November 16th release for Web-based Character Builder

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Yeah this is a good point to make. No one doing the 1 month download thing was doing anything wrong... In fact if you only cared about that part, then doing that made the most economical sense.

That's part of the issue. They created a part of the service that gave people more incentive NOT to subscribe then to subscribe, and probably didn't realize how much of an effect it would have on physical book sales.

I think its 12.95 per month, if you go monthly, right? Assuming you download once each quarter, you're paying $51.80. 20 bucks less than the year long subscription. Was it really worth it to piss so many off to potentially gain a little bit of extra income from trying to force them into becoming year long subscribers?

The guys who also did monthly dips were also potentially missing out on getting the rules the month of release. It would have been smarter for them to stagger it out, where each month had a new splat.

And frankly, even if it hurts book sales, they are probably making more off each month of DDI than each copy of the lates book, as a result of selling direct.

At $72 a year, DDI is comparable in price to a MMO subscription. The difference is a MMO provides a complete play experience. And has a hell of a lot more costs involved, with servers, GM's, tech support, not to mention considerably harder to code. The character builder (honestly the only real reason to be a DDI subscriber) isnt a complete game... its just a supplement to something you already own. They're taking people to the cleaners for a feat planner, and yet the ones deemed "abusing" the system are PAYING CUSTOMERS.

PDF's are available of their books the week they come out. Piracy isnt going to be stopped by this. They spent a lot of time and effort for little benefit to anyone, to deliver something currently worse than what we had.

 

[Cergorach]

If your going to use figures, please use the correct figures.

DDI = $9.99 if you pay per month

WoW = ~$156 per year

When you compare that to the $72 a year there's a BIG difference. DDI provides you with oodles of reading material, tons of reference material, but very little interactivity (as was promised). An MMO gives you virtual no reading material, but oodles of interactivity. Not really comparable gameplay... There is a reason why DDI costs less then half of what an MMO costs per year.

 

[Scribble]

I think its 12.95 per month, if you go monthly, right? Assuming you download once each quarter, you're paying $51.80. 20 bucks less than the year long subscription. Was it really worth it to piss so many off to potentially gain a little bit of extra income from trying to force them into becoming year long subscribers?

I think with any situation like this, you have to look at everything as a whole and weigh the choices, and also account for not having all the info.

You can't take one part and assume it's the whole.

For instance:

Old CB couldn't be used by a large group of potential users. (Mac users)

Old CB forced them to split man hours maintaining more then one Database. (And if you add a new tool for Mac users, one for Ipad, and Android the situation only gets worse.)

Old CB actively promoted casual subscriptions- And it's important to note that it's not just that it let people do it, it's that it actively promoted it... Really it made better economic sense to do it. The only drawback was that you needed to be patient. (oh and it's 10 bux a month.)

Old CB cut into physical product sales (and WoTC is pro-physical product.) Since you were downloading the info "forever" the CB was actively cutting incentive to want to buy the physical product.

Old CB not only was easy to pirate, but actively HELPED the pirates out, by supplying them with a nice DB package to use.

Freeing up man power, and adding a whole set of new potential customers, stand out as two very big reasons to switch, especially when a large percentage of the population already using the tool will be unaffected.

The other issues probably just put it over the top as something that had to be done even though it risked pissing off some users

PDF's are available of their books the week they come out. Piracy isnt going to be stopped by this. They spent a lot of time and effort for little benefit to anyone, to deliver something currently worse than what we had.

Sure- it's not always about actively trying to stop the piracy... but why go out of your way to make it easy for them?

I mean most people lock their door at night... A thief can pretty easily smash a window, and take what he wants, but that doesn't mean we should leave the key in the lock.

Also "Currently worse then we had" is kind of unfair... None of us have actually used the system yet.

Also little benefit to anyone doesn't apply to mac users. And while I can't speak for everyone, here are some reasons I am happy about the switch:

I can also use the CB now from any computer linked to the web, which makes me happy when I go to a friend's place who doesn't have the CB, and I want to use it.

Or if I'm visiting my dad, and didn't bring a computer.

Or if you're say, at school in a computer lab, or at a place that doesn't block the WoTC site, but won't let you install software.

Or if I get to the game and realize I forgot my character, I can just log on and print him out.

Also if they DO manage to make updates more often it benefits me.

I can understand people who like to use the system offline, being upset because they no longer can... But this doesn't effect me. I use the CB in places that have internet access, and even if I don't I have a phone with an unlimited data package that can tether very easily- so I'm all for it.

 

[Festivus]

An MMO gives you virtual no reading material, but oodles of interactivity. Not really comparable gameplay... There is a reason why DDI costs less then half of what an MMO costs per year.

