Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 skalgrimm Aug 09, 2009 21:51:29	I know that Mac users are, at best, a niche market. However, as per the character builder, there are TONS of ways to make a platform agnostic application. You've had a year since the Character Builder, and, once again, WOTC chooses to make a platform specific application. I buy D&D Insider despite not being able to run CB on my Mac (natively). I use it at a player's house once a week (at most). Now, here's another application that Windows users get, that I also pay for. Thanks for continuing to make the subscription markedly less useful for Mac users than Windows users. An entire year of development, and there was no push whatsoever on making the new application available to Macs, or Linux, etc? Is the development cost for using platform agnostic tools really SO immense that the added sales potential from Mac and Linux users is irrelevant? Does every Mac and Linux user need to stop supporting WOTC with their money to be seen as important? I love D&D. I love Dragon and Dungeon. I like the Character Builder, and, once I install the Monster Builder I'll probably like it too. However, I'd PAY EXTRA to be able to use these on my home machine without buying a version of Windows I have no intention of using for any other purpose. I'd much rather give WOTC the money than Microsoft. If you'd make a platform neutral version, I'd pay more for it. As it is, I'm going to be giving SOMEONE else money that I'd prefer to give to you. Also, at some point, the added value of CB and MB will factor into some people's purchasing decisions. If they can't use those applications, then the value of a D&D Insider subscription goes way down to them. You've had a full year to avoid that situation with Monster Builder, and you did it exactly the same way again. If I didn't really, really, really enjoy playing and running D&D, I would literally quit playing this game, sell the stuff, return most of the product I ordered for my book store, and stop promoting the game to customers. Any other game system would have lost my loyalty by now. D&D is just severely testing it.
#2 Belorin Aug 10, 2009 0:55:47	It's not like they haven't stated that Mac (and Linux) support is something that will come along down the road. They are not a software company, considering how long it takes them to produce an app for just PC. It is something that must be endured, because it's not likely to change soon. Bel
#3 andrewja Aug 10, 2009 5:23:56	I know that Mac users are, at best, a niche market. However, as per the character builder, there are TONS of ways to make a platform agnostic application. You've had a year since the Character Builder, and, once again, WOTC chooses to make a platform specific application. I buy D&D Insider despite not being able to run CB on my Mac (natively). I use it at a player's house once a week (at most). Now, here's another application that Windows users get, that I also pay for. Thanks for continuing to make the subscription markedly less useful for Mac users than Windows users. An entire year of development, and there was no push whatsoever on making the new application available to Macs, or Linux, etc? Is the development cost for using platform agnostic tools really SO immense that the added sales potential from Mac and Linux users is irrelevant? Does every Mac and Linux user need to stop supporting WOTC with their money to be seen as important? I love D&D. I love Dragon and Dungeon. I like the Character Builder, and, once I install the Monster Builder I'll probably like it too. However, I'd PAY EXTRA to be able to use these on my home machine without buying a version of Windows I have no intention of using for any other purpose. I'd much rather give WOTC the money than Microsoft. If you'd make a platform neutral version, I'd pay more for it. As it is, I'm going to be giving SOMEONE else money that I'd prefer to give to you. Also, at some point, the added value of CB and MB will factor into some people's purchasing decisions. If they can't use those applications, then the value of a D&D Insider subscription goes way down to them. You've had a full year to avoid that situation with Monster Builder, and you did it exactly the same way again. If I didn't really, really, really enjoy playing and running D&D, I would literally quit playing this game, sell the stuff, return most of the product I ordered for my book store, and stop promoting the game to customers. Any other game system would have lost my loyalty by now. D&D is just severely testing it. I however would not like to pay more to support development costs for making the software work on a Mac or linux. I sort of get your frustration but not sure why your choice of computer should impact my wallet. Aren't there ways of running emulators or dual booting so you can run it on the Mac? Surely a little bit of inconvenience to a 'few' is much better than uping the cost to everyone.
