate in that comes anywhere near the price of gaming on a per person/per hour basis.



Gaming is pretty cheap, but it has plenty of company

Being in a band: initial outlay may or may not be higher, but unless someone gets G.A.S. (gear acquisition syndrome), cost per hour drop pretty rapidly
R.C racing: again, initial costs may be higher (though not necessarily); costs per hour drop rapidly unless you go nuts for gear.
Certain athletics: running, swimming, fishing, frisbee golf and street soccer all cost less per hour
Book Club
Bible Study
Poker night...assuming you're not compulsive

And that doesn't include stuff you & your buddies just come up with.

When i was in HS, we invented a dodgeball variant called TRON: as originally played, all you need is a room that is either empty or full of stuff that you're not concerned about breaking, a Superball, and a hardcover book or binder for each player.  Then, it's just like in the movie- you're out if you get hit.


----------



## kristov

D&D is suppose to be cheap - all you needed was a book and your imagination (maybe a pencil and a blank sheet of paper).

You cant try and milk everything for every penny - some things are meant to be a certain way.

WOTC is simply trying to ensure everyone who uses character builder pays for it full price - and they are also wanting to ensure they give you a reason to never cancel because you will lose access or lose all your characters or something.

Its just how business works - on the other hand you get to vote with your wallet. If you want to support such business practices that is your right in our capitalistic society. 

For me, its over the line. There are a lot of people who play D&D because it is as cheap as it is. Trying to force a group of people to pay monthly subs to your product who previously found a way to share it will not work well in this case I believe.

Running off players - giving them another reason to go play Pathfinder or Call of Cthulu instead just isnt a good idea in a competitive hard to make money in industry. Less books will be sold, there will be fewer D&D players - because they squandered the money they made off Character Generator to re-make it with additional anti-piracy measures in place. Thats the big investment they chose to make rather than making new and better tools to please customers.


----------



## Sunseeker

kristov said:


> D&D is suppose to be cheap - all you needed was a book and your imagination (maybe a pencil and a blank sheet of paper).
> 
> You cant try and milk everything for every penny - some things are meant to be a certain way.
> 
> WOTC is simply trying to ensure everyone who uses character builder pays for it full price - and they are also wanting to ensure they give you a reason to never cancel because you will lose access or lose all your characters or something.
> 
> Its just how business works - on the other hand you get to vote with your wallet. If you want to support such business practices that is your right in our capitalistic society.
> 
> For me, its over the line. There are a lot of people who play D&D because it is as cheap as it is. Trying to force a group of people to pay monthly subs to your product who previously found a way to share it will not work well in this case I believe.
> 
> Running off players - giving them another reason to go play Pathfinder or Call of Cthulu instead just isnt a good idea in a competitive hard to make money in industry. Less books will be sold, there will be fewer D&D players - because they squandered the money they made off Character Generator to re-make it with additional anti-piracy measures in place. Thats the big investment they chose to make rather than making new and better tools to please customers.




Ah, the smell of entitlement in the morning.

*Our rules here aren't difficult. One of them is the Wheaton Rule, which is summed up as "don't be a dick." It's fine if you don't agree with someone, but we expect you to express that without being insulting or condescending.

PM me if this is in any way unclear.  ~ Piratecat*


----------



## Walking Dad

shidaku said:


> Ah, the smell of entitlement in the morning.



Yes, I feel entitled to choose the game I'm playing. I could play Pathfinder or 3.5 D&D. Or something entire else.

---

My problem are the rushed (?) rules that require large amounts of errata. To keep up with them, without making your game another job, is to pay DDI for easily accessible current rules. And it was fine, because I least I had something with staying worth for me (offline CB), even if a new edition would come out or Hasbro ditched D&D for not producing enough money.

Now I will buy the books, to be able to play the game in some years (like I did with 2nd and 3rd edition D&D and White Wolf older World of Darkness) and for the right to quickly access the errated rules.


Speaking of paranoia:

I don't believe the official reason for 20 characters/account.

Should I believe there was to room for the Starpact Hexblade in the book?

Should I believe that the many rules mistakes are normal in a book from a professional RPG company?

Yes, both speculations are just paranoid, but no good way to keep your customers bound to your company.


----------



## IronWolf

shidaku said:


> Ah, the smell of entitlement in the morning.




Really?  This is adding to the discussion in a constructive manner?

Kristov is right, D&D had a low hurdle for entry and continued play originally.  Pick up a couple of books and you could play with pen, paper and those books for a long, long time. 

Things do change as technology changes and WotC is embracing that with things like the character builder.  The problem I see is that there is a push to *need* the character builder to keep up with the stream of errata that they have been releasing.  Sure you can buy the books and play with pen and paper still, but the stream of errata makes the books you buy today out of date in a short period of time.  Leaving you to either paste or mark up your book with errata or take the easier, though more costly path of subscribing to DDI.

WotC is welcome to do this and it may pan out well for them.  But there are certainly people that think this is the beginnings of making the subscription model more of a de facto standard to play the game than it has been in the past.  I am sure WotC is well aware that there are people that won't take well to the sense of a subscription model becoming predominant and have factored that into their decisions.

There are certainly people that think the character builder is still a good deal and a good way to play the game.  But for those that disagree, I don't think it really comes down to entitlement.


----------



## Hussar

Ironwolf - D&D may have had a low hurdle for entry, but, let's not forget, those books were every bit as badly in need of the "stream of errata".  It's just that we never saw it.  The books were never corrected, except from time to time in the pages of Dragon.

Here's the secret - your books don't go "out of date" any faster today than they did thirty years ago.  It's just that, unlike thirty years ago, they actually ARE correcting the rules regularly, instead of letting each group stumble around in the dark trying to find their own corrections.

Another secret is, you absolutely don't need the new books or the DDI for the errata.  They still release the errata for free as a pdf.


----------



## IronWolf

Hussar said:


> Ironwolf - D&D may have had a low hurdle for entry, but, let's not forget, those books were every bit as badly in need of the "stream of errata".  It's just that we never saw it.  The books were never corrected, except from time to time in the pages of Dragon.
> 
> Here's the secret - your books don't go "out of date" any faster today than they did thirty years ago.  It's just that, unlike thirty years ago, they actually ARE correcting the rules regularly, instead of letting each group stumble around in the dark trying to find their own corrections.
> 
> Another secret is, you absolutely don't need the new books or the DDI for the errata.  They still release the errata for free as a pdf.




Not really secrets, but agreed, all valid points.


----------



## Rel

shidaku said:


> Ah, the smell of entitlement in the morning.




This makes you look like kind of a dick.  You should avoid that.


----------



## Sunseeker

Walking Dad said:


> Yes, I feel entitled to choose the game I'm playing. I could play Pathfinder or 3.5 D&D. Or something entire else.



Sure, you can choose whatever game you want.  What I dislike is that when you, or someone, decides to play that game, that you somehow think this makes you entitled to special treatment from the company.  Maybe you don't have this, but it sounded like the poster I quoted did.



Rel said:


> This makes you look like kind of a dick.  You should avoid that.




That's what this entire debate is revolving around.  Who is entitled to what.  Is WotC entitled to make a profit?  Is a player entitled to keep their costs down?  Should a player be entitled to get free gaming supplies, should a player be entitled to the expectation that the game will NEVER change?

These are the points and opinions that have been put forth across this entire thread, who is entitled to what.  And many people have put forth the opinion that they, after purchasing one book, are now somehow entitled to everything WotC will ever produce for little to no cost.  

These are the same sentiments that people who buy computers, TVs, cars, and just about everything else have.  It's not really their fault for having an undue sense of entitlement because the companies press this feeling so that customers become dependent on them, even if they're ungrateful.  It is however everyone's responsibility to understand that they are entitled to absolutely nothing.



IronWolf said:


> Really?  This is adding to the discussion in a constructive manner?



Is suggesting that WotC should be inexensive or downright free constructive?  How does that benefit anyone.  We may not like WotC, but the game WILL die if they don't make money off of it.  Sure, some people still play 1e, but how many?  A fraction of a fraction of a niche within the hobby.  



> Kristov is right, D&D had a low hurdle for entry and continued play originally.  Pick up a couple of books and you could play with pen, paper and those books for a long, long time.



And you can STILL do that.  



> Things do change as technology changes and WotC is embracing that with things like the character builder.  The problem I see is that there is a push to *need* the character builder to keep up with the stream of errata that they have been releasing.  Sure you can buy the books and play with pen and paper still, but the stream of errata makes the books you buy today out of date in a short period of time.  Leaving you to either paste or mark up your book with errata or take the easier, though more costly path of subscribing to DDI.



You don't NEED the errata to play.  Many games just ignore it and run without it.  



> WotC is welcome to do this and it may pan out well for them.  But there are certainly people that think this is the beginnings of making the subscription model more of a de facto standard to play the game than it has been in the past.  I am sure WotC is well aware that there are people that won't take well to the sense of a subscription model becoming predominant and have factored that into their decisions.



Games like D&D have always been a subscription model, no matter how we want to look it.  Go your PHB?  Good, now get your MM.  Got you PHB and MM?  Now get your DMG.  Got those?  Now get their sequals.  D&D survives by a constant stream of books.  You take how much you've spent on books, divide it up into $10 chunks, and you'll probably find the cost is pretty much the same as if you had subscribed to DDI since you first started buying.



> There are certainly people that think the character builder is still a good deal and a good way to play the game.  But for those that disagree, I don't think it really comes down to entitlement.



Your original post seemed to indicate that you felt that since you had purchased some books, you were entitled to access the rest at low or no cost.  That is a sense of entitlement, that you should be supported, or are somehow special, just because you've bought a few items.


----------



## Piratecat

Simul-mod (I left a note in the post), but shidaku, our point isn't that the discussion is about entitlement. It's that you phrased it in a really insulting, condescending way. There are a lot of ways to disagree without sounding like a jerk or picking a fight in the process. We'd like you to use one of them instead next time.


----------



## Grabuto138

Shidaku, I sympathize with your feelings. I have played D&D for many years. I have an emotional and personal investment in the game that transcends every other hobby I have. Yet I spend more on baking, Xbox games, alcohol, tobacco and film (Netflix, Redbox and cable) than I do D&D. I appreciate that most people do not have this level of personal investement. But given the actual numbers we are talking I can't help but think that a lot of the bile being directed at WOTC is something akin to the annoyance you feel when your neighbor finally gets around to adding security to their wi-fi. The $100 for the DDI is roughly akin to 4 books a years. The original CB model is so completely out of whack for the value that I honestly felt quilty. "You mean I don't actually have to buy the Psionic book? You will just give the releveant content for like $10 bucks? The same 10 bucks I am already giving you?" Sold.

And let's be honest here. If you are not in the financial position to either subscribe to the DDI or buy the books you are not actually a customer by any meaningful definition. You are the dude who buys one cup of coffee at the coffee shop and squats at a table for 8 hours using the wi-fi. The servers hate you, the real customers hate you and the company hates. But you are technically playing by the rules so screw 'em.

I think that maybe some of this attitude stems from the fact that WOTC is owned by Hasbro. The assumption is that since there are bunch of corporate fat cats behind the game they don't need the money, they have the financial support to make things works, and since it is a faceless corporation who really cares if they get their chicken?

The problem is that since D&D is part of the Hasbro family it is more important for the future of the game that they make some money. A public company like Hasbro has to answer to a Board of Directors and shareholders every quarter at least. Private companies are better positioned to sacrifice for the long-term and they can, perish the thought, even choose to undermine their own profits for the good of the hobby or the customer. Public companies cannot do that. They are, in fact, ethically obligated to maximize profits. 

Hasbro did not, in my opinion, buy D&D. They bought Magic and the CCG empire of WOTC. From my experience in corporate board rooms I am quite sure that there was some talk during the acquisition of how D&D can be monetized. "We will make toys, movies, board games, coloring books etc." But D&D was probably irrelevant to the equation. But now every few months some dude in an expensive suit summons a WOTC person to his office and demands that the WOTC person justifies the existence of D&D. Under TSR, GG and friends were probably happy with a steady wage doing what they love. Hasbro has to make sure that there is a return on investment that justifies the expense and risk. 

Keep in mind that money has alternative uses. Every dollar spent on D&D is a dollar that is not spent on My Little Poney, Transformers, GI Joe or Monoply: The Joliet State Penitentiary Edition (try the cabbage rolls). So every dollar that WOTC spends is a dollar that someone in the D&D unit fought for with the promise that there will be a return on investment that approximates the return if it were spent on some other endeavor. But post-'80's D&D has been frustrating hard to monetize. That appalling train wreck of a film pretty much guarantees that no one is going to risk real money trying to build a film franchise. I guess they are trying a comic book but I can't really think of an example where D&D has expanded beyond its core audience, an audience that is so small as to be mostly irrelevant to a company like Hasbro.

Maybe some of it is due to an anti-corporate sentiment that I have detected from a few people. Since my 401k, the 403bs of the teachers in my group and the pensions of union gamers are tied up in investments in corporations (where else does one invest, really?) some of us rather hope that corporate American manages to make some money here and there. Our retirements depend on it.

Finally, (and my apologies to that one person who has managed to read all the way through) the opposition to the new-model CB are so regressive that I have trouble believing the are all in good faith. I mean, everying is moving to the "cloud." In fact the "cloud" has become an annoying marketing buzzword. Back in the day, NetWare pimping the fact that NDS lived in the cloud was cool. Now, I am waiting for Proctor and Gamble to start pimping tampons that provide feminine hygeine in the cloud. Of course WOTC is moving to this model. The whole freaking world is moving to this model. You really honestly and truelly expect that WOTC is going to start marketing a product saying, "'90's tech like you know and love. All the data residing comfortably on your computer." Give me a freaking break.

Edit: Some spelling, though probably not enough.


----------



## garyh

I've bought every non-adventure book WotC has put out for 4e and been a DDI subscriber since it started.

I have no problem with Hasbro owning WotC and D&D.  In fact, collecting Transformers is a bigger (and more expensive) hobby for me than D&D.

My issues with the new Character Builder are based only on what we know of the program currently and rest solely with the number of limitations it has compared to the old CB.  Issues such as no exporting, a 20 character cap, and that it goes _poof!_ the instant you stop handing WotC money.

