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<blockquote data-quote="moxcamel" data-source="post: 5434852" data-attributes="member: 67954">Snark guuud. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />&nbsp; I'm sure WotC have hired some very talented software engineers, actually.&nbsp; If you take the new CB for example (and setting aside the debate on whether it was a good idea or not), it's missing a lot of features and there's some criticisms to be leveled at some of their design decisions, but for a v1.0 product it's actually pretty decent, especially when compared to the first release of the original character builder.But for all that, the software engineering talent pool (good as it may be) at WotC is a drop in the bucket compared to the talent pool available in the community.&nbsp; If WotC were smart, they'd put their in-house talents into producing an API that could then be leveraged by hundreds (thousands?) of talented programmers that WotC could never afford to leverage otherwise.What you'd wind up with would be more than just everybody and his brother's character builders.&nbsp; You'd also see people develop Facebook apps, Wordpress plugins, iPhone and Android apps, and applications we haven't even thought of yet.WotC are never going to develop a Wordpress or Twitter plugin because they don't have the manpower for it.&nbsp; But if they just put all their efforts into an API, and even license it as they see fit, they'd have access to coverage they'd never have been able to pull off by themselves.&nbsp; Then they wouldn't have to worry about keeping a big team of software developers, and could instead focus on their core strength of game and world design.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="moxcamel, post: 5434852, member: 67954"] Snark guuud. :) I'm sure WotC have hired some very talented software engineers, actually. If you take the new CB for example (and setting aside the debate on whether it was a good idea or not), it's missing a lot of features and there's some criticisms to be leveled at some of their design decisions, but for a v1.0 product it's actually pretty decent, especially when compared to the first release of the original character builder. But for all that, the software engineering talent pool (good as it may be) at WotC is a drop in the bucket compared to the talent pool available in the community. If WotC were smart, they'd put their in-house talents into producing an API that could then be leveraged by hundreds (thousands?) of talented programmers that WotC could never afford to leverage otherwise. What you'd wind up with would be more than just everybody and his brother's character builders. You'd also see people develop Facebook apps, Wordpress plugins, iPhone and Android apps, and applications we haven't even thought of yet. WotC are never going to develop a Wordpress or Twitter plugin because they don't have the manpower for it. But if they just put all their efforts into an API, and even license it as they see fit, they'd have access to coverage they'd never have been able to pull off by themselves. Then they wouldn't have to worry about keeping a big team of software developers, and could instead focus on their core strength of game and world design. [/QUOTE]

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