New Character Builder from WotC!

[IronWolf]

Ironwolf - D&D may have had a low hurdle for entry, but, let's not forget, those books were every bit as badly in need of the "stream of errata". It's just that we never saw it. The books were never corrected, except from time to time in the pages of Dragon.

Here's the secret - your books don't go "out of date" any faster today than they did thirty years ago. It's just that, unlike thirty years ago, they actually ARE correcting the rules regularly, instead of letting each group stumble around in the dark trying to find their own corrections.

Another secret is, you absolutely don't need the new books or the DDI for the errata. They still release the errata for free as a pdf.

Not really secrets, but agreed, all valid points.

 

[Rel]

Ah, the smell of entitlement in the morning.

This makes you look like kind of a dick. You should avoid that.

 

[Sunseeker]

Yes, I feel entitled to choose the game I'm playing. I could play Pathfinder or 3.5 D&D. Or something entire else.

Sure, you can choose whatever game you want. What I dislike is that when you, or someone, decides to play that game, that you somehow think this makes you entitled to special treatment from the company. Maybe you don't have this, but it sounded like the poster I quoted did.

This makes you look like kind of a dick. You should avoid that.

That's what this entire debate is revolving around. Who is entitled to what. Is WotC entitled to make a profit? Is a player entitled to keep their costs down? Should a player be entitled to get free gaming supplies, should a player be entitled to the expectation that the game will NEVER change?

These are the points and opinions that have been put forth across this entire thread, who is entitled to what. And many people have put forth the opinion that they, after purchasing one book, are now somehow entitled to everything WotC will ever produce for little to no cost.

These are the same sentiments that people who buy computers, TVs, cars, and just about everything else have. It's not really their fault for having an undue sense of entitlement because the companies press this feeling so that customers become dependent on them, even if they're ungrateful. It is however everyone's responsibility to understand that they are entitled to absolutely nothing.

Really? This is adding to the discussion in a constructive manner?

Is suggesting that WotC should be inexensive or downright free constructive? How does that benefit anyone. We may not like WotC, but the game WILL die if they don't make money off of it. Sure, some people still play 1e, but how many? A fraction of a fraction of a niche within the hobby.

Kristov is right, D&D had a low hurdle for entry and continued play originally. Pick up a couple of books and you could play with pen, paper and those books for a long, long time.

And you can STILL do that.

Things do change as technology changes and WotC is embracing that with things like the character builder. The problem I see is that there is a push to *need* the character builder to keep up with the stream of errata that they have been releasing. Sure you can buy the books and play with pen and paper still, but the stream of errata makes the books you buy today out of date in a short period of time. Leaving you to either paste or mark up your book with errata or take the easier, though more costly path of subscribing to DDI.

You don't NEED the errata to play. Many games just ignore it and run without it.

WotC is welcome to do this and it may pan out well for them. But there are certainly people that think this is the beginnings of making the subscription model more of a de facto standard to play the game than it has been in the past. I am sure WotC is well aware that there are people that won't take well to the sense of a subscription model becoming predominant and have factored that into their decisions.

Games like D&D have always been a subscription model, no matter how we want to look it. Go your PHB? Good, now get your MM. Got you PHB and MM? Now get your DMG. Got those? Now get their sequals. D&D survives by a constant stream of books. You take how much you've spent on books, divide it up into $10 chunks, and you'll probably find the cost is pretty much the same as if you had subscribed to DDI since you first started buying.

There are certainly people that think the character builder is still a good deal and a good way to play the game. But for those that disagree, I don't think it really comes down to entitlement.

Your original post seemed to indicate that you felt that since you had purchased some books, you were entitled to access the rest at low or no cost. That is a sense of entitlement, that you should be supported, or are somehow special, just because you've bought a few items.

 

[Piratecat]

Simul-mod (I left a note in the post), but shidaku, our point isn't that the discussion is about entitlement. It's that you phrased it in a really insulting, condescending way. There are a lot of ways to disagree without sounding like a jerk or picking a fight in the process. We'd like you to use one of them instead next time.

