D&D Intiative...Master Tools 2008?

[Dire Bare]

2nd edition Core Rules(?) - Failure

Master Tools - Failure

eTools - Failure

Magic - Failure

I guess that's really just my opinion, but yeah, "fumbles for years".



We were not promised a Beta, we were promised a finished product. And for that matter, we don't even have a beta to play with for most of it.

The 2nd Edition computer program was TSR, not WotC. TSR made many mistakes that would be unfair to attribute to WotC. Besides, a lot of us felt the 2nd Edition program was pretty cool. Not perfect by any means, but useful and cool. So I wouldn't even count that as a failure.

E-tools and Master Tools are one and the same project, and only counts for one failure, not two. While a useable e-tools was eventually released with data for most of the 3rd Edition products, it came just before the switch to 4th Edition and was too little, too late.

Magic the Gathering online seems to work just fine for a lot of folks. I would also disagree with failure for this one. It may not be perfect, it may not suit your particular tastes, but is hardly a failure.

D&D Insider? We all would have loved to see this thing up and running 100% on June 7, but the delays hardly constitute failure. What is up so far seems to be pretty good to me, and I am comfortable withholding judgement until the suite of tools is fully released (or if enough time has passed, like say past Xmas).

And also, for those of us who followed the behind-the-scenes goings on for both e-tools/Master Tools and D&D Insider, we are talking to completely different beasts. E-tools/Master Tools was a complete disaster, but I am very optimistic that WotC will pull off D&D Insider. It won't be to everyone's tastes, but I'm excited for it.

Edit: Oops, looks like most of my points were already covered pretty well in the thread. Should have read the whole darn thing before posting.

 

[Mercule]

Well, if I get it finished I might share the WPF code and an XML data schema, so that people could put any stuff they want in it

Please. I'm a ASPX developer, but very intrigued by WPF. It'd be very cool to see the source code for an application that was actually interesting.

 

[Kristian Serrano]

E-tools and Master Tools are one and the same project, and only counts for one failure, not two. While a useable e-tools was eventually released with data for most of the 3rd Edition products, it came just before the switch to 4th Edition and was too little, too late.

Same project; two very different products altogether. Thus, two failures.

And also, for those of us who followed the behind-the-scenes goings on for both e-tools/Master Tools and D&D Insider, we are talking to completely different beasts. E-tools/Master Tools was a complete disaster, but I am very optimistic that WotC will pull off D&D Insider. It won't be to everyone's tastes, but I'm excited for it.

You haven't stated why they are completely different beasts. Care to validate that claim?

 

[Remathilis]

I still have Core Rules 2.0+E on my PC, despite not playing 2e for 5+ years.

Its that good a software, and having my 2e books in a copy-n-paste format is great for enworld quoting...

 

[Jonathan Drain]

Software projects are said to arrive frequently late, over budget and under specification.

"Humanity has been developing information technology for half a century. That experience has taught us this unpleasant truth: virtually every information technology project above a certain size or complexity is significantly late and over budget or fails altogether; those that don't fail are often riddled with defects and difficult to enhance.

 

[Theron]

I play in a large group of and know a great many more role-players in the Houston area. I cannot name a single D&D player that also develops software professionally in Houston other than me. I know they are out there, and I know this is anecdotal evidence, but I believe the convergence of D&D players and honest-to-goodness software developers is actually pretty low.

Well, there are two of 'em in our group that plays at Rice every week. Out of nine regular players, so about 22% of our group (which is also 22% physicists).

 

[Shemeska]

I play in a large group of and know a great many more role-players in the Houston area. I cannot name a single D&D player that also develops software professionally in Houston other than me. I know they are out there, and I know this is anecdotal evidence, but I believe the convergence of D&D players and honest-to-goodness software developers is actually pretty low.

I have 4 professional programmers in my group (me the biologist, the UPS guy, and the college student are the minority).

Of course, given the area where we live/work (Research Triangle, NC), I suppose it's not a big surprise.

 

[Duncan Haldane]

It's a bit early to be crying vaporware no?

I mean, we're what, a month after the release? They're still in beta and are releasing new bits from time to time. The Compendium came up last week after all. You guys are absolutely brutal IMO. Give them a bit of time to get this up and running.

Here's the problem, IMO : 3.0 came out with a character generator for free. For fourth ed there's no such thing for love or money.

Yes, I see that as a step backwards.

Duncan

 

[Kristian Serrano]

Here's the problem, IMO : 3.0 came out with a character generator for free. For fourth ed there's no such thing for love or money.

Yes, I see that as a step backwards.

Duncan

That's not a fair comparison. The character generator that came with 3.0 PHB was sorely lacking. It was just a demo and not much more than that.

 

[Duncan Haldane]

That's not a fair comparison. The character generator that came with 3.0 PHB was sorely lacking. It was just a demo and not much more than that.

Well, we'll have to disagree. I could create characters using the rules in the PHB and they were ok. It wasn't great, but a far cry from the nothing we have now.

Duncan