Obligatory E-Tools 3.5 Thread

[Silvanos]

Heh.

I myself have complained about some of the same things. Like releaseing 3.5 before the 1.5 patch that will make it all work... But I will say they are very involved...

As for not knowing about Templates... Did you read the FAQ? It is covered in the first question. If the TV you bought had a info piece sitting right next to it, and you did not read it, and it said it did not tune to ch 11...

Finally, the consumer does have some responsability for product education. A 2 second search on the forum would have answered your questions.

Long and short of it is... Yes they are a company. Yes they are working in someone elses code. Yes they are doing the best they can. Yes, not everyone is going to be happy with how they are doing things.

Patches are free. Data sets cost money for their time to put it all in. At the same time they are working on Etool v2.0. Data sets you buy now for the crappy program that they inherated, will work with the v2.0 at no cost.

Like I said, they are doing the best they can.

Drew

 

[mattcolville]

Finally, the consumer does have some responsability for product education. A 2 second search on the forum would have answered your questions.

Are you conscious of what you're suggesting?

Honestly, how am I supposed to know what missing features to ask about if I don't know those features are missing in the first place? This is exactly what I mean when I say their intended customer base is those people who already know the long and sordid history of the product. It's easy to act like the problems are obvious when you've already known about them for 2 years.

The CMP guys don't have a basic list of what their product does on the product order/description page. Can anyone provide a good reason why this omission is desirable?

Also, have you ever tried to search their forums? Are you of the opinion that their search forum function works?

The problem isn't with how hard the CMP guys are working. It's on where they're putting their effort. If you're going to sell someone a product online, you have an obligation to describe what that product does on the product description/order page. Given the basic failings of the software, which I understand aren't CMP's fault (I don't care who's fault they are) you'd think a list of not supported features would be the order of the day.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Expecting to find useful information on the CMP website is futile. There's no question about that. I guess Silvanos and I are both veterans of the intial E-Tools release, whereupon everyone brought up these kinds of things ad infinitum. After several months of hearing "there are no templates," it becomes difficult to imagine that anyone can not be aware that E-Tools doesn't support templates. I feel for you. If you feel that it was misrepresented, I would suggest asking CMP for a refund.

I do give them a bit of slack for being a small company in a difficult spot. They're trying to fix all the things you've mentioned, but they do have to prioritize and handle them in some kind of order. Could they communicate better. Heck yeah. Is E-Tools getting better all the time? Heck yeah. Although it doesn't do all the things I need or would like it to do, it does 90% of what I need quite well.

 

[mattcolville]

Expecting to find useful information on the CMP website is futile. There's no question about that. I guess Silvanos and I are both veterans of the intial E-Tools release, whereupon everyone brought up these kinds of things ad infinitum. After several months of hearing "there are no templates," it becomes difficult to imagine that anyone can not be aware that E-Tools doesn't support templates. I feel for you. If you feel that it was misrepresented, I would suggest asking CMP for a refund.

I do give them a bit of slack for being a small company in a difficult spot. They're trying to fix all the things you've mentioned, but they do have to prioritize and handle them in some kind of order. Could they communicate better. Heck yeah. Is E-Tools getting better all the time? Heck yeah. Although it doesn't do all the things I need or would like it to do, it does 90% of what I need quite well.

I asked for a refund, they refused to give me one. By the time I'd gotten a reply from them, I'd cooled down and was willing to suck up the $120 I'd spent, and hang on to the software waiting for the future version, but being told "you didn't try hard enough to find out what the software doesn't do" certainly didn't make me feel any better about the money I wasted.

And it was a waste. I can't put the bad guys together that I wanted to, many of my players can't build thier characters. It obviously does a lot, but until it does what I need it to do, I'm just sitting here waiting for patches that are months away...but of course they already have my cash.

My players ALREADY have solutions they're not happy with, I'm certainly not going to recommend another one.

I bought eTools a million years ago, when it apparently didn't do ANYTHING. I tossed it out after trying to make a third level ranger. No templates, nothing fancy. I mentioned that this was my second foray into the tool on the CMP borads, and was rewarded by being told that, clearly since I'd bought the Fluid version, I knew what I was getting into with the CMP version. Which basically tells me "if you didn't like Fluid's attempt, don't bother."

I have no doubt that the CMP guys are busting their ass trying to get the thing to work, and that in this regard they're smart, capable guys. But when it comes to running a business, they seem woefully underprepared.

 

[dpdx]

Is there a list of errata yet for the 3.5 Etools dataset? I have Davin's ETools Helper and may try to put them in myself, if I feel like I need to to get accurate characters.

 

[satori01]

The program improves every time, but it is sometimes a frustratingly slow process. I've had the luxury of keeping up with almost every little twist and turn and have learned to use ET Helper to do a bunch of cool things. I've got, I'd estimate, 60% of Arcana Unearthed (monte cook's, not WotC's UA) in and functional but like many have been waiting for the "real" functional AU set to come out since August.

Any advice on how to functionaly add the AU classes with ET Helper? I have not devoted any substantial time, but I failed miserably trying to add the Unfetterred in,(Bonus AC went wonky and only had 20(spaces for powers).

 

[kingpaul]

Any advice on how to functionaly add the AU classes with ET Helper? I have not devoted any substantial time, but I failed miserably trying to add the Unfetterred in,(Bonus AC went wonky and only had 20(spaces for powers).

You'd probably get better results if you go to the forums at CMP's site, especially the ETH sub-forum.

 

[Silvanos]

Are you conscious of what you're suggesting?

You are correct. I suppose I am up to date on the comings and goings over there, and that does bias me.

I suppose when I shelled out the 120 about a month ago, I made dang sure what I was getting. I have was in the same boat you are in before that... And I did have a few hours to pour over their site.

Drew

 

[Davin]

Any advice on how to functionaly add the AU classes with ET Helper? I have not devoted any substantial time, but I failed miserably trying to add the Unfetterred in,(Bonus AC went wonky and only had 20(spaces for powers).

We can talk here (though you'd probably want to start a separate thread for this), or over in my section in the CMP forum (as KP mentioned), or you could even email me.

Try to give me some details about what you're trying to do and how (I don't have AU yet), and what you're seeing instead.