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The C&D on Masterplan has me wondering about the rest of the adventure tool suite. The last release was the monster builder in July 09. It's about 10 months later and there isn't anything else.
In the meantime, iplay4e, inCombat4e, and Masterplan have covered a lot of ground. Each of these is developed primarily by just one developer. Even the surfacescapes team made their awesome demo in 2 semesters. Throw in MapTool, which is done by a team of volunteers as another example, and it leaves me wondering:
What is taking so long? Supposedly Wotc has a small team of developers working on this stuff. All these other groups have produced something...why can't you?
I don't want speculation. There are years of that stuff on these boards and others. I doubt there's anything new to say on that front.
I don't feel entitled to answers. I just want to know the true story behind this big black eye.
What I'd REALLY Like to see is some investigative journalism from Critical Hits, Dragon Avenue, RPG Examiner or someone who has the connections and wherewithal ferret out some answers.
(That's not a critique, BTW, Dave et al)
What is taking so long? Supposedly Wotc has a small team of developers working on this stuff.
Firing the folks who wrote the code and being left with something that nobody in house knows how to build or fix isn't the best strategy on the planet.
They could still buy one of the virtual tabletops suites. It might make 4e an option for me if DDI ever lives up to that pretty little advertisement in the back of the PHB 1.
__________________ Roughly 20 zombies of various species creep closer under the pale moonlight. Strangely, one of them is wearing a dark red suit that shines as the moonlight glitters off of it. It shuffles as it walks, but it has great rhythm - even in undeath.
Firing the folks who wrote the code and being left with something that nobody in house knows how to build or fix isn't the best strategy on the planet.
Even so, I think most of us here with jobs have had to take over projects from others. It can be difficult, but not impossible, and something should be accomplished by now.
This is not a rant. My dream answer goes like this:
"Dave Chalker: OK, I've made some calls and done some interviews and talked to some sources, and you can read the inside scoop at Critical-Hits.com
Me: I bet this is a good story. Maybe there's hope for new tools after all."
It's a call for the real story rather than a complaint about the perceived situation.
There are lots of hints posted on the WotC boards suggesting that the team is working on a big update in time for Gencon but those same posts mention that the team will not divulge what it is they are working on because of the track record of broken deadlines.
Clearly, whoever has managed D&D's digital initiatives since the latter days of 2E has not been up-to-scratch.
- The Dragon compendium, while one of my favourite products of all time, was a legal disaster and led to Kenzer & Co being given a free licence to 3.xE D&D.
- eTools was one of the worst e-products in any industry. I actually thought the free version in the first 3E PHB was better!
- DDi is part of that illustrious heritage of not being able to get things quite right.
Those criticisms aside, I actually like what has been released so far and actively use the products. If they stopped all development now I wouldn't complain.
Sure, I would like a map builder and a trap/hazard builder but I am not sure if they can integrate those into Adventure Tools without causing our computers to stop working. The monster builder alone is such a resource hog: I would hate to see how slow any of my computers ran if Adventure Tools had more components!
__________________ Regards
D
The philosopher Herbert Spencer once observed: "The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools."
If we haven't seen anything by GenCon Indy 2010, I think the D&D community should take matters into our own hands with a large-scale, public, open-source-type project, maybe even hosted at ENWorld. It's been shown by resourceful fans that these types of tools are not impossible to create; maybe we should create them. Maybe WotC could even contribute to that project.
I still have faith in the digital initiative, because the Character Builder is great.
I think this is the other half of going mum. I hope they keep with that policy, because opening back up is probably still a mistake.
Sorry, I intensely want to know what is going on, but it'll be done when it's done. Till then it probably isn't worth even knowing about. Would you want to try and use it if it isn't done? Aside from any kind of beta tester status someone might want to take on, if it isn't done it might be unusable or unreliable.
Well, of the current in-house team, there's nobody left on staff who had a part in coding any of the outsourced VTT work. And unless something changed in the past year, I don't believe it has been worked on since it went in-house - the resources simply weren't there, and the team now is smaller than it began. The people who worked on most/much of the code for the character builder for instance have all since been hit by layoffs or lapsed work-to-hire contracts.
