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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerakSpielman" data-source="post: 1363009" data-attributes="member: 7464">A quick run-down (innacurate for the sake of simplicity) of the history of E-Tools development: E-Tools has had a very rocky development history. The Character Generator Demo was buggy as hell. Fluid was supposed to handle development of "Master Tools" but lacked an approprate design focus. Programmers were told to add functionality for sound effects (monsters roaring, etc...), 3d models, mapping, and whatnot in addition to basic rules. They were making moves towards being able to play online D&D games with it, and wasting a lot of time in the process. From what I understand, NWN hit the hype-scene around this time, offering the ability to do online games better than Master Tools would have been able to. All that production was scrapped. Fluid started running into trouble, management was swapped around, people layed off, and basically the ball dropped pretty much everywhere it could have been. A great deal of time was wasted - with no profit to show for it. They finally toned the scope of Master Tools down to E-Tools, a simple stat-block/character sheet program and shoved it out the door in an incomplete mess. It did the job - barely - and was buggy as all get-out, and barely customizable at all. Then Fluid turned their attention to other - potentially more profitable - ventures and failed to provide fixes and support for E-tools. This was shortly before version 3.5 was announced, so you can understand that people were annoyed. What, I finally get my E-Tools, and it's right before the next version comes out? Relations became tense between WOTC, the user/fan base, and Fluid. Tempers flared. There may have been a lawsuit. Finally, WOTC grabbed E-Tools from them and gave it to Code Monkey Publishing. CMP has, in the rather brief intervening time, released several patch/fixes, created the myriad data sets for splatbooks, allowed additional functionality that made Davin's Helper program actually be useful, etc... They started way behind but are working their furry butts off trying to catch up. They are very responsive to the user community and post regularly in their forums. Right now, they're working on getting template support and ver. 3.5 working. They are full of big ideas for where E-Tools can go in the future, and have thus far not really let anybody down. I don't know how they make any money, seeing as how the $30 e-tools can't be selling many copies with everybody playing 3.5 now, and the data sets are sold for so cheap - and only to the limited number of people who both already have the main program and think it's cool enough to bother expanding its functionality. Feel free to correct me where I was (inevitably) wrong in this saga, folks.</blockquote>

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