D&D 4e Rules Compendium in online!

[Keefe the Thief]

I am very happy to see them getting this stuff up. I really wish they would of launched DDI with the rule books, but I would much rather have a good product late, than a crappy product on time.

You can´t say that! Is there nothing that disappointed you? No minor detail that shows how sucky the product is? Come on, concentrate!

 

[broghammerj]

And how long did it take for that linkable hypertext SRD to exist after the release of 3e? Note that the SRD came out in 2000. d20srd.org? Registered in 2004. It's been a whole 3 weeks since 4e came out. Cut them some slack. There's a lot of data there.

D20srd.org is free and likely someone's labor of love. So who cares if it took awhile. Rules compendium will cost me $15 per month along with a whole lot of other wizbang items that I can't apparently live without. At least I think I can't live without them because that is what everyone tells me but I haven't actually seen anything that would prove it.

Look, WoTC has to wow me with their software. I mean WOW me. Their history with software development and support is horrid. E-tools never got updated. It's fine to release a Beta version online after your core products have already been released. It's another thing to keep it updated in a timely fashion to continue with the future production run.

For $180 per year I can buy 4 add on books beyond the core books. That is exactly how many extra 3.5 books I own. That may speak to what I think of WoTC non-core material. Now you're asking me to trust them that this will be great so I can invest a lot of money and have the whole DDI project pulled later.

To win me over WoTC has to invest in me before I invest in them.

 

[Zogmo]

Supposedly the DDI has been brewing up with a team of full-time professional programmers for a year or more and all they've got at launch + 3 weeks is a search box and copy and pasted text?

Please post source for this info. Thanks.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Well after seeing that the D&D Compendium is definitely not what I thought it was going to be. I'm less likely to subscribe to the D&D Insider now. So far the only thing I like/would use much is the Dungeon and Dragon magazines.

Olaf the Stout

 

[2WS-Steve]

Please post source for this info. Thanks.

WotC was hiring for digital initiative at least Jan 2007 -- and DDI was announced at last GenCon I believe.

 

[Hussar]

So, based on a beta release, we're not wowed.

Damn, you guys are nasty.

It's a BETA release. As in it's not finished yet. It's been up for a couple of hours and people are already claiming it's a failure. Holy crap, are you guys so emotionally tied to the idea that all things 4e are crap that you cannot even possibly give the slightest benefit of the doubt here?

Everyone's talking about the d20.srd Yup, gold standard. Anyone remember what the site looked like when it first went up? I do. It was hard to read, and organized like spaghetti.

Jeez, back down a touch. If you were actually paying for this, THEN you have the right to bitch. A free beta test that's been up for less than 24 hours is a bit short to be making prouncements from the mountain.

 

[pogminky]

It's o.k for players. Without monsters I'm not sure I'd use it much as a DM.

 

[MerricB]

It's o.k for players. Without monsters I'm not sure I'd use it much as a DM.

Actually, if you check the article explaining the D&D Compendium, it is intended for players, not DMs.

It's the resource you use to look up all the powers you could take when you gain a level, as it has all of them from every official D&D 4e source listed. (Or at least, that's the idea).

I'm hoping that there'll be something similar for DMs sometime soon, although I'm fine with them holding back on that until it's a pay site.

Cheers!

 

[pogminky]

if you check the article explaining the D&D Compendium, it is intended for players, not DMs.

Yeah, I know. But I wanted the Compendium to be more than a PC only tool - it didn't seem to be that until today. I had hope for greater utility. Never mind. It's still ok - just not what I wanted.

 

[CharlesRyan]

As a player, I think what I've seen so far is great. (Yes, I agree it could be better, with cross-linking and whatnot.) Given that it will include everything, even the powers and feats and classes that come from books I might not own (or Dragon articles I might not be bothered to flip through), it seems like it will be well worth the price of DDI for this feature alone. Already the ability to sort feats will simplify feat selection; filtering for your race/class/deity/tier will make that rather tedious aspect of character management much easier.

As a DM, I'm already missing the d20srd.org's monster stat blocks. Maybe we'll see something along those lines in the future, but it's not part of what's been announced.

And just to be pedantic:

For $180 per year I can buy 4 add on books beyond the core books. . .

A year's worth of DDI will actually cost $119, assuming you don't buy month-to-month. (Granted, that's still the cost of 4 supplements. . . .) But remember, the Compendium will contain the character crunch from every supplement put out over the course of that year, plus everything from Dragon mag! Maybe you don't want to spend $119 a year on D&D--fair enough--but if you do, it's hard to imagine that this isn't a reasonable way to spend that money!