Gamers Opinion of PCGen (No Rants)
- Thread starter Knightcrawler
- Start date
WizarDru
Adventurer
Allow me to contribute my US $.02.
I've followed PCgen for quite a long time. It has gone through many changes, and my opinion of it has changed with it.
To wit: prior to a couple of months ago, I found PCgen ugly, highly unituitive, slow and bug-ridden.
Today, I find PCgen less ugly, mildly unintuitive and well, slow.
Now, this may sound like a negative review. It is not. Allow me to go into greater detail.
First off, PCgen's flexibility and scope are impressive, and always have been. The widespread support that PCgen now enjoys amidst d20 publishers is both impressive and heartening. Many features have been added that make it a very valuable tool for me, as a DM. Some of my players have adopted it for their own use, based on my announcing that I was using it.
What does PCgen do well? Character creation has finally become easier to do with PCgen than with a custom Excel spreadsheet. While it's GUI is still cluttered and somewhat counter-intuitive, it's better than it was, and shows signs of continual improvement. PCgen is a very powerful application that truly allows you to design very odd combinations of characters, allowing a DM to override all the basic options to create an 'illegal' character, rules-wise, and create custom items.
What does PCgen do poorly? Many options are poorly or not documented at all. For example, many options require terminating the program and restarting it for changes to take effect. This is mentioned nowhere in the program, and a simple pop-up could save an hour's frustration. Many options don't work in the same way as similar features, and the only way to discover this is by trial-and-error. Most likely as the result of so many different team members, there is no GUI design standard, and this leads to a confusing interface. Creating a new magic weapon was almost enough to cause me to delete the program, when I attempted to create a +2 halberd for a character. I eventually sussed it out (it involved shutting down the program and restarting), but it should have been much easier than it was. Other problems are ones that will continue, thanks to WOTC's strict enforcement of the OGL...specifically that many incomplete LST files will never be completed, except perhaps as black market materials. This will hopefully change...but given it's been almost three years, and nearly half of the three core rulebooks remains unreleased to the SRD officially, this remains dubious. I really had wanted the Axiomatic template from Manual of the Planes, for example.
And let's be clear....it's SLOW. I mean, SLLLOOOOOWWW. Java 1.4 changes this not one jot. Is it faster than it once was? Perhaps. But it's still mind-numbingly slow in spots. It's an acceptable situation, but I sure hope that there are a lot of Mac and Linux users taking advantage of this program to make it worth the performance cost. A major disadvantage, given that I like to run things on my laptop, and I CAN run eTools, but PCgen is far, far too slow to be usable there.
The worst thing about PCgen? It's FAQ, or the lack thereof. Perhaps this has changed, but when I went to sourceforge and followed the link to the FAQ (after having spent a half-hour knocking my head against a wall), and then read a irritating message that mockingly declared that PCgen didn't need a FAQ...well, if I'd found the author of said message, I would have taken him behind the woodshed for a beating. Maybe someone thought it was cute, but it was bad form, at best. The people most likely to need a FAQ or the folks most likely to not want to read such tripe.
How does PCgen stack against it's competition? Well, I consider it to have two major competitors: Homebrew Excel sheets and eTools. LonePaladin's sheet is a very popular one amongst my players, and before he stopped updating it, was our campaign standard. It has a clean, intuitive interface, using clever advantage of color and design, good printing options, and it worked really well for the core materials. In many ways, I still consider it superior to PCgen. What it lacks, though, are options. It is unsupported, and doesn't cover anything outside the core rulebooks. It doesn't have a lot of flexibility, which is badly needed at 16th level, far more than at 6th.
And what of the dreaded eTools, once consider to be the frontrunner of the chargen apps, that would lay waste to all in it's path? Well, it's OK. Given the proliferation of DBAs and amateur Access programmers, it's as easily modified as PCgen is, perhaps easier. It has a cleaner interface...but it isn't always as intuitive as you'd expect it to be. Granted, the chargen program that came with the PHB was much spiffier, but I was expecting them to build on that, not just cobble together a bunch of screens from FoxPro. One place eTools really disappoints is in performance...it's just not as much of a speed improvement over PCgen as I expected. Some parts of eTools are fantastic, and others are very weak. This was Fluid/WOTC's category to win, and they appear to have 'phoned it in', so to speak. The lack of things such as templates, and poor support so far are baffling and irritating. In general, I consider it a worthy rival to PCgen, neither conquered nor conqueror.
