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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 5378990" data-attributes="member: 3586">I have been watching the train wreck that is Wizards' handling of Essentials and the D&D Insider (+ Character Builder) and been getting more and more depressed at the sight. Wizards have been attempting to rebuild their credibility as the producer of D&D, and their latest mismanaged efforts may have destroyed that utterly.There is no doubt that the roll-out of the new online CB is a disaster, but it is a disaster that could have been avoided. It is a disaster caused by terrible project management, coupled with corporate secrecy that has been its own worst enemy.At this point of year, we await the latest set of lay-offs from Wizards of the Coast. For only the second time in my life, this is one set of lay-offs I'm looking forward to, hoping to see some of the incompetents responsible for this latest disaster going. (The second time? Indeed. The first time was when I hoped to see Randy Buehler laid off after his mismanagement of Gleemax; I was very happy to see that occur).The sad thing is that the new CB isn't really that bad. I've been able to use it, as have many other people. Initial teething problems would have been forgiven if Wizards hadn't already spent their credibility in the months leading up to this.But they did, and thus now this sorry situation.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. Let us look at the <a href="http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/25853841/DDI_Update_pushed_to_October" target="_blank">message</a> they gave us in September:"Unfortunately, we will not have a data update ready for the D&D Insider tools in September.  The process of integrating the new  changes from Dark Sun and Essentials is taking a bit longer than we expected, and we plan to update the Character Builder in early October.  We will continue to keep you informed of any changes to the schedule, and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause."That states very clearly that the update will include Dark Sun and Essentials. It wasn't even ready in October, it was November we finally got it - and it wasn't an update to the existing program, it was an update to the new program. The statement possibly slides just on the side of honesty enough to keep Wizards out of legal trouble, but it reads differently in hindsight compared to how it was taken at the time.Yes, this November release of the new CB should have occurred back in September, a disaster caused by the coding team not being good enough to fulfill the demands of the project's management team. My sympathies lie with the coders. Writing a good CB is no easy task, especially when the ground rules keep shifting. Consider how wrong the Red Box is... now consider the different sets of rules the CB team would have to work with. That the new CB works as well as it does, even two months late and still buggy, is still something of an achievement.Wizards have backed themselves into this corner because of their original (Randy Buelher) statements about what they wanted the DDi to achieve. His toxic legacy still lies across the D&D electronic tools. So much wasted effort went into Gleemax; we shudder to think of what might have been spent on the dead-before-arrival Game Table which was taken out and shot some time back. "Yes, you can have all this, and dancing girls too!" might have been a line from Wizards, as they were overly optimistic about what they could provide. (Incredibly, even a basic blogging site seemed beyond them). They then realised (correctly) that they shouldn't promise anything until it was ready. The Monster Builder was a wonderful surprise as a result.However, the "don't promise something until it's ready" backfired spectacularly this time. It is quite obvious now that the Wizards coding team isn't really big enough to handle new projects at the same time as maintaining the old. In September, Wizards had the situation of...* Character Builder version 2 wasn't ready,* Character Builder version 1 couldn't be updated to Essentials because the team that would have done that were working on CB2* They couldn't announce CB2 because it wasn't ready, by previous experienceThey really did walk into that one. Is this irreparable damage to D&D? I'd like to think not. However, they need to fix the problems with CB2 really, really quickly, and offer proper contrition. Wizards once had a great reservoir of good will: that reservoir is now dry, and they need to start doing good things again.That's how I see the situation. Obviously, as I'm not omniscient, I might have things badly wrong, but I hope you find this post of some interest.</blockquote>

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