Then why do "they" (Wotc-Trevor eg) keep insisting, as recently as a couple months ago on the official forums, that this is all being worked on? I think we suspect the truth, but I just wish they would come out with it and give it over to licensed open-source or out-sourced development.
Last edited by Hadrian the Builder; 21st May 2010 at 02:29 AM..
Then why do "they" (Wotc-Trevor eg) keep insisting, as recently as a couple months ago on the official forums, that this is all being worked on? I think we suspect the truth, but I just wish they would come out with it and give it over to licensed open-source or out-sourced development.
Because it probably is all being worked on.
Unfortunately, the gaming community shot itself in the foot on this topic a year and a half ago.
Clearly, development is taking quite some time (as I imagine it would, with an understaffed team). But that doesn't mean it's not happening. What it does mean is that the DDI team isn't going to tell us anything until they're absolutely sure that it's coming out in the near future, because the gaming community demonstrated previously that it is unable to handle in a reasonable manner the delay of a software product (something that happens pretty frequently in the software development business) that they aren't even paying for yet. Because of the (I would argue) crazy over-the-top outcry the initial delay caused on the various internets, WotC switched to a policy of not talking about it until it's definitely going to happen (a policy shared by quite a lot of software development groups).
__________________ The First Vault Project (www.thefirstvault.com)
Last edited by Dannager; 21st May 2010 at 02:51 AM..
Forgive the question, but can you clarify what you mean? For those of us who aren't sure what you're referring to, I mean.
The public (read: internet forums and blogging community) outcry at the delay of the promised software suite for 4e at its release resulted in WotC becoming a lot more conservative in its announcements - they no longer speculate on or discuss openly possible projects, or projects that are merely "in the works". Only projects that will definitely see release are discussed for fear of provoking another, similar backlash. This has, of course, had the side effect of preventing those who would like previews of what might be in the works from hearing anything. I'm sure there are a number of people who were part of this initial backlash, and are also asking out loud why they haven't heard anything about new projects. The response is, of course, that you can't have it both ways - if you blow up at a company for a delay, don't expect them to be especially willing to hand you information on an incomplete product that might simply lead to you blowing up at them again if it doesn't come out in a timely manner.
__________________ The First Vault Project (www.thefirstvault.com)
Even so, I think most of us here with jobs have had to take over projects from others. It can be difficult, but not impossible, and something should be accomplished by now.
This is not a rant. My dream answer goes like this:
"Dave Chalker: OK, I've made some calls and done some interviews and talked to some sources, and you can read the inside scoop at Critical-Hits.com
Me: I bet this is a good story. Maybe there's hope for new tools after all."
It's a call for the real story rather than a complaint about the perceived situation.
Heh. I honestly got a kick out of that imaginary conversation
So here's what I can tell you (and unfortunately, it's not much)...
Chris Champagne is the Studio Manager of DDI, and a fairly recent hire (sometime late last summer). Under his watch especially, they're in the mode of not promising anything until it's ready to roll out to try and avoid all the vaporware early DDI stuff. I get the sense this is why we haven't heard any updates at all: they've swung completely the other direction as far as transparency goes. That means even I haven't heard what's they're working on.
From other sources, I know that the digital team has been cut to the bone, so while they'd like to be working on other things, a considerable amount of their time is taken up with bug fixing (CB especially) and keeping up with the new releases.
Finally, there are projects that have been rumored for a while that are in that nebulous area of "they're working on it but not ready to announce yet" like an Encounter Builder and a Mac version of Character Builder. Like all the early stuff, that just means they've done some work on it, no guarantee that we'll ever see it.
I wish it were as easy as sending some emails, but that first bit of info is the biggest factor in no news- they've really clamped down on what they're allowed to say. I'm hoping once they are getting ready to launch a new product, I'm the one to get the scoop early.
(And I really hope for my own use that they come out with more tools soon... I'm on a Mac running VMWare just to run the DDI software, and WAS using Masterplan to make and print my encounters...)
__________________ Dave Chalker, Editor in Chief of Critical-Hits.com, Freelance Game Developer.
It would be great to start with making the monster builder use the new stat block....and then the other stuff....That tool alone has been worth the DDI money to me.
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