Announcement from Anthony Valterra

[Hardhead]

Could it be that they just realized thet PCGen is a better program and want to sink money into something that works instead of something that doesn't?

Probably. E-tools is OK. PCGen is grrrreat! WotC can't do much to make Fluid put out a patch any quicker, and in all likelihood, they'll never get E-tools to support PrCs or what have you. I'm sure they'll continue to make E-tools bug free, but it'll never support everything that PCGen already does.

So, we have both. E-tools, for those that prefer the UI there, and PCGen for those that prefer the PCGen UI, or just like the much-greater support for PrCs, feats, templates, ect, or don't use Windows. Just because PCGen may get the splat books and FR, that doesn't mean that you can't still use E-tools (though I never understood the reason for using it in the first place).

For those few of you complaining, you bought E-tools with the knowledge that it didn't support custom material or WotC material outside the core rules (or, if you didn't have that knowledge, you should have read up on it more before you bought it). PCGen was and still is more versitile. It's not the PCGen team's fault you bought E-tools.

Same here Chaz. PCG is glacially slow, has an inconsistent and poorly designed user interface, no clear design philosophy, and poorly implemented data management.

You haven't used it in quite some time, I'd guess. Or you have a really old computer. PCGen is very fast these days, and the UI is vastly improved.

However, I myself stopped using PCGen because I got tired of characters not working in new versions,

This is my single biggest gripe with PCGen. Their current "stable" release is an older glacial-speed version, but their "beta" releases seem to randomly break characters from older versions. The obvious solution is for a new production release ASAP. I'm not sure why they don't do that.

 

[Mynex]

Their current "stable" release is an older glacial-speed version, but their "beta" releases seem to randomly break characters from older versions. The obvious solution is for a new production release ASAP. I'm not sure why they don't do that.

Well the 'stable' release you are talking about is actually a 'production release. The major number releases (ala 4.0.0) is actually a stable release....

But there are plans in the works for a new 'stable/production' release, it's just going to take a bit longer since we're adding/changing some critical code/data structure to support the non standard D20 rules (i.e. D20Modern and the like)...

We're also hammering the heck out of the output sheets, adding new functionality to them and making them more robust... I would say give us about another 6-8 weeks and we should be ready for the next _major_ stable/production release...

And as always, we're perfectly willing to listen to all complaints/suggestions about improving things...

The character breakage thing... a lot of people comment on that, and even those of us that work on PCGen have those issues (trust me, my players get REALLY pissy sometimes. )... the problem is we're trying to get the character files to save all the pertinent information to be able to 'down level' correctly, so it's been in a really chaotic state of flux and really hard to nail down *frustrated* But I have a few ideas on that I need to go over with some of the code monkeys to see if we can at least get some type of converter in place.... not sure how well that will work since there's been _drastic_ changes in the way that the character files are stored/handled... but I'll try!

 

[GothMogh]

The problem is we're trying to get the character files to save all the pertinent information to be able to 'down level' correctly, so it's been in a really chaotic state of flux and really hard to nail down *frustrated*

I always wondered about that.. Why don't you format the character save files so they keep info on a per level basis? Something like:

<General>
name: ..
race: ..
age: ..
weight: ..
...
</General>

<level 1>
class: fighter
feat: ...
feat: ...
HP: 5
skill hide: 2
skill spot: 2
</level 1>

<level 2>
class: fighter
feat: ...
feat: ...
HP: 7
skill hide: 4
skill spot: 3
</level 2>

A character's scores and abilities would be the sum of all it's levels and when you level down, all you need to do is delete the last level. It also allows people to see exactly how the character was leveled up.

Cheers,
GothMogh

 

[Mynex]

I always wondered about that.. Why don't you format the character save files so they keep info on a per level basis? Something like:

>snip<

A character's scores and abilities would be the sum of all it's levels and when you level down, all you need to do is delete the last level. It also allows people to see exactly how the character was leveled up.

Cheers,
GothMogh

It's close to that now, the problem is that a LOT of things from the various publishers modify core stuff entirely too much for that exact format... but it's close... Go make a character real quick save it, then open it with any text editor and you'll see it's not far off that...

 

[DMFTodd]

Could it be that they just realized thet PCGen is a better program and want to sink money into something that works instead of something that doesn't?

Not likely. Mynex, straighten me out if I get this wrong:

PCGen is released as Open Source. It's free. You can't charge anything for PCGen. And since it is Open Source you can't use any part of it in something you charge for. So they can't say the current version is free but future versions will cost X (not so sure on that one). Unless they completely rewrite the program. It seems very unlikely to me that Wizards will invest anything in a product they can't make money on.

Maybe they would get around that by charging for new lst files perhaps? I'm guessing the open source license would let them do that.

------------------

What I wonder is whether the negotiations are to open up the splat books for all third party software developers or is this just a Wizards & PCGen arrangement?

I'm hoping it's the former as the later would make a real mess of the already messy software market & licenses.

 

[Knightcrawler]

Okay Mynex correct me if I get this wrong.

The program itself is open source while the lst files themselves are of copyrighted material, I think. What may happen is that you get the core program and the SRD lst files for free. Then for a small fee, say $5, you get a years worth of updates for the Forgotten Realms, the splat books, or Star Wars. $5 for a years worth of updates for each source that is non-SRD.

It would mean that an official website would need to be constructed with id numbers and all that. Now I'm just guessing and taking a stab in the dark. I have no line to the negotiations so this is only my OPINION

Of course things like Star Wars, CoC, Wheel of Time, etc. could get dicey since we would probably need WotC permission and the orginal creator of the material.

 

[tetsujin28]

PCGen speed

Or lack thereof. I have to admit, I really haven't used PCGen because it is really slow on my comp, and I don't have the time to learn how to cut the thing open and edit .lst files.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Okay Mynex correct me if I get this wrong.

The program itself is open source while the lst files themselves are of copyrighted material, I think. What may happen is that you get the core program and the SRD lst files for free. Then for a small fee, say $5, you get a years worth of updates for the Forgotten Realms, the splat books, or Star Wars. $5 for a years worth of updates for each source that is non-SRD.

It would mean that an official website would need to be constructed with id numbers and all that. Now I'm just guessing and taking a stab in the dark. I have no line to the negotiations so this is only my OPINION

Of course things like Star Wars, CoC, Wheel of Time, etc. could get dicey since we would probably need WotC permission and the orginal creator of the material.

While I might be willing to pay $5 to WotC for non-SRD material from thier website, I am certainly not up for $5 for third party OGC material that you already have permission to distribute freely. Wouldn't you also have to renegotiate with all the 3rd parties as well if you begin selling thier material (especially the non-OGC PI parts you already have permission for). This second part sounds like a bad idea to me and certain death to the program.

As for Star Wars and WoT material I can see this a being a dificulty since Lucas and Jordan have larger corporate intrests that may be hard to get by, but CoC's problem seems to be WotC not Chaosium which seems much more friendly to the Idea.

 

[Knightcrawler]

Actually I was just referring to the WotC stuff. A good 75% of the 3rd party stuff out there we already have permission to make lst files for. I doubt it would get to a point were you would have to pay for each company.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Actually I was just referring to the WotC stuff. A good 75% of the 3rd party stuff out there we already have permission to make lst files for. I doubt it would get to a point were you would have to pay for each company.

I appologize for missinterpreting what you wrote, but even with this clarification I am still confused as to what exactly you suggest we pay for. $5 for large groups would be ok (Splatbooks, FR, Star Wars, Dragon) but $5 per source would be excessive as that would come to $50-$100 dollars per year for the material that is being entered and tested by the community for free or is WotC going to start doing the work themselves.