E-Tools: Should I or Shouldn't I?

[Ds Da Man]

Regardless of whose at fault, or to blame, the man just wants to know whether to keep it or get his money back. Go for the money my friend! You can get books, and something really useful, like RPM, DMGenie, or Campaign Suite. RPM is $24. Man, does it have a lot of useful features, and hopefully a very needed feature shortly!!!

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Auld, I see your point, and dont take issue with it in the least. However, it is ultimately WOTC's responsibility to get the product on target for us, the consumers. Fluid is just a developer, maybe a poor one, maybe a misunderstood one, maybe a great one that was given an impossible goal. I dont know, and don't care. WOTC commissioned this work, and WOTC needs to commission the fix. This is all IMHO, of course

Agreed, they have the responsibility. What they don't have is the ability to do anything about it. Without in house programmers they can only wait for the patches to be fixed whenever Fluid finishes them.

Really bad spot to be in, responsibility and no power. They should have held off publishing it till after it was finished, but it was already a year late.

I don't know how many beta testers they had, or whether all beta testing took place in house at Fluid. (Worst way to do it, never, ever be the one to test your own product.) But a lot of the bugs should have been caught before it went gold.

Not the only bad character generator out there either, Vampire got one where bugs the playtesters found were left in.

As for Fluid finishing the project, I don't think so. They have almost certainly gone on to their next project, placing E-Tools on a back burner.

The thing to do I'm afraid is start over from scratch. Maybe give a replacement to those unfortunate enough to buy E-Tools. But given the mollasses like speed of bug fixes I cannot recommend that they stick with Fluid. A company specializing in business databases might be a better choice, except for the mapping engine.

I notice that Mr. Valterra has been silent of late.

The Auld Grump, maybe I don't need to spread the blame thin, there seems to be enough for everybody.

 

[jdavis]

Agreed, they have the responsibility. What they don't have is the ability to do anything about it. Without in house programmers they can only wait for the patches to be fixed whenever Fluid finishes them.

Really bad spot to be in, responsibility and no power. They should have held off publishing it till after it was finished, but it was already a year late.

I don't know how many beta testers they had, or whether all beta testing took place in house at Fluid. (Worst way to do it, never, ever be the one to test your own product.) But a lot of the bugs should have been caught before it went gold.

Not the only bad character generator out there either, Vampire got one where bugs the playtesters found were left in.

As for Fluid finishing the project, I don't think so. They have almost certainly gone on to their next project, placing E-Tools on a back burner.

The thing to do I'm afraid is start over from scratch. Maybe give a replacement to those unfortunate enough to buy E-Tools. But given the mollasses like speed of bug fixes I cannot recommend that they stick with Fluid. A company specializing in business databases might be a better choice, except for the mapping engine.

I notice that Mr. Valterra has been silent of late.

The Auld Grump, maybe I don't need to spread the blame thin, there seems to be enough for everybody.

It sounded like Fluid was done with the deal (and WOTC as well) but I don't know about that for sure. E-tools may or may not climb out of the grave but that is yet to be seen. It would not suprise me to see WOTC license one of the many good generators out there as the Official D&D generator in the future.