New D&D Monster Builder Coming March 22

[Azlith]

It has some minor use currently as I use the classic adventure tools on multiple computers and it can be a hassle sometimes making sure my monsters are up to date. Now I can just import them into the online builder.

Except that you lose information when closing out the 'builder' and starting it up later. Important things like level, name, hit points. And I can't delete the creature because it keeps giving me an unknown error every time I try.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Another opportunity to recoup some of the dropped subscribers from earlier and ongoing flubs wasted.

Well, at least wasted on me. I don't pay to beta test something I used to have that was better.

 

[Zaran]

Is it actually called a monster builder? Or did they start calling it something else?

 

[abyssaldeath]

Is it actually called a monster builder? Or did they start calling it something else?

The program is called Adventure Tools and and it has a monsters button listed under catalogs.

 

[Dannager]

Except that you lose information when closing out the 'builder' and starting it up later. Important things like level, name, hit points. And I can't delete the creature because it keeps giving me an unknown error every time I try.

This was a bug they identified as soon as it was released. They patched it right away. You shouldn't have that problem anymore.

 

[Dannager]

From WotC_Trevor on the official forums:

Hey all. The fix is up now and you should be able to save monsters that you've leveled and import and save custom monsters from the classic Monster Builder. It looks like some of you bumped into some issues while we were pushing the fix, but hopefully all those are over.

Now on to the topic of "why did you release something that wasn't feature complete?" questions/complaints. Main reasons, short and sweet - we wanted to give all the DDI members a chance to check out what we're working on, and we wanted to make sure that all DDI members had the chance to use the MB to import monsters into their VT games during the next step of the VT beta.

You still have access to the classic MB (you can download it right now). We won't be doing any more updates to it, but it's still there and still usable. Yes it has issues, but I'm hopefully most people understand that we won't be working on the old tools while adding features to the new tool. With the web-based MB, we have something that gives very basic functionality and is usable with the VT that we wanted to get into everybody hands, not just the small group of testers that we had before.

The VT point is a bit more tangible - Having the web-based MB out, even in this limited form, makes imputing monsters into the VT 1000% (statistic completely made up) better for DMs. So getting this out to DDI subscribers who will very soon be testing out the VT seemed a pretty important thing.

I am definitely sorry that I haven't given you more news on what to expect with this AT release these last few weeks. I'm also sorry if I led you to believe that the AT would be more robust than what the closed beta testers had access to. We did add a couple features, but the biggest changes are on their way. I will be back in the coming days with more information on the features we'll be implementing, focusing on whatever the next big thing is.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

In addition to the complaints above, its unfortunate that you can only print monsters off one at a time... I'll need to kill a lot of trees (and do a bunch of physical cutting and pasting) just to get all my monsters for an encounter on one page.

I know that somewhere someone decribed printing as a cute PDF and then copying them from there to a word doc - I'll have to try that. Even if that works, the extra step is annoying.

EDIT: Okay, the copying from PDF thing works, but is an extra step that I could really do without.

 

[Derulbaskul]

What a surprise: it sucks.

We're back to 2008 in terms of functionality, or lack thereof.

Please, WotC, give me the offline builder again without the post-MMIII patch that stuffed everything up and we will part company as friends.

 

[the Jester]

As far as WOTC's 'lackluster' performance lately, there is some performance cost associated with moving all of their content into web-based applications entirely. However, in the future I have only the highest of expectations for their products. For $5-10 dollars a month, it's imperative that you offer modern software. We don't live in the 2000s anymore, when you can get away with shoddy software and people will think going digital is 'good enough'.

Why on earth should customers pay the price (in terms of usability of the service) while WotC sets the clock back literally years on their digital offerings?

And why in God's name would you have high expectations for their digital offerings after their track record? Did you just start subscribing or something? The value of my DDI sub dropped steadily from shortly after the Monster Builder's release until I finally gave it up a month ago. At first it was great, then it was good, then it was okay, then it was wtf?, then it was f this!

 

[ender_wiggin]

I don't disagree that the current quality of the software is unacceptable.

However, switching to a web-based platform is something they should have done for a long time (and something I 100% support), and I'm merely saying that it's expected that initially, there will be a decline in product quality. The web-based character builder, while still having no dearth of flaws, has improved significantly from its initial release and I expect the same to come of adventure tools.

If they are now indeed getting the bulk of their revenue from DDI, then I say that's a good thing, because they will have to allocate more of their resources into making a product people will buy. And people these days will only pay for extraordinarily good software.

So, the bottom line is: what's the worse that can happen? People stop paying, WOTC goes out of business (or more likely, fires a bunch of people and moves on) and there _will_ be fan-fade software that is pretty damn good (ie the monster maker before we had adventure tools).