How will E-Tools fare in the future?

[zyzzyr]

Any thoughts on how E-Tools will develop now that it is in the hands of Anthony Valterra?

I know this kind of seems odd, given that he's JUST taken control of the project, and we have yet to see what he proposes, BUT

I think it might be instructive to see what kind of sentiment there is out there regarding the new future of E-Tools.

My own opinion? I think we'll see templates, and that's about it. I look at what needs to be done still, how much money has already been spent on it, and I would be amazed to see more money being dumped into it. It probably causes more complaints than any other Wizard product (or at least more vocal, possibly from a small number).

I do not for a second hesitate to believe that Anthony will never give up on the project. However, I don't think we'll ever see a mapper, or a *true* random character generator, or an adventure editor, or whatever. For the record, I hope that Anthony proves me horribly wrong.

Mind you, I also think that taking control of it and simply getting (most of) the bugs worked out, and adding templates (and possibly integrating Davin's ETHelper tool to edit classes and so on) would be a feat in and of itself.

Note: For those people who think that Anthony is a big fat liar and Wizards hates its customers, please don't bother. The assumption here is that Anthony is going to do his damned best with E-Tools. I suppose this makes this more of a poll about whose mojo is stronger, but c'est la vie.

 

[smetzger]

What I think will happen:
1) the bugs get eventually fixed
2) e-tools 2, or Master Tools is released 2 yrs from now.

 

[2WS-Steve]

What I think will happen:
1) the bugs get eventually fixed
2) e-tools 2, or Master Tools is released 2 yrs from now.

I'm voting with Smetzger on this.

E-tools looks like its core functions aren't well designed for expanding into easy template addition and working with unusual PrCs. Moreover, WotC should be looking at how they'll add support for d20 Modern into their software tools and that means they definitely need better support for Prestige Classes as well as the ability to to handle Background Occupations.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I'm confident Anthony will do his best to get the bugs fixed and some functionality added, but I don't know how much he'll be permitted to do. I'm doubtful we'll see much functionality added, but it won't be because AV didn't try.

 

[zyzzyr]

Well, that's definitely interesting.

Most people obviously think that there will be no add-ons, apparently. I wish I had added "scrapheap and restart a new project" as an option, though I believe that to be highly unlikely.

Myself, I'd be very surprised to see an add-on.

I agree with ColonelHardisson, and I do not doubt that Anthony will put anything but his best effort into this. I think it's just going to follow the mantra "don't throw good money after bad".

Anyhow, I might add another poll on what we want to see from E-Tools now that it's in new hands.

 

[Jay Lofstead]

I think AV will try to do as much as he can. But he will be constrained by budgets and what they believe they (hasbro) can make on the investment. Right now, I think he is being allowed to address pressing needs to reduce the PR problems they are having around the number of problems seen. I would be surprised to see it go beyond the core rules (even to include their own products) or be expanded to allow entry of non-core rules. At this point it looks like they would either have to figure out how to repair the relationship with Fluid (and first decide if it is worth it) or start from scratch (which could be as simple as granting license to one of the existing competing products to be "official").

Knowing that the one programmer that was working on it is gone (I remember reading that elsewhere on the E-Tools threads here), they have a black-box that doesn't meet seemingly the majority of customers' desires. I wonder what kind of feedback WotC has gotten from customers outside of what we all see on the boards?

 

[zyzzyr]

Now I'm wondering if AV himself voted in this poll, and if so, what was his choice?

 

[2WS-Steve]

Out of curiosity, I picked up Core Rules 1 way back when but never picked up CR2. Did they start from scratch on CR2 or was it more of an upgrade?

 

[Vpenman]

Out of curiosity, I picked up Core Rules 1 way back when but never picked up CR2. Did they start from scratch on CR2 or was it more of an upgrade?

We kept some of the underlying stuff but, pretty much, we started over. Eventually.

Victor