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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(contact)" data-source="post: 3794090" data-attributes="member: 41">That is so Zen, you must be a Mac user.I'm not in any position to question whether or not WotC made the right business call to use DirectX, and therefore cut Mac users out of the equation, but I've already had to turn down three offers for virtual gaming from far-flung friends because I don't have a PC.  That sucks a little, but I'll get over it.  It does sour me on dndinsider, and predisposes me to judge with my rose-colored glasses off when it finally launches.I am hoping that the app does what it says it will without any major drag or bugs -- I think for people on Windows machines, this will be a really cool tool.  It's a great way to bridge geographical disatance for a few hours of D&D with your far-flung buddes.But the development decisions so far seem kind of dodgy.  For me, James Wyatt says it all when he <a href="http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=13433164&postcount=2" target="_blank">quotes Charlie Trotter in his blog</a>: "This is how I see excellence. It embraces generosity, humbleness, and sincerity of effort. At its heart, it's about never being satisfied. It has nothing to do with perfection. I'm not a perfectionist—but an excellence-ist. . . . Excellence means always trying harder and never growing complacent."I think that love or hate the rules/setting changes, we have seen a sincere desire for excellence among the 4e game designers.  Among the software developers?  Not so much.  Again, it might be in WotC's best short-term interest (although certainly not D&D's best interest) to do things the way they are; we aren't really privvy to the information we'd need to judge that.  What I do think we know is that cutting corners and a "git 'er dun" mentality only very rarely produce excellence, and even then, only in the hands of master craftpeople.My current best-guess is that they had their timeline shortened by several months-- it's a theory that seems to hold water when you look at some of the squirrely decisions:- Cutting out cross-platform development - Announcing at GenCon rather than D&D Experience (after telling us all announcements would be at D&DE)- A seemingly very short public playtest cycle</blockquote>

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