New Character Builder from WotC!

[sigfile]

You don't have to throw those old characters away, because you will still have them saved on your off-line Character Builder. It's only new or current characters that need leveling up that will bring you up against the cap possibly. All those other saved characters can just remain on your hard drive until you need them.

Or, assuming we get the export function soon, build them online, save them locally, and upload them to iPlay4E. Then you'll have a character in a playable format absolutely anywhere, including on your phone. Just download from iPlay4E and import back in to the character builder when you level up.

 

[sigfile]

And, speaking of which: If you don't already have it, download it now, or possibly do without! The online version goes live tomorrow, so anyone who doesn't already have the offline version might not be able to get it after today.

Speaking of which, here's the download link.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Obviously the builder would not be useless for me. But having to delete a character to enter a new one will increase the cost (time, headache) of using it. Lower net benefits equal lower willingness to pay, especially when I have the old builder on my hard drive. It's a tradeoff of less updated but less headache and money.

If it were free you would be right. But instead you're condescending and wrong.

Actually... being able to export the .dnd4e files out of the online builder back down to your hard drive is one of the very first things they are adding back to the functionality. So you won't have to delete anything. Yes, you'll need to copy the file from the online builder and save it to your hard drive... and then later on re-load the file back to the online Builder if you want to level it... but you won't actually lose it.

But that doesn't change the fact that I still can't understand why you would go through all the effort of using the Character Builder for your game now, only to just go cold turkey at whatever point you reach the 20 character limit. What's the point? If you are doing it just to send a message to WotC... then quit NOW. Why get your game so entwined in the new CB only to then yank yourself out of it in three/four/eight weeks time (or whenever you reach the 20?) That makes absolutely no sense.

Or could the reality be that you actually don't want to lose the Character Builder at all, because let's face it... it's a pretty damn fine tool and it makes your game that much easier to prepare and play. However, the only way to make it clear to WotC that you want more character slots is to "threaten to quit" even though you don't actually want to, and when push comes to shove, might not actually go through with it?

If you do... good on you. But do it now before WotC has a chance to destroy your game by making you see how useful an Essentials-filled online CB actually is... even with a 20 character limit to start with.

 

[DonAdam]

Actually... being able to export the .dnd4e files out of the online builder back down to your hard drive is one of the very first things they are adding back to the functionality. So you won't have to delete anything. Yes, you'll need to copy the file from the online builder and save it to your hard drive... and then later on re-load the file back to the online Builder if you want to level it... but you won't actually lose it.

But that doesn't change the fact that I still can't understand why you would go through all the effort of using the Character Builder for your game now, only to just go cold turkey at whatever point you reach the 20 character limit. What's the point? If you are doing it just to send a message to WotC... then quit NOW. Why get your game so entwined in the new CB only to then yank yourself out of it in three/four/eight weeks time (or whenever you reach the 20?) That makes absolutely no sense.

Or could the reality be that you actually don't want to lose the Character Builder at all, because let's face it... it's a pretty damn fine tool and it makes your game that much easier to prepare and play. However, the only way to make it clear to WotC that you want more character slots is to "threaten to quit" even though you don't actually want to, and when push comes to shove, might not actually go through with it?

If you do... good on you. But do it now before WotC has a chance to destroy your game by making you see how useful an Essentials-filled online CB actually is... even with a 20 character limit to start with.

If the export function comes I'll be happy to stick with it. But I think a removal of the limit on characters is far more likely given WOTC's track record with actually rolling out new functionality. Changing one parameter in the code sounds more feasible than adding a new function. Both changes should be a priority for them. But as I said, it's the combination of no exporting and 20 characters that I find unacceptable.

I already did send a message, as I said. I'm not quitting now because I am running a temporary Essentials game and it should be adequate for that span of time. But when that game stops I'll happily go back to only running games with the last update's worth of material using the old builder.

That said, I don't see why quitting now would send a more effective message than registering the complaint while I'm still paying. The weight they place on me being an existing customer has to be balanced against the probability that they don't believe I would quit. And if I try the builder and hate it for other reasons, then I will have saved time and money by waiting to quit until after I do so rather than quitting now and restarting it only to find I don't like it.

But please, continue to think you understand better what will work for me than I do.

 

[DEFCON 1]

But please, continue to think you understand better what will work for me than I do.

Hey... I don't think I understand what will work for you better than me... I just point out to people who come onto ENWorld all indignant about some various thing and saying "I'm quitting! You hear me WOTC?!?" that their reasoning is coming from a place of emotion and is flawed, rather than actual logic.

Because as anyone who has worked in Retail will tell you... it's not the person who screams incoherently for 20 minutes about some slight that generates true change. All you do as the person in charge of that situation is some token action to get them to shut up and leave... then you mock that person for being an idiot after they're gone.

