Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 orwellian Sep 01, 2009 19:00:02	paying subscriber from launch I keep hoping the WotC website and the DDI tools will get some optimization to it, and yet they still barely chug along. Having a slow buggy website isn't that big of a deal when people just go there to read press releases and cruise the forums, but it isn't real cool when you are selling a subscription to a digital pay service. Seriously, WotC is the slowest professional website I go to.   I bought a DDI subscription for 2 reasons... encounter builder (70%) character builder (30%) The rest of my group's subscriptions are more 80% character builder I have had only very minor complaints about the character builder (slow as molasses) But the encounter builder is agonizing. I realize its a bonus tool and isn't getting any attention to its base code, but PLEASE!!!! You really ought to get some streamlining to it and bug fixes. I could even accept slow list loads, but the damn thing has ground to a halt more than a few times. Every week when I prepare my game, I dread firing that thing up. I can guarantee the same repeating bugs everytime I use it. When you can reproduce bugs EVERY time on a for pay program, you know the developer doesn't care. Unfortuanately as my post suggests, the slow, broken, aggravating encounter builder is still damn handy as opposed to building them by hand. I just don't know if I will be able to stomach a renewal at the new price point next year if its in the same shape. My group has 3 DDI subscriptions right now. I can easily see us getting by with 1 if I can come up with a way of building encounters that is even close to encounter builder. (edit to be nice) I do have to give a hand to the accounting side of things. I was paying monthly and then switched to a year subscription shortly after card was debited for that month. I knew I had an overlap and figured i'd fire off an email askin for a refund of the month within a few days. Didn't get a chance, very shortly I got an email saying I had overpaid and would get a refund for difference. Good job, not many merchants would jump on that as quickly, especially with no customer prompt. it almost makes encounter builder a little easier to stomach.... gah, sorry, nope it doesn't :D
#2 lokiare Sep 01, 2009 22:51:28	paying subscriber from launch I keep hoping the WotC website and the DDI tools will get some optimization to it, and yet they still barely chug along. Having a slow buggy website isn't that big of a deal when people just go there to read press releases and cruise the forums, but it isn't real cool when you are selling a subscription to a digital pay service. Seriously, WotC is the slowest professional website I go to.   I bought a DDI subscription for 2 reasons... encounter builder (70%) character builder (30%) The rest of my group's subscriptions are more 80% character builder I have had only very minor complaints about the character builder (slow as molasses) But the encounter builder is agonizing. I realize its a bonus tool and isn't getting any attention to its base code, but PLEASE!!!! You really ought to get some streamlining to it and bug fixes. I could even accept slow list loads, but the damn thing has ground to a halt more than a few times. Every week when I prepare my game, I dread firing that thing up. I can guarantee the same repeating bugs everytime I use it. When you can reproduce bugs EVERY time on a for pay program, you know the developer doesn't care. Unfortuanately as my post suggests, the slow, broken, aggravating encounter builder is still damn handy as opposed to building them by hand. I just don't know if I will be able to stomach a renewal at the new price point next year if its in the same shape. My group has 3 DDI subscriptions right now. I can easily see us getting by with 1 if I can come up with a way of building encounters that is even close to encounter builder. (edit to be nice) I do have to give a hand to the accounting side of things. I was paying monthly and then switched to a year subscription shortly after card was debited for that month. I knew I had an overlap and figured i'd fire off an email askin for a refund of the month within a few days. Didn't get a chance, very shortly I got an email saying I had overpaid and would get a refund for difference. Good job, not many merchants would jump on that as quickly, especially with no customer prompt. it almost makes encounter builder a little easier to stomach.... gah, sorry, nope it doesn't :D The problem is the refund didn't come from WotC, it came from a 3rd party credit card system, which are usually top notch. I don't give WotC that much credit. Also about the encounter builder you can find several really good free software ones on the net, just google them.
#3 orwellian Sep 04, 2009 19:46:40	so I'm assuming there are no fixes or workarounds to makes the encounter builder even somewhat stable?
#4 lokiare Sep 04, 2009 22:58:34	so I'm assuming there are no fixes or workarounds to makes the encounter builder even somewhat stable? Nope, they were thrown together as a last minute add-in, to keep people subscribing through that month (which I beleive is the mont they announced the GT (Game Table) was going to be pushed back or canceled.