theoremtank said:
To the response of some of the posts before this I would like to reiterate a point...
I believe that CodeMonkey should make money for their data sets and work. They are, as far as I believe, good people in the RPG business.
My arguement is with Wizards of the Coast who is ultimately responsible for our satisfaction with eTools. We eTools consumers paid for a finished product but have been sitting on a lemon for about 1 year. Many of us have not used this purchase as the level of data correctness is intolerable and absolutely unprofessional. Now, thanks to CodeMonkey we are most likely getting a version of eTools that will function at a level of professional standard. Most of us paid $30-$40 for the eTools utility to support the current version of D&D, that was 3.0. eTools did not sufficiently or accurately support D&D 3.0 for the life of its existence. Now D&D version 3.5 is upon us and we are only now supposedly getting acceptable support for the obsolete version 3.0. We however must pay for version 3.5 support in eTools.
Now why is Wizards not covering the cost of the 3.5 data sets for their eTools consumer as they were the ones who screwed up initialy and sold us nonfunctioning software that is now obsolete? I know the 3.5 data sets are $5 dollars, but nomatter how small this is, Wizards should be covering this cost. I don't believe CodeMonkey should not receive compesation for their work on them.
First hi, good seeing you again. As to your point. I think most of us get what you are saying. I think what you need to consider is that this program might well have been totaly dropped by WotC by now if the CMP deal hadnt gone through. Or at the very most we might still be reading about possible patches comming or other such delay tactics that we saw so many times in the past.
Instead actual work is occuring and the patch is in revue, about to be released(I hope haha). My take on the whole thing is (and this whole reply is opinion- I have no hard facts to back any of this up) that the CMP deal breathed life into ET again as far as WotC was conserned. I bet they were in a hard position in reguards to ET and were hoping for a way out that wouldnt break the bank on an alerady bad investment.
With CMP in the picture they have people ready to work on the program and pick up the slack producing the needed patch for ET for im betting little more than official backing and rights to create data for the copyright material WotC owns for ET and CMP's other products(again my guess - no actual knowledge of any CMP WotC deals).
So assuming im even close in this assumption and while I agree WotC should be responsible for ET problems, I think in the large picture they have been responsible ( even if its realy late coming).
They are delivering, through CMP, the patch needed to bring ET up to snuff.
The fact that 3.5 is rolling around is, although unfortunate, a separte issue. Because ET was only suposed to be for 3.0.
Now that being said the fact that 3.5 data sets will be made available by CMP is a good thing and while I understand your thinking on the issue, WotC didnt ever say ET would be 3.5 compatable. And since CMP will be making this updated material available, and since obviously WotC will be giving them official permission to do so, and since it is a "new" non "3.0" set of data, then it is indeed something we should pay for. Because its not part of the original ET program material. And the fact that WotC has chosen CMP to take care of ET, and because they are allowing them to make 3.5 data available I beleive they(WotC) are doing enough to satisfy their responsibilitys to us.
Should they have done more sooner? Yes. But they have done something finaly and thats better than I expected pre-CMP.
Wow didnt mean to go on so long. I will repeat that all the above is my opinion based on observation and guess work. I have no hard evidence about what agreements WotC or CMP have made. Its all speculation.
Peace.