Speaking for myself, at least, this dissatisfaction with the new CB has *nothing* to do with the disappearance oft-maligned "sub once every six months" option (and those who did do so did nothing but take advantage of something that WotC themselves used to sell the program, BTW) or that WotC is somehow evil for trying to make a profit.  It's that I see the new CB as inferior to the old CB.  At least based on what we know now.  Maybe WotC will add additional features "soon" after launch such as making the new CG doing my laundry and fixing me a sandwich, but right now I can only go on what WotC is telling us, and it amounts to a lot of "Wow! Look at all these new limitations!  Aren't they *AWESOME?!* for our company."


----------



## Grabuto138

I hear you. I know the 20 character limitation is going to be a pain in my ass for sure. There is plenty of room for serious complaints.

I barely ever post. But the volume of gripe quotes has compelled me to interject because so many people seem to be so clearly grumpy over the fact that they are not getting lots of good stuff for a price approaching free. Frankly, I find it offensive that people are so hostile to the fact that something so totally awesome as D&D might need some money to keep doing what the are doing. I really, really do not want to go back to the bad old days of late 2e when there was not much worth buying and we decided to just stick with what we had. For all you people who have said, "I hate the new CB; I am picking up my toys and going home," you have no idea how crappy D&D can get when it gets really crappy. Imagine wanting to buy something but there is nothing worth buying.

The fact is that that the world is moving towards server-based computing and the expectation that WOTC will maintain a per-user desktop resident application is silly. All these CB advocates might as well be arguing for the horse-drawn carriage and Betamax. Yes, WOTC is making an application where all the relevent data is stored elsewhere and your computer function essentially as a dumb terminal. Get used to it. If you don't like it, that silly hobby you play once every couple of weeks is the least of your problems.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

If they have problem with the 20 character limitation because of limited storage space, they better work quickly on the import/export feature. 
If storing charactesr would have ever been a problem to me, limiting them to 20 would certainly have worked just as well as putting it online. They can't sell this as an improvement or advantage.

But I guess we'll see the feature in the-not-so-far-future. I am eager to see what we'll get tomorrow. I hope we don't get another Melmac-situation when thousands of DDI users try to access the new builder tomorrow at the same time.


----------



## UngainlyTitan

I really suspect that the 20 file limit on the CB is to stop the existing clientbase from killing the servers by simultaneously flinging a couple of terrabytes of characters at it when it goes live.

They may have tested at several times the userbase but normally not everyone is conntecting together.


----------



## IronWolf

shidaku said:
			
		

> Is suggesting that WotC should be inexensive or downright free constructive?




People saying they don't like a move towards a subscription based model is certainly feedback.  We see this with all sorts of services - some like the subscription model and others don't.  Some see some products ripe for moving a subscription based model and others see products being shoehorned into such a model.

If people do not feel they are getting value for their purchase - whether it be a monthly subscription or a one-off book purchase - then saying so doesn't seem not constructive.  Certainly everyone may not agree, but that's why we are here on a discussion board talking about it.



			
				shidaku said:
			
		

> Games like D&D have always been a subscription model, no matter how we want to look it. Go your PHB? Good, now get your MM. Got you PHB and MM? Now get your DMG. Got those? Now get their sequals. D&D survives by a constant stream of books. You take how much you've spent on books, divide it up into $10 chunks, and you'll probably find the cost is pretty much the same as if you had subscribed to DDI since you first started buying.




I disagree with this.  D&D has seemed more a la carte to me.  I pick and choose what books I buy and whether I think the supplements and such are worth purchasing.  I choose some and pass on others.  And the biggest difference is that if I choose to get off the supplement train, I still have my books to use that I did decide were of value to me.  With the new CB model, once I decide I want off the train I lose access to material.  Subtle differences, but differences.



			
				shidaku said:
			
		

> Your original post seemed to indicate that you felt that since you had purchased some books, you were entitled to access the rest at low or no cost. That is a sense of entitlement, that you should be supported, or are somehow special, just because you've bought a few items.




I hadn't intended to come across that way.  I don't feel like WotC owes me free access to the character builder in anyway.  I'm just here posting that I don't see it as offering value to me for the price or for the features I would be getting with the initial release of the online version.  

I am also leery of what could be a further move to a primarily subscription based product - but that is more of future concern as obviously I can still purchase the books now and not hop on the subscription wagon making that concern less relevant beyond pure speculation.


----------



## DonAdam

I was all for the online CB as a Mac user. But then I found about the 20 character limit.

So let me get this straight. The new CB won't let you:

-Share your character with other users (except by printing the character sheet to pdf and emailing);
-Export the data; or
-Have more than 20 characters

That last one just kills me. 20?!?!? Short of getting the rules wrong, releasing my financial information, or fragging my operating system, that is the worst combination of features I can imagine on a character builder.

The software decreases in functionality the more you want to facilitate gameplay. I can't, for instance, keep premade characters around for any one shots I might run. The very people who do the most to promote the game (by running it for noobs at game days and such) or enable it to thrive over time (by running campaigns where, oh, you might want your players' character files) are the least accommodated.

I'm canceling my subscription if they don't remove that cap right away. Meaning, I'll cancel the first time I run up against the cap. That will be soon since I'm running a game. And those other two need to get gone as well in relatively short order (they involve actual coding, so I'm willing to be a little patient for them).


----------



## Scribble

garyh said:


> Maybe WotC will add additional features "soon" after launch such as making the new CG doing my laundry and fixing me a sandwich, but right now I can only go on what WotC is telling us, and it amounts to a lot of "Wow! Look at all these new limitations!  Aren't they *AWESOME?!* for our company."




Personally I think there are a number of features that benefit the user directly, but that said, a lot of times what benefits th company also benefits the client.

Admittedly a lot of it though is in the realm of actions will speak louder then words... IE the fact that they're condensing the number of  databases they have to update will free up man hours... This SHOULD end up meaning we see updates quickly and consistently with less errors.

We'll see if it actually does or not...


----------



## DEFCON 1

DonAdam said:


> I'm canceling my subscription if they don't remove that cap right away. Meaning, I'll cancel the first time I run up against the cap. That will be soon since I'm running a game. And those other two need to get gone as well in relatively short order (they involve actual coding, so I'm willing to be a little patient for them).



See, this is the kind of thing that makes me roll me eyes.

DonAdam... you are saying flat out that you are running a game and want to use the Character Builder for it.  My guess is... the Character Builder _will be helpful_ to you with running your game.

Now why, with all that is holy, would you voluntarily shoot yourself in the foot AFTER the fact, by cancelling the subscription because you can't make _at this moment in time_ more than 20 characters?  Does your game have more than 20 PCs in it?  If it does... then you might as well cancel your subscription _now_ rather than later, since you already know you won't be able to level every single one for your game.

If, however, your game _does not_ have more than 20 PCs... and using the CB is a boon for your game and the characters therein... I would honestly love to know why the inability to save extras characters you aren't currently using is worth destroying the ones YOU ARE by cancelling the subscription?  How does that make any sense?

I mean really... what if you don't reach the 20 character limit until 5 months from now, after you've been using and leveling your PCs for your game this entire time?  Are you REALLY going to just say "well, that's it then!" and send those existing PCs to dust just to prove a point?  Heh heh... if you can actually do that, I'd be impressed.  I'd think you were also ridiculous... but I WOULD be impressed.


----------



## gourdcaptain

Grabuto138 said:


> I hear you. I know the 20 character limitation is going to be a pain in my ass for sure. There is plenty of room for serious complaints.
> 
> I barely ever post. But the volume of gripe quotes has compelled me to interject because so many people seem to be so clearly grumpy over the fact that they are not getting lots of good stuff for a price approaching free. Frankly, I find it offensive that people are so hostile to the fact that something so totally awesome as D&D might need some money to keep doing what the are doing. I really, really do not want to go back to the bad old days of late 2e when there was not much worth buying and we decided to just stick with what we had. For all you people who have said, "I hate the new CB; I am picking up my toys and going home," you have no idea how crappy D&D can get when it gets really crappy. Imagine wanting to buy something but there is nothing worth buying.
> 
> The fact is that that the world is moving towards server-based computing and the expectation that WOTC will maintain a per-user desktop resident application is silly. All these CB advocates might as well be arguing for the horse-drawn carriage and Betamax. Yes, WOTC is making an application where all the relevent data is stored elsewhere and your computer function essentially as a dumb terminal. Get used to it. If you don't like it, that silly hobby you play once every couple of weeks is the least of your problems.




Huh - with the recent books, I am running into the problem of wanting to buy new material but not liking any of it. And on the topic of the server based computing, God, I'm 19 and I'm already a complete curmudgeon.


----------



## KidSnide

I have to say that 20 characters seems like a bizarrely low number.  Including guest players, I'm sure both of my on-going campaigns have had over 20 different PCs each.  I suppose it's perfectly possible to throw that information away, but who wants to clear out old characters?  That information is crazy useful.  I love bringing back old characters, and it's a total pain to recreate them from scratch.

And, of course, that doesn't even count "classic RPGA" style games where the author has to pull together a party of 6 pregens.  The character builder is pretty much the perfect tool for that annoying task, and a scenario author could easily blow through his entire limit preparing for a single con!

-KS


----------



## DEFCON 1

KidSnide said:


> I have to say that 20 characters seems like a bizarrely low number.  Including guest players, I'm sure both of my on-going campaigns have had over 20 different PCs each.  I suppose it's perfectly possible to throw that information away, but who wants to clear out old characters?




You don't have to throw those old characters away, because you will still have them saved on your off-line Character Builder.  It's only new or current characters that need leveling up that will bring you up against the cap possibly.  All those other saved characters can just remain on your hard drive until you need them.


----------



## tuxgeo

DEFCON 1 said:


> You don't have to throw those old characters away, because you will still have them saved on your off-line Character Builder.  It's only new or current characters that need leveling up that will bring you up against the cap possibly.  All those other saved characters can just remain on your hard drive until you need them.




That's assuming that one already has the offline Character Builder. 

And, speaking of which: If you don't already have it, *download it now*, or possibly do without! The _online_ version goes live tomorrow, so anyone who doesn't already have the _offline_ version might not be able to get it after today.


----------



## renau1g

Anyone know what time it goes live tomorrow? I'm assuming somethimg in the afternoon (EST) to match up to PST's start of day...


----------



## DonAdam

DEFCON 1 said:


> See, this is the kind of thing that makes me roll me eyes...
> 
> Are you REALLY going to just say "well, that's it then!" and send those existing PCs to dust just to prove a point?  Heh heh... if you can actually do that, I'd be impressed.  I'd think you were also ridiculous... but I WOULD be impressed.




Roll away.

Yes, I will eliminate my subscription just to send a signal. Because I think the signal will be effective at making them eliminate the limit down the line. I've already sent an email to customer service along these lines. I will not continue paying the same price for a lower quality service (relative to what it was back when the existing builder was updating regularly).

Obviously the builder would not be useless for me. But having to delete a character to enter a new one will increase the cost (time, headache) of using it. Lower net benefits equal lower willingness to pay, especially when I have the old builder on my hard drive. It's a tradeoff of less updated but less headache and money.

If it were free you would be right. But instead you're condescending _and _ wrong.



> You don't have to throw those old characters away, because you will still have them saved on your off-line Character Builder. It's only new or current characters that need leveling up that will bring you up against the cap possibly. All those other saved characters can just remain on your hard drive until you need them.




At which point you will have to delete one of the new characters, re-entering its data later when you need it. Headache.


----------



## mudbunny

renau1g said:


> Anyone know what time it goes live tomorrow? I'm assuming somethimg in the afternoon (EST) to match up to PST's start of day...




My guess would be that it will be about the same time as the normal tool updates go live.


----------



## sigfile

DEFCON 1 said:


> You don't have to throw those old characters away, because you will still have them saved on your off-line Character Builder.  It's only new or current characters that need leveling up that will bring you up against the cap possibly.  All those other saved characters can just remain on your hard drive until you need them.



Or, assuming we get the export function _soon_, build them online, save them locally, and upload them to iPlay4E.  Then you'll have a character in a playable format absolutely anywhere, including on your phone.  Just download from iPlay4E and import back in to the character builder when you level up.


----------



## sigfile

tuxgeo said:


> And, speaking of which: If you don't already have it, *download it now*, or possibly do without! The _online_ version goes live tomorrow, so anyone who doesn't already have the _offline_ version might not be able to get it after today.



Speaking of which, here's the download link.


----------



## DEFCON 1

DonAdam said:


> Obviously the builder would not be useless for me. But having to delete a character to enter a new one will increase the cost (time, headache) of using it. Lower net benefits equal lower willingness to pay, especially when I have the old builder on my hard drive. It's a tradeoff of less updated but less headache and money.
> 
> If it were free you would be right. But instead you're condescending _and _ wrong.




Actually... being able to export the .dnd4e files out of the online builder back down to your hard drive is one of the very first things they are adding back to the functionality.  So you won't have to delete anything.  Yes, you'll need to _copy_ the file from the online builder and save it to your hard drive... and then later on re-load the file back to the online Builder if you want to level it... but you won't actually lose it.

But that doesn't change the fact that I still can't understand why you would go through all the effort of using the Character Builder for your game now, only to just go cold turkey at whatever point you reach the 20 character limit.  What's the point?  If you are doing it just to send a message to WotC... then quit NOW.  Why get your game so entwined in the new CB only to then yank yourself out of it in three/four/eight weeks time (or whenever you reach the 20?)  That makes absolutely no sense.

Or could the reality be that you actually _don't_ want to lose the Character Builder at all, because let's face it... it's a pretty damn fine tool and it makes your game that much easier to prepare and play.  However, the only way to make it clear to WotC that you want more character slots is to "threaten to quit" even though you don't actually want to, and when push comes to shove, might not actually go through with it?

If you do... good on you.  But do it now before WotC has a chance to destroy your game by making you see how useful an Essentials-filled online CB actually is... _even with_ a 20 character limit to start with.


----------



## DonAdam

DEFCON 1 said:


> Actually... being able to export the .dnd4e files out of the online builder back down to your hard drive is one of the very first things they are adding back to the functionality.  So you won't have to delete anything.  Yes, you'll need to _copy_ the file from the online builder and save it to your hard drive... and then later on re-load the file back to the online Builder if you want to level it... but you won't actually lose it.
> 
> But that doesn't change the fact that I still can't understand why you would go through all the effort of using the Character Builder for your game now, only to just go cold turkey at whatever point you reach the 20 character limit.  What's the point?  If you are doing it just to send a message to WotC... then quit NOW.  Why get your game so entwined in the new CB only to then yank yourself out of it in three/four/eight weeks time (or whenever you reach the 20?)  That makes absolutely no sense.
> 
> Or could the reality be that you actually _don't_ want to lose the Character Builder at all, because let's face it... it's a pretty damn fine tool and it makes your game that much easier to prepare and play.  However, the only way to make it clear to WotC that you want more character slots is to "threaten to quit" even though you don't actually want to, and when push comes to shove, might not actually go through with it?
> 
> If you do... good on you.  But do it now before WotC has a chance to destroy your game by making you see how useful an Essentials-filled online CB actually is... _even with_ a 20 character limit to start with.




