New Character Builder from WotC!

[evilref]

No? Do you have a reference point for that? I'd been lead to believe that violating terms of service from installed/used software was not a good thing.

Firstly you're shifting the goalposts here. I assert that a TOS does not replace a signed ownership of copyright. Your point is regarding the violation of terms of service. This thread hasn't been about violating TOS at all.

As for your point, it depends on what you mean by 'not a good thing', what the TOS is and what's being violated. There have been rulings that violating Terms of Use agreements are, and are not, criminal matters. Recent rulings have been something of a slippery slope in the US (and one in particular I could see being cast down by the Supreme Court). I could, for example, create a website and state under the Terms of Use that anyone who accessed it who was not called Vizzini was violating my TOS and, as such in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2)(C). On the other hand, the Lori Drew case saw Judge Wu find that breaking a website's TOS did not automatically mean you had commited a criminal offence (it's a complicated issue, wikipedia's page has a decent summary if you don't want to read the actual ruling).

This is also a pretty broad subject and somewhat out of context. The user, for example, isn't violating the Terms of Use as outlined through the general thread. It's a question of whether the terms of use grants the company copyright ownership of everything created using that software (or, specifically, created and/or stored).

The closest case for this specifically is Powers vs Facebook. http://pub.bna.com/eclr/08cv05780_051109.pdf

The key line is 'Defendants correctly assert that Facebook does not have a copyright on user content'

 

[JoeGKushner]

Thanks for the link. I agree that the part you note is very relevant.

Has there been a case where Facebook has tried to claim user content and been denied by the user via a C&D?

In terms of TOS, this is another interesting one;

http://www.inquisitr.com/41108/ioc-sends-cd-to-awia-committee-member-over-olympic-photos-on-flickr/

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/po...tee-tries-prohibit-olympic-photos-flickr-then

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Or to put it a different way, a company trying to claim copyright transfer via ToS is going to be considered "overreaching"; its interpretation
"overbroad" and possibly even abusive. Courts don't like that kind of exercise of power, and seldom uphold those clauses in favor of the contract drafter, absent the parties being found to be in roughly equivalent bargaining positions (i.e., both parties are in business together; both are experienced in the rules of the contract's matter; both parties had legal departments that could/should have made them aware of the meaning of specific clauses, etc.).

Here, the bargaining positions are definitely NOT equal.

However, as someone else pointed out, if you really are that concerned about the issue, don't use the service & software.

Unsatisfactory? Put "Copyright held & retained by (your real name)" in each PCs name block. That should put WotC on notice, at the very least.

 

[RLBURNSIDE]

Sucky thing is that

because they're actually introducing extremely good / better feats such as Superior Will, the new Weapon Expertise feats and errata to powers such as DC, our group will probably have no choice but to keep subscribing to DP Insider.

Oh well...but there is no way we're paying for more than one/two accounts (one for the players, and one for the DM) to play this game properly. Sue me. You cannot force people to upgrade like this without them finding a way to keep their costs down. The fox gets faster, so must rabbits. It's the way of things. We will adapt.

 

[Saracenus]

A point I think is being missed:

By putting data in the cloud WotC is doing a very smart thing and separating its data from the user interface (UI).

Right now, when I download CB (which was created using the .NET dev tools), the data is formatted for that program and local on my computer. Anything I create there is also local to my computer. I have to expend effort to make sure all my [computers] have the same data that I have created (this goes the same for the Monster Builder too).

Under the new web based CB I am only downloading a front end (built with silverlight) and accessing the data up in the cloud. WotC's data and my own created material.

Now, if Microsoft does dead end silverlight, while that would be a major bummer, its not a complete disaster... the data is still accessible by a different front end that WotC can design using whatever tools are appropriate.

My biggest concern involves how they are normalizing their data. Right now, if I search for Hags in the compendium most of them will not show fey as their origin in the stackblock but if I search for all things fey, they will show up in the search list as fey (their statblocks still show natural, elemental, immortal, etc.).

This means the statblocks are being generated not from data in the database tables but from an image blob. This explains why all the statblocks prior to MM3 didn't change. Instead of changing the formatting once and calling the data up to fill it, they would have to change each statblock image blob.

This decision saved them development time in the beginning but screwed them when it came time to make big changes or add material to the system. To add a single monster you have to add all the data twice, once for the search fields and a second time for the image blob.

This means they have a greater chance for errors to creep in and any changes now require at least twice as much work.

Getting back to the web based CB, if the data base is "atomized" properly meaning the data is broken down to its smallest parts and is format neutral then WotC can more efficiently update said info because you are just entering data and not formatting it. Instead, the front end takes the data and formats it into usable information, i.e. your character.

Because your character is just a collection of data points, other front ends can access it in new and interesting ways. Say a combat tracker that just has to point at the unique identifier for you PC (PC id#?) and wham, all the info is dumped into the app. You could give your DM your unique ID and wham it drops into his combat tracker program. That would be without having to export it out into the .DnD4e format and then import it into the new app.

