Announcement from Anthony Valterra

[Zulkir]

Folks,
We’ve got good news that should make your holidays brighter. Wizards of the Coast and Code Monkey Publishing, LLC have begun, very preliminary, discussions regarding e-rights. We just wanted to give you a quick nugget before we go on holiday break. You can expect more juicy details in early ’03.

Happy gaming!

Anthony Valterra
Category Manager Roleplaying Games and Avalon Hill
Wizards of the Coast

W. Robert Reed III
CMP Co-Founder,
PCGen’s #1 Evil Assistant

Bryan McRoberts
CMP Co-Founder,
PCGen’s Benevolent Dictator

Jason Buchanan
CMP Co-Founder,
PCGen Core Team Member

 

[thalmin]

Thanks, and Happy Holidays!

 

[cgplaer2000]

???

What the heck does this mean? WOTC is negotiating e-rights with the PCGen development team? I suppose all it means is that PCGen will get access to non-SRD material, but why is WOTC providing this type of support to PCGen, when their own product still needs the official supplements and other core books?

I'm not really convinced this is such good news.

 

[Henry]

Re: ???

What the heck does this mean? WOTC is negotiating e-rights with the PCGen development team? I suppose all it means is that PCGen will get access to non-SRD material, but why is WOTC providing this type of support to PCGen, when their own product still needs the official supplements and other core books?

I'm not really convinced this is such good news.

I'll add my two cents to this: It's good for me PERSONALLY, since I use PCGen. But in my opinion, in general, anything that can give rights to more developers is a good thing.

I'd rather see 'em add the splatbook info to the SRD, one book at a time, each one two years from date of publication, but in lieu of that, this works well too.

EDIT - I just saw the last bit of the news release, silly me, It IS indeed the PCGen team.

 

[Henry]

Folks,
We’ve got good news that should make your holidays brighter. Wizards of the Coast and Code Monkey Publishing, LLC have begun, very preliminary, discussions regarding e-rights. We just wanted to give you a quick nugget before we go on holiday break. You can expect more juicy details in early ’03.

This is good news! THank you, Anthony! I hope all goes well!

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Re: ???

What the heck does this mean? WOTC is negotiating e-rights with the PCGen development team? I suppose all it means is that PCGen will get access to non-SRD material, but why is WOTC providing this type of support to PCGen, when their own product still needs the official supplements and other core books?

I'm not really convinced this is such good news.

It is good new in that we will hopefully get the non-SRD material for PCGen. As for negotiating the rights while e-tools still needs support does not seem unreasonable. Anthony is not personally writing the patch or upgrades for e-tools (or at least I hope he isn't) so while the patch is being worked on he is working on other methods to make us the players happy. (Thanks Anthony). What is wrong with both programs having all of this material, since both programs use different programers this is not a mutaualy exclusive proposition. The only fear I have is that this might be the death knell for e-tools and negotiating the rights is thier admission that e-tools will no longer be supported.

 

[D'karr]

Re: Re: ???

The only fear I have is that this might be the death knell for e-tools and negotiating the rights is thier admission that e-tools will no longer be supported.

How could this be a surprise, for a project as poorly managed as e-tools?

It's not Anthony's fault. However, this is definitely very good news.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

Could it be that they just realized thet PCGen is a better program and want to sink money into something that works instead of something that doesn't?

I'm not a economics major or anything, but that makes sense to me.

 

[Jay Lofstead]

Here are some guesses on my part:

1. The PCGen team formed a company so that a legal entity would exist that owned the PCGen code.

2. WotC didn't want to license the non-SRD materials to individuals, but instead wanted to license to a company.

3. WotC now has a way to work on negotiating the rights for electronic tools of non-SRD materials with an entity that instead of having to pay for the rights, will likely get it free (or nearly free) under some strict conditions set out by WotC.

The benefits:

1. PCGen becomes the "official" tool.
2. There is little to no direct cost (either direction) for development.
3. WotC gets out of the mess they are in with e-tools by having a free replacement.

The only thing I am less comfortable guessing is whether or not they will charge for expansions for PCGen for the non-SRD materials. I could see that as an angle that WotC takes in order to cover costs of working that side of the business.

In all, I think it is really good news for us as a community. I tried the latest PCGen yesterday and found it with acceptable performance, but still some slightly wacky things in the UI (these things get refined over time). It is a far cry from the pre 3.0 releases I had used a while ago.

On the downside, I would hate to see the license for the non-SRD products be exclusive to PCGen. The other products out there each have a slightly different focus and really are better for different people. Let's hope that the license is more broad (or at least convertible to non-PCGen products).

 

[Therigwin]

Well, the same message was posted over at the Wizards board on the eTools section.....

So I hope this means they are turning to the guys that did PC Gen to fix eTools.

If they do nothing with eTools and PC Gen becomes the app, then I am going to be mad, since I have bought their product.