If the export function comes I'll be happy to stick with it. But I think a removal of the limit on characters is far more likely given WOTC's track record with actually rolling out new functionality. Changing one parameter in the code sounds more feasible than adding a new function. Both changes should be a priority for them. But as I said, it's the combination of no exporting and 20 characters that I find unacceptable.

I already did send a message, as I said. I'm not quitting now because I am running a temporary Essentials game and it should be adequate for that span of time. But when that game stops I'll happily go back to only running games with the last update's worth of material using the old builder.

That said, I don't see why quitting now would send a more effective message than registering the complaint while I'm still paying. The weight they place on me being an existing customer has to be balanced against the probability that they don't believe I would quit. And if I try the builder and hate it for other reasons, then I will have saved time and money by waiting to quit until after I do so rather than quitting now and restarting it only to find I don't like it.

But please, continue to think you understand better what will work for me than I do.


----------



## DEFCON 1

DonAdam said:


> But please, continue to think you understand better what will work for me than I do.




Hey... I don't think I understand what will work for you better than me... I just point out to people who come onto ENWorld all indignant about some various thing and saying "I'm quitting!  You hear me WOTC?!?" that their reasoning is coming from a place of emotion and is flawed, rather than actual logic.

Because as anyone who has worked in Retail will tell you... it's not the person who screams incoherently for 20 minutes about some slight that generates true change.  All you do as the person in charge of that situation is some token action to get them to shut up and leave... then you mock that person for being an idiot after they're gone.


----------



## IronWolf

DEFCON 1 said:


> Hey... I don't think I understand what will work for you better than me... I just point out to people who come onto ENWorld all indignant about some various thing and saying "I'm quitting!  You hear me WOTC?!?" that their reasoning is coming from a place of emotion and is flawed, rather than actual logic.




His first post was pretty calm, hardly a screaming fit at all.  He listed what he thought the limitations were from his perspective and why.  He even stated he would wait and see if WotC did get this limitation resolved in some manner before he stopped supporting them, but once he hit a limitation that affected him then the product would no longer be worthwhile for him to use.



			
				DEFCON 1 said:
			
		

> Because as anyone who has worked in Retail will tell you... it's not the person who screams incoherently for 20 minutes about some slight that generates true change.  All you do as the person in charge of that situation is some token action to get them to shut up and leave... then you mock that person for being an idiot after they're gone.




He's not screaming.

Now there may have been some people here saying they are canceling for more emotional reasons, but I think you've chosen the wrong one to make your point with.


----------



## knifie_sp00nie

I am a web developer that specializes in web-based applications. I have over 10 years of experience in this area. Here are my thoughts on some of the issues that are being batted around:

*20 character limit, exporting, and sharing-* The storage space excuse may be a bit weak because it's not a lot of data at first glance, but it's not just a matter of throwing a hard drive into the server. There's redundancy, backups, and database efficiency that must all be factored in as well. If the limit isn't just for business reasons, I'm confident it will be scaled when possible. I don't have the link, but I'm pretty sure I read that your character data would be retained and exportable for up to a year after you stop paying. 

Google isn't a charity. Ads and marketing data pay for those "free" services. I'd imagine ads in character builder would create more nerdrage than what exists now.

Export has been bumped in priority. That's a good sign. Sounds like they have a process. But no matter what process you have, software development is still a technical art. All sorts of stuff can happen in the implementation phase that will throw your deadline off. I think this happened to the WotC developers and they were forced to go live with a mostly complete product and a list of post-launch priorities. Iplay4e-style character/campaign sharing is probably one of those features as well.

*Silverlight vs. HTML-* I really wish people would shut up about HTML5. It is not as magical as the hype sounds. The big features that get touted are fairly limited. You'll get the ability to play some video without a plugin and the canvas element. The canvas is cool, but doesn't have anything like the capabilities of Flash or Silverlight. Other HTML5 improvements will make it easier to develop rich applications, but in the end it's just evolution and refinement of the current HTML spec.

Silverlight offers a mostly cross-platform environment that can more easily implement the complex UI that I've seen in the videos of the character builder. It's not impossible to do in HTML, but I wouldn't want to do it. Silverlight also uses all the .Net languages and constructs that the dev team are familiar with which is a big plus for a small department.

I think character builder is just the tip of an iceberg. What everyone isn't seeing is a more expansive and flexible back-end infrastructure. The part you interact with right now may be in Silverlight, but I'd bet money that it's calling on web services to do all the heavy lifting. Web services are platform-neutral, leaving a developer to write the UI and some glue code to get an application working. This makes iPhone, Android, HTML, etc. implementations practical. It could also make it possible for 3rd parties to utilize the services in more ways than we've seen with Iplay4e (The problem with MasterPlan was that it was making local copies of the data).

*Cost-*  I think my six-ish dollars a month is well spent for what I'm getting now and will increase as time goes on. Just the other day I spent $4 on a coffee so I really don't understand why people think a subscription per person is so expensive. There will always be hard-luck cases, but in general most people that can buy the books in the first place can afford the subscription if they want it. Managing electronic transactions will only get easier as they become more widespread so I don't think the lack of credit card argument has much of any merit.

In the end, I think WotC is on the right track and my speculation will be proven to be accurate. There isn't a piece of software on this planet that doesn't have a list of bugs and a list of desired features. The problem is that eventually you have to ship something. We'll see how it all pans out tomorrow.


----------



## renau1g

knifie_sp00nie said:


> Google isn't a charity. Ads and marketing data pay for those "free" services. I'd imagine ads in character builder would create more nerdrage than what exists now.




If I could get all the CB and DDI for free with putting up with all the "intrusions" of Google sign me up...


----------



## JoeGKushner

renau1g said:


> Anyone know what time it goes live tomorrow? I'm assuming somethimg in the afternoon (EST) to match up to PST's start of day...




11:59 PM, screenshot functionality only.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Because as anyone who has worked in Retail will tell you... it's not the person who screams incoherently for 20 minutes about some slight that generates true change. All you do as the person in charge of that situation is some token action to get them to shut up and leave... then you mock that person for being an idiot after they're gone.




He may be venting a tad here, but a cancellation of a sub, partnered with a letter of complaint is an effective tool in consumer activism.  I've been told by some managers (in a few different fields) that as few as 20 such complaints can set off alarms in corporate HQ.


----------



## Scribble

Dannyalcatraz said:


> He may be venting a tad here, but a cancellation of a sub, partnered with a letter of complaint is an effective tool in consumer activism.  I've been told by some managers (in a few different fields) that as few as 20 such complaints can set off alarms in corporate HQ.




While I agree with your statement overall... My guess is 20 is not the same for gaming... As I think the default state of gamers when responding to anything tends to be "fly off the handle..."


----------



## Dumnbunny

I run a small firm specializing in web-based business applications, so I thought I'd offer some counter-points.


knifie_sp00nie said:


> *20 character limit, exporting, and sharing*



It's true that is isn't a matter of just adding on another hard-drive. However, even with everything else factored in storage is cheap. One of the sites my company designed and is maintaining is one which allows ranchers and feedlots to upload post-mortem photos of cattle for veterinary review. We're seeing a large numbers of photos being uploaded per day (one recent tweak was to allow users to queue more than 100 photos for upload per batch), and with the different resized and tiled version of the photos, each takes up about 2-3 MB at the low end. I'm paying about 15 cents per GB per month. Start with characters in XML format taking up about 100K, then figure out how many characters would fit in that 15 cents worth of space. Sorry, I'm not buying the storage cost argument, not a bit.


knifie_sp00nie said:


> *Silverlight vs. HTML*



Yeah, HTML 5 is not quite ready for prime-time. IE9's wide adoption may help with this, but that's not today. However, you can come up with some very user-friendly interfaces using HTML4 and Javascript.

Silverlight is simply a poor choice if your goal is "ultimate portability." Consider the large and growing number of environments, not just Windows and OSX, but the Linux, the iPad, Android devices including the upcoming Android tablets, the upcoming Blackberry tablet (based on what they're calling Blackberry Tablet OS), the upcoming WebOS-based HP tablets, and whatever else is coming along.

But don't take my word for it. In a recent blog post, Bob Muglia, President of the Server and Tools Division at Microsoft, stated that while they were committed to Silverlight as a platform for in-house corporate apps as well as Windows based mobile device apps, maintaining a runtime across all the available devices was "practically impossible." "We think HTML will provide the broadest, cross-platform reach across all these devices."As for leveraging the team's .NET skills, .NET languages can be easily used on the server-side for web-application development.



knifie_sp00nie said:


> I think character builder is just the tip of an iceberg.



I'm going to judge the character builder on what it is or isn't now, not on what it may or may not be at some unspecified point in the future. And while I'm going to wait and see what the next couple months brings, some of what I'm seeing and hearing aren't exactly filling me with the warm glow of hope.


----------



## drothgery

Dumnbunny said:


> Silverlight is simply a poor choice if your goal is "ultimate portability." Consider the large and growing number of environments, not just Windows and OSX, but the Linux, the iPad, Android devices including the upcoming Android tablets, the upcoming Blackberry tablet (based on what they're calling Blackberry Tablet OS), the upcoming WebOS-based HP tablets, and whatever else is coming along.




But if your goal is not "ultimate portability" but merely going from the 90% of desktops and laptops that a pure Windows app gets you to 99% of desktops and laptops, then going with Silverlight is fine (as non-Windows, non-Mac OSX consumer desktops and laptops are virtually nonexistent; while Moonlight works on Linux, it implements Silverlight 2 and the current Silverlight version is 4).


----------



## renau1g

"ultimate portability" was from Bill Slavicsek. 

"There are five things I really, really like about the new Character Builder.

   1. It’s ultimately portable. I can use it on any computer or computer-like device, wherever I am."

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (The Next Wave in Digital Offerings)


----------



## tentfox

If they chose to go HTML + Javascript it would give them access to iPad and Unix. The phone platforms would be almost unusable in a webpage unless they make an entirely new interface for users who connect from a phone.

Considering the extra time which would be needed to get a web page application to the level that the silverlight app looks (which might not even be possible at all) would simply not be worth it. The other option would of course be Java, which would give them the massive user base of people who run Unix with no other OS at all. Then they would probably need a new development team because they are all .NET programmers, and the UI would be harder develop because .NET is the bees knees while Java is lacking.

For an end user on either a PC or Mac computer you lose nothing for them choosing Silverlight. I have no clue why people would complain about this? I can validate complaints about other aspects of this, namely the character limit and reduced featureset, but Silverlight?


----------



## garyh

The only issue I have with Silverlight is that if you're on a computer where you don't have admin rights, say work or the library, then you can't run the CB there.  Which sorta nixes the whole "portability" argument.  I'd never even heard of Silverlight before the CB info referred to it.  So I'm guessing it's a lot less ubiquitous than, say, Adobe PDF Reader or Java in terms of things installed for use on browsers.

My main issues, as I've discussed in this thread are the 20 character cap and lack of export.


----------



## tentfox

It is a web plugin like adobe flash, or desktop like adobe air. I have a feeling that this particular one is desktop one (but I do not know for sure) because I believe I saw it mentioned it was a 15 meg download, which is pretty hefty for a plug in.

The major browsers support it, although it is rather new with a low development base which is probably why you did not hear of it before. You can see a showcase of stuff done in it here Showcase : The Official Microsoft Silverlight Site.

I personally doubt it will ever catch on for web however, there is already flash for art centric, Java for code; and world is moving away from plug-ins. It is however what is used for making windows phone 7 applications and I believe the future of silverlight lies there.


----------



## Alan Shutko

drothgery said:


> But if your goal is not "ultimate portability" but merely going from the 90% of desktops and laptops that a pure Windows app gets you to 99% of desktops and laptops, then going with Silverlight is fine (as non-Windows, non-Mac OSX consumer desktops and laptops are virtually nonexistent; while Moonlight works on Linux, it implements Silverlight 2 and the current Silverlight version is 4).



FWIW, according to Sitecatalyst Netaverages, non-Mac, non-Windows is about 8.3% of desktop browsers.

https://netaverages.adobe.com/en-us/index.html


----------



## tentfox

This wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems#Web_clients  paints a very different picture. Assuming all of other are some unknown desktop operating systems, then we have Mac and PC with a total desktop coverage of 98.13%. Now these statistics only take in to consideration OSes which browse the web, which for Silverlight Desktop coverage seems fair to me.


----------



## Kafen

garyh said:


> The only issue I have with Silverlight is that if you're on a computer where you don't have admin rights, say work or the library, then you can't run the CB there.  Which sorta nixes the whole "portability" argument.  I'd never even heard of Silverlight before the CB info referred to it.  So I'm guessing it's a lot less ubiquitous than, say, Adobe PDF Reader or Java in terms of things installed for use on browsers.
> 
> My main issues, as I've discussed in this thread are the 20 character cap and lack of export.




Export would come at a later date, yes?


----------



## Dumnbunny

The Silverlight strategy ignores the explosive growth in the tablet market. It is not a long-term strategy.

The Gartner Group published this press release earlier this month: Gartner to CEOs: Seize the iPad Opportunity Now. Here are a couple choice quotes:


> “[The iPad] is more than just the latest consumer gadget; and CEOs and business  leaders should initiate a dialogue with their CIOs about if they have  not already done so.”





> Gartner forecasts worldwide media tablet sales  to end users to reach 19.5 million units in 2010, driven by sales of  the iPad. Media tablets are poised for strong growth with worldwide end  user sales projected to total 54.8 million units in 2011, up 181 percent  from 2010, and surpass 208 million units in 2014.



WotC can ignore the way the market is shifting, or they can capitalize on it. The former is a poor IT strategy, and Silverlight won't let them do the latter.

Just for the record, I'm not anti-Microsoft. My company had made good money writing C# software. I'm just a firm believer in the right tool for the right job. While there are compelling use-cases for Silverlight, it's a simple fact, supported by statements from senior executives at Microsoft, that these use cases do not include the phrase "It’s ultimately portable. I can use it on any computer or computer-like device, wherever I am".

