a5e.tools Character Builder?

[Novak]

So it's been, what, about fifteen months since the kickstarter ended?

What is the status of the Character Builder? Has it begun? Has it been planned and spec'd out? Milestones and schedules? Estimated date of completion? Things like that-- what's the status?

 

[Cadence]

Some info from last fall at:

Level Up (A5E) - A very basic character builder

I've been working on this for the last few days. It's very basic, be warned. it only makes 1st level characters so far. Leveling up beyond that is a task an order of magnitude larger. it's a work in progress and will contnue to be tweaked expect bugs With all that aside, here it is so far...

www.enworld.org

and

Level Up (A5E) - Character builder status?

Have been using a5e.tools a bit and am pretty happy with it. One of the stretch goals for level up was an online character builder. I remember it being stated quite clearly that it would take time to build, I'm just curious what news there is on development. Are there any updates on that front?

www.enworld.org

 

[Satha]

I would also be interested to know more up-to-date official information about this (Morrus' last post on that second thread was in October). If memory serves when the "very basic character builder" was announced it was as a side project and not the actual character builder that was part of the stretch goal. If that's now the WIP solution that will one day be the official character builder I find that extremely disappointing news. No offense to Morrus intended, it's great as a side project to learn web dev or something like that and I understand it's early days, but I don't see how even the bones of that system can become something usable for what the character builder should be after it was a 50k stretch goal.

That's just my two cents, but after 15 months and since it was such a large cost stretch goal I feel like the feedback is appropriate at this point.

 

[Novak]

I would also be interested to know more up-to-date official information about this (Morrus' last post on that second thread was in October). If memory serves when the "very basic character builder" was announced it was as a side project and not the actual character builder that was part of the stretch goal. If that's now the WIP solution that will one day be the official character builder I find that extremely disappointing news. No offense to Morrus intended, it's great as a side project to learn web dev or something like that and I understand it's early days, but I don't see how even the bones of that system can become something usable for what the character builder should be after it was a 50k stretch goal.

That's just my two cents, but after 15 months and since it was such a large cost stretch goal I feel like the feedback is appropriate at this point.

That matches my recollection as well, except that it was the 250k goal, not the 50k goal.
I'm referring specifically to the subject of the third Kickstarter update, the one with the planning and the budget and all that:

We already have somebody in line to coordinate this immense project, and we have a budget. It's now a case of getting your feedback, planning the project, and then we can get coding. But it will take months -- there are lots of intricate parts of the game which interact with each other!

So.... How's that going?

 

[Cadence]

@Morrus

 

[Satha]

That matches my recollection as well, except that it was the 250k goal, not the 50k goal.

Oh, I know, but it was a 50k cost from the previous 200k stretch goal so presumably, at least some of that 50k was included in the budget for this project.

 

[Novak]

Oh, I know, but it was a 50k cost from the previous 200k stretch goal so presumably, at least some of that 50k was included in the budget for this project.

Ah, I see.
Fair enough.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

I would also be interested to know more up-to-date official information about this (Morrus' last post on that second thread was in October). If memory serves when the "very basic character builder" was announced it was as a side project and not the actual character builder that was part of the stretch goal. If that's now the WIP solution that will one day be the official character builder I find that extremely disappointing news. No offense to Morrus intended, it's great as a side project to learn web dev or something like that and I understand it's early days, but I don't see how even the bones of that system can become something usable for what the character builder should be after it was a 50k stretch goal.

That's just my two cents, but after 15 months and since it was such a large cost stretch goal I feel like the feedback is appropriate at this point.

yeah, an official character builder that was part of a stretch goal is really the sort of thing that should get at least a dedicated programmer.

 

[Morrus]

Oh, I know, but it was a 50k cost from the previous 200k stretch goal so presumably, at least some of that 50k was included in the budget for this project.

Well most of the extra 50K is spent printing and shipping an extra 50K of books to an extra 50K worth of Kickstarter backers. Stretch goals aren’t profit and the number is largely irrelevant — it’s the margins which matter.

In other news, we should have something to announce soon, but until certain things happen I can’t say what, exactly. So you’ll have to bear with secrecy for a bit longer! Sorry!

 

[SirKuroikage]

I'm confused. Are you saying the stretch goal was irrelevant? It didn't matter that we all bought more books, and pleaded on Facebook, to reach that stretch goal of a character builder?

You are onto your next Kickstarter, right? Does it have stretch goals that don't matter if we reach them too?

I don't think Morrus was saying the stretch goal was irrelevant, but the amount the goal is set at is irrelevant to how much funding goes into completing the stretch goal. So he was clarifying that just because it was a 50k increase from the previous stretch goal, he didn't have 50k to budget towards accomplishing the stretch goal.

I am not a Kickstarter, business, or linguistic expert, but I think that saying the stretch goal number is irrelevant doesn't mean that the stretch goal itself doesn't matter, just that you can't look at the stretch goal amount and make quick assumptions about how much of it is actual profit that is solely dedicated to the stretch goal itself. There is obviously some profit gained from the increase in sells, but if there was no stretch goal and they saw the same increase, the profit doesn't change just because the stretch goal was added. So the irrelevant part is just that the stretch goal itself is not related to the amount of profit they receive to budget.

Of course I could be way off the mark, and Morrus or anyone with more knowledge can correct my assumptions.