Changes coming to WotC Community Team

[webrunner]

[MENTION=63727]webrunner[/MENTION] If I were a WotC dev I'd want an apology for that kind of talk. Nobody lied to you. You got early access to a tool that has a useful function right now for some limited set of people and will no doubt be quite a bit more useful at some point. You were never promised it. You still have a fully supported .NET MB, and now you have access to this extra thing. So then people go and throw it in the devs faces. The Internet is such a classy place...

They did actually lie, the initial launch email called it the "Launch of the new monster builder" (which it wasn't, it's the launch of part of the new monster builder for VTT support), and explicitly listed "build new monsters" as a feature.

The point is, the whole thing about it being a tool for the VTT only came out after the backlash. Beforehand they didn't present it as anything other than a new monster builder, which is at best disingenuous.

Note, i have nothing against the devs here. No doubt they're doing good here. The wording of the press releases and choice to omit the detail of what it's actually for smacks of a decision from higher up passed through people who didn't have a say.

There's someone higher up at wotc who's making PR decisions (I doubt it's trevor or anyone we even know the name of) on how to present these upcoming products. if i was WoTC/hasbro I'd seriously reconsider their employment at this point.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yep, although they never should have put that it would allow you to build monsters in the launch announcement.

Eh, I think this is kind of hair-splitting though really. It WILL allow you to build monsters. They could have said 'eventually', but then really I don't get all the ire about this. You go look at it, you say to yourself "gosh, this doesn't do much yet. Guess I'll check back later." Being in the VTT beta I saw it a while ago and thought exactly that.

What I don't get is the rage and badmouthing of the WotC people over exactly what? It is totally unjustified.

 

[mudbunny]

So, maybe I'm confused. Is Trevor still going to be a WotC guy or is he leaving? I saw he won't be managing the team, does that mean he's going back to the game support section answering rules questions

To get back to the topic of the thread....

He will still be part of the team, he just won't be managing it, as far as I understand it. There is only so much you can do via IM or conference call as opposed to walking across the hall and knocking on a cubicle wall.

 

[Mapache]

Eh, I think this is kind of hair-splitting though really. It WILL allow you to build monsters. They could have said 'eventually', but then really I don't get all the ire about this. You go look at it, you say to yourself "gosh, this doesn't do much yet. Guess I'll check back later." Being in the VTT beta I saw it a while ago and thought exactly that.

Wait, it's hair-splitting to expect a Monster Builder to allow actual monster-building? It's a monster catalog with two new features, leveling and importing, and neither one actually works right. I'm in the VTT beta, and realized that there it's serving a role in part of their overall solution, but releasing this trumped-up UI mockup to the public as a Monster Builder Beta is a joke and an embarrassment to the company.

 

[Dire Bare]

They did actually lie, the initial launch email called it the "Launch of the new monster builder" (which it wasn't, it's the launch of part of the new monster builder for VTT support), and explicitly listed "build new monsters" as a feature.

The point is, the whole thing about it being a tool for the VTT only came out after the backlash. Beforehand they didn't present it as anything other than a new monster builder, which is at best disingenuous.

Note, i have nothing against the devs here. No doubt they're doing good here. The wording of the press releases and choice to omit the detail of what it's actually for smacks of a decision from higher up passed through people who didn't have a say.

There's someone higher up at wotc who's making PR decisions (I doubt it's trevor or anyone we even know the name of) on how to present these upcoming products. if i was WoTC/hasbro I'd seriously reconsider their employment at this point.

Please. Nobody is lying to you. I just built a few monsters with it. Just because it is in beta, and not yet complete, and doesn't do everything you want . . . doesn't make anybody a liar.

You can reskin existing monsters, and adjust their levels. Limited, of course. But those are classic techniques of building new monsters that go back to all previous editions. Should it do more? Oh yes, and it will.

But it is a Monster Builder right now. Calling the folks at WotC liars is just negative, unnecessary hyperbole.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Wait, it's hair-splitting to expect a Monster Builder to allow actual monster-building? It's a monster catalog with two new features, leveling and importing, and neither one actually works right. I'm in the VTT beta, and realized that there it's serving a role in part of their overall solution, but releasing this trumped-up UI mockup to the public as a Monster Builder Beta is a joke and an embarrassment to the company.

Oh, please. The only thing that embarrasses me is how rude the community is to the people that are doing the hard work.

 

[tuxgeo]

To get back to the topic of the thread....

He will still be part of the team, he just won't be managing it, as far as I understand it. There is only so much you can do via IM or conference call as opposed to walking across the hall and knocking on a cubicle wall.

Merb. Must be some modern, knockable kind of cubicle wall. At Intel, the cubicle walls were steel-and-plastic frames covered with cloth -- but mostly cloth, so you couldn't knock on them.

Ain't progress wonderful? Now we get cubicle walls you can actually knock on, if you wood. (Or "would.")

 

[MrMyth]

Eh, I think this is kind of hair-splitting though really. It WILL allow you to build monsters. They could have said 'eventually', but then really I don't get all the ire about this. You go look at it, you say to yourself "gosh, this doesn't do much yet. Guess I'll check back later." Being in the VTT beta I saw it a while ago and thought exactly that.

What I don't get is the rage and badmouthing of the WotC people over exactly what? It is totally unjustified.

Because saying, "Check out our new Monster Builder, coming out on March 22nd, which will allow you to create all new monsters and customize existing ones!"

... and then releasing a Monster Builder that does neither of those things...

... is frustrating to the community, and especially for those who may have signed up for DDI that month specifically in anticipation of the new product.

If they had just explained in advance what they were bringing out and why, there wouldn't be nearly as much anger and frustration over it.

 

[sigfile]

Yeah, the March 15th News announcement certainly made it sound more functional than what was released.

Creating new monsters, customizing existing ones and building your adventures will be easier than ever before. On launch day, just log in to your D&D Insider account, click on the Adventure Tools button and give the new Monster Builder a try.

 

[Mapache]

Oh, please. The only thing that embarrasses me is how rude the community is to the people that are doing the hard work.

The problem is that they don't seem to be doing very much of it. I'm generally positive about the online Character Builder, apart for the UI disaster that is buying and selling, but this Monster Builder is pathetic. The old Monster Builder used to be good, before they ruined it with data-loss bugs that destroyed half the text you'd entered when you saved, rendering it less useful than a text editor. They never fixed that, but have had plenty of time to come up with a replacement, and this is what we have so far? It's a catalog that goes to a lot of effort to duplicate the content in the HTML Compendium in a proprietary plug-in environment, and for what? There's a leveling function, but it's using formulas that are over a year out of date and lead to horribly unbalanced monsters when applied. It supposedly imports your existing modified monsters, but there's numerous reports of massive data-loss bugs there. What, exactly, have they accomplished that we should be congratulating them on? I do, in fact, do this sort of thing for a living, and WotC's performance in this area Consistently Misses Expectations.