This post is meant to be a little bit about the future of tabletop gaming, and smaller choices WotC and DDI have made over the last couple of months. There seems to me, at least, a disconnect from what I see as postivie about new technology and DDI's inability to take advantage of these innovations.
For the context of this post, I am talking about mobile computing, most specifically as a user of iPads and iPhones, though I am certain that much of my experience of iOS devices is similar to Android and other tablet/mobile phone computing. I am not alking about netbook, or notebooks. In fact my experience of those at the gaming table has largely been negative. I find they physically create a barrier at the gaming table in the upright screen. I find they tend to present too much distraction at the gaming table, with folks even playing WoW and the like.
I have found tablet/mobile computing devices to generally be positive. They generally lie flat on the table, getting out of the way. They are much easier for others to see, so there is no porn surfing temptation. They are are great tool with several applications and web apps designed specifically for them that make running a PC so much easier. They store 20 years worth of gaming books, generally in a very searchable format. They even work for note taking that can easily be emailed to the team. You can create campaign wikis for your use and the use of others. They have many advantages.
Advantages that WotC and DDI seem to be completely deaf to.
And not only deaf, but recent "improvements" have actually made these devices less useful, not more.
Some examples:
- Recently the forums format was changed to a "mobile version". This is simplified formating that, in theory, makes it easier to browse the forums on a mobile device. My experience, when utilizing an iPhone, has been that these "simplified" versions of the web pages are lackluster. In the case of these forums they are more lackluster then normal. Problems created by this change include truncated topic titles, the inability to zoom in and out, the lack of basic navigation from within a thread, the lack of formatting (most notably sblock) that can make reading post very long and tedious. Now I am sure there are many who like or get more utility out of the mobile version of the forums. Great. Just give me the option to switch back and forth between the two formats. Many sites allow this, most notably google.
- The new skin on the Compendium has been a disaster when it comes using it on an iOS device. Before the re skinning I had issues from time to time, but generally speaking I was able to research what I wanted and used it frequently on my iPhone and iPad. Now it is very cumbersome to use on these devices. Yes, the left most letter of each line gets cut off until you zoom or pan around. No problem. The real problem comes up in two forms. When you go to enter your username and password, the form keeps jumping while I enter these things. It took me a while to even figure out how to get it so I could enter my password. It kept jumping away from the field as I tried to touch the field to enter the password. The second it that as you pan down while reading an entry, it keeps jumping the entry back up to the top. Trying to read a class entry is almost impossible. Needless to say, my usage of the Compendium on my iOS devices has diminished greatly.
- The recent revamping of the CB. (no, this not a continuation of that rant) A couple of choices made for this revamping has shown the lack of comprehension on how mobile devices can be and are used at the table. The first was the choice of platform. When I first heard of this change, I thought, well at least some good might come of it, as perhaps I will be able to use it on my iPad, which would be a great thing. No dice. Going with Silverlight, or even most of the add-on driven solutions precluded iOS and in fact almost all tablet devices. It seems it will do so for quite some time. An HTML5 solution would be the best chance to work with such devices in the future. I cannot really fault them for how this plays out. Google is trying to get Google Docs functionality to work in a pure web based solution and have not yet.
- The second "choice" or oversight was in the lack of export for the new web based CB. I use iplay4e. A lot. The inability to not be able to bring my PCs into that web app is a big blow to my ability to play using an iOS device at the gaming table. And given the discussion from PaoloM about the lack of export, it seems as the DDI Studio really has no understanding how many folks use their products. Not only did he express surprise that export functionality was that widely used, but he also made it clear that he did not understand the functionality of the old CB. He had no idea you could track resources and "play" your character using the old CB character sheet viewer (though it was clunky, and I never used it for that).
Those are 4 examples of the ways that WotC and DDI has reduced usability of digital tools around the gaming table, or ignored opportunity. But this is not a post to complain about that. It is a post about what they can do better.
- Test your new roll outs on mobile devices first, to make sure they play nicely with the devices' native web browsers, before rolling them out. Fix it when it doesn't. More and more web browsing is occurring on mobile devices. Optimizing, or at least not being broken, for mobile web browsers is terribly, terribly important.
- When possible, add to existing choices, rather then take away choice. If you think a mobile version of the forums is necessary (a necessary evil I think, and one that will go away in the next couple of years. The future of mobile web browsing is not in alternate simplified forms for those devices, but the full page), then make it the default choice, with the ability to switch back to the full web version as the user sees fit.
