D&D 5E D&D Next and the Character Builder

[Jan van Leyden]

Wizards did something similar to this during third edition. It was called e-tools. You paid a certain amount for the base character builder program and then a smaller amount for the data files for each book. The management of the program changed companies and was eventually dropped before all the books were completed. It was less than ideal. The good thing is was that it did work offline but I paid a good amount for e-tools data files and I suspect I would have a heck of a time getting them to install now.

I'm probably not the only one who doesn't want to witness a repetition of the Mastertools/E-tool debacle. When this piece of sotware came finally out it was several years late and completely unusable.

Only when a group of PCGen developers formed Codemonkey Publishing, took over the project, and struck a license deal to develop the data sets for E-Tools and PCGen did something useful appear ob the scene. Even then, data sets for new books took a very long time to come out.

So, no, please don't take this as a model!

 

[Hussar]

I honestly don't get the resistance to subscription. Good grief but either DDi or Paizo's subs are incredible value for the price.

How cheap are gamers that they won't fork over the cost of dinner and a movie to have digital access to the entire library for a year.

Sheesh guys. Splurge a little. Open the purse strings.

 

[seregil]

I honestly don't get the resistance to subscription. Good grief but either DDi or Paizo's subs are incredible value for the price.

How cheap are gamers that they won't fork over the cost of dinner and a movie to have digital access to the entire library for a year.

Sheesh guys. Splurge a little. Open the purse strings.

You see, I don't give my money away just because I have some. The subscription model is unjustified and needless. It similar to the planned obsolescence we see in other software products. It all about making me pay and pay and pay.

There is NOTHING stopping WOTC from producing a piece of software I buy ONCE. Like, for example, Starcraft.

Then, when new expansions comes out, I buy them too. ONCE. Like Brood War.

While obviously not on the same scale, Starcraft was a pay once model and was perfectly acceptable. No need to squeeze me every month. Make me pay for added content, sure, but again, only once. If they are so worried about piracy that they insist on making the client experience suck, then let them add DRM that checks my key code against their license server instead of a monthly subscription. But then, the price of that needless server is on them.

I do not like paying monthly for something for NO GOOD REASON. WOW monthly subscription can be justified due to the fact that the entire game is build around connecting together people over the Internet.

A character builder? No real reason for it to need to connect the Net. Even patches can be downloadable files.

Yes, I know, the new model calls for Online Everything. That's nice but they should prioritize getting the tool right instead of the financial structure because, to date, their track record sucks on digital tools.

 

[Warunsun]

I honestly don't get the resistance to subscription.

Affordable subscription rates don't bother me. Even DRM and account checking can be fine when updates occur but "online only" is a real bitch. This is D&D and some of us are old school in that we play D&D in garages, guest houses, outside, and other places without internet or reliable internet service.

I am willing to bet that 5E will be like 4E in that the character generator will not be available at launch. The builder showed up quite late in 4E and missed a lot of the promised marks. Even the silverlight builder doesn't make my character avatar as promised in that picture in the back of the Player's Handbook.

 

[Hussar]

True. I'm sure that there are groups out there with no computer use at all.

But considering smart phone and tablets have become largely ubiquitous who would you cater to?

What percentage of groups out there do you think have no internet access at all during play? I'm willing to bet its a small fraction.

And let's not forget. DDi is sitting there with 80k+ subs right now. Do you really think they're going to tip that apple cart to cater to someone else?

 

[Shemeska]

I honestly don't get the resistance to subscription. Good grief but either DDi or Paizo's subs are incredible value for the price.

How cheap are gamers that they won't fork over the cost of dinner and a movie to have digital access to the entire library for a year.

Sheesh guys. Splurge a little. Open the purse strings.

I don't care to rent access to content. I don't mind subscribing to something that gets me physical copies of a product (and a free pdf download of each), but I don't care to pay money that once I stop paying I lose access to it. I don't mind paying for a character building like HeroLab, but I pay once and retain access to the data sets I've purchased for use. If it was a rent to access I wouldn't have it.

If I ever play or run 5e and feel like a character builder would be useful, I'd pay for the software, but I wouldn't rent it.

Otherwise I'll be buying my spouse more custom knives or bizarre culinary items. Because I find that much more rewarding for splurging our $ than renting software.

 

[Texicles]

I'm of the "prefer not to subscribe persuasion". That's not to say I roundly refuse to do it, but given the option to do otherwise, I would.

Tablet support is something that has to be on their radar. With the ubiquity of tablets, phones the size of tablets and laptops that become tablets, in conjunction with the average nerd's affinity for technology (no offense intended here, as this is fairly autobiographical), it's pretty much a must moving forward.

I like the idea of licensing to 3rd parties, who know what they're doing. It's comparative advantage.

I also greatly favor offline support. There're countless reasons I don't want to be forced to connect to the internet to access the content I've paid/am paying for. I also don't buy piracy as a good reason not to have offline content. If piracy were that significant of a concern, WotC wouldn't produce PDFs, because I doubt there's a single PDF they've produced that hasn't been pirated already. In this day and age, I don't think it's unreasonable to think if you produce digital content, it'll be pirated. At that point, you have to ask whether you'll lose more customers to piracy or because you failed to provide what the customers wanted for fear of piracy.

 

[Hussar]

Meh I look at it like this. Had I subbed for the past four years, I'd have paid around three hundred bucks.

Now four years if Dungeon and Dragon, for me an overseas subscriber would be about a thousand dollars.

So, I'm already about 700 dollars ahead and that's stuff I keep. Additionally there are about fifty hardcovers covered in the DDi for another thousand dollars.

Basically I could subscribe for the next thirty years and still be ahead of actually buying the physical books.

So tell me again how this is a bad deal?

 

[Savage Wombat]

Five years ago everyone looked at World of Warcraft and convinced themselves that the subscription model was the recipe for fortune and glory. Nowadays designers have learned otherwise.

I don't think WotC are as devoted to ongoing fees as they were for 4e. Of course, the hot new fad is micropayments...

 

[jsepeta]

Judging from the fact that D&D Next / 5th edition has been rolled out over time, I'm not expecting great things from WotC. There was mad hatred for 4th edition, but at least they had all 3 required sourcebooks available on day one, and when the windows character builder didn't live up to expectations, they built one for the web.

IMHO it was absolutely shameful that WotC dropped 4e as soon as they did, and in the manner in which they did. There's a lot of excitement about 5th edition, but criminy, it re-introduces all this crap I hated about earlier editions -- SORRY TIME TO REST. I HAVE NO MORE POWERZ.