Ultimately, I think that PCgen is a worthy DM prep tool, and an excellent chargen tool. I still have my LST files since before Gencon, so it's worth using, for me. Without that functionality, eTools would probably win out slightly, but with better support and features supported that eTools apparently forgot about, PCgen isn't getting deleted off my machine anytime soon.
Hope that helps.
I've followed PCgen for quite a long time. It has gone through many changes, and my opinion of it has changed with it.
To wit: prior to a couple of months ago, I found PCgen ugly, highly unituitive, slow and bug-ridden.
Today, I find PCgen less ugly, mildly unintuitive and well, slow.
Now, this may sound like a negative review. It is not. Allow me to go into greater detail.
First off, PCgen's flexibility and scope are impressive, and always have been. The widespread support that PCgen now enjoys amidst d20 publishers is both impressive and heartening. Many features have been added that make it a very valuable tool for me, as a DM. Some of my players have adopted it for their own use, based on my announcing that I was using it.
What does PCgen do well? Character creation has finally become easier to do with PCgen than with a custom Excel spreadsheet. While it's GUI is still cluttered and somewhat counter-intuitive, it's better than it was, and shows signs of continual improvement. PCgen is a very powerful application that truly allows you to design very odd combinations of characters, allowing a DM to override all the basic options to create an 'illegal' character, rules-wise, and create custom items.
What does PCgen do poorly? Many options are poorly or not documented at all. For example, many options require terminating the program and restarting it for changes to take effect. This is mentioned nowhere in the program, and a simple pop-up could save an hour's frustration. Many options don't work in the same way as similar features, and the only way to discover this is by trial-and-error. Most likely as the result of so many different team members, there is no GUI design standard, and this leads to a confusing interface. Creating a new magic weapon was almost enough to cause me to delete the program, when I attempted to create a +2 halberd for a character. I eventually sussed it out (it involved shutting down the program and restarting), but it should have been much easier than it was. Other problems are ones that will continue, thanks to WOTC's strict enforcement of the OGL...specifically that many incomplete LST files will never be completed, except perhaps as black market materials. This will hopefully change...but given it's been almost three years, and nearly half of the three core rulebooks remains unreleased to the SRD officially, this remains dubious. I really had wanted the Axiomatic template from Manual of the Planes, for example.
And let's be clear....it's SLOW. I mean, SLLLOOOOOWWW. Java 1.4 changes this not one jot. Is it faster than it once was? Perhaps. But it's still mind-numbingly slow in spots. It's an acceptable situation, but I sure hope that there are a lot of Mac and Linux users taking advantage of this program to make it worth the performance cost. A major disadvantage, given that I like to run things on my laptop, and I CAN run eTools, but PCgen is far, far too slow to be usable there.
The worst thing about PCgen? It's FAQ, or the lack thereof. Perhaps this has changed, but when I went to sourceforge and followed the link to the FAQ (after having spent a half-hour knocking my head against a wall), and then read a irritating message that mockingly declared that PCgen didn't need a FAQ...well, if I'd found the author of said message, I would have taken him behind the woodshed for a beating. Maybe someone thought it was cute, but it was bad form, at best. The people most likely to need a FAQ or the folks most likely to not want to read such tripe.
How does PCgen stack against it's competition? Well, I consider it to have two major competitors: Homebrew Excel sheets and eTools. LonePaladin's sheet is a very popular one amongst my players, and before he stopped updating it, was our campaign standard. It has a clean, intuitive interface, using clever advantage of color and design, good printing options, and it worked really well for the core materials. In many ways, I still consider it superior to PCgen. What it lacks, though, are options. It is unsupported, and doesn't cover anything outside the core rulebooks. It doesn't have a lot of flexibility, which is badly needed at 16th level, far more than at 6th.
And what of the dreaded eTools, once consider to be the frontrunner of the chargen apps, that would lay waste to all in it's path? Well, it's OK. Given the proliferation of DBAs and amateur Access programmers, it's as easily modified as PCgen is, perhaps easier. It has a cleaner interface...but it isn't always as intuitive as you'd expect it to be. Granted, the chargen program that came with the PHB was much spiffier, but I was expecting them to build on that, not just cobble together a bunch of screens from FoxPro. One place eTools really disappoints is in performance...it's just not as much of a speed improvement over PCgen as I expected. Some parts of eTools are fantastic, and others are very weak. This was Fluid/WOTC's category to win, and they appear to have 'phoned it in', so to speak. The lack of things such as templates, and poor support so far are baffling and irritating. In general, I consider it a worthy rival to PCgen, neither conquered nor conqueror.