- Create a focus group that actually plays D&D around the table with mobile devices. Listen to what they say. Figure out how they use the devices. Work to make your tools more useful for them. (What is appalling to me about this whole thing is that some of the WotC D&D staff used to talk about how they ran their character using iplay4e on their iPhones. How did DDI not know how important export was? What happen to those guys who were using the mobile devices? Did they get laid off? How did this disconnect occur?)
Please, please take to heart some of this discussion. Mobile device are only going to become incorporated into our lives. Positioning ourself on the forefront of this integration will improve your products' absorption. Right now many choices you are making not only are not keeping pace, or moving forward, but are actively moving backwards.
Please reverse course.
Thank you,
Robert Miiller
Please reverse course.
Thank you,
Robert Miiller
I know there is a lot of negatively around here lately. Frankly I have not been pleased with the way the "new" web tools were launched, though I understand why they needed to go in that direction. As well, I am no pleased with the new direction Dragon has taken. I have posted a couple times on these forums about why these items have made me unhappy, as well as written an email to DDI. This post is not meant to be continuation of those negative feelings.
This post is meant to be a little bit about the future of tabletop gaming, and smaller choices WotC and DDI have made over the last couple of months. There seems to me, at least, a disconnect from what I see as postivie about new technology and DDI's inability to take advantage of these innovations.
For the context of this post, I am talking about mobile computing, most specifically as a user of iPads and iPhones, though I am certain that much of my experience of iOS devices is similar to Android and other tablet/mobile phone computing. I am not alking about netbook, or notebooks. In fact my experience of those at the gaming table has largely been negative. I find they physically create a barrier at the gaming table in the upright screen. I find they tend to present too much distraction at the gaming table, with folks even playing WoW and the like.
I have found tablet/mobile computing devices to generally be positive. They generally lie flat on the table, getting out of the way. They are much easier for others to see, so there is no porn surfing temptation. They are are great tool with several applications and web apps designed specifically for them that make running a PC so much easier. They store 20 years worth of gaming books, generally in a very searchable format. They even work for note taking that can easily be emailed to the team. You can create campaign wikis for your use and the use of others. They have many advantages.
Advantages that WotC and DDI seem to be completely deaf to.
And not only deaf, but recent "improvements" have actually made these devices less useful, not more.
Some examples:
- Recently the forums format was changed to a "mobile version". This is simplified formating that, in theory, makes it easier to browse the forums on a mobile device. My experience, when utilizing an iPhone, has been that these "simplified" versions of the web pages are lackluster. In the case of these forums they are more lackluster then normal. Problems created by this change include truncated topic titles, the inability to zoom in and out, the lack of basic navigation from within a thread, the lack of formatting (most notably sblock) that can make reading post very long and tedious. Now I am sure there are many who like or get more utility out of the mobile version of the forums. Great. Just give me the option to switch back and forth between the two formats. Many sites allow this, most notably google.
- The new skin on the Compendium has been a disaster when it comes using it on an iOS device. Before the re skinning I had issues from time to time, but generally speaking I was able to research what I wanted and used it frequently on my iPhone and iPad. Now it is very cumbersome to use on these devices. Yes, the left most letter of each line gets cut off until you zoom or pan around. No problem. The real problem comes up in two forms. When you go to enter your username and password, the form keeps jumping while I enter these things. It took me a while to even figure out how to get it so I could enter my password. It kept jumping away from the field as I tried to touch the field to enter the password. The second it that as you pan down while reading an entry, it keeps jumping the entry back up to the top. Trying to read a class entry is almost impossible. Needless to say, my usage of the Compendium on my iOS devices has diminished greatly.
- The recent revamping of the CB. (no, this not a continuation of that rant) A couple of choices made for this revamping has shown the lack of comprehension on how mobile devices can be and are used at the table. The first was the choice of platform. When I first heard of this change, I thought, well at least some good might come of it, as perhaps I will be able to use it on my iPad, which would be a great thing. No dice. Going with Silverlight, or even most of the add-on driven solutions precluded iOS and in fact almost all tablet devices. It seems it will do so for quite some time. An HTML5 solution would be the best chance to work with such devices in the future. I cannot really fault them for how this plays out. Google is trying to get Google Docs functionality to work in a pure web based solution and have not yet.
- The second "choice" or oversight was in the lack of export for the new web based CB. I use iplay4e. A lot. The inability to not be able to bring my PCs into that web app is a big blow to my ability to play using an iOS device at the gaming table. And given the discussion from PaoloM about the lack of export, it seems as the DDI Studio really has no understanding how many folks use their products. Not only did he express surprise that export functionality was that widely used, but he also made it clear that he did not understand the functionality of the old CB. He had no idea you could track resources and "play" your character using the old CB character sheet viewer (though it was clunky, and I never used it for that).
