Digital Insider #14

[Shroomy]

The new column is up, mainly discussing the Character Builder Beta. It also covers some news regarding pricing and the magazines.

Digital Insider #14: Character Builder FAQ

 

[Fallen Seraph]

This is neat:

Q: How do I customize my character sheet?
A: On the character sheet's Options menu, choose "Show Panel Buttons" and click on the [C] button to customize a panel.
The second way to customize a character sheet is to choose "Unlock Panels" from the character sheet's Options menu. Then you can move the panels around or even stretch them vertically and horizontally.
You can also add pages to your character sheet as well as change the page layout from portrait to landscape. If you delete a panel and want it back, use the "Add Panel" button on the menu.

 

[Khaalis]

Does it seem odd to anyone else that they bothered to place a "download here" in the first question even though there is nothing to download yet?

 

[justanobody]

Q: Will there be a beta with all the powers for all levels?
A: We are not planning at this stage to do a beta with the full data set. Only the demo version (1st through 3rd levels) is available for beta testing.

Good thing you get to swap out powers and such prior to 3rd level so you can test that all those higher level functions of the software work with enough people testing to make sure things work correctly, like human or half-elf powers being swapped out at later levels, or anything else.

Nice to know they are giving it a good test and making sure it fully works before putting it into a pay model and be broken.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

This is quite nice for us yearly subscribers:

I've gotten a number of questions about how the Character Builder is going to interact with D&DI subscriptions. Here are some answers: Once the full version of the Character Builder is ready, it will be added to the D&DI package and we plan to raise the price. However, if you are already a subscriber, then our new price will not kick in for you until the end of your current term. In other words, if you sign up for a year at $4.95 per month, then you will get the Character Builder "for free" until the end of your year (at which point you would renew at the new price). We haven't finalized the new pricing yet, but we will let you know once we have.

I wonder if this will hold true with other tools as well.

 

[justanobody]

I would guess it would as that would be the best way to beta test everything and get people addicted to those tools prior to full release of a new package. Find out how they interact and how they get used together to make sure the most interested people in them will have waht they want to pay for when the time comes to pay.

But that is just my guess according to recent trends.

 

[doctorhook]

I wonder if this will hold true with other tools as well.

They suggested something to this effect previously, IIRC.