Turning it off would be a feature i could like, but I agree with you. It's especially nice for a newer player coming in to an established group or people building for LFR/Organized Play.
The biggest issue with the new Character Builder:
- Thread starter Herschel
- Start date
Turning it off would be a feature i could like, but I agree with you. It's especially nice for a newer player coming in to an established group or people building for LFR/Organized Play.
nerfherder
Adventurer
Yup. For the last 20 years. Coding, testing (including load testing), designing, architecting, config management, quality management, release management for a number of organisations of different types (internal depts, software houses, large-scale bespoke systems for customers).
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
While I have an instinctive sympathy toward WotC (and software developers in particular), I cannot get behind the OP. The biggest issue with the new CB is that it's unstable. I'm not going to comment on its feature set, or about the decision to stop work on the old CB. I'm just talking about crashes here.
Look, I developed video games for almost 20 years, and I'm very familiar with the development process. I understand that decisions get made for mysterious and non-optimal reasons. I've shipped games with bugs. And I'm fully aware that bugs will show up under the weight of 100,000 or 1,000,000 users, that didn't show up when you had 50 testers doing QA.
But the new Character Builder simply should not have been released when it was. Crash Bugs are "Priority 1"; in my places of employ, we would not have been allowed to ship a product with as many Priority 1 bugs as the CB has -- or even 1/10th as many. You just don't do that. I've worked hellish hours for weeks on end just to eliminate the last tiny handful of crashes, on projects significantly more complex than the Character Builder.
The product I'm seeing personally, and reading about on-line, is still in early Beta. It's months away from shipping.
The correct model could have been to release it explicitly as a public Beta. Tell folks: "This is going to crash a whole lot. Help us find the bugs that will only manifest under the stress of thousands of users, so we can get you a polished and nearly-bug-free product faster!" That would have gone a long way toward ameliorating the loss of good will we're seeing now.
I feel badly for the folks writing the code. I can almost guarantee they knew this would happen, but it wasn't up to them when to ship.
Look, I developed video games for almost 20 years, and I'm very familiar with the development process. I understand that decisions get made for mysterious and non-optimal reasons. I've shipped games with bugs. And I'm fully aware that bugs will show up under the weight of 100,000 or 1,000,000 users, that didn't show up when you had 50 testers doing QA.
But the new Character Builder simply should not have been released when it was. Crash Bugs are "Priority 1"; in my places of employ, we would not have been allowed to ship a product with as many Priority 1 bugs as the CB has -- or even 1/10th as many. You just don't do that. I've worked hellish hours for weeks on end just to eliminate the last tiny handful of crashes, on projects significantly more complex than the Character Builder.
The product I'm seeing personally, and reading about on-line, is still in early Beta. It's months away from shipping.
The correct model could have been to release it explicitly as a public Beta. Tell folks: "This is going to crash a whole lot. Help us find the bugs that will only manifest under the stress of thousands of users, so we can get you a polished and nearly-bug-free product faster!" That would have gone a long way toward ameliorating the loss of good will we're seeing now.
I feel badly for the folks writing the code. I can almost guarantee they knew this would happen, but it wasn't up to them when to ship.
Festivus
First Post
I really just have a couple major concerns about security with the site, simple things they could do to build my confidence. The performance and bugs will be worked otu in time, yes. However, I pointed these out and have yet to hear of any action or plan of action for them:
* Wrap sessions in SSL and use encrypted cookies - Right now, you use the same user name and password to set up your credit card information as you do to log into DDI. DDI isn't a secure site, there is no padlock. This is something they *should* be able to fix with relative ease, but have not yet done so (it's been this way since launch... really silly)
* Don't divulge critical internal workings of code when an error occurs is another. That should also be easy to fix, it's a setting on the server. I have seen enough crash dumps to be able to tell you where they store the databases on their servers, what kind of database and web server they are using, and a few other juicy details (like the field name for the login name).
I am waiting for the letter to arrive in my mailbox when they have a breach... because it's going to happen sooner rather than later with them.
* Wrap sessions in SSL and use encrypted cookies - Right now, you use the same user name and password to set up your credit card information as you do to log into DDI. DDI isn't a secure site, there is no padlock. This is something they *should* be able to fix with relative ease, but have not yet done so (it's been this way since launch... really silly)
* Don't divulge critical internal workings of code when an error occurs is another. That should also be easy to fix, it's a setting on the server. I have seen enough crash dumps to be able to tell you where they store the databases on their servers, what kind of database and web server they are using, and a few other juicy details (like the field name for the login name).
I am waiting for the letter to arrive in my mailbox when they have a breach... because it's going to happen sooner rather than later with them.
Scribble
First Post
What I wonder is if the crash bugs aren't really bugs in the software... By example a while back I installed a new version of a program I'd been using for ever. After I installed the program my computer started crashing, and things went haywire...
I thought it was the program, but in the end it turned out to be some RAM that went bad... Once I replaced the RAM everything was fine. It just was a coincidence that it happened at the same time I installed the program I guess.
Now in the case of the CB- I haven't had any of the crashes people have been describing. The only time I got the system to crash was when I was playing around with the zoom feature.
This to me sounds like it's not a problem with the actual software, but as they say a server, a problem with the specific server. I'm wondering if it could be something as silly as my RAM issue... Maybe a part of the server went bad, and they're trying to figure out what it is?
I don't know enough about IT to say if my thoughts are off base.
I think they were in a no-win situation with the release announcement though. Announce it as an open beta, and the screaming that it's not a finished product would be happening. And people would still be screaming for resources to be spent updating teh "dead" one. Was the deadline too strict? Maybe, but it's also likely been pushed back at least once too if you look at the timing. Decisions like release dates aren't generally made by anyone actually working on the software.
That said, I haven't experienced any of the crashing people are talking about but I don't deny it's happening, and I do like they have a contingency built in if/when it does.
That said, I haven't experienced any of the crashing people are talking about but I don't deny it's happening, and I do like they have a contingency built in if/when it does.
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Why do you think that? The world of computer games is filled with public Betas, and no one bats an eye. If anything, you get players/users who are excited to be part of the development process, and to offer suggestions for improvements.
Honestly, for any multiplayer endeavor (which the CB is), I don't see a way to avoid a public Beta; it's the only way to properly stress-test your servers.
Rodrigo Istalindir
Explorer
The Windows based version doesn't stop working when they decide to push hotfix on a live system, either.
Ryujin
Legend
I would be very VERY surprised if we're talking about a single server here. It could be that one server, out of a cluster, is having issues but my gut tells me it's a load balancing issue.
That's why you release it as an open Beta (I still think it's more Alpha than Beta), while maintaining basic support of the offline builder. It softens the blow, to the point that a lot of people would have to find something else to complain about.
As to crashing: I had quite a nice user experience with it, when I signed on at 6:00am yesterday. Once the Western Hemisphere woke up, the whole thing went into the dumper.
I agree with you here but I can definitely see why they didn't, whether I agree with the decision or not.
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