Wizards: Musings on the new DDi disaster

[ggroy]

This same exact thing was said when they announced that to start with, you could only make 20 characters on the online CB.

This same exact thing was said when the Dark Sun and Essentials updates were not done in the other CB in September.

This same exact thing was said when Essentials was announced and people thought the main game was being "discontinued".

This same exact thing was said when they discontinued development on the Gleemax suite.

This same exact thing was said when the druid, barbarian, gnome and orc were not going to appear in the first Player's Handbook.

This same exact thing was said when they announced they were releasing 4E and they would no longer support 3.5.

This same exact thing was said when they announced they were releasing 3.5 and that they would no longer support 3.0.

In other words... WotC has done years of things that were supposed to result in the downfall of their company and the downfall of the Dungeons & Dragons game.

And yet, here we are... still playing it. Still using their tools. Still buying their books. And still being hyperbolic about how the sky is falling and how THIS TIME they've gone too far.

Best of luck to all of you who are definitely, absolutely, finally, this time we mean it, giving up on D&D forever. And I'll be sure to wave 'hi' to you come January when WotC releases another product that doesn't work 100% correct right out the chute and most of you are all back here on ENWorld saying that they've really done it this time, thus proving you've still been using and playing with their products the entire time.

This sounds very similar to how an alcoholic or drug addict speaks.

This time will be the last! Just one more!

 

[Scribble]

I'ma move to a politics discussion board... Too much anger and division on gaming boards.

 

[Kurtomatic]

This sounds very similar to how an alcoholic or drug addict speaks.

This time will be the last! Just one more!

Addicted to schadenfreude? Kinky!

 

[Sunseeker]

I'ma move to a politics discussion board... Too much anger and division on gaming boards.

As a long-time political forum regular, I can say, without hesitation.

TRUTH.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

To wizards defense: It now works smoother than yesterday...

otherwise: making your characters too big (as in height) will cause your character builder to crash... (they should make it a drop down menu or something like that...)

edit: i am no programmer, but in my opinion the character builder tries to do to much simultaneously... it really would have been sufficient if it only calcualted bonuses when you are done with one of the building steps... it now seems to calculate after each single instance of an entry... which leads to a lot of unneeded stress...

 

[evilref]

I'm not happy with the new Character Builder because of current rules bugs and the design choices on how it outputs to pdf.

That said, I'm even less impressed with the sort of comment below:

Ultimately, it comes down to Wizards of the Coast deliberately deceiving us a couple of months ago when the September updates to the CB were missed. This was a deception forced by a disaster: their software team had not been able to finish the new online CB in time. I'm sure the timeline for the new CB was originally that it would be ready at the same time as the first Essentials books went on the shelves.

There's no proof to this. No evidence and nothing but speculation. This sorty of thing (accusing people of lying without any proof) is uncalled for in my opinion and decidedly impolite at the very least.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I love how WotC is made out to be such an "evil empire" in topics like these. I mean, they might as well be kidnapping our children and clubbing baby seals(I'm looking at you Canada!...or should I say Evilada?).

Evil Empire? Hardly. A big business trying to ramp up revenue and maximize profit from their IP fits perfectly and it isn't evil.

In any case, I'm not happy with the new CB, but I don't hate it. And I hardly have the energy to feel so maligned as some of you do against WotC. Yes, books get updated rather quickly, D&D is a living, breathing game that is constantly in flux. Look at WoW, it's a fixed system(in that you can only play it one way), and they push out updates, bug fixes, changes, minor patches every week. With a comprable number of people playing and an even greater amount of information(IMO) it's hardly surprising that a book, a printed, uneditable document, would get updated rather frequently and rather often.

The basic problem with this comparison is that D&D is a tabletop roleplaying game and WOW is an MMO. These problems are largely due to WOTC's efforts to try and get a tabletop roleplaying game to produce the kind of revenue stream that an MMO would.

The one thing that makes tabletop play so much more superior to an MMO is that the people playing get to determine the game content including what rules of play are used.

In exchange for the freedom to create content and alter rules, an MMO provides mechanics completely in the background without needing players to remember that they are constantly changing, a virtual "DM", and lots of pretty scenery.

The tabletop subscription model brings all of the annoyances of constant updates and none of the benefits that an MMO provides.

The difference of course is that you can still play a tabletop rpg without a subscription. If the materials sold for doing so are so poorly edited with the understanding that all will be "fixed" with a subscription then why buy them at all?

If you take the "Wizards fired us!" attitude, you're not going to get anything because the more you play games based off Wizard's systems without supporting Wizards, the more they're going to clamp down on those other games. Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

Wizards didn't fire anyone (any customers that is ) but their actions have certainly caused customers to fire them as a provider of desired product.

Supporting Wizards? A company receives support from customers by providing those customers with something they want to buy. Wizards doesn't have to provide anything they do not feel like providing just as customers don't have to give Wizards a dime if they don't feel as if the product offered is worth it.

 

[Sunseeker]

To wizards defense: It now works smoother than yesterday...

otherwise: making your characters too big (as in height) will cause your character builder to crash... (they should make it a drop down menu or something like that...)

I keep reading this, how big are we talking about? Like a 10 foot-tall human? 'cause I've made several who are over the size "average" limit by a couple inches and it doesn't crash.

 

[Herschel]

I'm disappointed that the new character builder isn't up to some peoples' expectations. To be honest, I wasn't expecting it to be running without bugs for a bit. Maybe because I work in corporate America where all large software undertakings have unforseen bugs it really doesn't bother me that much. I was added to a QA team and have helped root out many bugs but even as an end user of the software I can't find them all in QA.

The Monster Builder and old Character Builder worked okay for me, even with their quirks, but I can see why they wanted/needed to go this direction. Is it a rough transition? For some it will be. That's unfortunate. But it's the way it goes. The new system will probably work well enough for what I need it to do, and I like the new character sheet layout. I don't need custom portraits or vanity additions. Basic updates/upgrades will be coming to fix the glitches they have.

Is it perfect?
No.

Will it ever be?
No.

Will it do what I want/need it to do?
Yes.

FWIW I couldn't care less about a Virtual Table Top. IMO there are options already out there and I don't have a high opinion of people who rely on them outside of rural areas or as part of a face-to-face game.

Maybe I just don't expect huge digital doo-dads for my game of imagination. Maybe I like old school more than most. Basic, functioning digital tools is all I ask for. Is that different from the majority of others playing the game? I don't know.

I don't play WoW, Halo, Call of Duty, Starcraft or any of the other hot video or online games. D&D is my game of choice, always has been. People, books and a pencil are all I ever need.

And dice. Lots & lots of dice.

At the end of the day I wish it worked a little more cleanly, but I'm not going to be too upset about it as long as it works. It's a game, after all, and I play it for fun. If I can have fun, I'm happy. The rest is gravy.

 

[Herschel]

I keep reading this, how big are we talking about? Like a 10 foot-tall human? 'cause I've made several who are over the size "average" limit by a couple inches and it doesn't crash.

Dude, it won't let me build my Half-Drow 9' 11 15/16" Barbarian with my home brewed half-devil template and custom Iron Fists of DOOOM!

It's running, bugs will be found and fixed.