The biggest issue with the new Character Builder:

[malraux]

My biggest issue right now is that after 3 days I still can't make a character with the CB2.

• Day 1: Crash crash crash! I figured "OK there's a lot of people trying out the new toy. I'll try again tommorow."
• Day 2: Early morning seemed to be a good time. Picked up my character where it crashed yesterday. Finished it up, try to print, Crash! Ok starting to get annoyed now. I have to go so that's all for day 2
• Day 3: I get a nice pretty BLANK FRIKKING SCREEN! WTF! Why am I paying them money when I can't even access it!

I know that the CB is not the reason we play dnd and I am perfectly able to play without it. But WotC is taking my money for a tool that doesn't work and that is my issue.

Ok rant over.

I've found that switching browsers can help. Currently the CB2 does as you describe for me in Safari, but will work in Firefox.

 

[Obryn]

The problem with the CB is that they are releasing a new app that is immediately replacing the old app, but the new app is worse on several aspects.

Bingo. This is, IMO, the core issue. It's a replacement of something - admittedly imperfect - with something actually, demonstrably worse. I don't feel like we need to take a soft approach with WotC or call this a Beta or use the excuse that it's brand new and bound to have bugs. The previous character builder wasn't perfect, but it was a lot better than this one.

WotC's replacing and competing with its own product here, and it's absolutely, 100% fair to make comparisons between the two - including pricetag and functionality.

-O

 

[OnlineDM]

Bingo. This is, IMO, the core issue. It's a replacement of something - admittedly imperfect - with something actually, demonstrably worse. I don't feel like we need to take a soft approach with WotC or call this a Beta or use the excuse that it's brand new and bound to have bugs. The previous character builder wasn't perfect, but it was a lot better than this one.

WotC's replacing and competing with its own product here, and it's absolutely, 100% fair to make comparisons between the two - including pricetag and functionality.

-O

This is my problem, too. More on my blog, but in a nutshell I think it's a lousy experience for them to release a program that's worse than the old option right now. That's a bad experience for their good, paying customers.

One reasonable solution would have been to release the new Builder as a beta to DDI subscribers and to keep the old Builder available for download. The even better solution would have been to keep updating the downloadable Builder with Essentials and Dark Sun until the online Builder was out of beta, but I would have been more understanding if they just said, "Listen, we're focusing our efforts on the online Builder, so the old one won't get any updates. But this new one is in beta right now."

That's exactly what we've got right now, except that they're not calling the online Builder a beta release. They're saying, "Tah dah, here's our new and improved product!" And it's a step backward in many important ways. If they had just called it a beta release, the backlash would have been diminished, in my opinion.

 

[Henry]

But the old Character Builder wasn't a "functional" program, it was rather limited.

Silly me, using it to prep pre-gens for at least two Gamedays, my own character and one other person's character for two home campaigns, and numerous other trial-characters just for the fun of it. Guess I shouldn't have been able to use the thing to actually, y'know, GET GAMING DONE because it wasn't "functional."

The old CB was a pretty slick piece of software, despite several improvements needed, and I did get a good bit of use out of it. The new web app is on the border between painful and useless to me - I'm not waiting an extra two seconds between every single button press like I'm wading through virtual molasses. I was gradually disappointed between the diminished usefulness of the revised compendium, then the gradually less interesting Dungeon and Dragon mag content, and the web app was my last straw. I still have the character builder, updated through psionic power, but as I'm playing a Dark Sun game right now I'm using a fill-in PDF sheet and prety much getting what I need done.

Loving 4E and the Essentials game material, but the software support went from great (under 3E and PCGen's licenses) to good under 4E and DDI, down to positively useless to me as of now. Maybe the virtual tabletop will signal a change in positive innovations, but seeing as how I do all my gaming in person currently I really don't need it. I'll keep my ear to the virtual ground though and see if things improve.

 

[Kralin Thornberry]

How about the biggest problem with it is that it doesn't work a majority of the time that I attempt to use it?

And no, I'm not a computer/software designer/engineer/anything, but I am a paying customer that is NOT satisfied with this inferior piece of dog crap that they have handed to us.