I'm not angry they chose Silverlight. I'm disappointed at the wasted opportunity.


----------



## garyh

Kafen said:


> Export would come at a later date, yes?




So they're claiming, yes.  I'll believe it when I see it.


----------



## JoeGKushner

Kafen said:


> Export would come at a later date, yes?




Right after Dark Sun and Essentials hits the original CB.... oh wait...


----------



## renau1g

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Home (D&D Character Builder) 

This appears to be the link for the CB when it launches, it's currently not ready but  Isuppose sometime tomorrow afternoon (EST) it'll be active.


----------



## wedgeski

Dumnbunny said:


> While there are compelling use-cases for Silverlight, it's a simple fact, supported by statements from senior executives at Microsoft, that these use cases do not include the phrase "It’s ultimately portable. I can use it on any computer or computer-like device, wherever I am".



No but they do include, for WotC at least, "we can leverage much of the work, experience, and domain knowledge accumulated in the construction of the existing CB, and reduce the development time of the online version by 50%*".

* This is a guess, but I'm in the business too, so it's an educated one.


----------



## Dumnbunny

wedgeski said:


> No but they do include, for WotC at least, "we can leverage much of the work, experience, and domain knowledge accumulated in the construction of the existing CB, and reduce the development time of the online version by 50%*".
> 
> * This is a guess, but I'm in the business too, so it's an educated one.



Keeping in mind that .NET is also a web-development framework, and they'd be able to leverage all that work, experience and the rest while making a web-app, I'm going to stick with my position that choosing Silverlight was wasting an opportunity.

As an aside, I'm not personally fond of using .NET as a web-development framework, but for developers strictly used to desktop development it makes a lot of things easier by letting them stick with those comfortable desktop development methodologies.


----------



## Walking Dad

Hussar said:


> ...
> 
> Here's the secret - your books don't go "out of date" any faster today than they did thirty years ago.  It's just that, unlike thirty years ago, they actually ARE correcting the rules regularly, instead of letting each group stumble around in the dark trying to find their own corrections.
> 
> ...




DID the other games need rules update just the other month? And there are companies that give you the pdf for free if you order the book by them. And the right to download pdfs with incorporated errata later.

I'm mostly playing online. Just saying: 'Hey, just let us use the non-errated version...' is not as easily possible as in a smaller local group.

I understand why the new model is better for Hasbro, but I would say that there are more consumer friendly methods. I don't like to 'lease' my games. If I could get a guaranty that I got an offline CB and companion of the last version once 5e comes out, I would certainly pay for the service.

If not, I'm just paying money to use something that belongs to someone else and I, for example, prefer to buy a DVD than just rent it for a month from a video store.


----------



## evilref

Dumnbunny said:


> WotC can ignore the way the market is shifting, or they can capitalize on it. The former is a poor IT strategy, and Silverlight won't let them do the latter.




So what should they have used? Flash...doesn't work on the ipad. Java...doesn't work on the ipad. HTML5...not there yet (and certainly wasn't when they began developing the new tool). There is/was no ideal solution for them here.


----------



## WalterKovacs

garyh said:


> So they're claiming, yes. I'll believe it when I see it.




They probably could have included it at launch, but that would probably mean further delaying the release, and thus the Dark Sun and Essential updates to the character builder. I'm sure that no one would complain if they chose to do that ...


----------



## Kzach

evilref said:


> There is/was no ideal solution for them here.




Sure there is; it's called HTML 4.01 Transitional.

There is nothing about the CB that couldn't be done with JavaScripting, XML and a solid MySQL dB. It's simply not that complex. But then, expecting good design from WotC's website development team is like expecting the Mets to win.


----------



## Piratecat

Kzach said:


> But then, expecting good design from WotC's website development team is like expecting the Mets to win.



I'll respect statements like this a lot more once we see the character builder and have a chance to mess around with it. Bad design, and not building it on the platform of your choice, aren't the same thing.


----------



## Kzach

Piratecat said:


> I'll respect statements like this a lot more once we see the character builder and have a chance to mess around with it. Bad design, and not building it on the platform of your choice, aren't the same thing.




When and where did I mention any platform whatsoever?

I'd respect statements like this a lot more if they had anything to do with what you were quoting.


----------



## renau1g

Oh, has anyone been to the launch page? I love the tiefling with the breast shields...yeah that'll do something, ignore that giant lack of any protection around your midsection, but gotta protect the puppies.... 

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Home (D&D Character Builder)


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Oh, has anyone been to the launch page? I love the tiefling with the breast shields...yeah that'll do something, ignore that giant lack of any protection around your midsection, but gotta protect the puppies....




Eh. Still doesn't look half as weird as those tumors that 4e "tieflings" call horns. 

I know he's gone on to bigger and better things, but I miss DiTerlizzi. 





​
He could even do things with horns in a way that didn't make it seem like they had a severe case of downs syndrome.





Anyway, can't wait to play with this later today.


----------



## Hussar

Walking Dad said:


> DID the other games need rules update just the other month? And there are companies that give you the pdf for free if you order the book by them. And the right to download pdfs with incorporated errata later.




There are companies NOW that do that, yes.  Back in the day?  Not a chance.  You paid for your errata if you got it at all.  And, open up the 1e AD&D DMG and tell me that's not a document in need of a bit of errata.  



> I'm mostly playing online. Just saying: 'Hey, just let us use the non-errated version...' is not as easily possible as in a smaller local group.




Hey me too.  Why is it difficult?  You download the pdf when it comes out and you worry about the classes that are being played.  Same as you always did.  Does it really make much of a difference that your errata comes out a couple of weeks earlier?  Really?



> I understand why the new model is better for Hasbro, but I would say that there are more consumer friendly methods. I don't like to 'lease' my games. If I could get a guaranty that I got an offline CB and companion of the last version once 5e comes out, I would certainly pay for the service.
> 
> If not, I'm just paying money to use something that belongs to someone else and I, for example, prefer to buy a DVD than just rent it for a month from a video store.




Again, the simple solution here is to actually buy the books.  There, no more problems.  

I think the problem is that people presumed that the character builder was a replacement for having to buy books, not an additional feature.  Well, it's no longer a replacement for owning the books.


----------



## WalterKovacs

Kzach said:


> When and where did I mention any platform whatsoever?
> 
> I'd respect statements like this a lot more if they had anything to do with what you were quoting.




Platform was probably the wrong word. 

However good design and using the "right" language/database are not the same thing. Simply using JavaScripting and XML wouldn't necessarily lead to a good design, nor is there only one possible way to implement a good design.


----------



## Danzauker

I never assumed CB to be a replacement for the book. In facts, I own the mayority of 4E books out there.

Still, 20 characters for account is utterly ridiculous! It would be ridiculous a low number for a demo software.

I don't really understand how they can actually think to enforce such a thing for a paid service.


----------



## renau1g

Hussar said:


> I think the problem is that people presumed WotC made that the character builder that was a replacement for having to buy books, not an additional feature.  Well, it's no longer a replacement for owning the books.




There. Corrected. There was no presumption. The company made it this way otherwise they'd have activation codes in the books or micro-transactions to add books to the CB. They'd hoped that people would want to buy the books for the fluff in them (and I did for the Campaign books) but there was little/no fluff in AV1 & 2 (which I bought AV1) so why would I pay $25-40 more for a book than my subscription that covers it?


----------



## Bagpuss

The Monster Manuals suffered from that as well, in that all the useful information was in the Monster Builder, why buy the book?

That's why I suspect that the Dark Sun Creature Catalog and the Monster Vault contain addition information beyond the creature stats to make them desirable to own as well as having a subscription.


----------



## Hussar

How was it a replacement?  Yes, you could do download the CB and not buy the books?  Sure.  Was there ever any single line from WOTC saying that they intended this to be a permanent fixture?  Did they ever come out and say, "Yes, we want people to give us ten bucks every six months or so and never buy a book"?

I don't think so.  

So, what they had before goes away.  Something new takes its place.  Use the new product or don't.  Twenty characters does seem like a problem for some people.  I suppose if you regularly take care of everyone else's character I could see that.  But, don't start saying that they somehow owe you anything.

Because they don't.  You got a freebie.  Great for you.  Now you don't get that freebie anymore.  That doesn't make WOTC bad or evil.  It just means they aren't giving away the farm anymore.


----------



## Bagpuss

Hussar said:


> Because they don't.  You got a freebie.  Great for you.  Now you don't get that freebie anymore.  That doesn't make WOTC bad or evil.  It just means they aren't giving away the farm anymore.




You know I distinctly remember paying some money, let me check my credit card statement.... yes, yes I definitely paid some money over. It was never a freebie.

Pirates now they might have got a freebie, but that's a different issue.


----------



## DEFCON 1

Danzauker said:


> I don't really understand how they can actually think to enforce such a thing for a paid service.



They quite possibly don't.  For all we know, they fully intend on opening up the number of character slots once the CB actually goes live and they get through the "first wave" of character uploads.

Once that initial influx of heavy usage is done... they can then look and see how their system has handled it, and make the decision to open up more slots.

But what would be worse for them?  Open up 100 character slots from the start and then find that their system overloads and breaks down that first week because every single subscriber uploads everything at once (thereby generating a huge outcry of hate as people can't use ANY of their characters while the system gets fixed)... or just deal with the complaints from people now about how 20 is too small (knowing full well that most current subscribers will probably at the very least wait for the system to go online before deciding to cancel their subscription) and then be able to announce next week after the initial upload has occurred that they've found the transition went smoothly and they are now able to open up more slots for people?

Now I'm in no way saying that this *IS* what is happening... but I do think that WotC is fully aware that 20 is small enough to cause major upheaval, and that they'll do anything in their power to make sure that the transition works, is stable, and expandable once things calm down.


----------



## mudbunny

I am posting this here just to be on the safe side.

Assuming everything goes well, the new CB should be pushed live today. I *assume* that it will go live around the same time that every other CB/MB/Compendium update has gone live, or somewhere between 9 and 11 AM PST, or noon-2pm EST.


----------



## Scribble

Bagpuss said:


> You know I distinctly remember paying some money, let me check my credit card statement.... yes, yes I definitely paid some money over. It was never a freebie.
> 
> Pirates now they might have got a freebie, but that's a different issue.




Actually I remember when the system was first starting they were saying that a user would only have access to the stuff from the months he/she subscribed, but they didn't end up going that route...  So you kinda got a freebie...


Damn you wizards lying about not giving us something you ended up giving us!!!!
(How come no one gets mad about that?)


----------



## WalterKovacs

Danzauker said:


> I never assumed CB to be a replacement for the book. In facts, I own the mayority of 4E books out there.
> 
> Still, 20 characters for account is utterly ridiculous! It would be ridiculous a low number for a demo software.
> 
> I don't really understand how they can actually think to enforce such a thing for a paid service.




20 characters sounds pretty gross ... they better get the export feature implemented fairly quickly. A DM will likely want all his players characters on his account (which already will be a pain until the export feature is implemented), and unless they allow a single character to have multiple levels of play work at once (i.e. you build out to level 11, but you can move it around easily to the level it's currently at without as much fuss as the old character builder did). If you DM multiple games it could add up quite fast.

It does sound like an ok ammount to tide over until exporting assuming they get to it before the end of the year though. Call me an optimist, but I'm guessing that because of the complaints about delays, they want to get the current version up today, and then finish working on the export/transfer/etc functionality in the meantime. With the big hurdle out of the way, they should have more time to work on that stuff anyway, as nothing as big as Essentials or Dark Sun in terms of new rules is on the horizon until the Class Compendium.


----------



## renau1g

Hussar said:


> How was it a replacement?  Yes, you could do download the CB and not buy the books?  Sure.  Was there ever any single line from WOTC saying that they intended this to be a permanent fixture?  Did they ever come out and say, "Yes, we want people to give us ten bucks every six months or so and never buy a book"?
> 
> I don't think so.
> 
> Because they don't.  You got a freebie.  Great for you.  Now you don't get that freebie anymore.  That doesn't make WOTC bad or evil.  It just means they aren't giving away the farm anymore.




Did I say they are evil? Man calm down. I also didn't get a freebie. They offered a service I paid $60-70 or something like that for it (yeah you're also wrong with how I purchase, thanks though).

My comment was WotC created a product that supplanted their books, not supplemented them. There was no presumption, they also never came out and said "hey you must go buy the books *and* pay for this tool". Was there ever a single line from them saying the opposite? No. I also never said they owe me anything. So again, chill. Stop putting words in my mouth.

Maybe if you hadn't had your uber-defense shield up you'd read my post and maybe think about it before firing back all cylinders with the same rhetoric posted a ton of other places. 

I said they designed it that way. If the company could not foresee the possibility that offering their rules with the tool *without* requiring any purchase of the books would potentially have an adverse affect on sales of physical copies...well ... someone screwed up. Again, if they only wanted you to access the books you bought there'd have been an activation code or some other way of getting the data into your CB. There was not.


----------



## renau1g

Scribble said:


> Actually I remember when the system was first starting they were saying that a user would only have access to the stuff from the months he/she subscribed, but they didn't end up going that route...  So you kinda got a freebie...
> 
> 
> Damn you wizards lying about not giving us something you ended up giving us!!!!
> (How come no one gets mad about that?)




Or you can say the cost of such an infrastructure far outweighed the benefits for them, so there was no "freebie" it was a cost savings for the company...just playing devil's advocate.


----------



## Scribble

renau1g said:


> Or you can say the cost of such an infrastructure far outweighed the benefits for them, so there was no "freebie" it was a cost savings for the company...just playing devil's advocate.




Doesn't matter what caused it... It would still be a freebie.


----------



## Danzauker

DEFCON 1 said:


> They quite possibly don't.  For all we know, they fully intend on opening up the number of character slots once the CB actually goes live and they get through the "first wave" of character uploads.




So, they expect me to pay for a demo???

Well, sorry, if they want people to stress test their software, they'd better give accounts for free for a couple of months. They don't even need to hand free accounts to anybody. They could have an invitation system or something like that.

Then go live and ask money for a reasonable number of characters, instead of 20!

I mean, I'd never use a word processor or spreadsheet or mail client that lets me create 20 documents! Not even in my mobile phone! And I'm supposed to pay for this???


----------



## drothgery

Dumnbunny said:


> Keeping in mind that .NET is also a web-development framework, and they'd be able to leverage all that work, experience and the rest while making a web-app, I'm going to stick with my position that choosing Silverlight was wasting an opportunity.
> 
> As an aside, I'm not personally fond of using .NET as a web-development framework, but for developers strictly used to desktop development it makes a lot of things easier by letting them stick with those comfortable desktop development methodologies.




