DDI Monster Builder preview hidden in this month's Confessions of a Full-Time Wizard

[mudbunny]

--Side note: I wonder how far out the builder really is. At least once a week we have been given some sort of information on it, plus images and such that make you believe most of the back-end must be finished (I work in software development; you don't usually show the enhancment to your clients until you're close to production). I'm banking on a 30-60 day window.

Well, given that WotC has been bitten before by showing screenshots, videos, etc from software that was not in a state where it was nearly ready for release, it is probably safe to assume that if they are showing off screenshots, and talking about it in articles, that the release date is sooner rather than later.

In other words, if I were a betting man, I wouldn't bet against you.

 

[catsclaw227]

He went on to explain this new tool was still in development, but it promised to do for DMs what the D&D Character Builder did for PCs.

"Make it so much fun to use you kind of hope your character bites it so you can build another one?"

This made me laugh. It also makes me wonder how true this is! How many people have ditched their current PC so that they can try out a new PC they built on CB the night before.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well, given that WotC has been bitten before by showing screenshots, videos, etc from software that was not in a state where it was nearly ready for release, it is probably safe to assume that if they are showing off screenshots, and talking about it in articles, that the release date is sooner rather than later.

In other words, if I were a betting man, I wouldn't bet against you.

Wait, aren't you one of this WotC forum "slaves" (I don't remember the real name of the job)?

If I were a betting man... I have no clue what I'd do. I am not a betting man.

 

[mudbunny]

Wait, aren't you one of this WotC forum "slaves" (I don't remember the real name of the job)?

Yup. The term you are looking for is Volunteer Community Lead.[1] And I happen to occupy the position for the DDI forums.


[1]VCLs have a whole bunch of stuff that we are responsible for, but, at its most basic, we are sorta the link/connection between the community and Community Management.

Like I said above, WotC has been burned before by putting out info on something and then having to change plans. (See game table and character visualizer) They are now following the "it will be ready when it is ready" philosophy. Thus, if they are starting to release info about it (screenshots earlier on, description of it in Confessions this week) chances are good that it is close to a release-ready state.

 

[Moonsword]

Some developers show customers a mockup of the interface early on so they don't wind up committing to a design the customer hates and having to jerk their GUI code around at the last minute. (This is also why some developers use a separate interface layer from the actual underlying code - if the interface is just a series of hooks, you can redesign the hooks to link to different things without having to mess with the code that's actually doing things.)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Some developers show customers a mockup of the interface early on so they don't wind up committing to a design the customer hates and having to jerk their GUI code around at the last minute. (This is also why some developers use a separate interface layer from the actual underlying code - if the interface is just a series of hooks, you can redesign the hooks to link to different things without having to mess with the code that's actually doing things.)

And WPF is made for exactly this kind of approach.

 

[catsclaw227]

And WPF is made for exactly this kind of approach.

That's exactly what I was going to say.

And there are some companies that have designed whole UI frameworks to use ASP.NET or Silverlight interchangeably.

I like that WOTC is using WPF, even if there's issues with requiring .NET 3.5. It provides them with some interesting flexibility and expandability.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I'm not a huge fan of Shelley's blog, however the abilities that Monster In Glasses has were hilarious. I laughed pretty good at Poetry Slam.

 

[MrMyth]

This made me laugh. It also makes me wonder how true this is! How many people have ditched their current PC so that they can try out a new PC they built on CB the night before.

Oh, I'd never kill a character to try out a new one. But retraining, on the other hand.

Let's just say that my group has seem some very liberal retraining amongst our members. In that our party that started out as two Eladrin, a Human, a Genasi, a Doppelganger, and a Warforged but now has a Deva, a Half-Orc, a Half-elf, a Shifter, and a Tiefling - with only the Warforged remaining the same. (All the rest are the same characters, just retconned or plot-transformed into different races...)

 

[avin]

She may be referring to Monster with Glasses, Bee Monster, and Red Monster

Killjoy