No Character Builder Update

[Ahrimon]

I have a subscription & community account and I received no such notice.

There was a followup forum(?) message saying that not all subscribers received the message due to a technical glitch in their notification system and they were trying to figure out why it happened.

 

[badmojojojo]

Thanks Ahrimon!

 

[ourchair]

If I were them, I wouldn't split it up. They would probably make less money if they were to do so, so it doesn't make sense to do it.

Most people (in my opinion) get DDI so that they can update the Character Builder. Everything else is mostly just extra. So they would have to lessen the cost of the DDI, and then add in a model to charge for Dungeon, Dragon, etc. And I dont think many more people would pay for the magazines, so overall they would lose money.

Also, from a financial standpoint and book keeping, its easier on them to just have one on/off switch. They can flag all this material as needing a subscription and they only need to worry about that one flag.

Exactly.

Never mind the fact that an a la carte would probably have a higher per item cost than getting the magazines and Compendium and tools together.

(Yes, and everybody hates the magazines, but STILL.)

 

[Jhaelen]

(Yes, and everybody hates the magazines, but STILL.)

Well, everyone hates the magazines until WotC decides that since everybody hates them, they should stop writing articles and adventures for them. I wonder what would happen then...

Haven't there already been monthly updates that didn't involve anything but magazine content?

 

[jelmore]

There was a followup forum(?) message saying that not all subscribers received the message due to a technical glitch in their notification system and they were trying to figure out why it happened.

There's a comment to be made there somewhere, but I can't quite tease it out...

 

[renau1g]

(Yes, and everybody hates the magazines, but STILL.)

Uhh.... I don't hate the magazines, Dungeon is a great resource for a time-strapped DM, and Dragon got at least some interesting stuff in it just about every month.

You (and some people on the interwebs) =/= Everyone

 

[catsclaw227]

Wait a sec...

If the Sept update was delayed to October (well, delayed to late Sept, then early Oct), and we are getting the Sept content and the Oct content in the update, we aren't losing anything except some time, right? The information that people are requesting refunds for will be available to them anyway, right? And we still got access to the compendium, dragon and dungeon magazines, art work, access to customer service people, and they maintained their bandwidth and allowed us to have continued access to everything, even though two electronic tools didn't get a timely data update.

I just don't get the refund entitlement. Really, I am sorry if I am being dense, but it looks like they spoiled us with great tools, timely updates and people now feel that their $6/month should give them buckets of gold too.

And for those commenting on how they now have to wait to start their campaigns? What the heck did you do back in 1985/1995/2000 when you were playing D&D? Did we all forget how to use paper, pencils and our imagination to make first level characters or to draw maps and make adventures?

Sorry if I sound a little agitated, but geez.... what have we become?

 

[P1NBACK]

Well, everyone hates the magazines until WotC decides that since everybody hates them, they should stop writing articles and adventures for them. I wonder what would happen then...

There'd be a nice little market for third parties... Who'd might do it better, and be profitable because WotC wasn't owning the market.

Haven't there already been monthly updates that didn't involve anything but magazine content?

Yeah. They could have used this month to get ahead and we wouldn't be in this situation.

 

[P1NBACK]

Wait a sec...

If the Sept update was delayed to October (well, delayed to late Sept, then early Oct), and we are getting the Sept content and the Oct content in the update, we aren't losing anything except some time, right?

That's assuming the delay doesn't push back the October update... Right?

I just don't get the refund entitlement. Really, I am sorry if I am being dense, but it looks like they spoiled us with great tools, timely updates and people now feel that their $6/month should give them buckets of gold too.

Those are all your opinions. Some people don't see the tools as that great. Some people think the CB suffers badly from lack of customization (every DM out there customizes in one way or another) and lack of third-party support. Still the CB is probably the best tool out. There's only two tools out... The Monster Builder has been in "beta" for a year now with lack of things like templates and tons of bugs (especially since the MM3 update). Most of the monsters aren't even legal (by WotC standards) because they didn't update all the old monsters to MM3 standards, so we're left manually updating them all - but unfortunately, there's bugs now messing up custom monsters... Double whammy.

The Compendium is nice. It's probably the thing I use most. I wouldn't call it a tool. It's a searchable database. It's nice, but it also is missing plenty of data (diseases would be nice...).

Many people have been complaining of late about the quality and content in the magazines, including declining amount and size of articles and the poor balancing in some of the crunch.

There hasn't been any word on new tools. Some people don't like this fact.

All-in-all, me personally, I'm satisfied with my subscription. But, I don't think it's "unreasonable" for people to be dissatisfied with the lack of an update. The monthly updates and bug fixes should be WotC's main priority. If they can't accomplish this, what kind of indication is that of fixes and expanding to current tools and us seeing an actual new tool to accompany the MB alongside those empty slots in the Adventure Tool"s".

Know what I mean?

And, remember, it's only $6 for annual subscribers who get cheesed when a month comes that they don't see anything they like or there's no update, etc... For the others, it's $10 a month. I don't know about you, but my entertainment fund isn't the most expansive in this economy. So, let's try to see things from outside our point of view for a second here.

 

[renau1g]

I can see people how paid for a 1 month or 3 month membership which is now expiring who won't get their expected Sept. update to be upset, other than that I'm disappointed, but man there's a lot of rage out there, mostly on the wotc boards... "I'm canceling my subscription, this is an outrage, they should give me free stuff, I'll boycott them, RAWR, RAWR, RAWR!"

P1NBACK - even if its $10, if you are that tight you likely have bigger problems than wotc missing a update time. $4 really should have no impact on your budget. There are far easier ways to trim a budget down than that. Heck you could turn off your lights more or raise the thermostat (in summer) and save way more than that.