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<blockquote data-quote="Delta" data-source="post: 3710482" data-attributes="member: 40269">I'm a former computer games engineer. I've worked on several online games. I've interviewed for the live team of one of the premiere MMORPG's.IMO, the reason that the native-Windows-application is a warning flag is that, in this day and age, it's a sign of an immature development process. (#1) They could have created a cross-platform codebase to leverage on multiple other platforms (which actually helps with the debugging issue you mention, per Blizzard: &quot;Both our Mac and Windows developers find bugs we probably wouldn’t have found so quickly without simultaneous development on both platforms&quot;: <a href="http://developer.apple.com/business/macmarket/blizzard.html" target="_blank">http://developer.apple.com/business/macmarket/blizzard.html</a> ). Or, (#2) they could have used a web-based solution and been able to branch out to things like mobile phones in the future. Or, (#3) they could have bought a ready-made cross-platform game engine. But, they didn't do any of those things -- they cobbled together a Windows-only solution, which yes, is probably the fastest way to get some kind of functionality showing early on. However, long-term companies that do that usually have maintenance, stability, and extensibility problems, because it shows that they're not a mature software development house.That shouldn't be too much surprise, because WOTC isn't really a software development house in the first place, and they actually have a proven track record of tangled-up software projects. So what this development represents, again IMO, is that that historical behavior isn't changing. I would expect about the same level of success as with the D&amp;D Master Tools/E-Tools for 3E, as a median guess.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Delta, post: 3710482, member: 40269"] I'm a former computer games engineer. I've worked on several online games. I've interviewed for the live team of one of the premiere MMORPG's. IMO, the reason that the native-Windows-application is a warning flag is that, in this day and age, it's a sign of an immature development process. (#1) They could have created a cross-platform codebase to leverage on multiple other platforms (which actually helps with the debugging issue you mention, per Blizzard: "Both our Mac and Windows developers find bugs we probably wouldn’t have found so quickly without simultaneous development on both platforms": [url]http://developer.apple.com/business/macmarket/blizzard.html[/url] ). Or, (#2) they could have used a web-based solution and been able to branch out to things like mobile phones in the future. Or, (#3) they could have bought a ready-made cross-platform game engine. But, they didn't do any of those things -- they cobbled together a Windows-only solution, which yes, is probably the fastest way to get some kind of functionality showing early on. However, long-term companies that do that usually have maintenance, stability, and extensibility problems, because it shows that they're not a mature software development house. That shouldn't be too much surprise, because WOTC isn't really a software development house in the first place, and they actually have a proven track record of tangled-up software projects. So what this development represents, again IMO, is that that historical behavior isn't changing. I would expect about the same level of success as with the D&D Master Tools/E-Tools for 3E, as a median guess. [/QUOTE]

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