#4 Muktar Aug 10, 2009 10:41:20	You chose to use a Mac, and you chose to get the sub knowing what platform the material is made for. Mac is more than a niche market in D&D, I would probably say it is nearly non-existant since most D&D players are other types of gamers (video gamers) and those gamers don't use Mac. So, please don't raise my cost of it because of an extremely small group of people are whining.
#5 lhotka Aug 10, 2009 11:34:58	On the contrary, Mac's are not a niche market any longer. With over 10% market share across the entire market (including business users), 50%+ in the university student population, and >50% penetration in the premium laptop market, Mac's are mainstream. Your point about gamers being on windows isn't necessarily true either - the true hard core ones I know run Linux. That being said, I just run it inside a Windows Virtual machine. It'd be nice to have a native application, but from a business standpoint, I can understand why it's not a priority. What I don't understand is why they *chose* to build on a windows-only technology platform. As the OP said, there's many ways to build an OS independent program that would have been a better choice. And on another note, it's not all that good a windows app - crashes on me all the time.
#6 midgardserpent Aug 10, 2009 13:21:04	Might as well get used to it since it's the way it is and probably the way it's going to stay. There's plenty of valid workarounds floating around suggested by mac users around here just use one. They've only got a couple developers and those developers are already working in .net which is PC only. Don't expect them to pay those developers to completely remake the apps for your niche, it's not really a viable business choice. This isn't going to change, coming back and whining about it when each component comes out won't make it any better.
#7 Muktar Aug 10, 2009 13:22:06	It has yet to crash on me. Something wrong with your system. Gamers run Linux because it is more stable then windows but even then those gamers run an emulator. Hard core gamers will either always run windows or have an emulator for windows. I would like to see your stats for universities, I have been at 2 and most do NOT have a mac.
#8 midgardserpent Aug 10, 2009 13:31:57	On the contrary, Mac's are not a niche market any longer. With over 10% market share across the entire market (including business users), 50%+ in the university student population, and >50% penetration in the premium laptop market, Mac's are mainstream. 10% is still niche, a bigger niche than before but still a niche. Your point about gamers being on windows isn't necessarily true either - the true hard core ones I know run Linux. None of the truely hardcore gamers I have ever known (including myself) have ever run Linux primarily. Many of them may use linux for other applications, but gaming on a PC is and always will be predominantly Windows. That being said, I just run it inside a Windows Virtual machine. It'd be nice to have a native application, but from a business standpoint, I can understand why it's not a priority. What I don't understand is why they *chose* to build on a windows-only technology platform. As the OP said, there's many ways to build an OS independent program that would have been a better choice. .net is a pretty appealing platform, especially for creating this sort of application with a small team. It's also likely that Hasbro/Wizards has Visual Studio .net licensed already and that the programmers already had experience with C# and VB.net. And on another note, it's not all that good a windows app - crashes on me all the time. That's why there's that big BETA thing on it you know.
#9 feyberry Aug 10, 2009 22:28:42	Buy a cheap PC. Hell, you could prolly run it on one of those new dell mini-notebooks.
#10 coppro Aug 10, 2009 23:58:00	I'm just going to warn you, the infrastructure of the DDi applications means that they cannot with any small effort make any of the present or future apps work on Mac or on Linux. This way you don't have to make a thread for something like this that the rest of us have already, begrudgingly accepted. (sorry if that comes off badly)
#11 skalgrimm Aug 11, 2009 0:02:54	I however would not like to pay more to support development costs for making the software work on a Mac or linux. I sort of get your frustration but not sure why your choice of computer should impact my wallet. Aren't there ways of running emulators or dual booting so you can run it on the Mac? Surely a little bit of inconvenience to a 'few' is much better than uping the cost to everyone. I'm not for a minute suggesting that you should be paying more. I'm saying that I would. It should be possible to have two tiered payment systems, where you would pay more to use a Mac version of the program. Ideally, I'd love to see the programs developed as a platform neutral system, but I'd be willing to pay for the convenience of using it on a Mac. As I believe I even made clear in my post, I can pay Microsoft for a version of Windows to run these programs (plus more for Windows anti-virus protection). I would prefer to spend this money with WOTC. However, I did not make it clear that I was not expecting all users to shoulder the costs. That would be undesirable.
