DDI September/October Update info

[surfarcher]

Just one little observation here.

An online-only MB completely screws over folks like me who do the majority of the DM prep intransit. Literally 90%+ of my DM work is done on the train using a EEEPC.

If WotC forces me to log in to to that my plans to start subscribing next payday will be sadly truncated. I will be forced into being a non-DDI DM.

After all D&D isn't an online game like DDO or WoW. And many DMs won't have internet connectivity during their develop/play cycles.

I'm not going off half cocked! I'm hoping they thought this through and are looking out for folks in similar positions... I'll wait to see how this unfolds.

 

[im_robertb]

Perhaps the dm ought to own the campaign setting he's running?

Or perhaps it's not necessary to make new power cards for each session.

I'm not running Dark Sun. I just permit mechanics from other campaign settings in my game. You know, swordmages, artificers, drow, genasi, changelings, kalashtar, warforged.

And I don't make new power cards for each session, I make them at levelup. Which is about once every 3 weeks. When an update is delayed a month...

 

[I'm A Banana]

For the record, moving MB or CB to be internet-based would seem to me, at first grok, to be narmed.

They don't seem to be broken as-is, so I would wonder what WotC would have to gain from that. "Piracy" has always been a non-starter on a reason because, no matter what, there will always be people copying and pasting your data outside of your wall. Always. Taking reasonable precautions is sensible, but investing time and effort in hare-brained, consumer-hurting schemes designed to wall off piracy simply makes you look foolish and gives your customers reason to resent you (when they should be your biggest fans!).

Unless the CB/MB level of piracy is severely catastrophic, I can't see them gaining anything big from the move. Of course, I could be wrong.

But given that the CB and the MB work fine as they are, my first guess is that this is some new suite, some part of Adventure Tools or DDI that makes the most sense (and is the most useful) on the web, away from the actual game table of most players. What that might be, I haven't the foggiest, but I trust 'em.

That said, I just really want Essentials and Dark Sun stuff in the CB. That's the big thing I've been waiting for since those products were announced. I'm not going to pull my sub or anything over it (yet), but it's really important to me that I can use the new material in a timely fashion.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

But given that the CB and the MB work fine as they are,

They work fine as they are on Windows. Web tools could work on not just Macs, but Android and iPhone smartphones and tablets. Phones and tablets that lots of people could be bringing to their tables.

 

[interwyrm]

They work fine as they are on Windows. Web tools could work on not just Macs, but Android and iPhone smartphones and tablets. Phones and tablets that lots of people could be bringing to their tables.

I'm not too optimistic about smartphone capability. The current compendium is unusable on android phones.

 

[I'm A Banana]

They work fine as they are on Windows. Web tools could work on not just Macs, but Android and iPhone smartphones and tablets. Phones and tablets that lots of people could be bringing to their tables.

Yeah, they might be doing it for this reason (I bet Mac support is something they wanted from Day 1).

Though I don't think smartphone folks and iPad folks currently would be a focus for a smart company, they might be going in a "platform neutral" direction.

But, still, I'd put my money on it being a new thing rather than a re-hash of an old thing that (they likely already know) would irk a good portion of an easily spooked user base.

But you add an interesting thought to the mix!

 

[ki11erDM]

I hope they are using HTML5. Some of the demo web apps out there are darn cool. Just as an example: Beauty of the Web

note: enworld.org working well in ie9

 

[Markn]

puts on dancing shoes

They must be John Travolta Dancing Shoes +5. Nice answer!

 

[Allaric]

Greetings folks.

I am concerned about backup recovery of the current Character Builder application in the potential situation that WotC discontinues support. I have been a paying subscriber for two years and have the builder on my PC currently. Does anyone know how to properly back up the program so I could reinstall it later if I had to? I was never worried about this until I seen the recent tone of news on the WotC forums.

Thanks.
-Allaric.

 

[Henry]

I find myself in Jester's camp. Our DM is planning to start our Dark Sun campaign next week, with or without any CHaracter builder or Compendium updates. We've all taken the books and written out characters on Paper (or PDF sheets in my case) and we're ready to go -- it doesn't take that long, and hell, it's the way we USED to do it. We did wait about three weeks to start hoping on an update, but when the Sept 21st deadline came and went, we said, "Screw it, we're getting together." Hell, our personal schedules not aligning had more to do with the wait than any Digital updates did.

But then, I'm of the mind when my iphone app that gives me the weather report isn't working, I just turn on a TV, or if that fails, check a newspaper or stick my head outside. I might not get any radar maps or all the up-to-minute stats, but I can at least plan my day sufficiently. Same thing with my gaming -- I'm not letting a computer app stop me.