Going from a WPF/.NET client app, like the offline character builder, to a Silverlight app is not a major development effort; almost all code can be reused. Going from a WPF/.NET client app to an ASP.NET/AJAX app is pretty much a complete rewrite that happens to use the same programming language and some of the same libraries for the server-side code (but if you want to do anything client side, you need to find libraries or write Javascript).


----------



## Scribble

renau1g said:


> I said they designed it that way. If the company could not foresee the possibility that offering their rules with the tool *without* requiring any purchase of the books would potentially have an adverse affect on sales of physical copies...well ... someone screwed up. Again, if they only wanted you to access the books you bought there'd have been an activation code or some other way of getting the data into your CB. There was not.




I don't know if I'd go so far as to say someone screwed up... But I do definitely think they misjudged the effect it would have on book sales, combined with the piracy thing, it shows why we're seeing a radical shift in how things are being presented.

I don't blame them though... I mean there's always a huge outcry against digital stuff it seems... But when push comes to shove, the DDI was so much less expensive... well... dolla dolla bills y'all...


----------



## WalterKovacs

Danzauker said:


> So, they expect me to pay for a demo???
> 
> Well, sorry, if they want people to stress test their software, they'd better give accounts for free for a couple of months. They don't even need to hand free accounts to anybody. They could have an invitation system or something like that.
> 
> Then go live and ask money for a reasonable number of characters, instead of 20!
> 
> I mean, I'd never use a word processor or spreadsheet or mail client that lets me create 20 documents! Not even in my mobile phone! And I'm supposed to pay for this???




I'm sure most subscribers, given the two options:

You can get the character builder, as it exists now, with the rules up to date, but having some functionality (number of characters on your account, exporting) not yet implemented.

OR

You can wait while we get everything tested and perfect before it goes live.

I'm sure everyone will be very understanding about the delays.


----------



## renau1g

Scribble said:


> I don't know if I'd go so far as to say someone screwed up... But I do definitely think they misjudged the effect it would have on book sales, combined with the piracy thing, it shows why we're seeing a radical shift in how things are being presented.
> .




Misjudged...screwed up. Same difference. It means they didn't complete their market research correctly not knowing the affect their competing product would have. I'm not saying they're evil or anything, just noting that the beginning of DDI was... rocky.  Someone screwed up with their promises, someone screwed up with oversight of the 3rd party hired to complete their projects, etc. etc. They're looking to clean things up for their bottom line and that's fine, it's their prerogative (getting in on the song puns) as a profit making enterprise beholden to their shareholders.


----------



## ExploderWizard

WalterKovacs said:


> I'm sure most subscribers, given the two options:
> 
> You can get the character builder, as it exists now, with the rules up to date, but having some functionality (number of characters on your account, exporting) not yet implemented.
> 
> OR
> 
> You can wait while we get everything tested and perfect before it goes live.
> 
> I'm sure everyone will be very understanding about the delays.




OR

Go with option C and choose NOT to take the open-handed slap across the face, play simpler less expensive games and watch this whole mess with detatched amusement.


----------



## DEFCON 1

WalterKovacs said:


> I'm sure everyone will be very understanding about the delays.




Oh, yes.  The calm and reserved reaction we saw from everyone when they announced Dark Sun and Essentials weren't going to be in September's CB update was a wonderful thing to see.


----------



## Scribble

ExploderWizard said:


> OR
> 
> Go with option C and choose NOT to take the open-handed slap across the face, play simpler less expensive games and watch this whole mess with detatched amusement.




YES!!!!

Dude I for one plan to use Paizo's newly announced CB:


----------



## Danzauker

WalterKovacs said:


> I'm sure most subscribers, given the two options:
> 
> You can get the character builder, as it exists now, with the rules up to date, but having some functionality (number of characters on your account, exporting) not yet implemented.
> 
> OR
> 
> You can wait while we get everything tested and perfect before it goes live.
> 
> I'm sure everyone will be very understanding about the delays.




Which seems to be EXACTLY what I said.

They expect me to pay for an unfinished piece of software.


----------



## renau1g

DEFCON 1 said:


> Oh, yes.  The calm and reserved reaction we saw from everyone when they announced Dark Sun and Essentials weren't going to be in September's CB update was a wonderful thing to see.




I'm waiting for 12:01 EST when it's not online and the flurry of anger spewed at WotC as it's been 1 whole minute since they got in at 9am PST


----------



## Scribble

renau1g said:


> I'm waiting for 12:01 EST when it's not online and the flurry of anger spewed at WotC as it's been 1 whole minute since they got in at 9am PST




There is already a slight simmer at the crew not staying late/ coming in early to launch it at 12am...


----------



## mudbunny

renau1g said:


> I'm waiting for 12:01 EST when it's not online and the flurry of anger spewed at WotC as it's been 1 whole minute since they got in at 9am PST




So you don't think that myself and others posting "between 10 and 12am PST" is going to have any effect??

_Girds himself for a long, long afternoon on the forums._


----------



## drothgery

mudbunny said:


> So you don't think that myself and others posting "between 10 and 12am PST" is going to have any effect??




Probably less than if you had said between 10am and 12pm PST


----------



## renau1g

mudbunny said:


> So you don't think that myself and others posting "between 10 and 12am PST" is going to have any effect??
> 
> _Girds himself for a long, long afternoon on the forums._




No...sorry mudbunny...based on past experience I think you should grab a few beers and get ready for a frustrating day. Sadly, an official announcement would've helped I think, but in that absence I think most people are expecting right at 9am PST...


----------



## Prestidigitalis

mudbunny said:


> So you don't think that myself and others posting "between 10 and 12am PST" is going to have any effect??




Well, I _was_ going to ask what time today it was expected, as I did not sift through all 27 pages of this thread to find the answer.  But thanks for the info.

I wonder what happens when 20 million* subscribers suddenly log on all at once...

* For purely speculative values of 20 million


----------



## mudbunny

drothgery said:


> Probably less than if you had said between 10am and 12pm PST






Just for that. I am going to make sure that your tubes to the CB are all plugged. 

_grunt_

Good thing I ate mexican last night.


----------



## Scribble

Prestidigitalis said:


> Well, I _was_ going to ask what time today it was expected, as I did not sift through all 27 pages of this thread to find the answer.  But thanks for the info.
> 
> I wonder what happens when 20 million* subscribers suddenly log on all at once...
> 
> * For purely speculative values of 20 million




I felt a great disturbance in the nerdrage, as if millions of nerds suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.


----------



## renau1g

Prestidigitalis said:


> Well, I _was_ going to ask what time today it was expected, as I did not sift through all 27 pages of this thread to find the answer.  But thanks for the info.
> 
> I wonder what happens when 20 million* subscribers suddenly log on all at once...
> 
> * For purely speculative values of 20 million




Oh man...$20 million @ $10/month... wow... $200M/month...they'd be dancing in the streets for those numbers I'm guessing... Hasbro would be pushing D&D on mainstream tv as well.

*For purely speculative fun...


----------



## Scribble

I'm envisioning like a computer with a big red button with tape over it that says "don't press this" or something as the team irons out the final kinks in the system before it goes live... 

How'd you like to be the dude pressing the launch CB button?


----------



## Prestidigitalis

renau1g said:


> Oh man...$20 million @ $10/month... wow... $200M/month...they'd be dancing in the streets for those numbers I'm guessing... Hasbro would be pushing D&D on mainstream tv as well.
> 
> *For purely speculative fun...




My purely speculative 10% of that money better be deposited in my account promptly, too.

(I have no idea how many DDI subscribers there really are.  That's why I said 20 million -- an absurd number that no one could take seriously.  Just in case someone missed the point -- not you renau1g, I know you got it.)


----------



## WalterKovacs

Danzauker said:


> Which seems to be EXACTLY what I said.
> 
> They expect me to pay for an unfinished piece of software.




You don't have to. Unsubscribe until it's "finished", what exactly finished means when by it's very nature it is constantly being updated and patched, if only in terms of content (but from experience with the original CB, that isn't the case).

Most players aren't "expected" to pay ... they are willing to pay because given the choice of unfinished software or no software and more waiting, they'd prefer something that does MOST of what they want, to nothing at all. The core functionality (can you create a character using the current rules, have it make some of the more annoying calculations, and be able to print it out as a usuable character sheet?) is there ... It is merely missing stuff that is down on the priorities list ... way below the "release it on time this month" priority.


----------



## Prestidigitalis

Scribble said:


> I'm envisioning like a computer with a big red button with tape over it that says "don't press this" or something as the team irons out the final kinks in the system before it goes live...
> 
> How'd you like to be the dude pressing the launch CB button?




Worst nightmare territory.  I'm sweating enough over my latest, soon-to-be-released-to-the-customer iPhone app.  There can never be enough testing to eliminate the jitters, and throw in some last minute "oh and can you just do X" changes...


----------



## mudbunny

Prestidigitalis said:


> My purely speculative 10% of that money better be deposited in my account promptly, too.
> 
> (I have no idea how many DDI subscribers there really are.  That's why I said 20 million -- an absurd number that no one could take seriously.  Just in case someone missed the point -- not you renau1g, I know you got it.)




Last I checked on the DDI group on the WotC community site, there are around 42k subscribers.


----------



## renau1g

But that only includes subscribers with forum accounts right?


----------



## renau1g

Prestidigitalis said:


> My purely speculative 10% of that money better be deposited in my account promptly, too.
> 
> (I have no idea how many DDI subscribers there really are.  That's why I said 20 million -- an absurd number that no one could take seriously.  Just in case someone missed the point -- not you renau1g, I know you got it.)




Can I have 10% of that 10% please ....


----------



## WalterKovacs

Scribble said:


> I'm envisioning like a computer with a big red button with tape over it that says "don't press this" or something as the team irons out the final kinks in the system before it goes live...
> 
> How'd you like to be the dude pressing the launch CB button?




I'm imagining it like a car door lock, where every time they try to "hit the switch" on the CB, someone is refreshing the page and that somehow prevents them from launching, so they have to keep trying. I know it doesn't work that way, but it amuses me to think that it could.


----------



## Aspeon

ExploderWizard said:


> OR
> 
> Go with option C and choose NOT to take the open-handed slap across the face, play simpler less expensive games and watch this whole mess with detatched amusement.




Or option D and choose to use the classic Character Builder as long as you're not using Dark Sun/Essentials content. Or option E and buy the relevant books.

(I'm using the old CB for the campaign I'm in right now. Sort of intrigued by the eDruid, but if I start a game with him I'll probably just pick up HotFK)


----------



## mudbunny

renau1g said:


> But that only includes subscribers with forum accounts right?




Yup.


----------



## renau1g

Aspeon said:


> Or option D and choose to use the classic Character Builder as long as you're not using Dark Sun/Essentials content. Or option E and buy the relevant books.
> 
> (I'm using the old CB for the campaign I'm in right now. Sort of intrigued by the eDruid, but if I start a game with him I'll probably just pick up HotFK)




Or option F - go make a sandwich and eat it, or option G - go play Fallout New Vegas, or option H - go watch Walking Dead (and if you haven't watched it yet, it'll help pass the time until the CB comes out ), or the best option, option I - send me money...


----------



## Scribble

Don't worry everyone... One day one of our characters will "wake up" and find himself exported into the old CB... He'll teach others how to pull themselves out, and a war between the online CB and the offline CB will begin... Complete with awesome sparky hover-crafts.

Unfortunately no one can TELL you what the online character builder is...


----------



## Ktulu

Scribble said:


> Don't worry everyone... One day one of our characters will "wake up" and find himself exported into the old CB... He'll teach others how to pull themselves out, and a war between the online CB and the offline CB will begin... Complete with awesome sparky hover-crafts.
> 
> Unfortunately no one can TELL you what the online character builder is...




" This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You right click- the updates end, you wake up in your room and build whatever you want to buld...except darksun and essentials. You left-click - you stay in the cloude and I show you how high you can level up that character.


----------



## Scribble

Ktulu said:


> " This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You right click- the updates end, you wake up in your room and build whatever you want to buld...except darksun and essentials. You left-click - you stay in the cloude and I show you how high you can level up that character.




Whoa...  I know thri-kreen!


----------



## Danzauker

WalterKovacs said:


> You don't have to. Unsubscribe until it's "finished", what exactly finished means when by it's very nature it is constantly being updated and patched, if only in terms of content (but from experience with the original CB, that isn't the case).
> 
> Most players aren't "expected" to pay ... they are willing to pay because given the choice of unfinished software or no software and more waiting, they'd prefer something that does MOST of what they want, to nothing at all. The core functionality (can you create a character using the current rules, have it make some of the more annoying calculations, and be able to print it out as a usuable character sheet?) is there ... It is merely missing stuff that is down on the priorities list ... way below the "release it on time this month" priority.




Of course I don't have to. And I won't do it.

And when I say "expected" to pay, I mean that since they provide the software on a license basis, well they of course "expect" me to pay for it. There's no doubt that those who pay do so willingly.

I don't think I'm better or smarter than anyone. Everyone is entitled to spend his money in whatever he thinks is a good investment. I'm just stating my opinions. 

As long as I am concerned, a piece of software that basically all it does is create and edit documents, and is limited to just 20 of those documents, is not missing some non core functionality down on the priority list. It's SEVERELY CRIPPLED!

I mean, I can hardly create and store a sheet for a 1st level character of every class published in the core books! and not to talk about class/race/build combos!!!

I wouldn't give such a thing 1 dollar even if it was an amateur mobile phone app!

Unless they provide me something else with DDI that's worth my money, let's say, more and better magazine content, I'll guess they'll have to wait for my money unless they satisfy my personal minimal requirements.


----------



## mac1504

The new CB seems to be up and working right now.

Building a Dark Sun character right now...


----------



## Pbartender

I just reloaded the Character Builder Launch Page, and instead of the splash page, it asked me to update Silverlight.


----------



## Scribble

CB is a go go!

Go link go!


----------



## Prestidigitalis

Mad min-maxing munchkins mobilized!


----------



## Bold or Stupid

It's like waking up and realising it's christmas!


----------



## Prestidigitalis

Oh my goodness...

Is it my imagination or is it set up so that Essentials builds can only take Essentials feats?  Did they just "silo" Essentials from earlier content?

**** FALSE ALARM.  I'm just a moron.


----------



## Scribble

Prestidigitalis said:


> Oh my goodness...
> 
> Is it my imagination or is it set up so that Essentials builds can only take Essentials feats?  Did they just "silo" Essentials from earlier content?