 

[Grabuto138]

Shidaku, I sympathize with your feelings. I have played D&D for many years. I have an emotional and personal investment in the game that transcends every other hobby I have. Yet I spend more on baking, Xbox games, alcohol, tobacco and film (Netflix, Redbox and cable) than I do D&D. I appreciate that most people do not have this level of personal investement. But given the actual numbers we are talking I can't help but think that a lot of the bile being directed at WOTC is something akin to the annoyance you feel when your neighbor finally gets around to adding security to their wi-fi. The $100 for the DDI is roughly akin to 4 books a years. The original CB model is so completely out of whack for the value that I honestly felt quilty. "You mean I don't actually have to buy the Psionic book? You will just give the releveant content for like $10 bucks? The same 10 bucks I am already giving you?" Sold.

And let's be honest here. If you are not in the financial position to either subscribe to the DDI or buy the books you are not actually a customer by any meaningful definition. You are the dude who buys one cup of coffee at the coffee shop and squats at a table for 8 hours using the wi-fi. The servers hate you, the real customers hate you and the company hates. But you are technically playing by the rules so screw 'em.

I think that maybe some of this attitude stems from the fact that WOTC is owned by Hasbro. The assumption is that since there are bunch of corporate fat cats behind the game they don't need the money, they have the financial support to make things works, and since it is a faceless corporation who really cares if they get their chicken?

The problem is that since D&D is part of the Hasbro family it is more important for the future of the game that they make some money. A public company like Hasbro has to answer to a Board of Directors and shareholders every quarter at least. Private companies are better positioned to sacrifice for the long-term and they can, perish the thought, even choose to undermine their own profits for the good of the hobby or the customer. Public companies cannot do that. They are, in fact, ethically obligated to maximize profits.

Hasbro did not, in my opinion, buy D&D. They bought Magic and the CCG empire of WOTC. From my experience in corporate board rooms I am quite sure that there was some talk during the acquisition of how D&D can be monetized. "We will make toys, movies, board games, coloring books etc." But D&D was probably irrelevant to the equation. But now every few months some dude in an expensive suit summons a WOTC person to his office and demands that the WOTC person justifies the existence of D&D. Under TSR, GG and friends were probably happy with a steady wage doing what they love. Hasbro has to make sure that there is a return on investment that justifies the expense and risk.

Keep in mind that money has alternative uses. Every dollar spent on D&D is a dollar that is not spent on My Little Poney, Transformers, GI Joe or Monoply: The Joliet State Penitentiary Edition (try the cabbage rolls). So every dollar that WOTC spends is a dollar that someone in the D&D unit fought for with the promise that there will be a return on investment that approximates the return if it were spent on some other endeavor. But post-'80's D&D has been frustrating hard to monetize. That appalling train wreck of a film pretty much guarantees that no one is going to risk real money trying to build a film franchise. I guess they are trying a comic book but I can't really think of an example where D&D has expanded beyond its core audience, an audience that is so small as to be mostly irrelevant to a company like Hasbro.

Maybe some of it is due to an anti-corporate sentiment that I have detected from a few people. Since my 401k, the 403bs of the teachers in my group and the pensions of union gamers are tied up in investments in corporations (where else does one invest, really?) some of us rather hope that corporate American manages to make some money here and there. Our retirements depend on it.

Finally, (and my apologies to that one person who has managed to read all the way through) the opposition to the new-model CB are so regressive that I have trouble believing the are all in good faith. I mean, everying is moving to the "cloud." In fact the "cloud" has become an annoying marketing buzzword. Back in the day, NetWare pimping the fact that NDS lived in the cloud was cool. Now, I am waiting for Proctor and Gamble to start pimping tampons that provide feminine hygeine in the cloud. Of course WOTC is moving to this model. The whole freaking world is moving to this model. You really honestly and truelly expect that WOTC is going to start marketing a product saying, "'90's tech like you know and love. All the data residing comfortably on your computer." Give me a freaking break.

Edit: Some spelling, though probably not enough.

 

[garyh]

I've bought every non-adventure book WotC has put out for 4e and been a DDI subscriber since it started.

I have no problem with Hasbro owning WotC and D&D. In fact, collecting Transformers is a bigger (and more expensive) hobby for me than D&D.

My issues with the new Character Builder are based only on what we know of the program currently and rest solely with the number of limitations it has compared to the old CB. Issues such as no exporting, a 20 character cap, and that it goes poof! the instant you stop handing WotC money.