#12 skalgrimm Aug 11, 2009 0:05:41	You chose to use a Mac, and you chose to get the sub knowing what platform the material is made for. Mac is more than a niche market in D&D, I would probably say it is nearly non-existant since most D&D players are other types of gamers (video gamers) and those gamers don't use Mac. So, please don't raise my cost of it because of an extremely small group of people are whining. First, I don't think I came across as "whining". Second, I think that I made it pretty clear that I would be willing to pay more for a version that worked on Mac. I never, at any point in my post, suggested that the base version of the application should cost more. I was suggesting that a tiered price structure exist, to allow Mac users to pay a premium to get a version which would work on their computers natively.
#13 skalgrimm Aug 11, 2009 0:13:05	Might as well get used to it since it's the way it is and probably the way it's going to stay. There's plenty of valid workarounds floating around suggested by mac users around here just use one. They've only got a couple developers and those developers are already working in .net which is PC only. Don't expect them to pay those developers to completely remake the apps for your niche, it's not really a viable business choice. This isn't going to change, coming back and whining about it when each component comes out won't make it any better. Again, I don't know how I come across as whining consistently. Do you suggest that consumers actively conceal their purchasing desires from producers? I expressed disappointment, and I made it known that I would PAY MONEY for certain things. How is telling a business what products you would purchase from them, if they offered them, not helpful? I'm going to express disappointment each time they release a program I can't use natively, just like a poster might express disappointment each time a power which is poorly written, overpowered, or underpowered is released. Do you expect people to complain about the first time an error is made, and then never complain about subsequent, different errors? (Please note that I am not claiming that it was an error not to release this on the Mac. I am just expressing my desire that they would do so, and my willingness to purchase such a product--on the producer's own forums, no less).
#14 skalgrimm Aug 11, 2009 0:20:34	.net is a pretty appealing platform, especially for creating this sort of application with a small team. It's also likely that Hasbro/Wizards has Visual Studio .net licensed already and that the programmers already had experience with C# and VB.net. I don't doubt that. I believe, but my search-fu is weak at the moment, that one of the programmers even said that the decision to use .net was due to original (very short) time, learning, and budget constraints. However, it has also been remarked that even within WOTC there were many Mac users who would like to have had a native or platform neutral version. In addition, the Monster Builder was released well after Character Builder. Thus, I had hoped that perhaps the original time constraints might not have applied, since they had an additional year from the CB release. I'm just curious as to why so many people have posted on a discussion forum to tell me to stop whining and stop expressing my opinion on this. If NO ONE at all expressed any interest in having a Mac version of the CB or MB, then there would be no reason for WOTC to think about doing them. If, on the other hand, a substantial number of people expressed interest in purchasing such programs, that would encourage WOTC to consider making them. If I (and any other mac users) would like WOTC to make mac versions of these programs, isn't communicating that to WOTC (perhaps even via their own forum) the thing we should do?
#15 gregt_314 Aug 11, 2009 0:25:17	Would it be a better world if the CB and Monster Builder ran on Macs and Linux? Probably. Is it complain-worthy that it's not? No. I don't complain that I can't run them on my XBox, PSP or Wii. The mere fact that Macs have historically considered themselves a direct competitor of the PC doesn't entitle them to any sort of special treatment as a platform of second resort. You've already got a leg up in that your platform is able to run a Windows emulator with relatively minimal fuss. I mean, you should totally keep asking for a Mac version. Customers vocally stating what they want is the way that companies know what products to make. I just think it's wrong to feel any sense of entitlement, or to suggest that Wizards has in some way failed by not catering to you.
