Code Monkey Lose WoTC License (Merged)

[Morrus]

From the description it not only sounds likea move toward 4e, it reconfirms previous rumors that 4e is going to exclude 3rd part ypublishers, or force 3rd party publishers to pay a licensing fee. .

Well, the "description" contains only the following piece of actual information: that CMP's contact at WotC sais "Because of Future Product Considerations".

I can't agree with your conclusion based on that. My guess would be alternative plans for software - either in-house, or someone has offered them a chunk of change to license the software rights.

But that's a complete and utter guess. I've no actual information.

 

[Henry]

My guess would be alternative plans for software - either in-house, or someone has offered them a chunk of change to license the software rights.

But that's a complete and utter guess. I've no actual information.

The part that chaps my hide is that it'll probably take them six months to a year to actually come out with said product, which is six months to a years' worth of books and supplements that have no support whatsoever. I'd rather them have extended the license than simply dropped it like a hot potato.

 

[kigmatzomat]

The part that chaps my hide is that it'll probably take them six months to a year to actually come out with said product, which is six months to a years' worth of books and supplements that have no support whatsoever. I'd rather them have extended the license than simply dropped it like a hot potato.

Agreed. I'm not a fan of E-Tools (something about it made my brain itch) but several people I know have purchased CMP data sets for PCGen. At the very least they could have let CMP release the products they had in the pipe so people were close to current. WotC messed not only the CMP folks but the PCGen & ETools user bases.

The six month lag will be to "generate demand for new books" and, they hope, give people time to forget about their mistrust of WotC/Hasbro.

 

[dn3walker]

Mistrust is becoming the norm

I hate to admit it, but I've come to expect this from Wizards/ Hasbro ... I don't think they have a soul or a creative bone in their bodies. I find that the CMP team made a real bomb into a working program and I supported the data sets for Etools. Last month I became skeptical when CMP announced a snag on the conversions. Now I understand why. I'm almost ready to stop spending another penny on anything published by WOTC, and I've been playing D&D since 1982 as a teen.
I do feel bad for CMP ... they are going to suffer for WOTC. Sorry my simian friends.

 

[3catcircus]

I'm just annoyed because Codemonkey worked so hard trying to fix E-Tools and then develop something that would do all E-Tools was supposed to do, then they get sandbagged last minute from WOTC.

It just ain't right...

I also was looking forward to the FR and Eberron Atlases, which won't happen now.

Hmm - I really have no sympathy for CMP. They took away all of the PCGen datasets that many people spent many long hours entering data for and then turned around and charged people for that same data. Regardless of whether or not there was a license in place prior to CMP, the fact remained that people assembled data *for free* and CMP profited from that hard work. I don't even care if the people who did the data entry ended up working for CMP, the fact remains that they profited from something that was offered for free.

I wouldn't even be angry if they had announced it when they removed the datasets. Luckily I retained the previous version executables, but many people downloaded a new rev to PCGen, expecting only to update the software and fix bugs, but were rudely awakened by the loss of the datasets (in some cases, including additional data that they themselves had further added or adapted for their personal campaigns.)

What goes around comes around.

As to WotC/Hasbro - well - what do you expect? Everyone left at WotC is either a corporate hack or willing to kowtow to corporate hack higher-ups. Let's face it - how many products in the last year have been written by staffers and how many have been written by freelancers?

Other than the Forgotten Realms (cause I'm a fanboy) my buying has been extremely picky: I bought the new Ravenloft adventure, Red Hand of Doom, and Fiendish Codex I this year. Thats it. No mini's, no Fantastic Locations, no PHB II.

Most of what WotC has been putting out is garbage, and has been for the last several years. I thumb through each new release and realize that it isn't worth my money to spend $29.95+ for books of 160+ pages, when I'd only use maybe 5-6 pages out of the entire book.

Better to spend your money on 3rd party products that rock. If D&D goes completely mini/CCG/collectible, I've still got 1st/2nd/3rd edition, as well as other RPGs to play.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

I find this a bit disturbing.
And there have been too many disturbing things coming from WotC in the past 6 months or so.
Things like Monte Cook's Ptolus being the last big 3e project he's ever going to do and KenzerCo possibly converting Kalamar to the official Hackmaster world.

There's more, but it's too close to speculation/conjecture and brings this topic too far off-topic.

CMP - you did an excellent job with what you were given. I consider it very sad that I will not be able to buy any new datasets from you.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

As I understand it, CMP licensed E-Tools from Wizards. They didn't buy it. WoTC could turn around Dec 1 and offer E-Tools on its own site, or via another licensor in that case. Is this correct?

 

[BlueBlackRed]

As I understand it, CMP licensed E-Tools from Wizards. They didn't buy it. WoTC could turn around Dec 1 and offer E-Tools on its own site, or via another licensor in that case. Is this correct?

I believe so. Fluid did the original design, but put a poor product out and lost the license. Then CMP got it and did a lot better.
I'm sure the actual legal fun is even more complicated...

 

[Graf]

CMP made a decision when they took their project private.
It was disadvantageous to the community but profitable for them.

The data sets were originally made by fans for public consumption, you couldn’t run a game off them but you could have a computer do the “grunt work” if you had the books. Standard “fair use”.
CMP decided to take the data and move it private in exchange for a payout (in the form of a license) for Wizards stuff.

They got their money, the average gamer lost out.
Now they aren’t getting any money any more.

They chose to yoke themselves to Wizards for short term profit at the expense of the average player.
I find it hard to see how people are particularly sympathetic to them.

 

[kingpaul]

Hmm - I really have no sympathy for CMP. They took away all of the PCGen datasets that many people spent many long hours entering data for and then turned around and charged people for that same data. Regardless of whether or not there was a license in place prior to CMP, the fact remained that people assembled data *for free* and CMP profited from that hard work. I don't even care if the people who did the data entry ended up working for CMP, the fact remains that they profited from something that was offered for free.

*sigh* No, that is not what happened. Because of accusations that CMP was going to do exactly what you are accusing them of doing, they started from the ground up on all datasets. Further, there was nothing stopping anyone from creating their own datasets on closed-content sources. PCGen and WotC (in the person of Anthony Valterra) sat down at GenCon '02 and Anthony told PCGen that they were violating WotC's IP. As such, PCGen removed all those files after GenCon. This was about 6 months prior to CMP doing datasets for PCGen.