Speaking for myself, at least, this dissatisfaction with the new CB has nothing to do with the disappearance oft-maligned "sub once every six months" option (and those who did do so did nothing but take advantage of something that WotC themselves used to sell the program, BTW) or that WotC is somehow evil for trying to make a profit. It's that I see the new CB as inferior to the old CB. At least based on what we know now. Maybe WotC will add additional features "soon" after launch such as making the new CG doing my laundry and fixing me a sandwich, but right now I can only go on what WotC is telling us, and it amounts to a lot of "Wow! Look at all these new limitations! Aren't they AWESOME?! for our company."

 

[Grabuto138]

I hear you. I know the 20 character limitation is going to be a pain in my ass for sure. There is plenty of room for serious complaints.

I barely ever post. But the volume of gripe quotes has compelled me to interject because so many people seem to be so clearly grumpy over the fact that they are not getting lots of good stuff for a price approaching free. Frankly, I find it offensive that people are so hostile to the fact that something so totally awesome as D&D might need some money to keep doing what the are doing. I really, really do not want to go back to the bad old days of late 2e when there was not much worth buying and we decided to just stick with what we had. For all you people who have said, "I hate the new CB; I am picking up my toys and going home," you have no idea how crappy D&D can get when it gets really crappy. Imagine wanting to buy something but there is nothing worth buying.

The fact is that that the world is moving towards server-based computing and the expectation that WOTC will maintain a per-user desktop resident application is silly. All these CB advocates might as well be arguing for the horse-drawn carriage and Betamax. Yes, WOTC is making an application where all the relevent data is stored elsewhere and your computer function essentially as a dumb terminal. Get used to it. If you don't like it, that silly hobby you play once every couple of weeks is the least of your problems.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

If they have problem with the 20 character limitation because of limited storage space, they better work quickly on the import/export feature.
If storing charactesr would have ever been a problem to me, limiting them to 20 would certainly have worked just as well as putting it online. They can't sell this as an improvement or advantage.

But I guess we'll see the feature in the-not-so-far-future. I am eager to see what we'll get tomorrow. I hope we don't get another Melmac-situation when thousands of DDI users try to access the new builder tomorrow at the same time.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I really suspect that the 20 file limit on the CB is to stop the existing clientbase from killing the servers by simultaneously flinging a couple of terrabytes of characters at it when it goes live.

They may have tested at several times the userbase but normally not everyone is conntecting together.

 

[IronWolf]

Is suggesting that WotC should be inexensive or downright free constructive?

People saying they don't like a move towards a subscription based model is certainly feedback. We see this with all sorts of services - some like the subscription model and others don't. Some see some products ripe for moving a subscription based model and others see products being shoehorned into such a model.

If people do not feel they are getting value for their purchase - whether it be a monthly subscription or a one-off book purchase - then saying so doesn't seem not constructive. Certainly everyone may not agree, but that's why we are here on a discussion board talking about it.

Games like D&D have always been a subscription model, no matter how we want to look it. Go your PHB? Good, now get your MM. Got you PHB and MM? Now get your DMG. Got those? Now get their sequals. D&D survives by a constant stream of books. You take how much you've spent on books, divide it up into $10 chunks, and you'll probably find the cost is pretty much the same as if you had subscribed to DDI since you first started buying.

I disagree with this. D&D has seemed more a la carte to me. I pick and choose what books I buy and whether I think the supplements and such are worth purchasing. I choose some and pass on others. And the biggest difference is that if I choose to get off the supplement train, I still have my books to use that I did decide were of value to me. With the new CB model, once I decide I want off the train I lose access to material. Subtle differences, but differences.

Your original post seemed to indicate that you felt that since you had purchased some books, you were entitled to access the rest at low or no cost. That is a sense of entitlement, that you should be supported, or are somehow special, just because you've bought a few items.

I hadn't intended to come across that way. I don't feel like WotC owes me free access to the character builder in anyway. I'm just here posting that I don't see it as offering value to me for the price or for the features I would be getting with the initial release of the online version.

I am also leery of what could be a further move to a primarily subscription based product - but that is more of future concern as obviously I can still purchase the books now and not hop on the subscription wagon making that concern less relevant beyond pure speculation.