 

[Nork]

The online CB isn't CB version 2.0, it is CB 2, an entirely new product.

Planning to have CB 2 eventually replace CB 1 and ending support for CB 1 is fine.

Not planning to support updates for CB 1 version 1.'it-bleeping-works' while at the same time launching CB 2 version 1.0 is not fine.

Now they've got angry users with show-stopping version 1.0 issues with the new software, and they've pulled the rug out from under them on their old software by not updating it.

Why would people pay for that? Seriously. Why.

Wizards has consistently demonstrated gross incompetence at handling software.

None of the promised pieces of software are difficult pieces of software to write. Yet those pieces of software either turn into vaporware or don't work as well as they ought to work.

Wizards of the Coast is doing something super duper wrong.

They need to stop it. 'It' being doing software or doing software badly. Either one works.

With as weak as the Dragon and Dungeon articles have been for quite some time, pulling the plug on their software and redirecting that money towards better articles might add more value to a DDI subscription.

I've already gone back to doing characters on paper since the day essentials came out. I'd be happy simply to have some quality rules and adventures use with my pencil and paper character.

 

[Glyfair]

I understand fully that there will be a constant stream of known issues and tweaks. When I can log on and find show-stoppers within the first five minutes, though, that's a sign of either insufficient QA or (much more likely) a set-in-stone release date that the development team couldn't realistically hit.

I agree. I only hit the 5 minute mark because of how long it takes to load.

It took me two simple steps to have a crash (a constantly repeating crash). Step 1 - Choose create a custom character. Step 2 - Choose to create an Eberron character. Crash.

Sorry, that doesn't count as being ready to go out the door.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The online CB isn't CB version 2.0, it is CB 2, an entirely new product.

Planning to have CB 2 eventually replace CB 1 and ending support for CB 1 is fine.

Not planning to support updates for CB 1 version 1.'it-bleeping-works' while at the same time launching CB 2 version 1.0 is not fine.

I see the strategy why they would try to do this. Essentials and Dark Sun are now big assets that came out this year. If you add them to the old character builder, it means giving "easy" access back to pirates to it.
If they can constrain the material to a software they can lock down better, the fact that there are many pirated copies out there will not negatively impact their DDI subscriptions much any longer. If you want the newest hot stuff, you need the subscription.
It would have been a great plan, if the new character builder was ready at the release of D&D Essentials. It wasn't. It would have been good if it was ready now. It seems it isn't either.

 

[Oldtimer]

Unrealistic expectations from armchair computer "experts".

I've been a professional software developer for over 32 years now. I regularly lecture about software development processes and software testing. There is no way the thing launched on Tuesday would have gotten a "go" at any sane go-live meeting. Pushing garbage like that live tells me that WotC has absolutely no quality process in place. Or ignoring it completely.

But let me just sit back in my armchair and watch this train wreck...

 

[Danzauker]

I can say there definitely are... I constantly hear/read people saying things like- Hey we need another defender, can you make a defender?

Even when I build from a non rules first perspective- (especially now that they seem to be broadening what the role/class combo means) it seems like the natural thought pattern:

I'm a big guy that smashes stuff- (lots of damage) so striker... And I am uncivilized- Barbarian...

So it's a useful feature- but I do agree they should have let you be able to turn it off, or offer other options to filter.

Ok, I admit I didn't meet anyone, but if there are people building characters that way, then it's ok to have something to support that feature.

What I wanted to say is that CB starts in a sort of "walkthrough" mode: it asks "do you want to play a controller, a defender or what?". And then filters tha classes based on your choices.

That's fine, but I think the process should have gone farther. "You chose to be a fighter? You'd like to be the guy that smashes foes with a big axe or the one that fights with shield ans sword?" and so on.

This, for novices, would be the excellent software piece. For regular players, free browsing and filtering of game elements is the best thing. Regular players already know the basics enough to build a character on their own. The killer feature then is powerful and robust filtering, because with hundreds of feats and powers, many of them have been updated in time, it's almost granted you can not remember them all.