Code Monkey Lose WoTC License (Merged)

The Code Monkeys always seemed to me like a bunch of dudes who decided to write some software. In that context, it was impressive as hell. But neither of my two groups could get any of their stuff to work. By which I mean; the interface and design choices they made rendered the software highly suboptimal for us. We need professionally developed software, and the CMP stuff was not it.

Waiting for RPGToolkit seemed like a losing game. Which, it turned out, it was. No one I knew took it seriously, precisely because it had taken so long and for no good reason, as far as we could tell.

So in that sense, though it must come as a blow to CMP, I know about 30 gamers who see it as a ray of hope that WotC is finally getting their act together and realized how critical e-support is for their products.
 

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3catcircus said:
Do you use MS Word? Do you use Windows or MAC OSX? If so, then you *are* using closed-content for a specific software app...
And I paid for it. But I haven't seen closed-content datasets based on Wizards' copyrighted books (not the SRDs) for used with MSWord, not unless I extract them manually.
 

mattcolville said:
But neither of my two groups could get any of their stuff to work. By which I mean; the interface and design choices they made rendered the software highly suboptimal for us. We need professionally developed software, and the CMP stuff was not it.

PCGen or eTools? eTools wasn't really their fault, they were stuck with "professionally designed software" that was poorly designed. PCGen, I'm not sure about.

Waiting for RPGToolkit seemed like a losing game. Which, it turned out, it was. No one I knew took it seriously, precisely because it had taken so long and for no good reason, as far as we could tell.

It seemed about the timeframe I expected (given the standard delays that you expect in the software industry).

What really made me sour on CMP was their recent announcement that they weren't sticking by their free upgrades to the RPGToolkit datasets they had been promising since almost the beginning. Yes, it might have been traced back to WotC jerking them around. However, it was their responsibility to research such things before promising them.

So in that sense, though it must come as a blow to CMP, I know about 30 gamers who see it as a ray of hope that WotC is finally getting their act together and realized how critical e-support is for their products.

Look at how WotC treated CMP & Fluid before them. It's clear they have had no such realization. Expect a sub-par product with no support (look at how much support they give their marketing division the RPGA) and delays of months. Expect to have a subscription service where you have to pay monthly (at the mercy of their decision to raise rates), instead of the ability to buy a functional product.

As for other companies getting it, don't expect it. If they go to another party they will have exclusive access for a period of time, until WotC management decides to go another direction and pulls all support from that company.
 
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kigmatzomat said:
None of the other publishers have a license to use the other WotC materials so you are comparing market price apples to imaginary oranges. The only things other pubishers can provide are the R/SRD, which PCGen includes for free.

Just for comparison's sake, let's compare to the CMP "base" bundle. $7 if I recall correctly. So....$7+Free Software vs. $35-$45 for data+software. But for arguement's sake, what if CMP has that as a loss-leader price? DMGenie has the R/SRD which is a subset of the DMG, PHB, MM, and ExPsHb. So at $6/book at CMP that comes out to $24. DMGenie paid programmers to write the software (unlike CMP) but CMP is having to pay WotC royalties (unlike DMGenie) so the costs are probably close (assuming CMP's actual cost ~$6 and the data being about 25% of the actual cost of the DMGenie package)

As far as the value goes, you said it takes a couple of hours per book plus some tweaking to get it DMGenied. There are 48 3.5 books at CMP. At 3 hours a book that's 144 hours. After bundling, you would only have to value your time at $2/hour to justify that effort.

If I had been DMGenie, I'd have written a LST file converter. Sure, it means indirectly supporting another publisher but what the hey, DMGenie is being indirectly supported by WotC. LST files have no DRM, no security, and have a moderately well documented format that is completely plain text. The data may be closed content but the format is open.

One thing I want to make clear - I'm not trying to push DMGenie, I'm using it as an example I am familiar with. I could just as easily said Redblade or Campaign Suite.
 

Glyfair said:
PCGen or eTools? eTools wasn't really their fault, they were stuck with "professionally designed software" that was poorly designed. PCGen, I'm not sure about.

Both. eTool was more crap than PCGen, but even the much touted PCGen was nearly unusable from our POV.


Glyfair said:
Look at how WotC treated CMP & Fluid before them. It's clear they have had no such realization.

You mistake my meaning. I'm saying; it's possible something new, some new direction, is happening at WotC with regards to e-support.
 

Ranger REG said:
Use computer to prep campaign? Yes.

Use closed-content dataset for a specific software app tool? No.
which is the thing. Wotc could very well revolutionize this thing. Perhaps offer a pdf of handouts with it, a dataset for their program and jpgs.
 

This is what there up to.

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stevof said:
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This, by itself, is highly unimpressive. I have somewhere around 150 NPc's built through E-Tools on my PC. They'll have to up the ante considerably for this to be a replacement for any of the tools out there. Let's hope they'll have something more powerful for offline use.
 

Kid Charlemagne said:
This, by itself, is highly unimpressive. I have somewhere around 150 NPc's built through E-Tools on my PC. They'll have to up the ante considerably for this to be a replacement for any of the tools out there. Let's hope they'll have something more powerful for offline use.

Why? 'Sell a man a fish and he will need another fish tomorrow. Sell a man a fishing pole and you lose a customer...' :p

The Auld Grump
 

Has anyone considered what it means that CMP lost the WotC license *and* that Fluid announced that they are selling (sold?) their stake in Dundjinni?

Coincidence? Or has Fluid been tapped to do something for WotC in the near future that will involve online or electronic player and DM tools?
 

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