Is E-Tools worth it?

[Mynex]

I'm appalled by this sentiment. Bad business practices should NEVER trump the rights of individuals.

Regardless of the idiotic legalities of the situation, it's a stupid argument - customers are crying out for better products (i.e. datasets included with books without exhorbitant fees attached), and the corporation is ignoring the needs of its market. Thus, the customers find ways to attain these things. The whole thing is a customer service failure on a massive scale on WOTC's part.

I'm not saying I agree, I'm not saying I disagree... I'm not discussing the moral aspects, I'm not discussing my opinion on things... I was stating facts in regards to, and ONLY in regards to the distribution of material not owned by you (not meaning 'you' as in you specifically, but a generic 'you' here)...

The fact is simple, it doesn't matter what _YOU PERSONALLY_ believe, it matters what is and isn't legal. Hence, your opinion doesn't matter here, only legal opinion.

And unless you are a lawyer, have the time, energy and resources to take the entire thing to court to get the courts to back your opinion and make it the law, then yes, as harsh as it may sound, your opinion doesn't matter.

Could I have phrased that better? Sure, would it have the same impact and get the point across? Probably not. Whille you may or may not agree with how I phrased it, it DID get your attention to the subject of the distribution, and that was my goal.

 

[DonTadow]

I'm not saying I agree, I'm not saying I disagree... I'm not discussing the moral aspects, I'm not discussing my opinion on things... I was stating facts in regards to, and ONLY in regards to the distribution of material not owned by you (not meaning 'you' as in you specifically, but a generic 'you' here)...

The fact is simple, it doesn't matter what _YOU PERSONALLY_ believe, it matters what is and isn't legal. Hence, your opinion doesn't matter here, only legal opinion.

And unless you are a lawyer, have the time, energy and resources to take the entire thing to court to get the courts to back your opinion and make it the law, then yes, as harsh as it may sound, your opinion doesn't matter.

Could I have phrased that better? Sure, would it have the same impact and get the point across? Probably not. Whille you may or may not agree with how I phrased it, it DID get your attention to the subject of the distribution, and that was my goal.

Buit i guess what's the point in coming on the high horse and reiterating what's legal and wahts not. Can you stop someone from writing up a script and sharing with his friend. Probably not when wotc has whole books floating on bittorents. It kind of brought this thread somewhere it wasn't suppose to go.

 

[kingpaul]

Probably not when wotc has whole books floating on bittorents.

It still doesn't make it any more legal just because others are doing it.

It kind of brought this thread somewhere it wasn't suppose to go.

How so? The main quesiton has been answered, and the secondary question of dataset/script distribution that came forth has also been discussed.

 

[Henry]

As a note to DonTadow and Elephant: Mynex does speak with some experience on the issue, because as part of Codemonkey Publishing and the organization staff of the PCGen project for a time, he went through this exact same thing with WotC three years ago over PCGen, before CMP became the official supporter of E-Tools. The history is too long to recount here, but WotC's position about individual users sharing their created dataset IS that it's infringement.

For that matter, I'm surprised no one from WotC has said anything about the issue, if it's going on in the DMGenie forums... unless the forums are more of a facilitator, and the actual sharing is going on elsewhere.

 

[Ravenknight]

To answer the topic´s main question. Yes.! E-Tools is worth every dime. I use the program for every campaign and it is a real timesaver. The ability to fool around with NPC stats and templates without having to use pen and paper. I love it.
Using a laptop it also gives me the ability to create NPCs and monsters on the fly with is a great bonus when I have to improvise something.

 

[DonTadow]

As a note to DonTadow and Elephant: Mynex does speak with some experience on the issue, because as part of Codemonkey Publishing and the organization staff of the PCGen project for a time, he went through this exact same thing with WotC three years ago over PCGen, before CMP became the official supporter of E-Tools. The history is too long to recount here, but WotC's position about individual users sharing their created dataset IS that it's infringement.

For that matter, I'm surprised no one from WotC has said anything about the issue, if it's going on in the DMGenie forums... unless the forums are more of a facilitator, and the actual sharing is going on elsewhere.

I know. I used to love pc-gen back then and then wotc quenched them. My big beef is that codemonkey backed down and joined them (e-tools). It just wasn't the same after that. High priced datapacks and a e-tools that never did what it was suppose to do.

In the mean time independent companies like dmgenie and roleplaying master let theri communities come up with any side data while they stuck to their original concept.

 

[kingpaul]

I know. I used to love pc-gen back then and then wotc quenched them.

Quenched us? I'm not sure what you mean. PCGen did, several years ago, include Star Wars and WotC's closed content material, yes. Then the Board at the time sat down with WotC at GenCon ('02 I believe) and WotC said that creating datasets of their closed content books was a breach of their IP. PCGen therefore removed said content. That was 2.7.x. We are now on 5.9.2; I don't see how we've been quenched. The code has improved since then (I've been around since the 1.4 days), and more OGC datasets have been included.

My big beef is that codemonkey backed down and joined them (e-tools). It just wasn't the same after that. High priced datapacks and a e-tools that never did what it was suppose to do.

CMP was offered the contract to maintain eTools after Fluid. CMP has fixed countless bugs more than they were cotracted to do so. So, under CMP's custodianship, eTools has flourished. Does eTools do everything that MasterTools was touted as being able to do? No, but they're different products.