Ultimately, I think that PCgen is a worthy DM prep tool, and an excellent chargen tool. I still have my LST files since before Gencon, so it's worth using, for me. Without that functionality, eTools would probably win out slightly, but with better support and features supported that eTools apparently forgot about, PCgen isn't getting deleted off my machine anytime soon.
Hope that helps.
Knightcrawler
First Post
More Information
For those of you that are interested in finding out more information about why PCGen is trying to become OGL/D20 complient, what publishers opinions about PCGen are and general information about OGL/D20 licensing issues you can check out the thread in the Publishers Forum labeled "Publishers Opinion On PCGen". Sorry I couldn't put a link to it but I'm on somebodies Mac and can't figure out how to copy the link. #!@#@ damn Apple.
It is long thread (5 pages) but I strongly urge you to read through the entire thing before forming any opinions.
For those of you that are interested in finding out more information about why PCGen is trying to become OGL/D20 complient, what publishers opinions about PCGen are and general information about OGL/D20 licensing issues you can check out the thread in the Publishers Forum labeled "Publishers Opinion On PCGen". Sorry I couldn't put a link to it but I'm on somebodies Mac and can't figure out how to copy the link. #!@#@ damn Apple.
It is long thread (5 pages) but I strongly urge you to read through the entire thing before forming any opinions.
Knightcrawler
First Post
More Information
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Henry
Autoexreginated
I'm sorry if this message is off-topic, but I have to ask something. Do I really have that fast of a computer?
More than once I have heard the complaint with PCGen that it takes several seconds just to see the results of one button press. I run this program on a Pentium II 233, with a 4MB AGP card, and 128 MB RAM, running Java 1.4 SRE. I take, at most, one-half to one second with one button press, whether this is to increase one character level, to add one piece of equipment, or to change an ability score. I am baffled by these interminable wait states people speak of.
One other thing: Dru, I am curious as to how you added that +2 halberd. I've never had the experience of restarting the program after creating a custom item.
More than once I have heard the complaint with PCGen that it takes several seconds just to see the results of one button press. I run this program on a Pentium II 233, with a 4MB AGP card, and 128 MB RAM, running Java 1.4 SRE. I take, at most, one-half to one second with one button press, whether this is to increase one character level, to add one piece of equipment, or to change an ability score. I am baffled by these interminable wait states people speak of.
One other thing: Dru, I am curious as to how you added that +2 halberd. I've never had the experience of restarting the program after creating a custom item.
Knightcrawler
First Post
Not off topic. We've actually been trying to test PCGen on various machines to see the slowest thing that it would run on. One of the important things is your use of Java 1.4 it definitely improves speed. So far the slowest system that I can remember is a Pentium 75.
For those of you how have installed Java 1.4 make sure you uninstall Java 1.3.1 first. When the new one installs it does not replace the old one. I did this when I updated my Java and couldn't figure out why I saw no speed increase. <grins>
For those of you how have installed Java 1.4 make sure you uninstall Java 1.3.1 first. When the new one installs it does not replace the old one. I did this when I updated my Java and couldn't figure out why I saw no speed increase. <grins>
Femerus the Gnecro
First Post
Knightcrawler said:
Here's a slower version. Actually my VERY first foray into the program.
Macintosh 7300 200mhz upgraded to a G3 500mhz.
Running Virtual PC 3.
Under Windows 98 (emulated).
The VERY first version of PCgen if I remember correctly.
It was AWFUL!
Incidentally, it's how I started running the Character Generator Demo too, though it ran significantly better.
-F
TheAuldGrump
First Post
A positive review
Well, I've been using PCGen for quite some time. I have found it very useful indeed, if more than a bit slow. (Faster now than it was however.)
I use it in points based mode to create NPCs, and in random mode to test out some character ideas for various d20 settings.
The only downer was the large quantity of stuff removed to make it OGL compliant. I wish PCGen the best of luck on becoming compliant, but meanwhile I am keeping a copy of an older version 'just in case'.
