E-Tools owners, please grade it

[LightPhoenix]

Re: E-Tools

Basically, I would say that the Fluid guys were in over there head and probably learned alot about how to actually program while making this software.

Any decent development team could have churned out a much more feature filled product in the time they were given and its a damned shame.

I'm not sure I would have chosen Fluid either, but it was done.

In Fluid's defense, I suspect there was a good number of issues behind the scenes which hindered development - including WotC not really knowing what they wanted.

After all, it seems the whole focus of the program changed halfway though development, I'm sure that can't have helped things any.

 

[Vpenman]

More feedback

I am interested in this, so I am bumping it back to the first page.

 

[bitonti]

etools

Reporting in on etools. I have to say that I'm disappointed.
So much so that I am returning the software.

The faults? The interface is too hard to use! The panels
are too busy, and rely on too small of a subset of metaphors.
The window size maxes out. I cannot change the font sizes.
The monster pictures are poorly shaded, and don't blend in
with their background. The little ball icon on the lower left
doesn't do anything when I click it. There doesn't seem to
be a way to build a database of charater/monster/magic
instances. How do I build complete encounters? The stats
block is unformatted! The interface is sluggish, there is no
hover-help, there doesn't seem to be complete text for
feats/skills (maybe that's what the little ball icon is for). There
doesn't seem to be a way to customize the colors (a colorblind
co-worker of mine would not be able to use this program).

That's after about 1/2 hour of use, after which time I stopped
using the program and decided to return it.

Maybe there are paths through the program that address some
of my complaints, but without a manual and good integrated
help, how am I to know how to find them?

Overall, I find this to be an amateurish implementation. I gave
it a 'D', and only reluctantly. (On the plus side, the effort is
pretty vast, and they have packed in a lot of basic capabilities,
and I ran into no crashes or overt faults. But, I've seen and
built a lot better software than this.)

 

[Sm!rk]

Re: etools

But, I've seen and built a lot better software than this.)

Sure you have.

But on another note, at least two other people had comments along the same lines, why don't you get together with them and then make magic happen. I'll be waiting for a better D&D product, keep me posted with news on this.

 

[Nightstorm]

This is coming from someone that knows nothing about programing. But it seems to me that in the year 2002 with the level of computer software we have now that making a program that generates characters should not be that hard to do. Am I missing something? You tell me. You people are the experts. Is it difficult to make a program that caculates numbers? Am I the only person on these boards that feel the developers should have to watch every copy get burnt before thier eyes by the people that shelled over thier hard earned money on this crap and than be hung out on a cross? Am I the only one????

WAKE UP!!

 

[Sm!rk]

Am I missing something? You tell me. You people are the experts. Is it difficult to make a program that caculates numbers?

Yes you are wrong for a few reasons, the first is that 2002 means nothing in terms of engineering better software, building software is not like mowing your lawn, and we haven't advanced much the last 10 years. What has changed however is that more companies are spending money and more money to build software so it "appears" better.

Am I the only person on these boards that feel the developers should have to watch every copy get burnt before thier eyes by the people that shelled over thier hard earned money on this crap and than be hung out on a cross? Am I the only one????

At this point I realized you were insane and needed to get mental help. What would watching a lot of plastic melt mean to anyone? You don't like it? Return it, quit being a crybaby. Thats the only thing WotC will hear.

 

[WizarDru]

This is coming from someone that knows nothing about programing. But it seems to me that in the year 2002 with the level of computer software we have now that making a program that generates characters should not be that hard to do. Am I missing something? You tell me. You people are the experts. Is it difficult to make a program that caculates numbers? Am I the only person on these boards that feel the developers should have to watch every copy get burnt before thier eyes by the people that shelled over thier hard earned money on this crap and than be hung out on a cross? Am I the only one????

WAKE UP!!

If D&D was purely 'calculating numbers', then you'd use Excel, and we wouldn't be having this conversation. A chargen program has to handle all the different variations of rules that D&D offers, sometimes from wildly different sources. It's one thing to calculate a BAB...it's another to figure a person's Diplomacy score while wearing a Cloak of Charisma, counting synergy bonuses from class, feats and multiple skills, making sure you don't have similar bonuses stack and so on and so forth. Try building a mid to high-level monk/psionic warrior with a high wisdom and artifacts, and then write a program to calculate his AC. Now do this for every similar situation in D&D.

Creating a good PC generator is a sizable undertaking. With around 600 pages in the core rules alone, people tend to underestimate the task. Especially if they only look at the part of the rules they are using, and forget that everyone is using the program differently. If it was as non-trivial as it is constantly represented as being, then PCGen and others would already completed this task, and no one would even look at eTools. eTools is not what everyone hoped it would be, myself included, but it still has the potential to succeed and be a useful tool.

And to Fluid's defense, what they've delivered is about what Ryan promised when he took over. By that time, they'd virtually scrapped the entire project and restarted, now that WOTC had completely changed their minds. Then Hasbro sells the license out from underneath them, which certainly didn't help matters.

 

[PeterDonis]

I gave it a "C", and the only reason I didn't grade it lower is that there's enough basic structure there that the future potential of the product is much better than this disappointing first release. What's really aggravating is that so many of the things that were left out (one major example: user-created stuff, feats, items, whatever, doesn't modify *any* stats unless you go in and tweak the database by hand) could have been included with very little additional effort compared to what must have already been put in--it would have taken me a lot less time to add the additional code to support letting user-created feats and items modify stats, for example, than to do all the data entry that had to be done to get the Access database to its current state. I'll use my copy of the program, and I won't return it, and I'll continue to follow the upgrades--but if I worked for Fluid or WotC, I'd be embarrassed that this product got out the door the way it is.

 

[Nightstorm]

well now that I've been put down, I am glad that someone here mentioned PCGen. I went to the website the day after the Tools came out and you know what? The free one was 20times better. so we have people that put together a program for free that is far better than a group that were paid to create a program that the public was than charged $40. It's a point that can not be argued.

 

[Big Daddy]

PCGen??? You're kidding, right?

Look Nightstorm, I've given PCGen a shot, but it's a hell of a lot harder to use and now days, they've been crippled to comply with the D20 License.

So yes I CAN AND WILL argue this with you everyday of the week! Let's not forget that when PCGen and even RPM came out they BOTH SUCKED THE BIG ONE!!!

GOOD GOD MAN! eTools has been out less than a month! Give it a chance!