Wizards Digital Initiative Moving Forward

[Mercule]

I make about $15 an hour plus a sales incentive and the people I work with that develop these tools are on the same type of support team that I am. Is that big bucks in the software industry?

No, that's not great money. That's what a two-year degree earns you.

In the Midwest, I'd expect the position WotC is advertising to pull down $80K-120K per year (quick math: $40-60 per hour), depending on what, exactly, the duties will end up being. On the coast, near Redmond, that could be significantly higher.

 

[JVisgaitis]

No, that's not great money. That's what a two-year degree earns you.

Well, cost of living matters too. I'm in a small town in Northeast PA and my job is the highest paying in the area. I rent a half a double house with all utilities included for only $300 a month. If I worked in Virginia where our main offices are, my rate would be at least triple.

 

[Hussar]

You said it. Someone unplugged a switch while I was checking in a document and it corrupted the database irretreivably. Fortunately, we back up nightly, but still, that's unsat for content control.



Quite. I don't use .NET, but we do use a visual studio add-on for the main Unix-Like OS we use which compiles under GCC. And we just added a major library to our system using autoconf.

There may be lots of people who live in just one world or the other, but the PC is prevalent enough as a workstation platform and GCC is used in just about every Unix-like (and not-so-unix-like) platform out there.



Yeah. I don't hit lots of them, but I'm tempted to submit a resume just in case they are pie-in-the-sky-ing it.

Wow. I know the meaning of pretty much all the words in the above bits, but, together, they look like someone burped on my screen.

This must be what my wife feels like when I talk about the game.

 

[MKMcArtor]

I'm not doubting the market research, but I find that result incredibly strange. Who knew that Diaglo was the point man for a vast offline army of grognard-luddites?

It's true!

But it's more than just those who don't want to use computers, it's also those who can't. Military personnel and prisoners, for example, have no or little access to computers or the Internet. And they make up a higher percentage of D&D players than you might think.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Shived in the shower and then your character gets ganked in the prison infirmary D&D game! Insult to injury!

 

[JoeGKushner]

It's true!

But it's more than just those who don't want to use computers, it's also those who can't. Military personnel and prisoners, for example, have no or little access to computers or the Internet. And they make up a higher percentage of D&D players than you might think.

And then there are casual players who have access to the internet but don't use it for D&D as opposed to using just Dragon mag and Dungeon mag.

 

[Mistwell]

That's what really annoys me about this whole thing. Code Monkey may have been a little ways from having RPG Forge out, but they were a hell of a lot closer than this.

Really? A lot closer? They just announced that 80% of their existing code had to be scrapped. Even with a full staff they basically had no estimate for completion. Doesn't sound like they were a lot closer to anyting.

So by pulling the license now we get no electronic access to offical content until WotC gets their crap together, and who knows when that will be? A year? Two? More?

And that is different than Code Monkey how?

It blows my mind that this long after 3E came about we are still waiting for good OFFICIAL electronic support for our games. E-Tools may not have been perfect, but it saved me countless hours in game prep. But now even that's no longer available.

I agree. But I don't think pulling from Code Monkey necessarily was a bad idea for achieving this goal.

I only wish I had the foresight to buy all the Eberron data sets when I could...but of course I didn't know I'd get into it now...

I'm sure you can dig them up if you really need them.

 

[Mistwell]

That's quite a swing. Computer games are generally raw hardware apps and web infrastructures don't even care about what the CPU is.
What does this have to do with online gaming? MAC folks are in for some disappointment I'll bet.
I can count on my hands the number of people I know who use Microsoft Tools such as VS.NET who have even heard of, let alone used, automake or autoconf.
I'm shocked that MS SourceSafe isn't listed.
How many years have gone by? Won't this person have retired by now?

No offense intended, but throw a rock in silicon valley and you will hit someone who can use VS.NET, automake, autoconf, and Linux. I think the programming culture in some parts of the country is signigicantly different than the one you are most familiar with.

 

[MKMcArtor]

And then there are casual players who have access to the internet but don't use it for D&D as opposed to using just Dragon mag and Dungeon mag.

An excellent point, Joe! And believe me, we love those players!

 

[jmucchiello]

No offense intended, but throw a rock in silicon valley and you will hit someone who can use VS.NET, automake, autoconf, and Linux. I think the programming culture in some parts of the country is signigicantly different than the one you are most familiar with.

Yeah, the NYC metro area is a backwater. Actually, I work in the finance world and there is little skillset crossover between Windows and *nix. Companies may use multiple platforms but they also employ so many code monkeys (not the company) that the departments don't talk to one another and so there is little cross-platform movement by programmers. Silicon Valley has a culture of experimentation and research and so yeah, I guess there would be more platform neutrality on those resumes.

My point though was that most code monkeys are woefully unknowledgable about the inner workings of computers and this is the source of their bugs. They mess around with forms and paste code they don't understand and have bug counts in the thousands. They could not put together a working chargen app in under a year. And they are the kind of programmer most likely to be hired to do the bulk of such an app. Code wizards are expensive and rarely stoked about making a simple database app with lots of exceptions. And that is all a chargen app is.