Any DDI News?

[Jhaelen]

My guess would be that Hasbro got cold feet on the Builder side of things, since you essentially don't need to buy the books anymore.

My guess is that Hasbro doesn't even have an opinion on this, unless WotCs profits go downhill.

I think, WotCs learned that it is dangerous to announce a new digital tool before it's ready for an open beta. I doubt they'll actually develop their own VTT from the ground up, but I'm pretty sure there will eventually be more adventure tools.

 

[Shemeska]

We also know from other various WotC staff that there are unannounced digital projects in active development.

Technically I don't recall anyone ever having said exactly that, that anything among the presumed DOA originally promised programs was in active development. They've said they weren't cancelled, but they've been exceedingly cautious and phrased the wording of such pronouncements to keep hope alive that one day, one day you might see it. But they've never said they were in active development.

Frankly I don't think they have the available development staff to do too much more than keep current things updated, and even then a lot of things have yet to be fixed or brought out of beta. The (not public) comments of various former employees of the DDI team are rather illuminating on the subject. One of them suggested a possible timetable of what to expect in the future, but a year later now, WotC hasn't released any of them or even hinted at them, so I dunno what's going on internally and I don't know anyone still remaining on staff to ask.

 

[Zaran]

Frankly I don't think they have the available development staff to do too much more than keep current things updated, and even then a lot of things have yet to be fixed or brought out of beta. The (not public) comments of various former employees of the DDI team are rather illuminating on the subject. One of them suggested a possible timetable of what to expect in the future, but a year later now, WotC hasn't released any of them or even hinted at them, so I dunno what's going on internally and I don't know anyone still remaining on staff to ask.

This is my opinion too. Keeping things super secret is one thing but they haven't even said that they are working on anything in a long time. Did they announce anything at the last big gaming con?

 

[ourchair]

My (entirely unfounded) suspicion is that there is a lot of project management strife that is keeping any new digital tools from being developed. I don't mean personal wars, but just poor direction and improper resource allocation.

"I want you five guys to work on the Character Visualizer? Can you do that while handling the updates for Adventure Tool and Character Builder?"

"Yeah, but we need a better system for inputting the data in..."

"That's great!"

TWO MONTHS LATER

"So how's the Character Visualizer?"

"Um, we haven't really gotten past the alpha stage?"

"I thought you could do it!"

"Yeah but the DDI updates are a priority and I was trying to tell you we have to hand type in all the new info from the books."

"That's not so hard!"

"And the RPGA materials."

"Manageable."

"And the Dragon and Dungeon content."

"Okay, stop updates on the Monster Builder... and shift priorities to the Campaign Manager!"

TWO MONTHS LATER

"This Campaign Manager is terrible! No one would use an interface like this!"

"Well, Chris does and he's happy with it!"

"Change it!"

"Yeah, Rodney liked it, but then Mike said it sucked. We need an interface we can agree on."

"Are you ordering me?"

"No, I'm just saying..."

"You're all fired! I'm replacing you all with Farmville developers!"

 

[Rechan]

I'm sure we'll hear some cool news at GenCon.

 

[Markn]

When there was no update to the Monster Builder this month I went searching as to why. Obviously the answer was "it was taking longer to implement the new stat block changes than we thought."

But I did find this tweet on WotC's twitter page which leaves me cautiously optimistic something might be forthcoming.

@Alphastream I hear you alpha - We should have the new monster stat block next month and hopefully more good news to come after

 

[ourchair]

When there was no update to the Monster Builder this month I went searching as to why. Obviously the answer was "it was taking longer to implement the new stat block changes than we thought."

But I did find this tweet on WotC's twitter page which leaves me cautiously optimistic something might be forthcoming.

@Alphastream I hear you alpha - We should have the new monster stat block next month and hopefully more good news to come after

Iknoerait?

I've been looking forward to the new stat block format being implemented into the tools for now. I thought that since HS1 already had it, and because we'd already gotten a preview of it elsewhere, they'd have the opportunity to implement it sooner than later.

Ah. Well.

 

[Markn]

I think that demonstrates just how tight their resources are - knowing that a new stat block is on the horizon and they are delayed in having it ready for DDI. The alternative is that its simply bad project management. For now, I will believe it is the former rather than the latter.

 

[ourchair]

I have a feeling that somewhere in upper management, someone thought that having an online support-dependent content release system for 4E meant "Oh it's gonna be like having a Wordpress blog! We only need like what four people for it?"

 

[Zaran]

I'm sorry but I'm sure they are making a ton of money from DDI subsriptions. And that money was supposed to go to the gaming tools. If they only have a handful of people who have to update the builders, do the mags AND work on the gaming table then WotC is yanking our chains.

They should hire a big video game company and get us what they said they would before 4e was even shipped.