#16 dalzig Aug 11, 2009 0:50:14	In addition, the Monster Builder was released well after Character Builder. Thus, I had hoped that perhaps the original time constraints might not have applied, since they had an additional year from the CB release. Yes, but they spent that time on doing new stuff. The Monster Builder reuses some stuff from the Character Builder, so it is inherently going to have the same platform restrictions as the Character Builder. Seriously. The Adventure Tools updater is called "CharacterBuilderUpdater.exe" and "RealCharacterBuilderUpdater.exe". So someone obviously noticed "Hey, we already did this before! Let's not waste time on remaking stuff we already have and use this stuff."
#17 bholdr_mage Aug 12, 2009 19:13:25	I have a good friend that is a mac guy, and he has an application that allows windows on his machine. I'm not a computer person at all really; I can figure stuff out after playing with it, but I know certain software. If anyone wants to know more about that, I'm sure I can contact him to figure out what he does to use windows on his mac.
#18 midgardserpent Aug 12, 2009 20:02:20	What I think it really boils down to is the cost of developing a native app versus the benefit in potential customers. The costs are very high since they would have to hire more programmers to design the same programs in a different programming language and development environment and then maintain both versions of the applications which means tracking totally different sets of bugs. The potential gains are fairly slim since they are composed of a subset of the potential and existing D&D fanbase who use only a Mac but are either unable or unwilling to use VM software on their computer. It would be a terrible move that would threaten the success of the future applications that their currently paying fan base are eagerly awaiting. Selecting a development platform is a big choice for a company engaging in a software experiment the way Wizards is with DDi. It's not the kind of thing you can afford to second guess and change halfway down the line and expect your project to ever work properly or please any customers. As a currently paying customer I don't want them to pay any real attention to the mac minority and diverted any resources away from the upcoming applications to remake existing apps. It's pretty easy to see that they won't be making any of the current or upcoming applications in any other flavors than windows native. You might not be happy about this but you should at least accept it for the way it is. Continuing to complain even after you realize something is not going to change constitutes whining in my book.
#19 Bargle0 Aug 12, 2009 23:14:56	A horse died. We beat its corpse until nothing was left but a stain on the earth. That stain fed a blade of grass, which grew until it fed another horse, in turn. The second horse is dead, and now we are again beating a dead horse.
#20 calronmoonflower Aug 13, 2009 2:15:21	i just happened across this thread, so I might not respond further. There are emulsifier programs that allow the use of PC software on Macs. Using one of those would allow to the of PC only Apps on a Mac.
#21 DanBackslide Aug 14, 2009 0:56:06	OK, I'll bounce the rubble... I'm a die-hard Mac guy, and I too am disappointed that CB and MB aren't cross-platform. But that isn't stopping me from running them under VMware. They work fine in a VM, and the tools are just too darn useful to get all that worked up about. I'd love it if CB, MB and whatever other tools come along were ported to the Mac, but for now I'd rather the devs focused on making quality tools.
#22 CorrinAvatan Aug 14, 2009 22:27:41	As someone who uses a mac exclusively: WHY ARE YOU COMPLAINING? Hate to say it, but if you choose a mac, you should KNOW that you're going to be put in situations where the software that looks all nice and shiny on the other OS will not work for you. I have an Xbox 360. I had to shell out $20 for a program to be able to stream my pictures/movies/whatever from my mac to my xbox, which I wouldn't have had to do if I choose a mac. Does it suck that they didn't make it mac accessable? Sure. However, as it was pointed out before: WotC is not a software company. If they were, they wouldn't have started programming the Visualizer without realizing they didn't have rights to the code that they were using, and the programs would be churning out faster. While there are many ways to make a program that is OS agnostic, fact of the matter is that you need people who are specialized, and then you need to develop, program, and TEST it on even MORE systems, either delaying the product even MORE, or making it even MORE expensive because you have to hire more programmers to write/test everything in the same amount of time. Sorry for the rant, but I kinda get upset when people who choose macs get all upset because software they want doesn't conveniently get programmed for roughly 6-8% of the computing market. Again, it comes down to a choice YOU made, and that YOU are partially responsible for. ---- Mac owner of 10 years, running Parallels precisely because I don't want to complain like the OP about how horrible it is that nobody appreciates mac enough
