November 16th release for Web-based Character Builder

[Jor-El]

You know, I can honestly understand why they would want to move to this kind of model, I mean, the CB as it is/was is very easy to pirate, and like has been mentioned, a person can sub for one month and get everything.

Which honestly is a bum deal for WotC.

The only real downside to the online only aspect is when someone doesn't have access, but that's a pretty big rarity nowadays.

I don't know. Not really a big deal either way to me. I don't see this drawing lots of new people in, or creating any real excitement though, other than those with MACs!

 

[Ourph]

Ah yes... the madness that WotC no longer is going to let people scam the system by buying a single month's subscription to DDI and gain access to the entire suite of crunch and keep it for as long as they want without paying anything further.

What are they thinking?!?

Well, WotC got around $200 out of me for DDI access since 4e came out with that model. They will be getting $0 out of me with the new model. Maybe they were thinking "All of this money that's rolling in is pretty sweet!". I hope they can still say that at this time next year.

 

[Mirtek]

Where is the chorus of apologies from the fanboys that said I was being 'paranoid' and 'jumping to conclusions'? Hmm? Nah...I didn't think so.

They're too busy forgetting anything they said before to now defend WotC by explaining why it's suddenly a good thing that they did it.

Apologist on Monday: WotC would never do such a thing.
Apologist on Tuesady: Wow, about time that WotC finally did this. It was totally necessary and is so great for us customers ...

While it was a great deal for value seekers (like myself), it was an unsustainable model.

Stable at ~ 40k subscribers unsustainable?

 

[avin]

Ah yes... the madness that WotC no longer is going to let people scam the system by buying a single month's subscription to DDI and gain access to the entire suite of crunch and keep it for as long as they want without paying anything further.

What are they thinking?!?

As a year-subscriber I can tell you: yup, only the fanboys defending it. Paying customers as me punished because Wotc anti-piracy ideals.

There's no Internet where we play. We gonna have to change.

There's no Internet on planes and some awful wi fi hotel connections where I do prepare my games at nights while travelling for work.

This changes brings ZERO benefits to me.

 

[malraux]

I don't know. Not really a big deal either way to me. I don't see this drawing lots of new people in, or creating any real excitement though, other than those with MACs!

I'm a Mac user and this certainly doesn't excite me. At least not in a good way. Locking out useful functions like exporting the character file and tying ability to use the program to having an internet account strike me as not great things.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I wonder how this will be seen as more MMOs go free like Champions.

In my opinion, WoTC needs to give away the mechanics and make the support products, like adventurers and mosnters, where they make their money.

the mechanics side gets so tied up that they have to revamp the core system every couple of years either with a '.5' or an essentials.

Forget about it. Give away the mechancis, make 'em pay for the support.

But it might not be viable for the DDI. You can't compare it to something like Pandora where they're begging you to download the fully functional app and use that. It's for a table top game that doesn't offer a lot of table top tools. Even the 'digital' magazines don't have printable counters.

It just seems such a half ass continuation of half assed ideas.

 

[OnlineDM]

As a year-subscriber I can tell you: yup, only the fanboys defending it. Paying customers as me punished because Wotc anti-piracy ideals.

There's no Internet where we play. We gonna have to change.

There's no Internet on planes and some awful wi fi hotel connections where I do prepare my games at nights while travelling for work.

This changes brings ZERO benefits to me.

I'm a supporter of WotC and I'm not going to be one to say that I'm canceling my subscription or that I'll never forgive them for these changes or anything like that. But I agree that, as someone who pays annually, this change does nothing to help me, and it does have some negative impact on me (not being able to use the Character Builder on a plane, in a crappy hotel, etc.).

It IS a blow to people who use Windows and pay continuously for DDI. Now, if they end up with better tools down the line, then maybe I'll feel like this is a good move. And I do appreciate that this makes the Character Builder available to Mac users (though I'm not one). But it makes me worse off than I would have been had WotC kept updating the Classic Character Builder, even though I've done nothing wrong.

I'm guessing they did the math and decided that, if someone like me is disappointed by the change but will keep paying for DDI because they support the product in general (as I will), then what's the down side for them? Pretty cold, but accurate.

It just feels like a bad business practice to make your product worse for your best customers. Maybe they decided that it had to be done to combat piracy, but making the user experience worse for good customers seems like a mistake in my opinion.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

not amused about no houserule buttons...

i can say it, because i didn´t tell you they won´t make CB online only...

actually I am happy they switch to a web absed application, because now I can go to friends without a laptop and create characters wherever I want... and more important, access them wherever I want...

pdf creator as export tool works well enough for me. I play 4e was a neat idea, but actually I really did not use it...

 

[HeirToPendragon]

My open letter to WotC

I posted this on their forums, but I wanted to post this here too. The CB Online announcement has forced me to leave the game. Here is my open letter to WotC.



Dear Wizards,

With this new announcement, you have made my D&D Insider subscription pretty much worthless. I do not always have constant internet connection nor do I feel that I should need it in order to use a service I have rightly paid for believing it to be an offline software.

I have just canceled my online renewal subscription to D&D Insider. I understand that you are trying to possibly prevent piracy or are wanting to deliver content to smartphone users, but by removing the software you are hurting people like myself who do not have a smartphone and can't always get to the internet.

This is a disappointment, for you guys have made a really good product with the character builder. It is very well done. But you have destroyed it's usefulness for me and thus I have alienated me as a paying customer.

In fact, by removing the character builder from me you have pretty much assured that I am leaving D&D all together. I don't buy the splat books as the character builder made them useless, and I'm not going to start buying them as you errata the information the very month they are printed. I am very displeased in the direction that 4e is going, and I was once one of your biggest supporters. But every few months you show more and more of your true colors and I am no longer happy with the product.

The constant erratas have made my books that I do own completely worthless, not to mention that they were overpriced and of poor quality to begin with. The blatant fact that you do not play test anything that comes out, something we all observed as early as the Battlerager. The complete and total blunder with the miniatures line, consisting of removing the miniatures game, claiming to make all future minis viewable then pulling a 360 on that idea within six months, and let's not forget the poor craftsmanship/paint jobs of most of the newer minis. And of course the unnecessary additions of side products blatantly made to increase sales, including Essentials and Gamma World. You have been waving around your true colors for months now and this latest change has caused me to take notice.

Thank you for the time you have given me WotC, but I can no longer to continue to support your actions.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, the CB is losing a lot of functionality for most users, which is unfortunate, but not really a surprise. WOTC needed to bring things in-house more to disallow the 10 a year people from downloading to 5 different people and using all the content for a pittiance.

Also, bringing mac people online was a good idea. Lots of them out there.

In the future, I think this will encourage WOTC to develop more tools online now that the data is safer for them.