New Character Builder from WotC!

[Jack99]

Eh, it's just not the same if it goes "poof" when you close your browser...

It is for me. As DM primarily, and player secondarily, I have perhaps made 200 different characters since 4e was launched, if not more. I do however only have 11 or so on my computer. The one I play, a handful of characters I would play if my ranger died, and a copy of the characters in my own campaign.

Everything else, I never save. I might make something, just to see how it looks, but I do not see an absolute need to save and save it for posterity. I seriously doubt that those people who have hundreds of characters ever get to reopen most of them.

Look, I am not saying I think 20 is more than enough. I think its too little as well. 50-100 should cover people's needs without risking any issues. I also bet they will up the limit quickly.

I am however saying that some of the people complaining about their "needs" for hundreds of character slots are (grossly) exaggerating said need. IMO, of course. But hey, it's the Internet, the place where restraint doesn't exist.

 

[Oldtimer]

Look, I am not saying I think 20 is more than enough. I think its too little as well. 50-100 should cover people's needs without risking any issues.

Just as a thought experiment, I zipped one of my characters and checked the file size... 20 kB.

So 50000 subscribers saving 1000 characters each would fit into 1 TB. I would assume WotC could afford a few terabytes of storage...

 

[RigaMortus2]

I haven't been keeping up with thread, but did I just read that correctly? You can only store up to 20 characters? If thats the case, then WotC has already made the decision for me whether I am going to be a DDi subscriber or not.

I am keeping this months subscription, because I am very curious and interested on messing with the new character builder. But I don't think any amount of "wow" factor is going to want me to keep the subscription after this month. This is a severe limit IMO.

I do hope I read that wrong...

 

[Hussar]

I think the issue isn't so much storage, it's retrieval. Memory is so cheap that it's practically free. But, if every time you boot up your CB, it queries every single character you have saved in the database, that's going to eat up bandwidth.

At least, that's my very, very uninformed guess.

 

[RigaMortus2]

I do have another question, and I think this was answered a while ago, so forgive me if it was (I forget the answer)...

Previously, the DDi subscription allowed for 5 downloads/updates for the Character Builder. The intent was that you can share your log-in info with your gaming group, they can each get the CB and keep it updated, and each player (and DM) can use it for one cost, one log-in...

Will this still be the case? Or would each player now have to subscribe to get access to the character builder? If I am using the online CB, and my friend decides to mess with it at the same time, and he uses my log-in info, will it knock me off, or can multiple people (sharing the same account info) use the CB at the same time?

Now, assuming you CAN share the CB with one subscription/account... If the character limit is 20 characters stored, that is only 5 characters per person per gaming group. Ick...

Again, my apologies if this has already been answered and I missed it...

 

[RigaMortus2]

I think the issue isn't so much storage, it's retrieval. Memory is so cheap that it's practically free. But, if every time you boot up your CB, it queries every single character you have saved in the database, that's going to eat up bandwidth.

At least, that's my very, very uninformed guess.

Well, why not just load up the one you want access to, and not ALL of them at once? Once you load it, it can store the info in cache so it doesn't take so long to re-load should you change characters... Or are we expecting to see a WoW character selection screen? Which would be cool IMO...

 

[MarkB]

I've enjoying making characters I knew I'd never play since I got into D&D with 2e. The CB just makes that a lot easier. For some of us, it's FUN to just create characters.

Okay, this part I just don't get. Yes, the new CB has a character-file limit, and yes, it doesn't have character-file exports, but so what? Your character-file IS NOT YOUR CHARACTER.

The new system will still allow you to output a character to print - or to PDF file via a PDF-writer like CutePDF. And that print-out contains every single piece of data you need to re-create that character from scratch.

If, at a later time, you find yourself wanting to go back and modify that intellectual-exercise character in the CB, it's going to take you, at worst, a maximum of ten minutes to re-build it based on the printed character sheet. That's less time than it'd probably take you just to nail down all the sources of your feats and powers if you were resurrecting a manually-created character.

 

[IronWolf]

You can still create all the characters you want with the new CB, if it is intellectual stimulation you are looking for. You just cant save them, and if passing time is all you need those extra slots for, well they arent stricly necessary.

Eh, it's just not the same if it goes "poof" when you close your browser...

It is for me. As DM primarily, and player secondarily, I have perhaps made 200 different characters since 4e was launched, if not more. I do however only have 11 or so on my computer. The one I play, a handful of characters I would play if my ranger died, and a copy of the characters in my own campaign.

While it certainly may not matter to you it does seem to matter to several of the people in this thread. It seems quite "bad wrong fun" to say because it isn't your style that others concerns are invalidated and not relevant.

Everyone has different ideas of what is fun. So while a tool might meet all of your needs, it might not meet everyone's needs. With that said, WotC will never be able to please all the people 100% of the time. They just need to determine how the majority of people use the tool and then determine which limitations people comment about are going to warrant changes.

 

[abyssaldeath]

I do have another question, and I think this was answered a while ago, so forgive me if it was (I forget the answer)...

Previously, the DDi subscription allowed for 5 downloads/updates for the Character Builder. The intent was that you can share your log-in info with your gaming group, they can each get the CB and keep it updated, and each player (and DM) can use it for one cost, one log-in...

Will this still be the case? Or would each player now have to subscribe to get access to the character builder? If I am using the online CB, and my friend decides to mess with it at the same time, and he uses my log-in info, will it knock me off, or can multiple people (sharing the same account info) use the CB at the same time?

Now, assuming you CAN share the CB with one subscription/account... If the character limit is 20 characters stored, that is only 5 characters per person per gaming group. Ick...

Again, my apologies if this has already been answered and I missed it...

The intent was never for you to share your account with others. People just jumped to that conclusion. The purpose of the five downloads was for you to be able to install the CB on up to five times on your own computers.

That said, I don't believe that WotC is overly concerned with that behavior. Just know that they are not going to test out whether or not two people can be logged onto the same account and access the CB at the same time. A lot of these types of questions are jus going to have to wait till after the 16th.

 

[Saracenus]

Actually the official explanation of the 20 character limit for CloudCB is that it prevents automated script attacks that would create character after character in a Denial of Service attack on the WotC servers. Source (Paulo, lead dev on the DDI tools before they yanked all official response to a single person WotCTrevor I believe).

While this explanation is laughable at best, its the one they have provided. Having talked a friend who is a software developer, his basic take is this is to prevent folks from buying one login and having an entire group's PCs on that one account.

That being said, after the hue and cry raise over the lack of an export function, that has been moved up on the dev priority list. Once that is in place you will be able to archive off any "speculative" PCs to a local .DnD4e file and just import it back in when you want to work on it again.

WotC has also said they will review the 20 character limit at a future date (notice they didn't say soon).

I am not going to crawl through the bazillion threads on the WotC forums to find links for all of this.

My Two Coppers,