#23 skalgrimm Aug 15, 2009 21:36:31	i just happened across this thread, so I might not respond further. There are emulsifier programs that allow the use of PC software on Macs. Using one of those would allow to the of PC only Apps on a Mac. Best typo ever. :D I am aware of emulator programs. I would prefer to be able to give WOTC more money than pay another two companies (the emulator company and Microsoft) money, since I would be ONLY buying their products to use another product. Again, the reason I posted this was because one of the original developers of CB stated that the .net framework was chosen, in effect, due to original time and money constraints, and not due to any particular decision to marginalize Mac users, or any particular difficulty in making a platform agnostic program. I had hoped that, given the additional time available, and the additional resources available (especially since the Game Table and Character Visualizer were shelved or postponed), that it might have been possible to create a platform agnostic program for the Monster Builder, porting over the raw data from the CB. Given that a subscription to DDi costs money, and that the CB is widely regarded as very useful (and the monster builder looks to be as well), I would have thought that WOTC might have viewed making these programs available for a wider audience might increase the sales of their subscription. It would appear that at least some potential subscribers are not subscribing due to this issue. In addition, if, in the future, access to Dragon and Dungeon is disentangled from access to the CB and MB, those subscribers who don't run such programs may well opt for a less expensive subscription, both hurting WOTC financially, and reducing their budget for maintenance of CB and MB (since they are currently being subsidized by subscribers who don't use them as well as those who do). As I have stated repeatedly, I wanted to convey the message that I would like to see MB on the Mac natively, and that I was willing to pay a premium for that. As I started the thread to do just that, I was evidently unaware that people who dislike or are tired of such threads are actually required to read them and respond. It had previously been my supposition that threads of no interest to me could simply be ignored. Perhaps others could also endeavor to post no thread which is not of interest to me, so that I am not forced to expend the herculean effort of not reading them. I also was unaware that the forums do not allow anyone to post a negative comment. I must have misread the hundreds of other threads which appeared to feature users posting negative reactions to various rules, scenarios, adventures, books, and WOTC decisions. I had believed these to be expressing negative sentiments, but, since complaining appears to be startling and upsetting, I must have been mistaken. I would like to thank all the people who pointed this out to me, and thank them in advance for not posting at all about things that they dislike, such as others whining about Macs.:P
#24 akodoreign Aug 16, 2009 13:45:04	Thread should read No OSX support because a modern mac is just an over priced PC, you can run windows fine on the base hardware of it.
#25 calronmoonflower Aug 16, 2009 15:08:04	Best typo ever. :D DAMN YOU SPELL CHECK. DAMN YOU TO HELLL!!! :embarrass Anyway porting a tool from one format to another costs money and takes up man power. The result of porting these tools over is less resources to spend on making new tools.
#26 lokiare Aug 16, 2009 17:31:23	What I think it really boils down to is the cost of developing a native app versus the benefit in potential customers. The costs are very high since they would have to hire more programmers to design the same programs in a different programming language and development environment and then maintain both versions of the applications which means tracking totally different sets of bugs. The potential gains are fairly slim since they are composed of a subset of the potential and existing D&D fanbase who use only a Mac but are either unable or unwilling to use VM software on their computer. It would be a terrible move that would threaten the success of the future applications that their currently paying fan base are eagerly awaiting. Selecting a development platform is a big choice for a company engaging in a software experiment the way Wizards is with DDi. It's not the kind of thing you can afford to second guess and change halfway down the line and expect your project to ever work properly or please any customers. As a currently paying customer I don't want them to pay any real attention to the mac minority and diverted any resources away from the upcoming applications to remake existing apps. It's pretty easy to see that they won't be making any of the current or upcoming applications in any other flavors than windows native. You might not be happy about this but you should at least accept it for the way it is. Continuing to complain even after you realize something is not going to change constitutes whining in my book. When I see posts like this I can understand why WotC was mislead into believing it to be difficult to create a cross-platform application. Seriously if you start designing it at the beginning with multiple platforms in mind, then there is no reason financial or otherwise to not make it multi-platform. Now the CB is already out and wasn't designed to be changed. I can see the problem of porting it and the costs involved. On the other hand I'm assuming they had a much longer time with the MB and ATs. Because of this if they had designed it with multi-platform compatibility in mind, there would have been little or no cost or time involved in porting it. I suggest the developers look up multi-platform design on Google and see how really easy it is to do. We are talking from inception to market costing only 5-20% more in time and money depending on what you use as your abstraction layer/engine. SDL is an example of a very useful cross platform engine. There are even entire API's that are cross platform that will create the exact same thing on multiple platforms. Some of them are even free. With the proper design and methods it doesn't cost very much at all to go cross-platform. That's without even looking at things like web based solutions that always run on multi-platforms. So really even though I am a windows user through and through I'm with the OP on this one, sure the CB was a problem, but this is just getting inexcusable.
