New Character Builder from WotC!

[Dannyalcatraz]

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.

Yes, and?

Save yourself some money and have a nice spreadsheet that you can use any time for the investment of some time and effort and occasionally checking errata...

Or pay for WotCs insta-updating errata and sacrifice offline utility...at least for now.

I don't see it as a contest, even with the old CB- errata updates don't thrill me that much. Much of what I've seen of it should have been caught before the books got printed, and I can take care of that in my head without rewarding a seemingly lax proofreading process.

 

[malraux]

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

Not to rain on your parade, but note that it has apparently taken WotC a year and change to port CB from one platform to another very similar platform, and even doing that is incomplete. I'm sure the monster builder will come out next, but how long will that take? Will it ever get around to moving out of beta and addressing its shortcomings? Yes there's a lot of potential for awesome stuff, but at best, WotC DDi team is barely able to keep its head above the water, at least based on their progress so far.

 

[Festivus]

Not to rain on your parade, but note that it has apparently taken WotC a year and change to port CB from one platform to another very similar platform, and even doing that is incomplete. I'm sure the monster builder will come out next, but how long will that take? Will it ever get around to moving out of beta and addressing its shortcomings? Yes there's a lot of potential for awesome stuff, but at best, WotC DDi team is barely able to keep its head above the water, at least based on their progress so far.

I dunno, all I see are rainbows, lollipops and puppies everywhere!

I don't think it's a port. I think it's a complete rewrite of the system, keeping only some of the database on the back end. If it was a port, it wouldn't be that tough to adjust the offline CB product. This new version, taking lessons learned from the prior one, could be far more nimble than the old one, allowing for faster adaptability to new things they do with the game. I really think Essentials and Dark Sun moreso, threw a curveball at the CB software as it was.

So again, glass half full, I say they were very fast in coming out with this. If they had more time, I bet they wouldn't have gone with Silverlight and used something a bit more cross platform friendly, but that would have meant delays to get people hired in or trained to support a different model than the comfortable platform not far off from what they already know.

 

[Njall]

Yes, and?

Save yourself some money and have a nice spreadsheet that you can use any time for the investment of some time and effort and occasionally checking errata...

Or pay for WotCs insta-updating errata and sacrifice offline utility...at least for now.

I don't see it as a contest, even with the old CB- errata updates don't thrill me that much. Much of what I've seen of it should have been caught before the books got printed, and I can take care of that in my head without rewarding a seemingly lax proofreading process.

Maybe I value my time more than my money, when it comes to gaming.
Or at least, I did before the CB went online only.
There's a reason if people pay for stuff like hero lab and the CB: they don't want to spend time and energy creating a program themselves when they can just pay someone else to to it for them.
Now, I'm happy for you if you didn't use the CB and this decision doesn't impact you in any significant way, but there's plenty of us out there that liked it quite a bit because it saved us enough time and energy to justify the investment.

 

[abyssaldeath]

Not to rain on your parade, but note that it has apparently taken WotC a year and change to port CB from one platform to another very similar platform, and even doing that is incomplete. I'm sure the monster builder will come out next, but how long will that take? Will it ever get around to moving out of beta and addressing its shortcomings? Yes there's a lot of potential for awesome stuff, but at best, WotC DDi team is barely able to keep its head above the water, at least based on their progress so far.

Actually they said they've been working on this for 6 months.

 

[malraux]

Actually they said they've been working on this for 6 months.

The last significant project to come out was the MB in August last year. So it could be that they spent a bunch of other time doing random stuff before starting this project, but I don't think that helps the idea that WotC's DDi team will suddenly be putting out tons of new applications.

 

[Remathilis]

Thanks WotC

I was starting to get excited about Essentials and considered getting a 1-month to get the Essentialized CB and MB. Fudge That!

I can safely say I no longer need the Essential books for Christmas. Back to Pathfinder for me.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

 

[Festivus]

Thanks WotC

I was starting to get excited about Essentials and considered getting a 1-month to get the Essentialized CB and MB. Fudge That!

I can safely say I no longer need the Essential books for Christmas. Back to Pathfinder for me.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

This is puzzling to me. So the offline CB doesn't have Essentials in it, I can understand not wanting to subscribe to DDI. I don't mean for this to be a personal attack, but dropping D&D Essentials in favor of the Pathfinder system because of the lack of an offline Character Builder from the publisher of the game sounds more like you were looking for a reason not to switch. Paizo doesn't offer a character builder in any form at all, and both game systems have third party character builders available to them.

Based on the amount of feedback, I would not be surprised if WoTC came up with some sort of an option for these people, but it's probably not coming any time soon.

 

[Njall]

This is puzzling to me. So the offline CB doesn't have Essentials in it, I can understand not wanting to subscribe to DDI. I don't mean for this to be a personal attack, but dropping D&D Essentials in favor of the Pathfinder system because of the lack of an offline Character Builder from the publisher of the game sounds more like you were looking for a reason not to switch. Paizo doesn't offer a character builder in any form at all, and both game systems have third party character builders available to them.

Based on the amount of feedback, I would not be surprised if WoTC came up with some sort of an option for these people, but it's probably not coming any time soon.

Eh, I don't think so, especially considering that PaoloM esplicitly stated that an offline CB is out of the question.

 

[JoeGKushner]

This is puzzling to me. So the offline CB doesn't have Essentials in it, I can understand not wanting to subscribe to DDI. I don't mean for this to be a personal attack, but dropping D&D Essentials in favor of the Pathfinder system because of the lack of an offline Character Builder from the publisher of the game sounds more like you were looking for a reason not to switch. Paizo doesn't offer a character builder in any form at all, and both game systems have third party character builders available to them.

Based on the amount of feedback, I would not be surprised if WoTC came up with some sort of an option for these people, but it's probably not coming any time soon.

Sounds more like frustration with WoTC then JUST the Essentials bit.