DDI Monster Builder

[Aegeri]

The original MB is still available for now

And so it should be, because this piece of software doesn't actually do what it is supposed to do. Minding the original monster builder is also terribly broken, doesn't work correctly and has been that way since - oh since they decided to make this online MB instead.

The negativity of the gaming community never ceases to amaze me.

No. I've had enough. I've had enough of Wizards poor business practices, the fact they treat their customers like carpets, their feeling they can take working functional software - break it - then abandon it and replace it with something with less than half the functionality. That's not negativity, that's recognizing you just got completely screwed and not standing around to take it.

Edit:

The VT point is a bit more tangible - Having the web-based MB out, even in this limited form, makes imputing monsters into the VT 1000% (statistic completely made up) better for DMs. So getting this out to DDI subscribers who will very soon be testing out the VT seemed a pretty important thing

Yes, I'm expected to pay Wizards to beta test your crappy and non-functional software that has no coherent release date and may not have basic features we expect of it.

I just don't know what to say anymore. I honestly don't.

 

[Saracenus]

Ah WotC, one step forward (see the setting expectations properly with the delay on general VT invites) and then two steps backward (see the clumsy release of Monster Builder).

This thread over at WotC message boards basically spells it out, the online monster builder is to support the VT beta. They needed a way to customize and import monsters to VT.

 

[Zaran]

That'd be great if it worked right.

It's still using the old formulas for advancing monsters. It's not changing damage enough.

-O

Which is hilarious because this was reported weeks ago when the closed beta testers got to try it.

 

[Obryn]

I dunno. It's certainly useless and broken to the point where I don't know why they bothered releasing anything at all. I understand that it will help for the VTT, but without a VTT, this is ... pretty much nothing whatsoever. It's comprehensively and completely useless to everybody who's not using the VTT, near as I can tell.

I find it hard to get insulted by this, though. I am disappointed - I was excited and hoping for a monster builder that knows the correct monster building rules, and this doesn't even do that - but this time WotC didn't actively take anything away like the did for the Character Builder. If they would have removed the old one, I'd be upset.

I'm still very happy with the recent Dragon articles, and the online Character Builder is finally getting good... but this just kinda leaves me saying, "meh." I don't get the rage. I get the disappointment - frankly WotC even sunk below my realistically low expectations with this "product" - but I'm not losing anything in the trade as of yet.

-O

 

[Zaran]

Apologies for the double post.

 

[Remathilis]

When it comes to pure ability to take a good idea and louse it up, nobody is beating WotC these days...

 

[I'm A Banana]

Export? Hello?

I mean, I guess I don't really need it at the moment, seeing as all this "tool" can do for now is level monsters using the wrong rules and rename powers, but it is a fairly essential feature for me, and not to see it mentioned is a little troubling...

Like the CB, the thing looks crowded and cramped, which is an interface design flaw that takes more than a software update to improve....

It was fast enough, I guess, but seeing as how you can do exactly two things with it, that's hardly a point in its favor.

I dunno. Maybe it'll be mostly functional in 6 months? At least the program isn't crash-happy, and they left the old one around, both of which are bumps up from the CB. But saying "better than the CB" is...a stretch. And damning with faint praise, even if it is true.

It is starting to feel like they are releasing these things on purpose, as if to say, "Hey, FANS! We know you love D&D and want official tools to use it online, so we are giving you the worst possible things we can give you, and you have no choice but to TAKE IT. If you pay for it anyway, that just proves you will open up your wallets for the pleasure being kicked in the shins by us."

We'll see what it looks like in 6 months. The CB is almost as good as doing it by hand after about 6 months, maybe the MB will follow suit. And then we will have TWO mediocre tools!

 

[Bagpuss]

I guess I will have to wait 2 months before Monster Builder actually does what it means...

Two months? And the rest, they have already said they don't expect the new CB to the missing functionality of the old one until fall, and the MB has always been a low priority compared to it.

 

[ExploderWizard]

What a thread full of crankiness! The original MB is still available for now, and this tool is obviously now in open beta (notice the "beta" tag on the opening splash page). And . . . it's useful to some of us. Scaling monsters might be easy for you, but not for me, I think it's pretty cool as it is. Should it do more? Duh, of course. And it will.

The negativity of the gaming community never ceases to amaze me.

I know right? The nerve of some people complaining about the intrusive appendage in their posterior. After all, subscribers signed up for this they may as well enjoy it.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I find it hard to get insulted by this, though. I am disappointed - I was excited and hoping for a monster builder that knows the correct monster building rules, and this doesn't even do that - but this time WotC didn't actively take anything away like the did for the Character Builder. If they would have removed the old one, I'd be upset.

<snip>

... but this just kinda leaves me saying, "meh." I don't get the rage. I get the disappointment - frankly WotC even sunk below my realistically low expectations with this "product" - but I'm not losing anything in the trade as of yet.

This pretty much sums up my feelings exactly. I was hoping it would knock my socks off, and I left myself open to the possibility that it would. At this point now, I'm not angry, I'm not insulted... I'm just meh. I certainly didn't delete the offline MB and had no intention of doing so.

Right now, this is no replacement for the offline MB; everything it does I can do well enough on the fly (and so can you, according to the Dungeon article this month). Hell, at least half the time the power name is just a descriptor the players never see anyway, though that may be different with the VTT.