#27 Dane_McArdy Aug 16, 2009 18:09:33	When I see posts like this I can understand why WotC was mislead into believing it to be difficult to create a cross-platform application. Only, it's been shown that wasn't why they didn't go that route, and the link and quote have been given to you over and over. They weren't mislead into thinking it would be to hard.
#28 dfp222 Aug 16, 2009 20:22:30	just pick up a copy of xp or vista or something. heck, i bet you can find more use for it than just the wotc software. I have a macbook and run vista and it's really not that bad (considering the flak vista gets). Runs extremely well on my macbook.
#29 mudbunny Aug 16, 2009 22:21:16	When I see posts like this I can understand why WotC was mislead into believing it to be difficult to create a cross-platform application. Seriously if you start designing it at the beginning with multiple platforms in mind, then there is no reason financial or otherwise to not make it multi-platform. le sigh And once again to the quote file... I would have love to have done a mac version. I have a mac. I also have an iphone. When I originally joined the project though I was given a 6 month time frame to full release, 3 months to beta, and by the way, that includes the time I could spend hiring a staff. Staff was, fortunately, hired in short order, and I was lucky to get some great people on the team. With the short schedule though we were making decisions between releasing it as a web app, or perhaps winforms. We mocked up a web app and it wasn't responsive enough, we mocked up a winforms prototype, and it was slow and lacked the ability to do all the things we wanted to do so we ported to WPF which set us back a week but was so worth it. We were able to do more things, have better control of the UI and development time was very fast. Given the short schedule that we had it wouldn't have been reasonable to make a multi-platform version. Once we were done with the initial build I did cost out what it would take to make a mac version, as I think it is short sighted not to make one. The problem being that Wizards just doesn't have enough mac customers yet. They would need something like 10 times as many in order for it to break even, and that's not counting the fact that the majority of mac users can run windows apps in some sort of vm setup. It's also entirely possible that by the time there are enough mac customers there will also be either native osx support for wpf, or some sort of rapid development tool for mac/iphone that could be trivially ported too. It's also possible that with the coming release of windows7 that XP will drop in price so much that it doesn't make sense not to have a copy running in a vm with your mac.
#30 lokiare Aug 16, 2009 23:16:02	le sigh And once again to the quote file... And once again you didn't seem to read my entire post. I give that the CB was made on a tight schedule. The monster builder however had much more time, and they didn't have to follow the same design as the CB. therefore that post doesn't really apply to what I said.
#31 lokiare Aug 16, 2009 23:17:37	Only, it's been shown that wasn't why they didn't go that route, and the link and quote have been given to you over and over. They weren't mislead into thinking it would be to hard. Actually, if there excuse is that it will take a lot of extra time, or a lot of extra resources they are wrong, unless of course they are locked into a contract to use .Net 2003 or whatever. Really it takes a tiny amount of extra effort and time to do it at the beginning.
#32 Dane_McArdy Aug 17, 2009 11:40:23	Actually, if there excuse is that it will take a lot of extra time, or a lot of extra resources they are wrong, unless of course they are locked into a contract to use .Net 2003 or whatever. Really it takes a tiny amount of extra effort and time to do it at the beginning. That wasn't their excuse. The reason was that it wasn't worth the cost, because the revenue from Mac customers wouldn't even cover the cost. Meaning, they had the time, they had the resources, they had the money. What they didn't have was enough customers using MACs, before they started this. Not after, where mac using customers could simply run a emulator. Why is that so hard to understand?
