New Character Builder from WotC!

[Dannyalcatraz]

While I'm in solidly in the "I'm not buying this (even though I own a Mac)" crowd, I have to ask...

If you're so concerned about 24/7 access to your character and don't want to mess with pencil & paper, why not just make a spreadsheet? Sure, it won't have access to all the errata, but it will handle all of those math cascades that happen when you change your PC.

 

[Njall]

While I'm in solidly in the "I'm not buying this (even though I own a Mac)" crowd, I have to ask...

If you're so concerned about 24/7 access to your character and don't want to mess with pencil & paper, why not just make a spreadsheet? Sure, it won't have access to all the errata, but it will handle all of those math cascades that happen when you change your PC.

I guess it's because, if I go through the effort of creating an excel spreadsheet, what's the point of paying for the CB then? I can just use the spreadsheet and be done with it.
I see a lot of people saying that offline access is not a big deal.
Aside from the fact that for some people it is, indeed, a big deal, the point is not how big of a deal it is: the point is that what they're doing makes the CB actively worse rather than better and adds nothing whatsoever to compensate for that, so that the new CB feels like a downgrade, rather than an upgrade.
That's a dealbreaker, for me at least.

 

[renau1g]

LoL, is Paranoia in a cross-marketing deal with WotC for campaign ideas?

"Come friends, we must save Pondo the Zamphir Assassin from the dreaded WotC servers before mike mearls discovers his whereabouts! I want to play him this Saturday but alas, the evil WotC Overlord has stricken all recollection of him from my mind and I didn't want to pay the price of a frappacino for access to him and teh rest of their content!"

I couldn't resist this...[MENTION=78357]Herschel[/MENTION] - from your now-closed thread.

 

[Herschel]

He can't always be online therefore can't access the tools in a way that he could previously. In the past those wihtout always on internet, or those who traveled for work without internet (like myself) could waste time building their PC's offline but with the most up to date rules. Now we can't.

Yeah, it will stink in these cases. I just don't see how it isn't a good move overall for WotC though.

There's always collateral damge in change. Hopefully the number caught will be few and more people will gain a benefit from it. It sucks to be in teh group caught, but I'm guessing this will be less painful to regular subscribers than other changes.

Heck, I've been trying to update the Monster Builder for a few days now and have yet to successfully have it work after a few months hiatus from using it. Web based will make that problem go away.

 

[karolusb]

Stupid, stupid, stupid move.

Lastly - and worst of all - if a new edition was made, then people could still fire up the ol' CB and make their character. Not anymore! Once/if a new edition comes out, the CB is dead, dead, dead.

Oh, and I wonder if this is why they weren't putting Dark Sun and Essentials stuff on CB - to add an extra "incentive" to buy this new service? Despicable.

I am not a fanboy here, I have declared that all future characters in my game would be made by hand. I dislike many many elements of it. As a guy with a DDI subscription since before you had to pay, and ~$500 of (4E) D&D books, I hate that they are shafting me to get at those who subscribe twice a years and never buy books. They needed a solution to those guys. Just wish they had done it some other way.

I would wager the new CB was supposed to be out timed with essentials (that is when the spotty updating of the old CB began). Essentials, by dramatically altering character format (and dark sun with the addition of themes) both involved programming tasks, tasks that would have been wasted manpower on a version they knew was dead. Updating psionic power (which it appears they also originally weren't going to do) was simply database tasks, and much easier to implement. It was not a holiday plot. If they could have rolled this out three months ago I am certain they would have.

I do lament the change. I forsee no future where the CB supports any relevant houserules (you can't even export characters, exporting custom magic items? not gonna happen). I make all my monsters from scratch and/or alter them in the monster builder. Every single one. I suspect the new cloud system will not be friendly to that. While I don't allow comps at the table for players (too much distraction), I frequently monster on the fly while GMing. This part would annoy me less if I hadn't downloaded the most recent, very buggy, and presumably final version of the monster builder (I didn't need or what MM3 stats, but I would really like it if a print out would show correct movement speeds and resistances).

The text export in the OCB was super awesome. I have a hard time believing that the data can't easily be exported this way, which puts me on the conspiracy side of the fence when it comes to the export feature.

I am not giving up yet, I will remain cautiously pessimistic. Maybe I will love it. And if not, essentials characters certainly don't need a computer to make.

