D&D 4e Rules Compendium in online!

[Simplicity]

That was done by some unpaid guy on the internet in his spare time -- like, while working a real job.

Supposedly the DDI has been brewing up with a team of full-time professional programmers for a year or more and all they've got at launch + 3 weeks is a search box and copy and pasted text?

Ever read "The Mythical Man-Month"? It's part of a system, hence the difference. It's just a system you aren't seeing yet. d20srd.org is text. This is a cross-referenceable database with filters (not yet available) and the ability to be used by other D&DI apps.

I don't mean to sound like a fanboy. But for 3 weeks in, this app doesn't deserve scorn. That said, I agree that the D&D Insider folks have so far still over promised and under delivered.

 

[2WS-Steve]

Ever read "The Mythical Man-Month"? It's part of a system, hence the difference. It's just a system you aren't seeing yet. d20srd.org is text. This is a cross-referenceable database with filters (not yet available) and the ability to be used by other D&DI apps.

I don't mean to sound like a fanboy. But for 3 weeks in, this app doesn't deserve scorn. That said, I agree that the D&D Insider folks have so far still over promised and under delivered.

The stuff that's not yet available sounds good -- and I look forward to it, and if they just started this project 3 weeks ago then it's okay.

But I have to wonder what they've been doing about the DDI for the last year besides advertising it.

 

[Hawke]

That was my biggest fear... I don't mind they don't have a 3.5 SRD or that they were saying they want to make me pay for it... but... I hoped that D&D:I would have at least as much. As it stands 3.5SRD is much much more useful and this is a step backwards compared to the srd website. So... "Here, we're going to give you less and charge you for it now! You're welcome!"

 

[Mercule]

It would be a lot more useful to me if I could access the info off-line. I used the 3.0/3.5 SRD all the time at work (where all games sites are blocked) to check something during a break, or even on the road from my PPC. I suppose a mass cut-and-paste could end up creating a good base document for portability.

I can buy that. Actually, I would buy that.

I don't have a local copy of the SRD -- by the time I decided to pony up for a copy of d20srd, they weren't taking donations (maybe it was temporary, I'm not checking right now).

One of the reasons I never grabbed the SRD was because I use a heavily expanded rules set. Since most of that is WotC stuff, and the new Compendium is supposed to incorporate all future WotC stuff, it's looking, potentially, a lot better. Even if it stays in its current form.

 

[GSHamster]

a) No monster information will be in it, there isn't even a suitable tab.

b) No general rule information will be in it, things like a glossary of terms or what second wind is, etc. Again no tab.

I don't really understand the "no tabs" comment. Look at how the graphics are laid out. It would be trivial to just make the popup wider and add more tabs when they need them.

 

[Harr]

Ever read "The Mythical Man-Month"? It's part of a system, hence the difference. It's just a system you aren't seeing yet. d20srd.org is text. This is a cross-referenceable database with filters (not yet available) and the ability to be used by other D&DI apps.

It doesn't look like it is. When one power references another power, it's not linked. It's just text. The text search is not a keyword or tag search but an actual simple text search (ie, as noted above, you can input 'e' and every page will come up since every page contains some word which has the letter e). In other words, the script itself is looking at the info as just text, so it's hard to imagine there's some other thing in there that's not.

I'd bet money that in the end, "the character builder uses the database to build your character!" will basically sum up to "the character builder lets you search for/choose a power then copy-pastes the text from that power onto your character sheet!" period.

I'm not gonna completely dismiss the possibility that there's some hidden genius in there somewhere, but right now I don't see anything that I (or anyone else who knows basic PHP/MySQL) couldn't have whipped up in a couple week's worth of bored nights. Especially if I have a pdf PHB to copy-paste from.

In fact, if you gave me a year to make an app like this, and I goofed off for eleven and a half months then panicked and crammed for two weeks to throw out the fastest possible thing I could, it would look much like the Compendium does right now. That's not intended to be a slam, even if it sounds like one; it's just the truth.

 

[LeaderDesslok]

Ever read "The Mythical Man-Month"? It's part of a system, hence the difference. It's just a system you aren't seeing yet. d20srd.org is text. This is a cross-referenceable database with filters (not yet available) and the ability to be used by other D&DI apps.

I don't mean to sound like a fanboy. But for 3 weeks in, this app doesn't deserve scorn. That said, I agree that the D&D Insider folks have so far still over promised and under delivered.

Actually, only we the consumers have had the product for 3 weeks. WotC has had a finished product for at least a couple of months, and have allegedly been working on the DDI for a year. And though it is of little consequence now, the compendium was promised to be availalbe on June 6, not June 23. I'd say this small amount of completed work with so little functionlity does, in fact, deserve a lot of scorn.

 

[VictorC]

I'd personally prefer if the powers search result panes showed whether the powers were at-will/encounter/dailys

It does

 

[thegrizz]

I am very happy to see them getting this stuff up. I really wish they would of launched DDI with the rule books, but I would much rather have a good product late, than a crappy product on time.

 

[broghammerj]

Well, color me unimpressed. I was expecting something at least as nice as www.d20srd.org. What I see isn't even usable.

Ken

Agree d20srd.com is the gold standard. Hire the guy to make the compendium and call it a day.