I have tried E-Tools, and well, I really did not like it, PCGen was more powerful 6 months ago than E-Tools is now. The only advantage that I could find for E-Tools was speed. Hopefully there is room for both programs to exist and that both programs will get the attention that they need to improve.
The Auld Grump
Well, I've been using PCGen for quite some time. I have found it very useful indeed, if more than a bit slow. (Faster now than it was however.)
I use it in points based mode to create NPCs, and in random mode to test out some character ideas for various d20 settings.
The only downer was the large quantity of stuff removed to make it OGL compliant. I wish PCGen the best of luck on becoming compliant, but meanwhile I am keeping a copy of an older version 'just in case'.
I have tried E-Tools, and well, I really did not like it, PCGen was more powerful 6 months ago than E-Tools is now. The only advantage that I could find for E-Tools was speed. Hopefully there is room for both programs to exist and that both programs will get the attention that they need to improve.
The Auld Grump
reiella
Explorer
Complaint: Speed.
Interestingly enough, it got alot better with 3.0 with most of the other wizard products removed from the lst files.
For the module loader, have a progress bar or something, nothing quite as frustrating as a program Not Responding with no progress while loading.
The new General/Overview tab is a bit confusing (and redundant), it does make a good start for having an easier to use interface however.
Make it possible to add N levels of a class at a time (downside, you have to add N levels before adding an item that boosts int so it's bonus is effective then add the rest of the levels).
On skills, at least as an option have it so you consider all skills that are a class skill to one of your classes (but not exclusive) to be 'class skills' (like it says on phb 56 for multiclass characters).
Add an 'ok' button to the OGL license display as well.
As said before, should really compress Description, Misc, and Notes into one tab. Preview should be a button for Preview in Browser (since the internal preview still doesn't work/causes much system drag).
Inventory/Equipping/Resources are arguably all the same and collapsable into just Resources (although as I understand the Equipping tab is an attempt at a new 'easier' to use equipment usage, hence why it can say different things than the inventory location slots). Resources also seems to be more so companions and the like (and is lacking PsiCrystal).
Domains/Spells are easy enough to collapse into one (and only None really actually needs the full Domain listing or even close to that much space in its window).
Also of note, is that it still holds some IP (That isn't SRD) - Githzerai, Githyanki were not freed in the SRD draft. (Nor for that matter was Illithid).
In all I like pcgen, the interface ... is frustrating (took me a while to figure out the new filters and item creation), and slow.
Interestingly enough, it got alot better with 3.0 with most of the other wizard products removed from the lst files.
For the module loader, have a progress bar or something, nothing quite as frustrating as a program Not Responding with no progress while loading.
The new General/Overview tab is a bit confusing (and redundant), it does make a good start for having an easier to use interface however.
Make it possible to add N levels of a class at a time (downside, you have to add N levels before adding an item that boosts int so it's bonus is effective then add the rest of the levels).
On skills, at least as an option have it so you consider all skills that are a class skill to one of your classes (but not exclusive) to be 'class skills' (like it says on phb 56 for multiclass characters).
Add an 'ok' button to the OGL license display as well.
As said before, should really compress Description, Misc, and Notes into one tab. Preview should be a button for Preview in Browser (since the internal preview still doesn't work/causes much system drag).
Inventory/Equipping/Resources are arguably all the same and collapsable into just Resources (although as I understand the Equipping tab is an attempt at a new 'easier' to use equipment usage, hence why it can say different things than the inventory location slots). Resources also seems to be more so companions and the like (and is lacking PsiCrystal).
Domains/Spells are easy enough to collapse into one (and only None really actually needs the full Domain listing or even close to that much space in its window).
Also of note, is that it still holds some IP (That isn't SRD) - Githzerai, Githyanki were not freed in the SRD draft. (Nor for that matter was Illithid).
In all I like pcgen, the interface ... is frustrating (took me a while to figure out the new filters and item creation), and slow.
reiella said:
Ah, thanks for the suggestions. I actually talked with Bryan McRoberts (Merton Monk) tonight about combing/getting rid of some of the extra tabs, so expect some changes on that front sometime soon (no time frame, obviously OGL/D20 comes 1st)...
And for the record, we are using the Players Handbook data files as our test bed for WotC approval. If those data files pass muster, then we will be using them as the basis to get the rest of the WotC material in line in short order... so one step at a time, and little ones now... we've made some huge leaps in the last 2 weeks and it does show, but we still have a few more steps to go yet!
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