#33 lokiare Aug 17, 2009 16:41:35	That wasn't their excuse. The reason was that it wasn't worth the cost, because the revenue from Mac customers wouldn't even cover the cost. Meaning, they had the time, they had the resources, they had the money. What they didn't have was enough customers using MACs, before they started this. Not after, where mac using customers could simply run a emulator. Why is that so hard to understand? It's not. That's acknowledged for the CB, however this issue came up after the CB, but before they even knew which AT they were going to do first (MB). Thus they had plenty of time to plan it from the beginning of the MB to do it cross platform. Doing it from the planning stage would have cost almost nothing more than doing a plain windows version. Heck they could have even just made the windows version and designed it to be ported easily, and done that later on down the road. As of now.
#34 GMforPowergamers Aug 17, 2009 19:22:43	Mac support is not worth the money... when I was taking a buisness class many many years ago it was explained to me as % retuern... If I spend $100 to make $200 profit (Yes profit over cost) or I can spend $125 to make $205 profit or I can spend $150 to make $207 profit witch is the best use of the money...well Years ago in that class I said C...spend 150 make 207 profit...I was told not really. you see in A I made 2$ profit (over cost) per dollor invested...in B and C that drops...the best use of my money is A...the largest out for the smallest in... the reason is time... lets say it is a year investment...1 year of $100 tied up gives me $50 to put elsewhere...hopefuly at a better retuenr...
#35 Herrozerro Aug 17, 2009 19:43:56	It's not. That's acknowledged for the CB, however this issue came up after the CB, but before they even knew which AT they were going to do first (MB). Thus they had plenty of time to plan it from the beginning of the MB to do it cross platform. Doing it from the planning stage would have cost almost nothing more than doing a plain windows version. Heck they could have even just made the windows version and designed it to be ported easily, and done that later on down the road. As of now. you assume that MB and specifically AT is separate then CB. I believe its the opposite it is gonig to rill in all the apps together. So saying "Its a new app they could start a new platform" is invalid. Because MB is probably build upon the CB base because its going to all roll together.
#36 dalzig Aug 17, 2009 21:38:58	The Adventure Tools' updater program is called "CharacterBuilderUpdater.exe"... Now, could they have chosen to replicate work already done and make the AT on a new platform? Sure. But they didn't, presumably to save time (thus money) on bringing out the AT.
#37 lokiare Aug 17, 2009 21:44:06	you assume that MB and specifically AT is separate then CB. I believe its the opposite it is gonig to rill in all the apps together. So saying "Its a new app they could start a new platform" is invalid. Because MB is probably build upon the CB base because its going to all roll together. While the apps might work together I believe based on my experiences that it will be more along the lines of each app opening the output of the other apps. As in the combat tracker opening the output files for the CB and MB. the campaign mapper or encounter builder opening each others files or something along those lines. Since this is the most likely case, it would not affect being cross-platform. It is as simple as reading XML which any platform can do. Also its a misconception to assume that you are starting a new platform. Its more like building in the ability to separate what the app does from the platform its on, then just matching up an API on both platforms. It adds negligible time and effort to the actual work.
