D&Di - Monster Builder Beta Launch Announced

[Scribble]

A couple of things I'm confused about/ noticing...

1. Why isn't anything in alphabetical order?

2. How do you get it to let you make a recharge power on more then one number? (aka 4, 5, 6 as opposed to just 4, or 5, or 6?)

3. For utility powers it says set the type to none, but it still seems to list the type as none, and the action type instead of just being blank?

Aside from that I'm still loving this program... The suggestion to put monsters from other sources in there (aka Creature Collection) was brilliant!

I hope they do one of these for traps as well.

 

[MinionOfCthulhu]

Maybe I'm crazy, but how do you make another monster after you've made one? I just close it and open it again (after saving) because I haven't spotted a way to just make another monster or edit one.
Edit: Also, is there a way to apply a template to a monster? Sometimes you just really want to make a lich that is also a camel.

 

[Mark]

Maybe I'm crazy, (. . .)

MinionOfCthulhu - Grower of low-hanging fruit.

 

[Obryn]

There are no templates yet. I'd expect that would be one of the first improvements planned.

As for the other question ... well, I haven't tried yet.

-O

 

[MinionOfCthulhu]

MinionOfCthulhu - Grower of low-hanging fruit.

That's only because it's warm and I'm wearing boxers and
wait what
Oh. Ohhh.

 

[Nikosandros]

? Sometimes you just really want to make a lich that is also a camel.

Ah, yes. The camel template. One of my favorite parts in Sandstorm.... I didn't know it had been converted to 4e.

 

[CharlesRyan]

Just because technology is out there to do stuff like this doesn't mean it's easy

In 20 years as a businessman, I've never held a position of fiscal responsibility in which executive management or shareholders accepted "it's not easy" as an excuse for leaving 10% of the revenues behind.

Computer game studios at least have an justification: For decades, Apple actively discouraged computer game development for the platform, and the PC gamer audience was trained away from Macs. But outside of that, and the realm of some high-end business software, almost every major software package is available cross-platform. Certainly Office and Photoshop have development costs that dwarf DDI, but they somehow find it worthwhile for that "negligible" user base.

Unlike computer game developers, WotC wouldn't be delving into the unknown by developing for the Mac. There's no question a Mac audience exists; there's no reason to believe or suspect that Mac users don't play D&D, unlike with computer games. This is not a speculative audience--it's an audience that currently exists, currently plays D&D, and currently wants to pay for DDI.

You can quibble over percentages (and I do: I buy the 3.36% number only if you count every cash register and business server in the country as a personal computer), but the bottom line is the number of Mac users is pretty analogous to the number of women who game. Sure, they're a distinct minority, but would anybody really argue that it makes good business sense for WotC to tell each and every existing female player to go take a flying leap?

Any smart businessman will tell you it costs many, many more times to regain lost business in the form of new customers than it does to keep it in the form of existing customers. Even if it's only 5% or 10%, the business is worth keeping, even if it costs a bit of money to keep it.

I have no special insight into why DDI has gone this route. (Well, I have my hypotheses, but since that's all they are I'll keep them to myself.) I do know that I'm very seriously disappointed, and I want WotC to know it. It may not be "easy" to program for the Mac, but it shouldn't be easy not to, either.

 

[hexgrid]

In 20 years as a businessman, I've never held a position of fiscal responsibility in which executive management or shareholders accepted "it's not easy" as an excuse for leaving 10% of the revenues behind.

Apple must be a pretty irresponsible company, then, they way they leave 90% of the market behind for so many of their software products

But anyway, WotC still gets revenue from this Mac user.

I installed Virtual Box and Windows 7 (both currently free) on my MacBook just to run the Monster Builder. It was totally worth the effort.

 

[drothgery]

Computer game studios at least have an justification: For decades, Apple actively discouraged computer game development for the platform, and the PC gamer audience was trained away from Macs. But outside of that, and the realm of some high-end business software, almost every major software package is available cross-platform.

Which is pretty much a roundabout way of saying Microsoft Office exists on the Mac.

Certainly Office and Photoshop have development costs that dwarf DDI, but they somehow find it worthwhile for that "negligible" user base.

True, but they do for very different reasons.

In Office's case, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint started out on the Mac. The rest of the Office suite -- Outlook, Access, Project, Visio, SharePoint Desinger (formerly FrontPage) and OneNote (and I may be forgetting something) -- is Windows-only. And it's likely Microsoft would be hit with an anti-trust lawsuit if they discontinued Office:Mac.

In PhotoShop's case, again it originally was a Mac exlusive program. And the graphic designer market has always skewed very heavily to the Mac. Despite that, it wasn't until the most recent version that Adobe had a 'pure' OSX version (and the same was true of Office, and most large Mac apps).

I have no special insight into why DDI has gone this route. (Well, I have my hypotheses, but since that's all they are I'll keep them to myself.) I do know that I'm very seriously disappointed, and I want WotC to know it. It may not be "easy" to program for the Mac, but it shouldn't be easy not to, either.

I've spent all my profesional life working on Microsoft platforms, so my opinions on the matter are likely highly skewed, but I just don't think any development tools for desktop or web app development even come close to what Microsoft has done with the post-.NET versions of Visual Studio. Add in that WotC is in Seattle (i.e. not very far from Microsoft's HQ), so Windows developers are likely much easier to find than Mac developers... and I pretty much think that doing a Mac version would cause both versions to be lower quality and cost more to develop, probably by a large enough margin to eat the extra revenue from Mac users who don't have a Windows dual-boot or VM set up on their Mac.

 

[Glyfair]

II have no special insight into why DDI has gone this route. (Well, I have my hypotheses, but since that's all they are I'll keep them to myself.) I do know that I'm very seriously disappointed, and I want WotC to know it. It may not be "easy" to program for the Mac, but it shouldn't be easy not to, either.

The stated reason was that they had an engine already built that would be the core of the application and it only worked on Windows. They felt it wasn't worthwhile spending the extra development time and money to redeveloping what they already had to include the Mac market at launch.

Now, there certainly could be questions about whether that is relevant given the twists and turns development has had since then. However, my understanding is that Windows only applications are still an important part of their programs.

Maybe WotC should find a way to focus on the Mac market without easy access to PCs. It doesn't seem smart to do it at the expense of slowing work on PC tool development, since that will hurt the largest part of their market. I doubt that WotC will be able to pour more resources into the program just for Mac development, since they seem focused on running a very tight ship right now.