I think you're being a bit naive there, Herschel. The people who run WotC are gamers as much as you and I are and they will have the same kind of history of creating and DMing and playing in homebrew games and campaigns and campaign worlds. The campaign worlds that are officially supported now (PoL, FR, Eberron and Dark Sun) started out as someone's homebrew world. It is short-sighted of them to say the least to think that all players, not even a "significant portion" but all of them, play in one of their published campaign worlds.
CB's biggest failing by far: No custom content possible
- Thread starter DNH
- Start date
LoL, you're making some rather large false assumptions.
1. You're assuming the game design crew is working on the character builder. They're not. It's farmed out either to internal IT or a third-party software developer. (Notice your DDI subscription reminders, etc. go through Digital River?)
2. This means the design crew lays out what they'd like to have the product do and don't have direct control of the project. The programmers then try to provide what an intermediary said the design crew wanted.
3. You're also assuming the software people just do what they want when they want. That's not how it works. When you have a program database like the Character Builder, upgrades are categorized and prioritized because there's a time and money budget. This usually means...
4. Initial plan, followed by deadline, followed by compromise as everything (feature-wise) can't be ready and tested by deadline, followed by rollout where numerous bugs are discovered that would never show up in QA testing. These bug fixes become priorities in program updates.
5. After bug fixes and data updates, the next priority is usually core functionality improvements. Then tertiary functionality improvements within the system. Then oh yeah, it also has to be able to integrate with the Virtual Tabletop in development. All these things take time and money from the budgeted allotment.
6. After all of this is done, if there's money/time left over for the project (after making a reasonable and desired profit also) then things like customization may be put in. And that's not accounting for any work stoppages due to contract issues or whatever.
It's not a simple, quick or easy process, especially in a corporate structure. Them's the breaks, deal with it.
AeroDm
First Post
I am often amused by these binary threads. It is as though we have to decide that DDi is a great value and will get our money or that it is an abomination that we should rally our comrades to scorn. The truth is that DDi can be *mostly good* and still disappoint. We can subscribe and still wish for (or even expect) more.
I imagine someway, somehow these threads are synthesized into a bullet point that is reported to Wizards at some monthly meeting and the information in them is valuable. I like reading other people's ideas of what tools would make their game better and I like hearing people defend what already exists and offer ideas of how they currently use it. The only thing that doesn't add value, in my opinion, is the argument that you should either unsubscribe or shut up.
I imagine someway, somehow these threads are synthesized into a bullet point that is reported to Wizards at some monthly meeting and the information in them is valuable. I like reading other people's ideas of what tools would make their game better and I like hearing people defend what already exists and offer ideas of how they currently use it. The only thing that doesn't add value, in my opinion, is the argument that you should either unsubscribe or shut up.
You mean actually accomplishing what I want is more difficult than me just saying it? But... but... that's not true, is it? If I type it out, it should be a piece of cake to make it happen! That's how these computer things work!
I mean come on... if I complained at the time of release that the online CB functionality didn't match what the offline functionality had... and even now, all these months later, it STILL hasn't been done... that HAS to mean that WotC is just out-and-out ignoring me... not that they would like to do so but it's just more difficult to accomplish than I think it is! Right? Right?!?
TwoSix
Everyone's literal second-favorite poster
No one has mentioned that adding custom content would be a major ramp up in complexity to add to a database. There's a reason most software doesn't have a "go ahead and type your own answer" in drop-down boxes, and believe me, it isn't to make the site easier to navigate.
Dannager
First Post
Not really.
The assumption was that many DMs would create their own worlds, adventures, monsters, settings, etc., but that player options would remain largely the same - note, for example, that there are precious few guidelines anywhere in 4e published content about constructing your own player options (feats, powers, paths, and so on). There is plenty of advice on crafting encounters, building monsters, and slapping together campaign worlds, but at no point did the developers say in any book anything along the lines of "We want to give you the tools you need to create new player options."
Dannager
First Post
There are about eight hundred reasons why this is essentially a non-starter for a small development team already under a ton of pressure to get current projects done, much less start on new end-user requests.
I suspect that in time there will be a certain degree of support for house rules -- though not sure it will go so far as to "do the math" so to speak. Honestly, I think the CB will never be "finished" per se. Much like the VTT WotC is no doubt hoping to get the CB to the point where it can continue to be updated not only with the new releases, but also to support multiple editions (5th edition for instance) and be as useable for everyone as possible. Its the type of product that should always be "in development" to address changing needs, etc.
It looks to me as though WotC's main business is going to revolve around DDi and that includes offering support not just for 4ed but also future editions, etc. (Heck maybe even past editions, the early version of the VTT hinted at that anyway). As such, as our needs, as the users, change, so to should the CB. This is why I suspect that its only a matter of time before there is support for House Rules and the like. At the moment though its a matter of priorities. Not everyone agrees as to what the biggest need is at the moment.
It looks to me as though WotC's main business is going to revolve around DDi and that includes offering support not just for 4ed but also future editions, etc. (Heck maybe even past editions, the early version of the VTT hinted at that anyway). As such, as our needs, as the users, change, so to should the CB. This is why I suspect that its only a matter of time before there is support for House Rules and the like. At the moment though its a matter of priorities. Not everyone agrees as to what the biggest need is at the moment.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
It's a problem. It's something they need to put in. It's probably not the MOST urgent thing that they need to put in, but it's something they absolutely do need to.
If it's a big enough failure to make the product not worth it for you, ditch the sub and write them telling them why.
You could also try and write in to Rule-of-Three about it. Mearls seems willing to address possible problems in that article...or, at least, the people complaining about Essentials got a voice there.
If it's a big enough failure to make the product not worth it for you, ditch the sub and write them telling them why.
You could also try and write in to Rule-of-Three about it. Mearls seems willing to address possible problems in that article...or, at least, the people complaining about Essentials got a voice there.
eamon
Explorer
The PCGen route probably would be a brilliant solution, except that to pull it off you'd need a community of supporters that each did their bit; and this runs into copyright issues: you can't just copy rules-text for power-cards into a public database. So this would need some amount of support from WotC to work.
I'm not currently a subscriber, but in the offline world, the XML was incomplete; it wasn't possible to do this. Has that been fixed? Does the XML include the full rules text necessary to generate power cards and the like? If so, this is probably reasonable: for the tiny minority that can do this at all, and feel that it's OK to pay a monthly subscription to be allowed to do the work yourself. Again, some support from wizards would go a long way here, such as an example and a forum to exchange such layouts.
And any case, it still wouldn't do the math, so you can't really use it to do houserules.
It's also a pretty odd proposition to donate this kind of hours to a for-profit outfit for which you yourself need to pay a monthly fee to merely participate. If you're going to pay, you might as well pay for something. I don't think it's odd to complain. I do think in this particular case, it's hopeless.
