Online Character Builder is LIVE!

[Obryn]

Alright, well, still no crashes. Which puts me in the minority, I guess? In fact, I find the interface a little snappier than I expected. (The youtube demo was more laggy than the finished product.)

Anyway, all I wanted this thing to do was reliably store and update the characters in my Dark Sun game. If it had been able to do that, I would have gladly reupped my subscription. As it stands, I'm happy to let it sit for a while until I hear more positive stuff coming out about it.

My current concerns:
(1) The lack of inherent bonuses is a major drag when it comes to Dark Sun. Sure, technically I can work around it by giving everyone magic items. But I use CB to avoid those sorts of bookkeeping snafus.

(2) The simplest character in the game - a Human Inspiring Warlord - is getting hit by two bugs. Spear Expertise gives +1 to all his damage (when it's just on charges), and his Hungry Greatspear is nowhere to be found, no matter which boxes I check or uncheck.

(3) Speaking of, I kinda hate those boxes. They don't work properly on Wild Talents or on selecting a third At-Will for a Human much of the time.

(4) The new Marketplace and Equipment screens are ... well, kind of abominable. It's slow, clunky, unattractive, and extremely difficult to find stuff with. I really hate this part of the process. (Also, for DS, we need materials. Minor point, but there you have it.)

(5) As I mentioned elsewhere, my houseruled carrot to encourage my players to try new Roles out was to give them 1 extra stat point. Not a big deal in theory, and a dev even said it would work on the WotC site, but it hoses up the entire process.

-O

 

[Shemeska]

I just have to laugh...what is Wizards of the Coast thinking? I actually got the thing to work after a couple crashes, but you just don't release a program this buggy, especially with such a lousy track record.

My guess is that the program simply was not ready for release, but it was released anyways because marketing or someone higher up the decision chain decided that they couldn't continue to stall on updating the offline builder which they didn't want to include material kept in reserve for leverage to move folks onto the online one. Presumably they felt the blowback would be greater if they just sat on the stuff that wouldn't be making it into the offline builder versus releasing the online builder when it wasn't ready for primetime.

I feel bad for the IT guys if that was the case because they'll be getting the blowback front and center.

 

[Kurtomatic]

Having spent some more time with this at home tonight; it runs pretty good for me here, but I have shload of RAM sitting on FiOS fiber connection. What bothers me is the poor value. While the cloud storage, online-only, no local DB, 20 character limit stuff never bothered me at all, I agree that the new CB represents a pretty severe loss of utility, even if it was all working flawlessly.

This release is absolutely going to negatively impact the value of a DDI subscription for many users. For me, DDI was under-priced at $8/month; that's basically lunch money. It doesn't take much to keep me subscribed, but this loss of utility puts my subscription in play. They have to significantly increase the value of this app in a fairly impressive way to keep me interested.

I'm completely okay with WotC making big changes and shaking things up in order to improve the game. Apparently, you can't make an omelet without firing a few customers (mixed metaphors ftw!), but they have to deliver, and this wasn't worth the wait or the inevitable churn they'll get in response.

I'll stick with the old CB for the foreseeable future.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

CB Loader ( cbloader - Project Hosting on Google Code ) has been developed and released by fans, allowing custom content to be patched into the "Classic" Character Builder, thus rendering the online version even more useless, as new content can simply be patched in by third party.

Themes are already in...because they were already coded in. At least one of the preview themes was already programmed into the old Character Builder, it simply wasn't available for viewing. WotC dropped it to provide extra "incentives" to use the online version.

So far my most negative predictions are 2/2 (online version being utterly incomplete, themes being unupdated strictly to provide for "incentives"). Way to go, WotC.

 

[Mengu]

Crashes aside, the slowness just makes me lose interest. I make a selection, come over here, read a few posts, oh the selection is done, I choose another power, hit select, the next few go fast enough, then I decide to unselect something, oh I have to wait, come over here, read a few more posts, still processing, I forget what I'm working on, etc.

It has potential, bugs can be fixed, features can be added, but the slowness problem has to be resolved if the product is to survive.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Crashes aside, the slowness just makes me lose interest. I make a selection, come over here, read a few posts, oh the selection is done, I choose another power, hit select, the next few go fast enough, then I decide to unselect something, oh I have to wait, come over here, read a few more posts, still processing, I forget what I'm working on, etc.

It has potential, bugs can be fixed, features can be added, but the slowness problem has to be resolved if the product is to survive.

The slowness is due to quite possibly the most inept coding imaginable.

EDIT: removing my note, as we're talking via PM. ~ PCat

Basically, every time you do anything in the new CB - pretty much anything at all, it completely reloads your entire character.

So, you make a character. That bright happy new ranger, completely untouched, unedited, and really not-yet-made, is 73kb. You decide to click the plus arrow next to strength.

The entire server pauses, sends, and reloads 73kb.

It does this every time you click anything.

That's why there's such severe slowdown issues, and it's why the servers are basically catching on fire and melting.

 

[Piratecat]

I feel bad for the IT guys if that was the case because they'll be getting the blowback front and center.

Agreed. It's not their fault they were told to release it today, even when it wasn't ready. I hate to think of the amount of overtime they're probably putting in.

But I need a character builder that I can have confidence in. I need something that I can trust to be right, that I know will be available, and that will let me make the minor customizations and house rules tweaks that every campaign requires. A character builder that can't do this is useless to me. And with errata and multiple sourcebooks, WotC is a victim of its own success, because I now consider character building in 4e to be a pain in the butt without an electronic tool.

I look forward to the upcoming bug fixes! One of the cool things is that they'll doubtlessly overhaul the usability issues and any layout issues in the process.

 

[Jack99]

1) WotC- This is just not good enough. And I have no crashes or anything like that. But the constant reloads????? Seriously? Pleass try again. Quickly.

2) W
3) T
4) F

5) I agree with the Marauder on this. First Imaro, then Shemeska. Hell will be freezing over pretty soon.

6) See 2)-4) again. Please consider a public apology (refund) to your customers. You have just insulted them all. This simply won't fly unless fixed, like yesterday.

And yeah, I am a fan....

 

[sarria22]

Character Builder

I haven't read the full thread but, anyone notice this? Not only is it a lot faster way to access the builder than going through the main site, but it has a debug tab where you can copy the XML for your character data... so export ability is already there, they just need to add a button for it.

 

[RigaMortus2]

I feel totally vindicated in my choice to discontinue my subscription to DDI. Bye, WotC. You have successfully fired me and my group as customers and we will happily play Pathfinder with Hero Lab forever more.

So let me get this straight. I'm gonna try to follow your logic here.

You're going to quit playing an entire game system from a company that gives you the option to have additional features/content by paying a subscription fee, to play a different system from a company that does not offer that at all?

Why not just pretend there is no such thing as DDi? Then you won't feel the psychological "need" to have to pay for additional content. And you won't be let down when it doesn't meet your expectations.

Unless your real reason for no longer playing D&D 4e (or supporting WotC) is because you don't care for the system. And if that's the real reason you are quitting, then I have to wonder why you felt the need to post in a thread that has nothing to do with the subject of "I don't like 4e"?