I have been thinking of posting a thread just like this for the past few weeks. Just haven't got around to it, glad someone else did. Thanks
I would love to see WotC actually leverage the digital nature of the DDI for everything it is worth. Instead of just what they have at the moment, which is basically just books in electronic format on the web. And this shouldn't be all that difficult, a decent web guy should be able to do most of it pretty easily.
1. Fix up their stupid website. Seriously, the DnD website is one of the worst websites out there. If you want to actually find something specific, good luck. They need to throw it away and start again. This is alot of work, so I can see why they haven't done it, but the state of their current website is pretty embarrassing.
2. HTML versions of Dragon and Dungeon Articles. Why do I need to download pdfs to read the articles? Let me read them on the web, in my browser as "normal" webpages.
3. Collect columns of Dragon and Dungeon together. Eg, so I can easily go through and read all the "Ruling Skill Challenge" articles without the hassle of tracking each one down in each following Dungeon Issue. And update the individual articles so they match the final "published" version. Can't see why this is so difficult.
4. Hyperlink the pdfs. (Not sure this can be done, but you can do it in Word, why not pdf?). So, I can click on the title of an adventure / article from the Table of Contents, and it takes me to that page in the pdf. Then at the end, there is another link to go back to the ToC. Also, in Dungeon, it would be great to, as you read through the adventure, when it says "Run Tactical Encounter X", click that link to take you to the page with Tactical Encounter X, and then another link at the end to go back to the adventure.
I find it so frustrating that they haven't already done these! They seem like no-brainers to me, and so very easy to implement, I can't understand why they haven't done them. It seems like WotC have no idea at all about the internet and digital media. It's almost like someone in management just recently heard about the internet, and that there is all this money to be made from it, so decided they had better get in on it. The rest of the company think you just need to put anything on the internet, and it will make money. Sorry, doesn't work like that anymore (if it ever did). You need content that is not just "books in electronic form" but that actually leverages the digital nature of the data so everyone gains.
But I think WotC is slowly getting there. I want them to continue to focus on the things that are DnD specific. Forget about VTT's and character Visualizers. Buy, beg, borrow, license or steal those from people / companies that are already doing them (and doing them well) and have them working already, and focus on the things that other companies can't do because they are DnD specific.
The Compendium, Character Builder and Monster Builder are massive steps in this right direction. It would be good if the Character Builder could except custom rules / feats / powers / items a bit easier. It would be ideal if 3pp's could release their race / class / other crunch in both pdf and xml(?) format for easy importing into the character builder. But I mostly DM, so I don't really care about the character builder much.
What I do really care about is the monster builder. I would love to see two significant upgrades, both which really shouldn't be all that far away.
1. Encounter Builder. A way to take the monsters I build / customize and build an encounter, and print them out nicely formatted on a single (or 2 for a large encounter) page(s). Ideally, you would be able to drag individual monster stat blocks around (to tweak the formatting) just as you can on the character sheets.
2. Easy import of Custom / 3pp Monsters. A way to easily import custom monsters into the monster / encounter builder that saves me from typing them all in by hand. This way, when Goodman Games releases their next Critter Cache, not only do you get a pdf, you also get a second file that is formatted so that you can easily add (with just a couple of clicks) the monsters to the Monster Builder so I can start building my encounters with them. Not sure if the current GSL allows this, but at the very least, this functionality would allow me to easily greatly expand the selection of monsters by adding the multitude of fan created content out there.
Whew, that ended up being much longer than I thought. Now I know why I have been hesitant to start this thread, but hopefully, WotC are learning, and we start to see DDI really leveraging digital media.
