Online Character Builder is LIVE!

[Insight]

Subjecting potential subscribers to what's being reported in this thread would be an even worse marketing move. Maybe they're waiting until the initial bugs get worked out.

LOL true!

Sensible people, however, will realize that this is launch day and the servers are getting more traffic than they likely will down the road. I'm not holding my crash-heavy experience against them.

 

[Sunseeker]

LOL true!

Sensible people, however, will realize that this is launch day and the servers are getting more traffic than they likely will down the road. I'm not holding my crash-heavy experience against them.

When I first started, when it first came online, it was much faster and less crashy, so server load is apparently a big one. The more posts and topics I noticed here, the more often things froze up and crashed on the CB.

Which is a common flaw of any online-based system.

 

[Ryujin]

Subjecting potential subscribers to what's being reported in this thread would be an even worse marketing move. Maybe they're waiting until the initial bugs get worked out.

Their version of Microsoft's "Corporate Preview Program"?

 

[Prestidigitalis]

I'm trying to separate "overwhelmed by people and crashing" from "dang, this is buggy and crashing." I'm running into more of the latter. If you look at the known bug list, it looks to me like the CB needed another month of bug-squashing and polish before it went live.

As I wrote elsewhere, it makes more sense if you think of it as a Beta release. And although some might not like it, and it may give them a black eye, they will get to a high quality product faster by bringing it out when they did.

 

[Terramotus]

Speaking as someone who's had an active D&D Insider subscription since launch, I feel cheated. This is, quite simply, not a robust product, and is inferior to the original one offered. And actually, I'm somewhat offended that the product would be released in this condition when there was a perfectly good one already extant. There should be no question in anyone's mind, having now seen the builder, that it was a move that was purely a money grab, with no attempt to improve the experience for the user.

Some complaints:

• No house rules. I can't allow free feats, exclude anything by source (Essentials, I'm looking at you). I can't even change the freakin stat array. This alone makes the builder useless for my campaign.
  
• The only character sheet option is the "I can't do math" version. The original character builder's sheet was superior.
  
• Even internally, there's no breakdown of all of your bonuses. When you look at a power, it just states "Primary Ability" instead of the actual numbers. End result is that you can't easily use the program to find out if X ability works with Y feat and such, or use the numbers easily to figure out which power is better for you.
  
• No custom portraits.
  
• I have to step through the ridiculous "What kind of class do you like to play?" screen every time I build a character. Seriously?
  
• No scroll wheel support. I have to drag my way through the program.
  
• It's just plain buggy. Crashes galore.

End result is that I'm seriously thinking of just using the old CB and making adjustments on the paper. We'd have to do that anyway with the new CB. Not only should this program have been held back for further testing, it should have been held back until it was at least somewhat feature complete with the existing CB - and the original CB updated until then.

 

[Nikosandros]

I found it extremely slow. It froze once and I had to reload, but the character was recovered. After printing Silverlight crashed, hanging up my machine for a couple of minutes. Not impressed so far.

 

[CAFRedblade]

Reading the FAQ, linked in the other thread on the launch of the Online CB, there will be a Demo at some point, but who knows when that will come to pass.
It'll probably allow creation of one character up to level 3, without storage and other limitations pertinent to a demo. But as it stands now, this CB is late Beta, and probably could have used another month or two to get bugs and features worked out. But, milestones must be met, or heads can roll sometimes..

I'll continue playing with it tonight, and see if I can get through my seven players' characters, and my one DMpc without too much frustration.

 

[mudbunny]

A quick update on the Server problems that they have been experiencing.

According to WotC_Trevor, they are not due to server load. The traffic hitting the servers is well within what they can handle.

 

[Sunseeker]

A quick update on the Server problems that they have been experiencing.

According to WotC_Trevor, they are not due to server load. The traffic hitting the servers is well within what they can handle.

This this is certainly a moment where he who opens his mouth proves himself to be the fool. They'd have been better off claiming it was a server issue, and fixing the program, than actually admitting the program is bugged all to heck.

BTW, does anyone remember when the offline CB was in beta? Was it more stable than this?

 

[Ryujin]

Reading the FAQ, linked in the other thread on the launch of the Online CB, there will be a Demo at some point, but who knows when that will come to pass.
It'll probably allow creation of one character up to level 3, without storage and other limitations pertinent to a demo. But as it stands now, this CB is late Beta, and probably could have used another month or two to get bugs and features worked out. But, milestones must be met, or heads can roll sometimes..

I'll continue playing with it tonight, and see if I can get through my seven players' characters, and my one DMpc without too much frustration.

I would characterize this as an Alpha release, not Beta, given that almost everyone is commenting on crashes. It makes me wonder if they did ANY off-site testing, at all.