I thik that's only if you choose an essentials only character... If you build one from scratch, you can take whatever you want.


----------



## Prestidigitalis

Scribble said:


> I thik that's only if you choose an essentials only character... If you build one from scratch, you can take whatever you want.




Oh!  Ooops.  Seriously, my eyes are really getting worse.  I didn't see that option at all -- skimmed right over it.


----------



## Ktulu

I know why you're here, gamer. I know what you've been doing... why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer. You're looking for it. I know because I was once looking for the same thing. And when it found me, it told me I wasn't really looking for it. I was looking for an answer. It's the question that drives us. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did. 

When is the Online Character Builder going live? 

The answer is out there and it's looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to.


----------



## malraux

edit: nevermind looks like the program just doesn't show level bonus info in an informative way.


----------



## mac1504

I already had one crash after finishing up building a thri-kreen monk and clicking on the update gold button. After closing out, and then restarting the app, it gave me the option to recover my character! Nice save.


----------



## Prestidigitalis

malraux said:


> In the point buy section, hitting the plus button too fast bugs out the CB.  Stupid web based interfaces.




At least it doesn't crash or anything.  And you can always use the previous tab and just type in the value you want, inside the circles -- those are editable text fields.

Overall, I'm actually not horrified by it.


----------



## Paraxis

This Sucks!  It doesn't load for me I have the most recent update for silverlight the only thing I can think of is my internet connection is 3G wireless (I live where that or dial up is my only choice), do they expect all subscribers to have cable broadband or dsl. I mean I have been streaming tv all morning catching up on shows....hulu uses silverlight too .....what the f !


----------



## Scribble

I don't see inherent bonuses... And I also don't see options for alternative rewards... Hope they get those in there right quick.


----------



## Prestidigitalis

*Streaming comments, updated as I come up with stuff*

I'm going to post comments here and edit to update as I notice more interesting things.

0. -- REALLY IMPORTANT:

The CB had an error when I tried to add Warden MC to a Knight.  A message told me to refresh the browser; I did so, and it DID ask me if I wanted to recover the character.  This worked, and when I continued and tried again to add the Warden MC, it also worked.  So be patient and persistent, even if it seems to have blown up on you.

1. Kobolds -- still have Shifty as a racial trait -- I thought that was going to get taken away for PC kobolds...

2. Backgrounds -- you can search for a specific skill (just remember to deselect "Name Only") to find those backgrounds that can give you training or bonus in it.  Easier than looking at each one individually.  That's assuming you are building "mechanics first"

3. The "Assign Ability Scores" page has no "Next" button at the bottom until you choose your racial bonus -- that's easy to miss.


----------



## Scribble

Prestidigitalis said:


> I'm going to post comments here and edit to update as I notice more interesting things.
> 
> 3. The "Assign Ability Scores" page has no "Next" button at the bottom until you choose your racial bonus -- that's easy to miss.




Nah- once you actually choose your scores it appears... All magic like!


----------



## mysticknight232

What do the character pages look like?  In the video, they looked poorly arranged onto 3 pages with a lot of useless white space.  Are they how they looked in the video or are they the traditional CS's we've known and love from 4e?  

Also, what about the power cards?  Those looked different as well, sort of cartoony.  How does those stack up to their originals?


----------



## Moon_Goddess

So far I've started making a character and it crashed, had to start all over, and it had to load and load again  - 1

But at least it let me recover where I left off +1 there


----------



## Ktulu

Nice - It sort of hung up on me so I closed it (likely getting a lot of use right now).  When I re-opened it asked me if I wanted to continue where I left off with the charater I was building.  Better than the offline one ever did for me.


----------



## Burchard

It didn't add a feat bonus to my attacks with a Dwarven Knight. I really hope they fix this and calculate the rolls properly. Otherwise I'm going back to pencil and paper.


----------



## Renshai

So far this software is very, very buggy. I get errors about every other click and have to refresh. The Essentials character sheet doesn't check trained skills. If you make a copy of a character, you can't save that character as normal after deleting the old one. Also, no Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms data yet. So far, very disappointed.


----------



## Ktulu

Problems so far:

Has troubles saving the name when first entering it.
No ability to add all weapons to a power card.
Two-weapon attacks do not display two weapons, only the primary weapon.
No customization of power-cards or character sheet (was aware this wouldn't be at launch)


----------



## Renshai

Spent some time entering my wife's character, saved it.. now it won't load. It errors out every single time.


----------



## malraux

This is crazy slow.  And I say this after running the old CB inside VirtualBox on an older mac without gobs of ram.  Yeah I'm sure some of it is lots of hits from people trying it out, but it seems like every single click requires waiting on the server to send back data.


----------



## renau1g

Super slow, but so far...I'm at least intrigued.


----------



## Abraxas

Scribble said:


> Nah- once you actually choose your scores it appears... All magic like!



It doesn't appear to show up at all if all you do is enter scores for a character - as opposed to choosing one of the 3 methods shown.

5 errors and restarts so far - and it seems to be running very slow - hopefully that will change when everything calms down a bit.

6 errors now


----------



## malraux

Two finger scrolling on the mac doesn't work.


----------



## renau1g

Import seems borked. Keeps hanging up every time I try to import my PC.


----------



## Dumnbunny

drothgery said:


> Going from a WPF/.NET client app to an ASP.NET/AJAX app is pretty much a complete rewrite that happens to use the same programming language and some of the same libraries for the server-side code (but if you want to do anything client side, you need to find libraries or write Javascript).



Nope. All the business logic, which in an app like a character builder is going to be a large amount of code, could be easily reused. If it was written properly in the first place, it could be reused as is. They'd have to rewrite the interface, to be sure, but looking at the on-line builder this morning, well, they rewrote it anyways.


----------



## Dumnbunny

evilref said:


> So what should they have used? Flash...doesn't work on the ipad. Java...doesn't work on the ipad. HTML5...not there yet (and certainly wasn't when they began developing the new tool). There is/was no ideal solution for them here.



Rather than copy and paste an earlier post, I'll just link to it. And I do this without snark; it's easy to miss a few posts in a thread this large.


----------



## mudbunny

From WotC_Trevor:



> Hey all. We have discovered an issue with the servers that is causing some people to crash out or hang up in the CB when filling out their characters. We're working to pinpoint the exact issue and fix it, and as soon as I have any new information I'll let you know.


----------



## Scribble

Abraxas said:


> It doesn't appear to show up at all if all you do is enter scores for a character - as opposed to choosing one of the 3 methods shown.




Does for me...

One thing I did notice is that if you make a character higher then level 4, it won't show until you enter your scores and select which stats to give the level bonuses to. 

Maybe that's it?



> 6 errors now




Haven't had a single error yet... On Chrome. Haven't tried to save anything yet though so maybe that will do it.


----------



## Burchard

So is this like the New Coke and soon we'll be bitching for Classic Coke? I sorta get that impression...


----------



## mysticknight232

Here are the things I'm dissapointed in so far.

1. Customizability of the power cards/character sheet. I dislike the way the new character sheet looks in general (extreme dislike). There's a ton of wasted space. Why go from 2 clean pages to 3 pages with a lot of wasted space? And they even removed stuff from the CS!! For example, it no longer shows you the calculations for your defenses and attacks. If the CB math is wrong (as people have indicated that is currently doesn't take into account expertise feats), then many people will have problems figuring this out.

2. The size of the CB in the window. The previous one was full screen. This one is about 3/4 of the screen which makes it feel small and pinched. In most cases, this isn't a huge deal, however when selecting feats it feels like it's just a laundry list of feats with no rhyme or reason to them.

3. Speaking of feats, they no longer give you a short description of the feat next to the name. Now, you have to select a feat and read the full description if you're not familiar with what the feat does. And lets face it, there are a TON of feats these days. Also, see previous comment about the size of the screen with so many feats to browse through. 

4. When selcting a MC feat, it then gives you the option to select a skill training. I selected MC Ardent for a character I was building and it only gave me 5 skill choices. I specifically choose ardent because I wanted the MC feat and the diplomacy skill granted by the ardent class. Only, it wasn't an option. I was able to type in "diplomacy" and it popped up for me, but I think this is a huge issue for newer players if they are not familiar with the class skills of each class. I knew what I was looking for in this instance, but many players could miss out on skill training if all the choices don't show up.

5. We are not unable to use the mouse wheel to scroll through selction menus. This is a huge pain. See previous comments regarding feats. There is a huge selection of feats to choose from and not being able to use the scroll wheel on the mouse makes it tedious to scroll through them all. 

6. Inherent bonuses are missing.  My group has postponed our new DS campaign until the CB came out with intent of using DS builds and races along with inherent bonuses.  This is a big dissapointment when they take away functionality from the previous version.  

I'll update this if I think of anything else. I realize some of this is aesthetics and I'll just need to get used to it. But why remove functionality for this when it was clearly useful in the original verison. WotC should have launched a Beta version for a month while we got acclimated to it.


----------



## Prestidigitalis

mysticknight232 said:


> I'll update this if I think of anything else. I realize some of this is aesthetics and I'll just need to get used to it. But why remove functionality for this when it was clearly useful in the original verison. WotC should have launched a Beta version for a month while we got acclimated to it.




Those are fair complaints.  It's called usability, and they have some big gaps in that regard.

In fairness though, this is a pretty damn big "product".  I can guarantee you they know it isn't complete.  Think of it as a Beta and it makes more sense.


----------



## cpendlet

Is there some way to create an essential character but still be able to select from the full list of magic items and feats (want to use a Waraxe and have full selection of magic items)?

If I make a "normal" craracter, I can't pick the Warpriest and when I pick the essenial charatcer, my options get severly limited forfeats/magic items.


----------



## renau1g

Pick a Custom character. You should be able to select Warpriest. Iwas able to select Mage.


----------



## cpendlet

cpendlet said:


> Is there some way to create an essential character but still be able to select from the full list of magic items and feats (want to use a Waraxe and have full selection of magic items)?
> 
> If I make a "normal" character, I can't pick the Warpriest and when I pick the essential character, my options get severely limited for feats/magic items.




Figured it out. Make a normal character and then scroll down when picking the class (warpriest is listed separately from the cleric)


----------



## Abraxas

Scribble said:


> Does for me...
> 
> One thing I did notice is that if you make a character higher then level 4, it won't show until you enter your scores and select which stats to give the level bonuses to.
> 
> Maybe that's it?



It was a first level character - the one I'm currently playing.





Scribble said:


> Haven't had a single error yet... On Chrome. Haven't tried to save anything yet though so maybe that will do it.



I'm using Firefox. So far the errors have been when making a power swap after leveling (once), leveling up the character (twice), Adding level bonuses to stats (once), Unselecting a power to swap (once) and something in equipment selection that I don't remember exactly (once).

And it seemed to get progressively slower after each error - but that is subjective as I didn't time each restore.


----------



## mysticknight232

cpendlet said:


> Figured it out. Make a normal character and then scroll down when picking the class (warpriest is listed separately from the cleric)




That's dissapointing to me that Warpriest and Cleric are different classes. I would have liked Warpriest to be a build of Cleric. Oh well, good to know in either case.

Edit: That goes for all the other essentials builds like the Knight, Slayer, Mage, Sentinal etc.


----------



## Hussar

Bagpuss said:


> You know I distinctly remember paying some money, let me check my credit card statement.... yes, yes I definitely paid some money over. It was never a freebie.
> 
> Pirates now they might have got a freebie, but that's a different issue.




Hrm, you actually paid full amount of the entire content of the CB?  You own every book that's in there?

If not, then you got freebies.  Not that you stole anything.  Certainly not.  You weren't breaking any rules and the system gave you those freebies.

Now they don't.



renau1g said:


> Did I say they are evil? Man calm down. I also didn't get a freebie. They offered a service I paid $60-70 or something like that for it (yeah you're also wrong with how I purchase, thanks though).
> 
> My comment was WotC created a product that supplanted their books, not supplemented them. There was no presumption, they also never came out and said "hey you must go buy the books *and* pay for this tool". Was there ever a single line from them saying the opposite? No. I also never said they owe me anything. So again, chill. Stop putting words in my mouth.
> 
> Maybe if you hadn't had your uber-defense shield up you'd read my post and maybe think about it before firing back all cylinders with the same rhetoric posted a ton of other places.
> 
> I said they designed it that way. If the company could not foresee the possibility that offering their rules with the tool *without* requiring any purchase of the books would potentially have an adverse affect on sales of physical copies...well ... someone screwed up. Again, if they only wanted you to access the books you bought there'd have been an activation code or some other way of getting the data into your CB. There was not.




This is hardly me being ultra defensive.  I'm simply pointing out that you got content at a significant discount (you claim to have spent 60-70 dollars for several hundred dollars worth of content) and now you don't.

Maybe they did screw up.  That's entirely possible.  Does that mean that they can't fix the problem?  That they just have to forever eat the mistake, even if it drives them out of business?  I certainly don't think so.

Sure, it was great to get a 80-90% discount on material.  Heck, we all like discounts.  But, you don't get that anymore.  They don't owe you that discount.  There was no promise that they would continue providing this material at such a huge discount.  They changed their model.  

Why get annoyed about it?


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Burchard said:


> So is this like the New Coke and soon we'll be bitching for Classic Coke? I sorta get that impression...



I don't think there's a going back to the old builder (at least not by WotC), no matter how much bitching happens. 

It might just be that they need to fix some bugs and performance issues. And add more features.

Or it might be that their entire UI design sucks. I don't like the modal dialogues for selecting feats and powers. It feels constraining. Maybe some like this type of behavior. I don't, the previous builder allowed a far more "fluent" interaction, where you could switch to the next tab or options you wanted to select at any time.


----------



## Bagpuss

Hussar said:


> Hrm, you actually paid full amount of the entire content of the CB?




Yes on the yearly plan.



> You own every book that's in there?




No. But that wasn't what I was paying for.



> If not, then you got freebies.  Not that you stole anything.  Certainly not.  You weren't breaking any rules and the system gave you those freebies.




No paying for updates with a yearly subscription was what I was doing, and I got those updates.



> Now they don't.




I still don't need to buy the books to get the updates so I fail to see what has changed. The only change is I don't have the access if I stop paying. Still effectively paying the same for a yearly sub.


----------



## Canor Morum

I'll be sticking with the old CB for now.  It does everything I need it to do.  Ironically, this recent development deters me from purchasing any Dark Sun or Essentials material.  

