Online CB yea or nay?

[Blue]

Good and bad

From limited use, the functionality seems fine, though clunky. Too many clicks. Click to select, then click the "Select" button. Click every single power or feat to see what it does (no short descriptions or scroll through with arrow keys). Click a "pick an X" button even to get to a selection screen. But it does do characters, which is what I need it to do.

My big beef is that the text size isn't adjustable, even with browser zoom settings. They make a smallish window you can't resize, waste huge amounts of space on layout/formatting, "tabs" on the left, information in boxes with fancy borders and shadows, and then limit the text size to tiny to make it all fit. I've got lousy eyes, and I can't use it on my laptop with the current text size.

That's accessibility, not functionality, but it simply strains my eyes.

EDIT: Need to make a retraction. Don't know why it seemed that I couldn't resize it, but I can, and that auto-scales the fonts. Though resizing it with a modal window up seems wonky.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Not voting. I will wait a few weeks before casting any conclusion (which apparently makes me VERY different to alot of people in the community )

You do realize you are the fourth person to post here. My post is immediately above, and the poll had 8 total votes when I voted.

I think you, sir, are also jumping the gun a bit.........

 

[StrangeFate]

Definitely enjoying the new CB. It has some navigation quirks, but I think many of those will get ironed out over time. Overall a very solid job. I also like the platform of a web-based builder. I think it definitely sets the game up for solid future digital expansions.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

No.

Why, you ask?

- requires an Internet connection
- slow
- fixed character sheets
- bad printout quality of character sheets
- even less customisability
- number of characters limited
- no export function

I realize that many of my complaints can be addressed, but it remains to be seen how fast and successful this will happen.

And I won't be satisfied with having a WebCB which works as good as the CBC in six months time. I expect them to add features like in-game support, an interactive character sheet, and the possibility to save a character's status at least.

 

[avin]

It's crap.

 

[delericho]

I haven't used the new CB yet, so I won't be voting.

Moving to the online model in favour of the offline one is worse for me, although I entirely understand (and agree with) the business reasons. However, the new tool therefore needed to be noticably better than the previous version to come out ahead. Given that the old Character Builder was one of very few official D&D electronic tools to actually succeed, ever, that was a pretty tall order.

What I have heard about the tool fills me with no confidence at all. But that's still just reported information... hence my lack of a vote.

 

[Herschel]

Worked just fine for me last night, imports and all.

 

[vagabundo]

I think I like it. I've, already, used it more than the other CB, but it's got a long way to go.

 

[igniz13]

Yes & No
Silverlight was a mistake
It's a bit naff at the mo

But it has some potential, it'd have more if it weren't Silverlight based but... well.

 

[mikeloop86]

I vote no, because as a Mac User they still haven't made Character Builder seem appealing.

Maybe if it could work the old way, where I could buy a month's worth of DDI, and get something that could function offline, but no, this thing isn't that.

Instead of an option that was up to par with what earlier PC users where enjoying, they dragged both demographics into this mudhole of a program and expect us stick around there.

No way José.