New Character Builder from WotC!

[Minifig]

Sad.. very, very sad.. one of the things I like about the other character builder is that we can use it on laptops when we're not connected to the internet.

This has destroyed the character builder for my D&D Group.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

*snip*

The problem is, you're telling us to trust the company that just spent two months utterly failing at updating their past devices (and the dm tools haven't seen an update in ages) and is known for being rather terrible at web-based software.

 

[evilref]

The problem is, you're telling us to trust the company that just spent two months utterly failing at updating their past devices (and the dm tools haven't seen an update in ages) and is known for being rather terrible at web-based software.

I'm not telling you any such thing so please don't put words into my mouth. I was correcting your blanket statements with information from the FAQ and the posts of PaoloM. It's up to you and any customer or potential customer whether they decide to 'trust' that information (and by extension how important that trust is for them).

 

[zoroaster100]

I'd prefer to have an off-line Character Builder in case the server is down or I have no access to the internet for some reason, but generally will have no problem using an online tool. I'm not really upset about the change as I figured this was inevitable each time I would read a post from someone on the boards giving advice to folks to just buy one or two core books and subscribe for a month to get all content for $10. It was an unsustainable business model and they had to find a way to make people buy all the books for content they want OR subscribe long term rather than just for a month here or there.

 

[Maggan]

To me this sounds interesting. More and more of my computer tasks are managed in online services that I can reach from every computer available. So for me this makes the service more accessible and more useful.

And I almost exclusively use MacOS as my computing platform. That and iOS.

I do realise that I am not representative though, since I pretty much have a couple of computers with internet connection available at all times both at work and at home. And all my friends have computers, so if we're gaming at their place then even if I forgot my portable(s), I can use their equipment.

The one thing I'm miffed about is the Silverlight thing. Makes it not compatible with the iOS devices at my disposal. Ah well, they will move to HTML5 in the end anyway.

As for storing my characters, I would just print them out. No use having a datafile if I don't subscribe to the service. And paper character sheets were ok for me to "store" PCs on before this announcement, and this doesn't change that.

So it's interesting and probably more useful to me than the stand-alone.

/M

 

[Jdvn1]

I'll probably end up making and printing a few characters at a few different levels to last me 6-9 months, and end up paying for another month when I run out of characters or I need to make a major update of a character. Tweaking a character's magic items is pretty easy, and I'm sure I can work something out with my GM to streamline the process.

I just wish it wasn't in Silverlight, but I'm not going to pay for every month anyways.

 

[Stormtower]

Subscription = cancelled. I want my offline CB or nothing, and I want unfettered access to my character files on my own hard drive. Bye, WotC.

 

[gourdcaptain]

I have canceled my DDI subscription. Or I would, if it weren't for the fact that whenever I try to use their site I get server errors trying to get there. And we trust can these guys with running an online application?

 

[Umbran]

Then too, I believe that designing a standalone program is quite a bit easier than the online version.

There will be exceptions, but in general it is easier to design for a browser based solution, because most of the compatibility issues are handled for you by the browser. You get to code to a small number of browsers (which are more and more following the standards), instead of a broad variety of individual client-machine operating systems and configurations.

And code updates are far, far simpler for browser-applications than for installed-client applications.

 

[renau1g]

I'd prefer to have an off-line Character Builder in case the server is down or I have no access to the internet for some reason, but generally will have no problem using an online tool. I'm not really upset about the change as I figured this was inevitable each time I would read a post from someone on the boards giving advice to folks to just buy one or two core books and subscribe for a month to get all content for $10. It was an unsustainable business model and they had to find a way to make people buy all the books for content they want OR subscribe long term rather than just for a month here or there.

There's an easier option than spending 6+ month redeveloping your tools from the ground up. They could put a token (or something like that) that requires validation every X days or so. If you don't connect and validate an up to date connection, they could limit the features (I believe MS does this). That I would be more than ok with as I understand they need to make money. I don't like that I likely will have no choice once 5e comes out (which it certainly will) but convert all my PC's to the newest shiny as I'm pretty sure WotC won't throw their money away supporting an outdated (in their opinion) system.