Get it together, Wizards.


----------



## Holy Bovine

Hussar said:


> Why get annoyed about it?




Because what they are now offering is a tenth as useful as what we had before and costs the same amount of money.

It's OK to admit WotC screwed up badly with this buggy, slow POS online CB - we won't tell them.

Luckily a fellow ENWorlder has found a program that will allow me to add custom content to the old builder.  Woot.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Holy Bovine said:


> Because what they are now offering is a tenth as useful as what we had before and costs the same amount of money.
> 
> It's OK to admit WotC screwed up badly with this buggy, slow POS online CB - we won't tell them.



But they can read it right here on the forums! I don't think he'll fall for that.



> Luckily a fellow ENWorlder has found a program that will allow me to add custom content to the old builder.  Woot.



Best thing to come out of this yet. Well, I hope so. I haven't actually tried it yet.


----------



## Hussar

Holy Bovine said:


> Because what they are now offering is a tenth as useful as what we had before and costs the same amount of money.
> 
> It's OK to admit WotC screwed up badly with this buggy, slow POS online CB - we won't tell them.
> 
> Luckily a fellow ENWorlder has found a program that will allow me to add custom content to the old builder.  Woot.




Now this?  This is totally fair.  100% behind you on this one.  Criticizing something AFTER you've had a chance to evaluate it?  100% golden.  And, boo WOTC for screwing this up so frigging badly.  It's one thing to see the usual suspects bitching about something WOTC has done, but, wowsers, pretty much everyone has given this the big old thumbs down.

That sucks.


----------



## The Halfling

Holy Bovine said:


> Luckily a fellow ENWorlder has found a program that will allow me to add custom content to the old builder.  Woot.




I searched this discussion, and I can't find any reference to this. Can someone report the link or name of the app?

Much appreciated.


----------



## Piratecat

Canor Morum said:


> Ironically, this recent development deters me from purchasing any Dark Sun or Essentials material.



I'm in the same place. I'm not buying the material (and I want to!) until I have a character creation tool I can trust that works with them.


----------



## Ahrimon

Holy Bovine said:


> Because what they are now offering is a tenth as useful as what we had before and costs the same amount of money.
> 
> It's OK to admit WotC screwed up badly with this buggy, slow POS online CB - we won't tell them.
> 
> Luckily a fellow ENWorlder has found a program that will allow me to add custom content to the old builder.  Woot.




Do share please.


----------



## CAFRedblade

Ahrimon said:


> Do share please.



I think this is the link he refers to, posted in the Online CB is Live thread.
cbloader - Project Hosting on Google Code


----------



## Nytmare

On the way home from work, what was really bugging me about the change solidified in my mind.  

The character builder and adventure tools, as they were, became  (quite literally) an invaluable tool in my DMing routine.  The books were there simply for their fluff, and I learned to completely rely on the software to track all of the crunchy bits.

Now,  with things changing from a purchase that I owned to a service that I do not want to rent, I'm left in the lurch because there's an daunting and immense heap of technical information that I never bothered to learn and that's going to keep coming out at a fairly quick pace.

Yeah, I can go back and start reading the books for the crunchy bits and making characters the old fashioned way, but the more ... _satisfying_ isn't the right word, but it's the closest my brain can currently supply, answer is probably to just stick with what we've got till we get bored with it, or something better comes along.


----------



## darjr

Nytmare said:


> On the way home from work, what was really bugging me about the change solidified in my mind.
> 
> The character builder and adventure tools, as they were, became  (quite literally) an invaluable tool in my DMing routine.  The books were there simply for their fluff, and I learned to completely rely on the software to track all of the crunchy bits.
> 
> Now,  with things changing from a purchase that I owned to a service that I do not want to rent, I'm left in the lurch because there's an daunting and immense heap of technical information that I never bothered to learn and that's going to keep coming out at a fairly quick pace.
> 
> Yeah, I can go back and start reading the books for the crunchy bits and making characters the old fashioned way, but the more ... _satisfying_ isn't the right word, but it's the closest my brain can currently supply, answer is probably to just stick with what we've got till we get bored with it, or something better comes along.




Great way to put it. I'd add that I still like 3.5 and am also playing Pathfinder. So I just called it quits on 4e and am going Pathfinder for most of my D&D. I actually feel really good about supporting Paizo.


----------



## Darkthorne

Hitting the F5 key FAR too often cause this "new & improved, FASTER program" freezes far too often. What's with the microtext anyways? I can read some serously small handwriting, but that is rediculous. Would be better if it had some zoom effect. I've imported 1 character with some problems. I tried creating different characters but got literally lost of my original design idea of where I was going due to the lag time for it to finishing "processing" which is the new word for this program is freezing again. I DO have a partial build done, but silly me tried doing it level by level.... again too damn long, never finished it.
Ok next day, figure it would be better and it still is choking. What does Wizards consider to be BETA testing seriously? How does their definition of what BETA testing differ THAT much from what their customers expect? What benchmarks did they use/put in place to determine each aspect of of the new builder was up to snuff? What restricted parameters did they expect their paying customers run their games? I mean who's the one that thought "Yeah, this is only a tool to print out a character sheet, and no there's no chance anyone may level up midway through a game" Wait, there's more, whoever uses our program will always have internet and a way to connect whenever and whereever they may be playing. Ok, yup I can print the next level up version IF I think I am close, but why the heck do I want to waste that much ink? And if I die, I'm basically screwed for the remainder of session and might as well go home if I am not playing a low level guy. 4E is so updated w/ eratta and the amount of cross referencing between the splat books is too extensive to do in a timely fashion, that is what the character builder is to do to make faster, this does not accomplish that in layout design or functionality. There are more issues than just this, but I haven't the time, nor desire to point out the obvious flaws WOTC "tested" for. I was a yearly subscriber, but just shut off my auto-renew, because WOTC can't straightforward/realistic on what they can deliver. Ideally WOTC should give a timeline (not one this specific date) when they believe (I'm being generous here) certain problems will be fixed. They should also give a timeline when adjustments/improvements will be made (as in what order of priority). Going forward they seriously need to raise the bar for their BETA testing, not just inhouse testing tapped directly into their servers. Hold back products that simply aren't ready and be wait for it......HONEST to your customers. Don't make statements "inferring" you are doing an update to an existing tool when you have no plans to do so. I would much rather wait for something useful (I'm not saying awesome or outstanding) as opposed to receiving something that is still listed on their website as "Create and edit 4th Edition characters with ease" when all my adjectives for this program is less than positive. As a customer I would much rather you be honest with me, then blowing smoke and hype about how awesome something is and on release you deliver the opposite.  I get and understand speedbumps. 
This is not a speedbump, it's a sinkhole


----------



## Obryn

Holy Bovine said:


> Because what they are now offering is a tenth as useful as what we had before and costs the same amount of money.
> 
> It's OK to admit WotC screwed up badly with this buggy, slow POS online CB - we won't tell them.
> 
> Luckily a fellow ENWorlder has found a program that will allow me to add custom content to the old builder.  Woot.



For what it's worth, I agree 100%.  Also for what it's worth, I decided to give them three more months.  I like the insurance, honestly, that the campaign's characters will be saved no matter what happens to the physical sheets, and I simply can't use the old builder for the process.

So I'm still mad, still hate the new CB (especially that ridiculous marketplace), but will give them three more months.

-O


----------



## the Jester

I just tried out the new CB for the first time- gack! Not worth the effort.

I'm very disappointed. My (annual) sub goes through like March I think; when it comes time to renew, I'll have to see how much it has improved. My yardstick for 'worth it to renew' is currently:


A character builder as good as the old one
A Monster Builder as good as the old one

In other words, if I am paying for _less than before_ I probably won't bother to renew my DDI sub. Which makes me sad- I had high hopes for the digital initiative, and I still do, but I now have low _expectations._

It is possible that greatly improved Dungeon and Dragon content could fill the gap for me, but it has been depressing watching the digital mags dwindle over the last few months- I don't feel like I've seen a proper adventure in a while.


----------



## tentfox

Is anyone else finding the program completely unable to load characters at the moment? This is exactly what I feared, being at the mercy of their servers.


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## Caerin

tentfox said:


> Is anyone else finding the program completely unable to load characters at the moment? This is exactly what I feared, being at the mercy of their servers.




Yeah, it hasn't been working for many people the last few hours. Mudbunny said they are working on it.


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## Grabuto138

Nytmare said:


> On the way home from work, what was really bugging me about the change solidified in my mind.
> 
> The character builder and adventure tools, as they were, became (quite literally) an invaluable tool in my DMing routine. The books were there simply for their fluff, and I learned to completely rely on the software to track all of the crunchy bits.
> 
> Now, with things changing from a purchase that I owned to a service that I do not want to rent, I'm left in the lurch because there's an daunting and immense heap of technical information that I never bothered to learn and that's going to keep coming out at a fairly quick pace.
> 
> Yeah, I can go back and start reading the books for the crunchy bits and making characters the old fashioned way, but the more ... _satisfying_ isn't the right word, but it's the closest my brain can currently supply, answer is probably to just stick with what we've got till we get bored with it, or something better comes along.




Pretty much my sentiment. 

I use the Compendium as much as the CB since I DM so I will keep my subscription so I don't have to buy the books. But in its current form the CB is not useful for me. At a minimum I need to add a bonus feat and I would really like to see the math. I made some characters the hard way for essentials so it is doable but it sucks to loose such a cool feature.

In the long term I really like like to see some sort of social networking function.


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## tentfox

Caerin said:


> Yeah, it hasn't been working for many people the last few hours. Mudbunny said they are working on it.




I loaded it in IE (normally use Chrome) and it worked.


----------



## delericho

Nytmare said:


> The character builder and adventure tools, as they were, became  (quite literally) an invaluable tool in my DMing routine.  The books were there simply for their fluff, and I learned to completely rely on the software to track all of the crunchy bits.
> 
> Yeah, I can go back and start reading the books for the crunchy bits and making characters the old fashioned way, but the more ... _satisfying_ isn't the right word, but it's the closest my brain can currently supply, answer is probably to just stick with what we've got till we get bored with it, or something better comes along.




I'm in a similar position - I won't play 4e without the Character Builder (it represents the difference between "too complex" and "not too complex"). Especially since my DM uses all the options and all the latest updates, which means I _cannot_ buy and use the books, as the version of the game we use isn't actually in print.

The long-term answer is to simply move to another system that _doesn't_ have the mass of technical data to assimilate. In my case, that means 3e (it's no less complex, but 8 years of play helps a lot), but other options include Pathfinder, the new WFRP, or (perhaps better) an out-of-print game like AD&D, WFRP 2nd Edition, or the like.

I'm reminded by something that Monte Cook commented on once - he suggested that the best thing _for the game_ might be to have a few, big, rigorously-tested books released infrequently, but that the best thing _for a business_ would be a regular stream of releases (that necessarily would be many, smaller, and less well tested, if only due to pressures of time). WotC have adopted the latter model wholeheartedly, then fixed the "less well tested" problem with online updates, making us dependent on their electronic tools. Problem being that if something goes wrong with their tools, all that's left is a mess.



the Jester said:


> I just tried out the new CB for the first time- gack! Not worth the effort.
> 
> I'm very disappointed. My (annual) sub goes through like March I think; when it comes time to renew, I'll have to see how much it has improved.




If the current offering is not good enough, I would strongly advise contacting Customer Support and asking for a refund of the remaining months of your subscription. The worst they can happen is that they say "no".

If and when they sort this mess out, and improve the service back to a level you are willing to pay for, you can resubscribe. So there's no reason _not_ to ask for a refund.

Bear in mind that WotC are a _business_. They won't show you any loyalty whatsoever - the moment it makes sense to "fire you as a customer", they won't hesitate to do so (and nor should they). So, you shouldn't show them any excessive loyalty either - if they produce something you're willing to pay for, then good. If not, you should cut your ties and not think twice about it.


----------



## Grabuto138

delericho said:


> I'm in a similar position - I won't play 4e without the Character Builder (it represents the difference between "too complex" and "not too complex"). Especially since my DM uses all the options and all the latest updates, which means I _cannot_ buy and use the books, as the version of the game we use isn't actually in print.
> 
> The long-term answer is to simply move to another system that _doesn't_ have the mass of technical data to assimilate. In my case, that means 3e (it's no less complex, but 8 years of play helps a lot), but other options include Pathfinder, the new WFRP, or (perhaps better) an out-of-print game like AD&D, WFRP 2nd Edition, or the like.
> 
> I'm reminded by something that Monte Cook commented on once - he suggested that the best thing _for the game_ might be to have a few, big, rigorously-tested books released infrequently, but that the best thing _for a business_ would be a regular stream of releases (that necessarily would be many, smaller, and less well tested, if only due to pressures of time). WotC have adopted the latter model wholeheartedly, then fixed the "less well tested" problem with online updates, making us dependent on their electronic tools. Problem being that if something goes wrong with their tools, all that's left is a mess.
> 
> 
> 
> If the current offering is not good enough, I would strongly advise contacting Customer Support and asking for a refund of the remaining months of your subscription. The worst they can happen is that they say "no".
> 
> If and when they sort this mess out, and improve the service back to a level you are willing to pay for, you can resubscribe. So there's no reason _not_ to ask for a refund.
> 
> Bear in mind that WotC are a _business_. They won't show you any loyalty whatsoever - the moment it makes sense to "fire you as a customer", they won't hesitate to do so (and nor should they). So, you shouldn't show them any excessive loyalty either - if they produce something you're willing to pay for, then good. If not, you should cut your ties and not think twice about it.




Your DM uses all the options. I assume by this you mean that your DM allows the players to use all the options. As far as I can tell (though I am far from an expert) most of the best builds are still a part of the original CB. Any non-essentials and non-Dark Sun build are still an option for you. Check the CharOpt board and make a kick-ass Ranger or something.

Come to think of it, since if you are subscriber you still have access to the Compendium. I made a Thief old-school style a few weeks ago using the Compendium. 

I am curious, since you are a player and not a DM and you have decided to move to another system (that other system that has easy math or a character builder, I assume) have you already convinced your group to move these systems? Have they checked out Pathfinder's CB software?

Far be it from me to question Monte Cook's judgement. The orignal DMG and PH served me well for many years since I ignored most of the wonky rules and made up alot of  as I went along. But for me, and I speak only for me, the greatest thing for 1e was 2e. The greatest thing for 2e was 3e. Etc.