I think it depends on which MMO you play and how you play it. I found World of Warcraft to have a pretty good story, if one stopped and bothered to read the quests and text presented. I do agree however, there is oodles of interactivity.

 

[mudbunny]

FWIW, I am collecting questions about the functioning of the new CHaracter builder on the WotC website in the thread here. If you have a question you would like answered, post them there or post them here (and make sure to tag me so that I see it) and I will add it.

Trevor has assured me that he will do his best to get as many of them answered as possible.

 

[Ahrimon]

Silverlight question: Does silverlight have to be pre-installed in order to run the new CB? If so, that limits the "run anywhere" pro to "run anywhere where silverlight is pre-installed or installable by me".

I'm still leaning towards this being a positive. Especially once exporting is done.

 

[Sammael]

Silverlight question: Does silverlight have to be pre-installed in order to run the new CB? If so, that limits the "run anywhere" pro to "run anywhere where silverlight is pre-installed or installable by me".

I'm still leaning towards this being a positive. Especially once exporting is done.

Silverlight works exactly the same as Flash - it's a browser plugin. If you don't have Silverlight installed when you go to a Silverlight-based site, you'll be prompted to install it.

Silverlight (as it was a couple of years ago, when I looked at it) had notoriously poor file-handling capacities, and this was by design. This is most likely the reason why export (a function that would generally take a day or two to implement in pretty much every other Microsoft development technology) is not available on release. I'm not sure if the new versions of Silverlight work better in that respect...

Speaking of which, what new versions of Silverlight? Microsoft pretty much declared Silverlight dead as a general development platform a couple of days ago, stating that it will be repurposed as a dev platform for Windows Mobile. It's actually more complicated than that, but it boils down to that. Of course, existing Silverlight apps will continue to run perfectly fine, but whether MS will bother to implement Silverlight plugins for future operating systems is a completely different matter.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Shrug. I'm willing to give most people the benefit of the doubt. In this case though- he seems to be the specific developer they've chosen to give out info on the new DDI tools, so when he says stuff I get the feeling he's not just shootin the breeze...

Really it's less what he says and more what he comes right out and says he can't answer, or doesn't know, or is not legally able to answer, or whatever that makes me trust him a little more. It indicates to me at least that he's not just saying something he "thinks" might be the case, and that he's only passing on info he's qualified to answer, and has available to him.

Related to this... I think they're trying to figure out a good balance of info they can give out to us.

They started with treating us all like "friends" it seems, and that backfired.

Then they went into total lock down blackout mode and that backfired...





Well- if it helps he indicated that export has been moved up in priorities in features to implement. (I'm going to go out on a limb and say it sounds like they're trying to get it done for the next update at the latest, but obviously that's just a guess.)

I was willing to give WoTC the benefit of the doubt when they said they were working on getting the data from Dark Sun and essentials into the CB months ago and they were essentially saying, months ago, that your current CB build is dead and we're not going to support it anymore.

Say one thing and do another, well, that crap only goes along so far.

I mean, does anyone remember when 'the Rouse' was talking about buying a book and having a code that lets you download the PDF of it for a couple dollars more?

At this point WoTC doesn't have a clue what they're doing and should just shut up until whatever products they have are ready because they keep shooting themselves in the foot like some red neck retard that things it's wiggling toe is something good to eat and shoots it off. "I'ze got me a 3-D character promter over here with some virtual table tops I does..."

 

[fanboy2000]

At this point WoTC doesn't have a clue what they're doing and should just shut up until whatever products they have are ready because they keep shooting themselves in the foot like some red neck retard that things it's wiggling toe is something good to eat and shoots it off. "I'ze got me a 3-D character promter over here with some virtual table tops I does..."

Except that then a different set of people then complain that Wizard's ins't communicating with them.

 

[Cergorach]

Silverlight works exactly the same as Flash - it's a browser plugin. If you don't have Silverlight installed when you go to a Silverlight-based site, you'll be prompted to install it.

Which is a problem if/when you don't have admin access, like on most work PCs. I can also attest that a lot of companies don't have Silverlight installed by default.

Except that then a different set of people then complain that Wizard's ins't communicating with them.

Which is a legitimate complaint, but less of a problem then promising the universe and delivering a red neck love shack...

Blizzard gets away with saying it's done when it's done, because they actually mean it. When they do deliver the product, they deliver a very polished product and have very quick turnaround on patches. Not to mention a very long support period, 11 years for Starcraft 1 (and they might still release patches if there are any big issues), you can also still buy the product for a reasonable price...

See the difference?