EricNoah
Adventurer
The thought process I can't say, but the history has been laid out many times.
MT as it was initially envisioned was to be a tool for crafting adventures: encounters, individual NPCs, PCs, monsters, maps, traps, treasures, etc. Over the course of months that it has been in development, many changes in direction were made. By whom I don't know. Some of the things that happened were unforseen (i.e. Hasbro having rough financial times and axing Hasbro Interactive). The result, however, was that for a very long time the highest priority seems to have been placed on the isometric mapper and the monster "models" and sounds that would accompany that. Unfortunately, this ultimately turned out not to be the direction that Master Tools would take. Now the focus is simply on two main things: the character generator part, and the monster/race generator part. In addition, some kinds of customizers are in place. They do anywhere from a "barely adequate" job to a very complete job of allowing users to customize certain kinds of data.
At this point it appears that MT is at a "make or break" stage. It has to come out soon, which means it will initially have just a few of the "tools" that one might want. If the initial product is successful enough, Fluid will likely develop additional tools -- more customizers, more complete customizers, more data (things like in the class books, psi handbook, FR books). At this point the big question is ... will MT as it currently appears be "enough" to get people to open their wallets? I honestly don't know if it will be. I've never been good at guessing what people will like or what people will spend money on. I for one will certainly spend the dough on it, as even a buggy, half-done version has been extremely useful in my campaigns, but I do know full well it won't do everything I ever wanted. But then no program so far has.
MT as it was initially envisioned was to be a tool for crafting adventures: encounters, individual NPCs, PCs, monsters, maps, traps, treasures, etc. Over the course of months that it has been in development, many changes in direction were made. By whom I don't know. Some of the things that happened were unforseen (i.e. Hasbro having rough financial times and axing Hasbro Interactive). The result, however, was that for a very long time the highest priority seems to have been placed on the isometric mapper and the monster "models" and sounds that would accompany that. Unfortunately, this ultimately turned out not to be the direction that Master Tools would take. Now the focus is simply on two main things: the character generator part, and the monster/race generator part. In addition, some kinds of customizers are in place. They do anywhere from a "barely adequate" job to a very complete job of allowing users to customize certain kinds of data.
At this point it appears that MT is at a "make or break" stage. It has to come out soon, which means it will initially have just a few of the "tools" that one might want. If the initial product is successful enough, Fluid will likely develop additional tools -- more customizers, more complete customizers, more data (things like in the class books, psi handbook, FR books). At this point the big question is ... will MT as it currently appears be "enough" to get people to open their wallets? I honestly don't know if it will be. I've never been good at guessing what people will like or what people will spend money on. I for one will certainly spend the dough on it, as even a buggy, half-done version has been extremely useful in my campaigns, but I do know full well it won't do everything I ever wanted. But then no program so far has.