As for 'high-priced datapacks', how much is your time worth? Can you create datasets in the amount of time that would comparable or cheaper to the cost of the dataset?

In the mean time independent companies like dmgenie and roleplaying master let theri communities come up with any side data while they stuck to their original concept.

And once again, creating datasets for your own use is fine. Its the distribution of WotC's IP withou permission that is not.

 

[DonTadow]

Quenched us? I'm not sure what you mean. PCGen did, several years ago, include Star Wars and WotC's closed content material, yes. Then the Board at the time sat down with WotC at GenCon ('02 I believe) and WotC said that creating datasets of their closed content books was a breach of their IP. PCGen therefore removed said content. That was 2.7.x. We are now on 5.9.2; I don't see how we've been quenched. The code has improved since then (I've been around since the 1.4 days), and more OGC datasets have been included.

CMP was offered the contract to maintain eTools after Fluid. CMP has fixed countless bugs more than they were cotracted to do so. So, under CMP's custodianship, eTools has flourished. Does eTools do everything that MasterTools was touted as being able to do? No, but they're different products.

As for 'high-priced datapacks', how much is your time worth? Can you create datasets in the amount of time that would comparable or cheaper to the cost of the dataset?

And once again, creating datasets for your own use is fine. Its the distribution of WotC's IP withou permission that is not.

If I'm correct , as far as etools, there was an e-tools helper that was pretty effiecient at cranking out datapacks. But the code kept changing and I am no longer sure how effective that tool was. It efffectively shut down community support.

I am glad that wotc has securely 100 per cent "convinced" you that their intelliectual propertiy is in jeapordy. (I remember when you guys had a bit more fight as pioneers). And I agree, companies should stay out of the distrubution. But I draw the line at threatening user communities and going after the everyday joe smoe whom either doesnt have time to do the datawork nor doesnt want to.

For the record, theres no real "legal standing" either way. Hasbro just has a heck of a lot more money to pay lawyers to keep drilling things in.

 

[Mynex]

If I'm correct , as far as etools, there was an e-tools helper that was pretty effiecient at cranking out datapacks. But the code kept changing and I am no longer sure how effective that tool was. It efffectively shut down community support.

I am glad that wotc has securely 100 per cent "convinced" you that their intelliectual propertiy is in jeapordy. (I remember when you guys had a bit more fight as pioneers). And I agree, companies should stay out of the distrubution. But I draw the line at threatening user communities and going after the everyday joe smoe whom either doesnt have time to do the datawork nor doesnt want to.

For the record, theres no real "legal standing" either way. Hasbro just has a heck of a lot more money to pay lawyers to keep drilling things in.

Opinions are fine... but you are bordering on insulting here... I didn't insult or insinuate an insult about your 'cajones factor' as you're doing here...

Unless you were a part of PCGen in the early days (as I was), unless you were a primary figure in those 'early days' (as I was), and unless you were involved in the talks with WotC in 2002 (as I was), you don't have a damned clue everything that went on.

What you have is suppositions, borderline rude opinions, and a lot of smoke coming out of your exhaust port at a great velocity.

In short, _I_, as _ME_ and _ME alone, have no desire to read any further of your 'opinions' on what is and is not legal, because it is now exceptionally obvious to me that you don't have clue one and will be more than happy to steal from companies that are doing their best to make the materials available in the first place.

Overpriced? Yea, as Paul said, how much is your time worth eh? Not _one_ data set is over $7.50... and very few are that much...

Whatever... My apologies to everyone for 'derailing' the thread... I won't bother anyone further.

 

[Mynex]

If I'm correct , as far as etools, there was an e-tools helper that was pretty effiecient at cranking out datapacks. But the code kept changing and I am no longer sure how effective that tool was. It efffectively shut down community support.

I thought I was done, but I forgot to address this section, and I feel the need to address these statement with facts, since DonTadow is in very short supply of them it seems.

e-Tools helper was not a tool designed to make 'datapacks'. It was a tool designed by Davin to help people get around the limitations of the e-Tools interface.

Davin is very much a part of our community at CMP, even has his own forums area, and it's fairly active... the program is still around, still used, but more as a support role than the dominant one it used to have when we first took over e-Tools.

Community support was shut down because of file sharing, you know, stealing.

And once we took over, made code improvements, fixed bugs, and started putting out data sets of the books, there wasn't a whole lot of need for stealing, er, 'community support', we had it covered... because for those that were around, please pipe up.. what was the #1issue with the community user files? Oh right, they didn't play well with each other... because everyone made their data sets their own way and without a standard or any guidance in their construction....

Once there were standards and guidance on how to make data, there was very little call for people to be out and about making their own sets of books... which usually consisted of 1-4 people working on the same data set and then trying to mangle the different sets together... which usually resulted in a non-working e-Tools.

As for e-Tool help and Davin, Davin was kept in the loop about the code changes from the second we took over e-Tools....

Well enough already... in short, from your own words, you haven't used e-Tools or e-Tool Helper in a long while... So until you do use a recent version of both (oh and don't forget how we're so badly 'gouging people' with the free code patches on our website to the main e-Tools program), well.. that suggestion wouldn't be polite, and I wouldn't want to upset Eric's Grandmother... I'll just say you need to see a doctor about having that Cranial-Rectal fission surgery sometime soon.

Now I'm done. Night all!