I seem to be missing the point on the online CB

[Ryujin]

Would it be possible for you to get more info on how your Linux guy gets Silverlight working?? That is something that I would love to be able to share with others.

Not Silverlight, per se: Moonlight - Mono

 

[DEFCON 1]

Like those dummies who bought PDF's from DriveThruRPG and had 'em yanked. Wizards must have GAVE them something too eh?

Did DriveThruRPG refund the money people spent to buy the books when they got yanked?

(Not being snarky or anything here... just actually curious. I don't recall the fallout from when that happened.)

 

[renau1g]

Wizard GAVE me something? Hell, I thought I was paying for it. I'll immediately ask Wizards to return the years of CB updates I'd been paying for all this time. Sheesh. Silly me. Thinking I was paying for a product.

Like those dummies who bought PDF's from DriveThruRPG and had 'em yanked. Wizards must have GAVE them something too eh?

Maybe stumble is talking about people getting them for free from torrent sites. Those people had them "given" I guess :shrug:

 

[Stumblewyk]

I pay them for that, they give me nothing. They provide something that I pay them money for. Giving is charity, they are not being charitable. They have provided one of the best tools for character generation ever and as such I paid them for that tool. They are now changing that tool into a service.

Okay. "Gives" was a poor choice of words - assume I meant "provides".

Regardless...it was always a service, IMO. I always considered my DDI account to be a subscription granting me access to the data in a digital format, not to be a fee I was paying to rent their software application.

It's obviously a difference of opinion. I don't claim to have a monopoly on valid opinions regarding this matter, but I just can't see how anyone would believe they have a legitimate right to contend continued support of the "old" Character Builder. Wizards provided you with a really cool piece of software. Now, they're still providing you with a really cool tool.

*shrug*

 

[Pseudopsyche]

I'm not familiar with Silverlight, though. What about that makes it unusable on iPads? Would it work on an Android device? I'm trying to decide what kind of tablet/laptop/netbook to purchase in the near future, and this could make a difference in what I decide on.

For iOS, the problem with Silverlight is the same as the problem with Flash: it's a proprietary layer of technology originally designed to run on machines with desktop-level hardware. Technologically, they lack the performance characteristics of native iOS applications and HTML. Legally, iOS and Android must rely on the owners of the proprietary framework to produce secure and efficient runtime environments. Adobe has only recently advanced the mobile version of Flash to the point that it can run some Flash content on Android devices (with some potential cost to battery life), but for iOS the ship has sailed, long ago.

It's not clear to me where Microsoft is going with Silverlight. My impression, which could easily be wrong, is that they will support it or a version of it with Windows 7 Phone, "but HTML is the only true cross platform solution for everything, including (Apple’s) iOS platform" according to the guy in charge of their server and tools business.

 

[Scribble]

Could have used Java which, while cludgy, is about as cross-platform as you can get.

My guess is that this would have required a lot more development time/money and possibly even a new team.

By using silverlight they probably were able to salvage a lot from the old CB for use in the new.

This allows them to quickly and efficiently open the CB to a large group of people who weren't supported before (mac users) without a huge investment of time/money rebuilding everything from the ground up.


It's really only the front end, the actual data is housed on the backend. If/when it comes time to get something going for say, ipads/phones or android devices they'll probably choose something better suited for them.

I mean the big push on those devices is apps as opposed to web based interfaces.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Okay. "Gives" was a poor choice of words - assume I meant "provides".

Regardless...it was always a service, IMO. I always considered my DDI account to be a subscription granting me access to the data in a digital format, not to be a fee I was paying to rent their software application.

It's obviously a difference of opinion. I don't claim to have a monopoly on valid opinions regarding this matter, but I just can't see how anyone would believe they have a legitimate right to contend continued support of the "old" Character Builder. Wizards provided you with a really cool piece of software. Now, they're still providing you with a really cool tool.

*shrug*

I can see what you're saying but having it online only is a deal breaker for me for reasons I've gone into several places.

People keep talking about "You can't have expected Wizards really wanted you to have all that content" without acknowledging that, yeah, up to now, that is EXACTLY how it worked.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Did DriveThruRPG refund the money people spent to buy the books when they got yanked?

(Not being snarky or anything here... just actually curious. I don't recall the fallout from when that happened.)

With your curiosity peaked i'm sure you'll look it up.

 

[darjr]

Silverlight supports an offline mode. From what I understand it supports it in MacOS as well. The new CB won't support that because of a WotC/developer decision.

 

[mudbunny]

My guess is that this would have required a lot more development time/money and possibly even a new team.

By using silverlight they probably were able to salvage a lot from the old CB for use in the new.

This allows them to quickly and efficiently open the CB to a large group of people who weren't supported before (mac users) without a huge investment of time/money rebuilding everything from the ground up.


It's really only the front end, the actual data is housed on the backend. If/when it comes time to get something going for say, ipads/phones or android devices they'll probably choose something better suited for them.

I would say that is the plan. Paolo has said that they would use the programming platform that is best suited for the application. For the CB, Silverlight was what they had determined to be the best platform. For the Compendium, they use something different. (not a codemonkey, so I have no idea what it uses, no do I remember what he said it uses.)