 

[ExploderWizard]

"Come friends, we must save Pondo the Zamphir Assassin from the dreaded WotC servers before mike mearls discovers his whereabouts! I want to play him this Saturday but alas, the evil WotC Overlord has stricken all recollection of him from my mind and I didn't want to pay the price of a frappacino for access to him and teh rest of their content!"

Nay, this reasoning be flawed! Thou art but a tenant player upon the WOTC manor. As such ye may not own characters. What be not yours is thus impossible to hold hostage from thee. Instead ye may rent them from thy master for a monthly fee. Should thou decide to forgo paying your rent as a loyal tenant thy rented characters shall be witheld from your use until the rent be paid.

 

[Festivus]

I'm out. I will not be renewing my DDI membership (which ran out at the end of Oct.)

In fact, forcing players to purchase this monthly subscription is likely going to kill 4E playing in my group. (And before you say that WotC is not "forcing" it - consider that for new players the DDI Character Builder was a key enticing factor for playing 4E. Now - not so much.)

So now we have the following issues:

1) Books that are instantly errated and not worth the paper they are printed on.
2) WotC holding onto your characters and all of the errata so you have to pay $10 a month to access them.
3) Forcing you to play with a ready Internet connection

I hope this fails and they go back to the previous model.

Retreater

The books being instantly errated isn't that for off from being erratad once a month. The PHB is so useless now I never look at it, it sits in a box now and the Rules Compendium has taken it's place.

On the point of character vaulting, can't you still reference the printed page? They are also saying at some point there will be an export ability (no doubt with an import), so I don't think that's an issue. What you are paying for with your DDI is partly the convenience of having them store it for you. What would happen now if you lost your local HDD? Do you have your CB characters backed up somewhere? Many folks don't.

There is nothing that says you can't play the game without using a computer. There are still books, you still have the old CB software, you can still print out the character sheets. If they said you can't play without paying for our specialized d47 online die roller, well then yes, you might have an argument.

I can't see where any of the points you raise would be an issue for a new player to accept. It's not being forced, period. WoTC has always offered alternative ways to build characters, right down to power cards.

Now that the software will work for Mac users, this is grand news for everyone, we should be celebrating that tools are accessible to a far wider audience than before... plus I bet this is just the first (needed) step towards offering some more really useful tools.

Visualizer: Probably will come to fruition
VTT: I have renewed hope that this change is a direct result of a need to drive that (something akin to Maptool I would hope, only with integrated 4E rules base)
Online (only) Monster Builder: I bet that is the next tool to come out
Online Map Builder: A tool to build maps online using database of dungeon tiles (much like what PyMapper can do, only tightly integrated)
Integrated Adventure Content: This is the thing that will tie everything together. Soon we will see adventures from Dungeon and probably retail released that all work seamlessly with the online tools.

Yeah, pie in the sky, but all that stuff can kind of be lined up like that and knocked down in steps, with online CB being the first and key step. I guess I am optimistic

 

[UngainlyTitan]

snip a lot of stuff i agree with

Visualizer: Probably will come to fruition
VTT: I have renewed hope that this change is a direct result of a need to drive that (something akin to Maptool I would hope, only with integrated 4E rules base)
Online (only) Monster Builder: I bet that is the next tool to come out
Online Map Builder: A tool to build maps online using database of dungeon tiles (much like what PyMapper can do, only tightly integrated)
Integrated Adventure Content: This is the thing that will tie everything together. Soon we will see adventures from Dungeon and probably retail released that all work seamlessly with the online tools.

Yeah, pie in the sky, but all that stuff can kind of be lined up like that and knocked down in steps, with online CB being the first and key step. I guess I am optimistic

I think I share your optimism and go a step further online organised play.

 

[abyssaldeath]

VTT: I have renewed hope that this change is a direct result of a need to drive that (something akin to Maptool I would hope, only with integrated 4E rules base)

I have renewed hope as well. Ever since the CB came out, but before VTT went on indefinite hold, I was scratching my head trying to figure out how these seemingly standalone products were suppose to integrate with one another. It just seemed like it would be incredibly clunky. Now with the CB being 100% online I can totally see these separate apps working together seamlessly as they will all be accessing the same exact database.

 

[Minifig]

I hope at least before you all are canceling your DDI subs you're mentioning WHY you're canceling them in a huge thread on the official WOTC forums so they get an idea of peoples outrage.