 

[IronWolf]

Hey... I don't think I understand what will work for you better than me... I just point out to people who come onto ENWorld all indignant about some various thing and saying "I'm quitting! You hear me WOTC?!?" that their reasoning is coming from a place of emotion and is flawed, rather than actual logic.

His first post was pretty calm, hardly a screaming fit at all. He listed what he thought the limitations were from his perspective and why. He even stated he would wait and see if WotC did get this limitation resolved in some manner before he stopped supporting them, but once he hit a limitation that affected him then the product would no longer be worthwhile for him to use.

Because as anyone who has worked in Retail will tell you... it's not the person who screams incoherently for 20 minutes about some slight that generates true change. All you do as the person in charge of that situation is some token action to get them to shut up and leave... then you mock that person for being an idiot after they're gone.

He's not screaming.

Now there may have been some people here saying they are canceling for more emotional reasons, but I think you've chosen the wrong one to make your point with.

 

[knifie_sp00nie]

I am a web developer that specializes in web-based applications. I have over 10 years of experience in this area. Here are my thoughts on some of the issues that are being batted around:

20 character limit, exporting, and sharing- The storage space excuse may be a bit weak because it's not a lot of data at first glance, but it's not just a matter of throwing a hard drive into the server. There's redundancy, backups, and database efficiency that must all be factored in as well. If the limit isn't just for business reasons, I'm confident it will be scaled when possible. I don't have the link, but I'm pretty sure I read that your character data would be retained and exportable for up to a year after you stop paying.

Google isn't a charity. Ads and marketing data pay for those "free" services. I'd imagine ads in character builder would create more nerdrage than what exists now.

Export has been bumped in priority. That's a good sign. Sounds like they have a process. But no matter what process you have, software development is still a technical art. All sorts of stuff can happen in the implementation phase that will throw your deadline off. I think this happened to the WotC developers and they were forced to go live with a mostly complete product and a list of post-launch priorities. Iplay4e-style character/campaign sharing is probably one of those features as well.

Silverlight vs. HTML- I really wish people would shut up about HTML5. It is not as magical as the hype sounds. The big features that get touted are fairly limited. You'll get the ability to play some video without a plugin and the canvas element. The canvas is cool, but doesn't have anything like the capabilities of Flash or Silverlight. Other HTML5 improvements will make it easier to develop rich applications, but in the end it's just evolution and refinement of the current HTML spec.

Silverlight offers a mostly cross-platform environment that can more easily implement the complex UI that I've seen in the videos of the character builder. It's not impossible to do in HTML, but I wouldn't want to do it. Silverlight also uses all the .Net languages and constructs that the dev team are familiar with which is a big plus for a small department.

I think character builder is just the tip of an iceberg. What everyone isn't seeing is a more expansive and flexible back-end infrastructure. The part you interact with right now may be in Silverlight, but I'd bet money that it's calling on web services to do all the heavy lifting. Web services are platform-neutral, leaving a developer to write the UI and some glue code to get an application working. This makes iPhone, Android, HTML, etc. implementations practical. It could also make it possible for 3rd parties to utilize the services in more ways than we've seen with Iplay4e (The problem with MasterPlan was that it was making local copies of the data).

Cost- I think my six-ish dollars a month is well spent for what I'm getting now and will increase as time goes on. Just the other day I spent $4 on a coffee so I really don't understand why people think a subscription per person is so expensive. There will always be hard-luck cases, but in general most people that can buy the books in the first place can afford the subscription if they want it. Managing electronic transactions will only get easier as they become more widespread so I don't think the lack of credit card argument has much of any merit.

In the end, I think WotC is on the right track and my speculation will be proven to be accurate. There isn't a piece of software on this planet that doesn't have a list of bugs and a list of desired features. The problem is that eventually you have to ship something. We'll see how it all pans out tomorrow.

 

[renau1g]

Google isn't a charity. Ads and marketing data pay for those "free" services. I'd imagine ads in character builder would create more nerdrage than what exists now.

If I could get all the CB and DDI for free with putting up with all the "intrusions" of Google sign me up...

 

[JoeGKushner]

Anyone know what time it goes live tomorrow? I'm assuming somethimg in the afternoon (EST) to match up to PST's start of day...

11:59 PM, screenshot functionality only.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Because as anyone who has worked in Retail will tell you... it's not the person who screams incoherently for 20 minutes about some slight that generates true change. All you do as the person in charge of that situation is some token action to get them to shut up and leave... then you mock that person for being an idiot after they're gone.

He may be venting a tad here, but a cancellation of a sub, partnered with a letter of complaint is an effective tool in consumer activism. I've been told by some managers (in a few different fields) that as few as 20 such complaints can set off alarms in corporate HQ.