Edit: If I remember correctly, and since I drink and have a terrible memory that is a big "if," a big gripe in the 3.x series of D&D was the fact that there were so many fiddly modifiers to attack and damage. Doing the math by hand is actually much easier in 4e since there are fewer way to add to the attack and damage bonuses. I know there are plenty of legitimate reasone why a person would prefer to stick with Pathfinder or 3.x. But "the math is too hard to do manually" is not a reason I am immediately willing to buy.


----------



## delericho

Grabuto138 said:


> Your DM uses all the options. I assume by this you mean that your DM allows the players to use all the options.




Correct.



> As far as I can tell (though I am far from an expert) most of the best builds are still a part of the original CB. Any non-essentials and non-Dark Sun build are still an option for you. Check the CharOpt board and make a kick-ass Ranger or something.




Not the point. At the moment, the old Character Builder fills that gap, for those people lucky enough to have access to it. But the game will move forward, with new books and (especially) revisions to the existing books. The old Character Builder will therefore become increasingly obselete.



> Come to think of it, since if you are subscriber you still have access to the Compendium. I made a Thief old-school style a few weeks ago using the Compendium.




I won't be creating 4e characters manually. Period. As I said, the Character Builder was the difference between "too complex" and "not too complex".



> I am curious, since you are a player and not a DM and you have decided to move to another system (that other system that has easy math or a character builder, I assume) have you already convinced your group to move these systems? Have they checked out Pathfinder's CB software?




I'm working on the former. If we switch, it will be to a less complex system, and so not one needing a Character Builder. It won't be Pathfinder.

I'm not interested in Edition Wars, so I'm not going to comment on the "Pathfinder CB software".



> Edit: If I remember correctly, and since I drink and have a terrible memory that is a big "if," a big gripe in the 3.x series of D&D was the fact that there were so many fiddly modifiers to attack and damage.




You're correct that the math in 4e is less complex than in 3e (although it makes up for it with the micromanagement of powers and conditions). However, what mitigates the complexity of 3e is the system mastery I developed over 8 years of play. I've reached a point in my life where I'm just not interested in developing that mastery for 4e (or Pathfinder, for that matter). If I came to 3e 'cold', I wouldn't be interested in it either - it is only that system mastery that makes the difference.

With 4e, it was the Character Builder that makes the difference. Once that advantage is gone, so too is my willingness to play 4e.


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## darjr

Ask CS for a refund. I asked and received one back to September when I cancelled my sub.


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## Herschel

I was on it last night and it worked fine, importing characters and all.


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## webrunner

Grabuto138 said:


> Your DM uses all the options. I assume by this you mean that your DM allows the players to use all the options. As far as I can tell (though I am far from an expert) most of the best builds are still a part of the original CB. Any non-essentials and non-Dark Sun build are still an option for you. Check the CharOpt board and make a kick-ass Ranger or something.





There is at least one thing in essentials virtually every player is excited about that isn't in the old cb: the new expertise feat rider bonuses.

There's no reason to take Implement Expertise: Staff when you can take Staff Expertise and get Weapon Expertise: Staff for free, plus a melee range bonus, plus immunity to opportunity attacks when casting spells.


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## WayneLigon

*WOTC*: ...And we're sure everyone will love the new 5E!

*ENWorld Faction*: Don't worry, everyone, it's not like WOTC chained all your old books and characters up and dumped 'em down a hole so you can't get to them anymore. You can still play the game you're used to!

*Everyone Else*: Ummmm...


----------



## zoroaster100

Speaking of the new Essential expertise feats versus the old expertise feats, I can't figure out why they are both co-existing in the new online CB.  I wish they had done some clean up on the feats, and hope they do so soon.  It's quite silly, and even a possible trap for new players, to have a CB which has a group of feats called expertise feats with Implement Expertise (Staff) and another feat in a different section of feats called Staff Expertise which does everything the other feat does plus more.


----------



## rjdafoe

DEFCON 1 said:


> Oh, yes. The calm and reserved reaction we saw from everyone when they announced Dark Sun and Essentials weren't going to be in September's CB update was a wonderful thing to see.




And the funny thing is - it was all so it could go in the Online CB.  There was no excuse for not updating the "Classic" CB with what was supposed to be there.


----------



## JoeGKushner

DEFCON 1 said:


> Oh, yes.  The calm and reserved reaction we saw from everyone when they announced Dark Sun and Essentials weren't going to be in September's CB update was a wonderful thing to see.




Almost as wonderful as seeing all of those perfectly paitent and saintly people defending WoTC by claiming that WoTC was never legally responsible to do so and all this talk of WoTC eating babies was getting out of hand.


----------



## JoeGKushner

malraux said:


> Two finger scrolling on the mac doesn't work.




You must be mistaken. After all, "Ultimate Portability!"


----------



## Hussar

JoeGKushner said:


> Almost as wonderful as seeing all of those perfectly paitent and saintly people defending WoTC by claiming that WoTC was never legally responsible to do so and all this talk of WoTC eating babies was getting out of hand.




"Legally responsible"?  How so?

Sure, it would be great for them to update the offline CB, but, how are they legally responsible for doing so?


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## Piratecat

Hussar said:


> "Legally responsible"?  How so?
> 
> Sure, it would be great for them to update the offline CB, but, how are they legally responsible for doing so?



He won't be able to answer you. He's been suspended for his continuing rudeness in this and other threads.

Please treat other members with respect, folks, even when you don't agree with them.


----------



## Nytmare

Hussar said:


> Sure, it would be great for them to update the offline CB, but, how are they legally responsible for doing so?




Granted, the extent of my law knowledge is limited to what I've gleaned from "Law and Order", and I was away from the game when any of this might have happened, but if WOTC said something along the lines of "Essentials and Dark Sun will be in the character builder eventually, just give us time to put it in." and then waited a couple months to say "Surprise!  We didn't tell you WHICH Character Builder we were going to put it in! Haha!" isn't that at least akin to fraud?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> Sure, it would be great for them to update the offline CB, but, how are they legally responsible for doing so?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Granted, the extent of my law knowledge is limited to what I've gleaned from "Law and Order", and I was away from the game when any of this might have happened, but if WOTC said something along the lines of "Essentials and Dark Sun will be in the character builder eventually, just give us time to put it in." and then waited a couple months to say "Surprise! We didn't tell you WHICH Character Builder we were going to put it in! Haha!" isn't that at least akin to fraud?
Click to expand...



An argument could be made for that, given that they_ did_ receive money from persons for the period between that announcement regarding the CB1 and the release of the CB2.  After all, at least SOME of those people renewed their subscriptions with that promise in mind.

However, a simple refund is probably all they're likely to get.


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## renau1g

They have given refunds for those people who've asked from what I've read so if people were taken in by that, they can get their money back.


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## Hussar

Just a note here about the whole "WOTC Defender" schtick.  

I've seen a number of comments to the effect that people are defending WOTC no matter what.  And, sure, that might be happening, although, given that I've now seen Pirate Cat AND MerricB blast WOTC for the online CB, I really don't think that's terribly true.

However, even in this thread, we've seen detractors making all sorts of really unsubstantiate claims - WOTC is going to use the online CB to steal your IP, WOTC is going to charge extra for this, WOTC is going to hold your character hostage, now WOTC is legally bound to provide an update to the offline CB - that it becomes very hard not to defend WOTC.

I couldn't really care less about WOTC or the DDI.  I'm not a subscriber, nor am I likely to become one in the foreseeable future.  But, it does bother me, although I'm not sure why, when I see claim after claim saying how awful WOTC is for things that, in my most charitable view, are mistaken criticisms.  

It's not about defending WOTC, it's about trying to find a bit of balance in the criticisms and providing a bit of counter-argument against what I truly feel are very mistaken criticisms.

Now, if you want to blast WOTC for shoveling a crappy product out the door in the online CB?  Go for it.  They completely deserve that from where I'm standing.


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## renau1g

Well they are goign to steal my IP...it's so good Salvatore is going to rip it off for his next novel.


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## Umbran

Hussar said:


> It's not about defending WOTC, it's about trying to find a bit of balance in the criticisms and providing a bit of counter-argument against what I truly feel are very mistaken criticisms.
> 
> Now, if you want to blast WOTC for shoveling a crappy product out the door in the online CB?  Go for it.  They completely deserve that from where I'm standing.




Huzzah for Hussar!


----------



## Holy Bovine

I'm not sure if this thread is really useful anymore for asking these kinds of questions - discussion of the online CB itself seems to be drown in the 'noise' of what is/isn't legal but here goes -

How do you delete items from your inventory?  I don't want to sell them or anything I just want to take the potions my paladin character (online CB imported it just fine!) has used out of his current inventory.  I'm hoping this is just something I have missed in the 10 minutes I have spent trying to do it!  help a bovine out!


----------



## evilref

Holy Bovine said:


> I'm not sure if this thread is really useful anymore for asking these kinds of questions - discussion of the online CB itself seems to be drown in the 'noise' of what is/isn't legal but here goes -
> 
> How do you delete items from your inventory?  I don't want to sell them or anything I just want to take the potions my paladin character (online CB imported it just fine!) has used out of his current inventory.  I'm hoping this is just something I have missed in the 10 minutes I have spent trying to do it!  help a bovine out!




Marketplace, there's a delete option as well as selling.


----------



## Holy Bovine

evilref said:


> Marketplace, there's a delete option as well as selling.




Thanks!  I didn't see (somehow!) that giant green 'Remove' button.


----------



## Pbartender

Holy Bovine said:


> I'm not sure if this thread is really useful anymore for asking these kinds of questions - discussion of the online CB itself seems to be drown in the 'noise' of what is/isn't legal but here goes -
> 
> How do you delete items from your inventory?  I don't want to sell them or anything I just want to take the potions my paladin character (online CB imported it just fine!) has used out of his current inventory.  I'm hoping this is just something I have missed in the 10 minutes I have spent trying to do it!  help a bovine out!




Also note that you can type in a negative number for the quantity when buying or adding items, which will subtract that amount from your inventory.


----------



## renau1g

ANyone know if you can equip dragonshards to items? I try to equip it, but to no avail...


----------



## Pbartender

renau1g said:


> ANyone know if you can equip dragonshards to items? I try to equip it, but to no avail...




The last time I checked, it wasn't working for me, either.


----------



## Bagpuss

evilref said:


> Marketplace, there's a delete option as well as selling.




To be clear it's Remove, under the Selling tab, in the marketplace.

Took me a while to find because I didn't want to sell the item, just remove it. So didn't look in the selling area at first.


----------



## Melissa

Hey remember when wizard talked about how CB and stuff would be free and the only thing that you had to play for was the articles and the online maps and play?  Yeah that was why I never bothered with the DDI.


----------



## tuxgeo

Melissa said:


> Hey remember when wizard talked about how CB and stuff would be free and the only thing that you had to play for was the articles and the online maps and play?  Yeah that was why I never bothered with the DDI.




I don't actually remember that, but never mind that now -- 

*Welcome to ENWorld!*


----------



## Maggan

Melissa said:


> Hey remember when wizard talked about how CB and stuff would be free and the only thing that you had to play for was the articles and the online maps and play?




Can't say I do, actually. Maybe a link to refresh my memory?

Cheers!

/M


----------



## gjnave

This will probably mark the rise of the 3rd party CB


----------



## gjnave

Retreater said:


> So now we have the following issues:
> ...
> 3) Forcing you to play with a ready Internet connection




Living in Africa (and paying $.08 USD a mb), online anything is fail for me. The 3rd world is alienated once again.


----------



## BiggusGeekus

gjnave said:


> Living in Africa (and paying $.08 USD a mb), online anything is fail for me. The 3rd world is alienated once again.




It's not a fun deal for the troops either.


----------



## Scribble

On the flip side- now that it's online when I go on business trips I can use the CB since I don't have to install anything on a computer I'm not allowed to install stuff on! 

Everything has positives and negatives.


----------



## Fusiox

Keefe the Thief said:


> ENworld invents the best phrases, i swear. I liked "WotC raped my childhood" when Dungeon and Dragon went digital, but "hold my characters hostage?" Brilliant!
> 
> Wait, i'll try it out: "Steam holds my savegames and achievements hostage."
> 
> I love it.




Ahh, but you see, one does not have to pay a monthly fee for the Steam service. It's like holding something ransom, but not requesting any real ransom fee.

This new DDI system, however, is terrorism... (Subtle pun, eh?)


----------



## Rel

Fusiox said:


> This new DDI system, however, is terrorism... (Subtle pun, eh?)




Really? 

Really?

Should I just permaban you now?


----------



## Keefe the Thief

Fusiox said:


> Ahh, but you see, one does not have to pay a monthly fee for the Steam service. It's like holding something ransom, but not requesting any real ransom fee.
> 
> This new DDI system, however, is terrorism... (Subtle pun, eh?)




You would have to pay a monthly fee, if it wasn't primarily a shop. Or if Valve were more greedy. Like, lets say, Xbox live. Otherwise, how do you pay for server costs?

Oh, and thanks for devaluing the word terrorism even more. I look forward to hear people at the grocery store talk about terrorism when apples are too expensive.


----------



## OpsKT

Keefe the Thief said:


> You would have to pay a monthly fee, if it wasn't primarily a shop. Or if Valve were more greedy. Like, lets say, Xbox live. Otherwise, how do you pay for server costs?
> 
> Oh, and thanks for devaluing the word terrorism even more. I look forward to hear people at the grocery store talk about terrorism when apples are too expensive.




They don't already? What magical place do you live, where people don't feel entitled and think they live in a vacuum?


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## Fusiox

Oops. I think I used the wrong word. Sorry if I offended anyone  I idn't mean to devalue anything... It was early in the new year, I was a bit tired, somewhat insane... I have gotten my manners back in line.

In any case, I prefer good 'ole pen-and-paper to digitized D&D. It's traditional, and a lot more fun when everything in the world has been digitized. Even food. 

*Status: your friend sent you a hamburger! Mmm, delicious!
Thank you for that, Facebook. You're my only friend *

However, completely integrating the DDI system onto the internet certainly has its uses. For one thing, I can imagine it becoming a lot easier to play versus D&Ders around the entire world, if they put some effort into it. (Which, unfortunately, they haven't proven well) And, given some work, D&D can become a true MMORPG!
Just joking.

I think I'll stick to the books for now. If it turns out that DDI actually works, maybe I'll give it a spin. But nothing beats the smell of ten pounds of paper on the table, and a bunch of guys almost as ridiculous as you are throwing cheetos and making cracks about rick-rolling!

And, Rel, please don't permaban me


----------