I am not glossing over the problems that on-line only presents to folks, I am merely pointing out there is a legitimate advantage to putting all the data up in the cloud. In the end it might be better for almost everyone that it is. Time will tell us if this is true.

Right now I am on a 3 month subscription to see how this shakes out. I will make my informed decision at that point if the new system is working for me or not.

My Two Coppers,

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Because I don't use DDI, I ask this question:

How stable has it been? As in, how many times (if any) and for how long has it been inaccessible for one reason or another?

That would seem to be one of the most crucial questions- being unable to access your PC while offline is headache enough, but if you can't get to it while online...

 

[Saracenus]

Because I don't use DDI, I ask this question:

How stable has it been? As in, how many times (if any) and for how long has it been inaccessible for one reason or another?

That would seem to be one of the most crucial questions- being unable to access your PC while offline is headache enough, but if you can't get to it while online...

Really this is two questions:

1) How stable has the WotC D&D site been for you.
2) How stable has your internet connection been in general.

Question 2 is going have variance based upon service used, location, etc. For me personally, my up time on Comcast has been good in my area. My problems have generally been fixed rapidly (except the two times squirrels chewed through my cable line to the house, that took a couple of days each time).

Question 1 is easy to answer, for the most part the WotC website has been up and running. A few times I have run into problems but not very often.

Does Question 1 predict what will happen with the DDI cloud, maybe. Let's face it, putting CB on line is going to increase the load on WotC's servers. Will they handle it (did the devs allocate enough server resources for the demand?)? Remains to be seen. Will the system they have been testing privately hold up to the initial public surge on Nov. 16th... we will see.

If WotC has messed up this last part, I am sure they will take measures to fix it, because if people cannot access the tools they have paid for, they will be uproar. I would pity the poor CustServ agents that day.

In all likelihood, the system will work and there will not be a problem. I am not promising it, but considering they have managed to keep their website running most of the time, I am reasonably confident they can handle the DDI Cloud.

 

[Mad Hamish]

A point I think is being missed:

By putting data in the cloud WotC is doing a very smart thing and separating its data from the user interface (UI).

Really that's something that should be done in all programming.
It's been a long time architecture idea that you have 3 layers
presentation
business objects
raw data interface

so that you isolate where things need to change you limit the areas where they need to change and you can have multiple different presentation layers without having to redo the business logic and raw data.
If they haven't been doing it for the character builder then I wouldn't trust them to be able to do a distributed application.

 

[rjdafoe]

And today Senator Bob did not deny he stole money from a baby.

A) Mining doesn't mean read. The time to actually read 'stuff' rather than go 'how many fighters are using tide of iron...click' is exponentially higher.

B) Why are you fearmongering without substance?

C) Where's your fearmongering on Paizo for having exactly the same language on their forums? (Or Apple, or Sony or...)

Look. I don't care. I jsut said that there are people that have a problem with it. I don't.

But, the fact is - they are fully capable of doing it. It is not like other companies have never done this before and I would think that most people could not afford to prove they did it anyways.

It is just a thing about control of your data. Alot of people have an issue with that.

 

[Saracenus]

Really that's something that should be done in all programming.
It's been a long time architecture idea that you have 3 layers
presentation
business objects
raw data interface

so that you isolate where things need to change you limit the areas where they need to change and you can have multiple different presentation layers without having to redo the business logic and raw data.
If they haven't been doing it for the character builder then I wouldn't trust them to be able to do a distributed application.

Except the database normalization is an ongoing process.

There is just no way to account for all the new ways the D&D devs are going to add to the database model. And frankly there is a limit to how much normalization you can do initially because as some point you just have to do it or it doesn't get done.

The real question is not can they be trusted because the the first model wasn't perfect (believe me it wasn't and I believe the initial CB was an outsourced project that got brought in house) but did they take away the lessons to be learned from the limits of their first effort.

The fact that they went with silverlight to help migrate the .net architecture tells me they made a trade off on time vs. flexibility on the front end. They have done a new front end in 6 months and have brought in Mac users to the fold, but sacrificed the ability to run on iPads and Linux boxes because silverlight won't run in those environments.

However, it doesn't tell me what they are doing on the back end with the data being accessed. I am sure those folks here on the list with silverlight experience can speak to the issues of how data is created and interacted with in that architecture.

It is my understanding that having the front end separate from the data means eventually they could move off of silverlight and/or use other interfaces for the same data.

Here is the other part, now that stand alone CB is no longer supported, the man-hours being spent on it can be shifted to cloud CB, MB and new tools. Once stand alone MB is stopped, we should see a quicker turn around on tools. If they have done a better job with their Database architecture then we should see vast improvements on the timeliness of updates.

Lets face it, WotC didn't have the man-power or money to support the old system and build the new perfectly. Frankly, I would rather they spend time and resources on something new that will improve delivery of services than keep older product alive that cannot.

Again, I am not addressing the obvious failures of WotC's communication of what they are trying to accomplish to their customers. In that I give them an F.

But I can see some positive in what they are doing. So, cautiously I am waiting to see if they can deliver.

My two coppers,