Those are 4 examples of the ways that WotC and DDI has reduced usability of digital tools around the gaming table, or ignored opportunity. But this is not a post to complain about that. It is a post about what they can do better.
- Test your new roll outs on mobile devices first, to make sure they play nicely with the devices' native web browsers, before rolling them out. Fix it when it doesn't. More and more web browsing is occurring on mobile devices. Optimizing, or at least not being broken, for mobile web browsers is terribly, terribly important.
- When possible, add to existing choices, rather then take away choice. If you think a mobile version of the forums is necessary (a necessary evil I think, and one that will go away in the next couple of years. The future of mobile web browsing is not in alternate simplified forms for those devices, but the full page), then make it the default choice, with the ability to switch back to the full web version as the user sees fit.
- Create a focus group that actually plays D&D around the table with mobile devices. Listen to what they say. Figure out how they use the devices. Work to make your tools more useful for them. (What is appalling to me about this whole thing is that some of the WotC D&D staff used to talk about how they ran their character using iplay4e on their iPhones. How did DDI not know how important export was? What happen to those guys who were using the mobile devices? Did they get laid off? How did this disconnect occur?)
Please, please take to heart some of this discussion. Mobile device are only going to become incorporated into our lives. Positioning ourself on the forefront of this integration will improve your products' absorption. Right now many choices you are making not only are not keeping pace, or moving forward, but are actively moving backwards.
Please reverse course.
Thank you,
Robert Miiller
How are we supposed to have a discussion when the OP is well-written, coherent, and full of insight?
This post is terrible. It contains no outrageous hyperbole, no unfounded assumptions, no rage-filled ranting.
How are we supposed to have a discussion when the OP is well-written, coherent, and full of insight?
I could reply to this post a thousand times, but the poster would never listen to me, his head too filled up with witty sarcasm.
Thank you for the kind words. I sent a somewhat edited version of this post off to Customer Service. Unfortunately I just don't have a sense that posting something here or sending an email to WotC really has any chance of reaching the folks I hope would read this and be able to think through these issues.
I can't promise any more response on these points, except that first one. My team works with onesite on any platform updates to the community site, and we are working to get more added to that mobile friendly view so that if a user wants, he/she can select the traditional view. As to the rest, again - nicely written feedback, and I've forwarded it on to the DDI studio and the D&D business teams as a reminder of the points you bring up, and the kind of useful feedback that we can gather from the community. Thanks again man!
Now that is service!
Now to what Trevor had to say. Thank you! You could have just forwarded this on up the chain without letting us know you had done so. But you took the time to respond and let us know that you were taking that action and also looking at the feedback on the mobile personally. I really appreciate that. Thank you very much.
I don't expect much to happen about my feedback. Certainly not like getting the option for the full site on the mobile site. That was sweet. But hopefully it will spark a little discussion about priorities and how DDI can become more useful around the gaming table, an area of great potential for it I believe.
Thank you again!
Robert Miiller
To the point of the thread, I see immense potential (and growing all the time) for the integration of really functional digital tools into the play of D&D, but the Grand Source of D&D just seems, I don't know, inhibited or crippled somehow from fully engaging with the potential. It could be so good - but time and again it shows promise but falls short of full capability. So sad.
I suspect that even if they wanted to put out a full iOS compatible (whether that be HTML5 & javascript, iOS specific) version of the CB and tools, long before they were done there will be tablets capable of running silverlight apps.
Microsoft has already stated that it is not their intent to have Silverlight be a device-ubiquitous platform. I would not assume silverlight is going to be running on the Playbook or iPad. Microsoft's stance is that if you want ubiquitous web apps, html/javascript/css is the right answer. Silverlight is for media rich web applications on the desktop and windows mobile stack.
I also don't think it is as much work as you're making it sound; most of the work they've already done is recoverable, it's only the front end piece (granted, not trivial but still).
BTW, I'm writing this on my iPad. I've used my iPad at the game table, and I too prefer it over the wall of flipped up laptop screens, even though I've only been able to use it as a PDF viewer and to access the compendium.
For those asking about iPlay4e, Andrew posted on twitterlast night that he had received a sample dd4e file from the new export and there should be no problems with it working.
It looks like not only will the new export file work with iplay4e, but also that DDI and WotC specifically gave iplay4e a sample file to test out before the general release.
I think this not only shows they are listening, but that they are actively making things better. WotC and the DDI team deserve a huge kudos for that.
Thank you very much! Well done!
Thanks also Trevor. Even though we know you follow the discussions here, it's nice to have an explicit confirmation.