In DDI
I have to pay ten bucks if I want to update my character sheet, without even benefitting nor being interested in any rules updates or new feats or powers. Those are "value added", but 10 bucks a month to be able to access my own character stored on a server somewhere is MMO cash cow mentality, and I work for an MMO company!!
First time I made a Pathfinder character it took my a couple hours, and I haven't wanted to nor looked at the options since, yet had more fun with the character since by level 5, he was more versatile and could do more awe-inspiring things than any 4e character I've seen can.
About the builder, DDI OCB is a hulking, piece of GARBAGE. I write software and have worked for many large, multinational gaming corporations and I can tell you, if we'd released stuff like that, people would have lost their jobs. (and sometimes did).
I'd rather pay once for a builder and play a game for 5 years, than pay for rules updates no one at my gaming table thinks is necessary and is more disruptive than anything. Having to re-spec your character 3 times per tier because of nerfs is bad enough, but paying for the privilege is the domain of Sheepsville.
Unfortunately, as proficient as I am in rolling up characters on paper in other games with less of a mess of intricate feat, power, and class features, in 4e I wouldn't even bother. Hence I am a DDI subscriber, by necessity and not by choice. My books are near useless due to all the errata.
I have another group playing AD&D for fifteen years now and they use their PHBs all the time. There is no D&D book EVER that has gotten more use than the 2nd ed PHB, IMO. For 30 bucks. When's the last time you looked up the PHB? Half the stuff in there is obsolete or nerfed or upgraded...you can't trust the book and hence you are forced to keep at the bleeding edge. When one guy shows up at your gaming table with a "rolled stat" PC using non-errataed stuff from a PHB he bought just to play your game, then another shows up with Essentials feats and properly re-specced and tweaked items, you have to tell the n00b he needs to fix his character.
"But can't we just play? I rolled it up according to the Rules"...oh wait...PHB is no longer a valid rules source. What will happen when DDI goes offline (and it will eventually!) ? PHB time! Or, CBOffline + hacks time. This is why I like to own my characters. I don't play an MMO after having spent HUNDREDS of dollars on books, and then when the company drops the game and it disappears, my books are useless now?
Heck no....I don't like to live in Chumpsvile, Population : Whatever the DDI subscriber base is (including me). Unfortunately there is no reasonable way to build a 4e character without a generator, without spending HUGE amounts of time and money. (money, that, once you have the books you need, you will regret because a month after they are published they errata all the good powers into oblivion...because they didn't playtest it properly, or, realistically, because they wanted to sell more books and juicy powers = more sales. Errata comes after you bought the book already, dummy).
e.g. the Snarling Wolf Stance from MP2, anyone remember that one? Not one month after MP2 came out they nerfed it, in the same way they nerfed SCS. So I paid for a book, then used the power once, then paid for DDI to have the power on my sheet, and my cost was 50 bucks and a mediocre power added to my sheet. 95% of the material in any given book is useless. All I need are the things I want equipped on my guy. I can pencil that feat into a free generator and don't see why I should pay for the privilege of playtesting published material with my hard-earned money.
SWS was released knowing full well they would nerf it the next day, I will bet you any money. Suckers like me fell for it. That was the last book other than Dark Sun. I can't even find any players who want to play Dark Sun...they're all playing other RPG systems.