#38 lokiare Aug 17, 2009 22:00:12	The Adventure Tools' updater program is called "CharacterBuilderUpdater.exe"... Now, could they have chosen to replicate work already done and make the AT on a new platform? Sure. But they didn't, presumably to save time (thus money) on bringing out the AT. There's another misconception. The code that does the calculating is a matter of copy and pasting. The only work that needs to be done is matching an API that will work on the other platform. It works like this: Code that does the program specific things like calculating AC, and the attack roll and things of that nature sit at the top and make no platform or API specific calls. They make calls to a middle layer called the abstraction layer. The abstraction layer then makes calls to a specific API on a specific platform. This API can be changed out with a minimal rewrite of the abstraction layer to make calls to the new API. In most cases this is a simple find and replace job like 'find "createMSWindow()" replace with "createMacWindow()"' of course those functions don't really exist, but the idea is there. In the rare case that there is something that doesn't directly translate you can usually get it to do what you want it to do with a few extra lines of code. In situations like a Microsoft window control versus a Mac window control really most calls will have a direct mirror on the other API. So like I said if you start with a cross-platform design there is very little extra time or money spent, and the amount of profit is maximized. Of course if they can't do it because they are making all of the programs in .Net because they want them to plug and play into each other, then there is nothing they can do. This is very unlikely and very amateurish, so I don't think they would be doing it that way.
#39 GMforPowergamers Aug 17, 2009 22:22:32	So like I said if you start with a cross-platform design there is very little extra time or money spent, and the amount of profit is maximized. Mr brown (My old buisness teacher) would have some diffrent thoughts on maximized... see every $ spent is an investment...if you can invest 5 to get 20, or 6 to get 21, 0r 10 to get 23...the maximized bet in buisness is 5 to 20...then to take the other 5 (fromt he 10 example) and find anything that is better then spend 10 to get 13...and you are ahead of the game...
#40 noman Aug 17, 2009 22:49:06	Lokiare: Sure, it's possible to create cross-platform software, and there are several ways of doing it. The question isn't whether it's possible, but whether such a solution fit into time frame, assets, skills, experience, tools, costs, goals, advantages, disadvantages, and all other considerations. Obviously it wasn't a good fit. If it was always trivial to implement, with only advantages and no disadvantages, they would have done it, right? Your insistence that you know how their development process should and does work arrogant, short-sighted, and naive. They aren't out to screw over Mac users. It would be nice if there was a Mac and Linux version. However, it didn't work out that way. No amount of second-guessing and vicarious development on your part is going to change that until it becomes reasonable for them to do so. In the meantime, it's best to use one of several solutions mentioned.
#41 dalzig Aug 18, 2009 0:00:10	So like I said if you start with a cross-platform design there is very little extra time or money spent, and the amount of profit is maximized. Yes, we know. You've said this a million times. However, we do not possess a time machine to go back in time and make them start with a cross-platform design. They are already grandfathered into the .NET platform. That is how they have their code. That is where their current expertise is. If they decided now (we are talking about the present, not the past) to change to an abstraction layer (or whatever), then whatever little progress they have would come to a grinding halt. This is not the start. The start was a couple years ago. Each new tool doesn't count as a new start.
#42 lokiare Aug 18, 2009 1:29:05	Lokiare: Sure, it's possible to create cross-platform software, and there are several ways of doing it. The question isn't whether it's possible, but whether such a solution fit into time frame, assets, skills, experience, tools, costs, goals, advantages, disadvantages, and all other considerations. Obviously it wasn't a good fit. If it was always trivial to implement, with only advantages and no disadvantages, they would have done it, right? Your insistence that you know how their development process should and does work arrogant, short-sighted, and naive. They aren't out to screw over Mac users. It would be nice if there was a Mac and Linux version. However, it didn't work out that way. No amount of second-guessing and vicarious development on your part is going to change that until it becomes reasonable for them to do so. In the meantime, it's best to use one of several solutions mentioned. Not, necessarily. After they realized that the CB was rushed, they should have gotten more time (which they had almost a year, so time wasn't the issue). They could have gone with .Net for the windows version, and added an abstraction layer and went with whatever for Mac. I don't buy the whole "they didn't start over argument". If they are using rapid development techniques as they have said they are doing, then 99% of the code they create is not re-usable. Rapid development is purely for speed, it throws all other considerations to the wind. Not to mention there is almost no functionality carried over from the CB to the MB. It's a completely different program with completely different controls and processes. In other words they pretty much had to start over to make the MB. About the only code that could be re-used would be the program that was used to update the software and all that does is check a web address for new files and download them. That would have been trivial to port over to Mac. The advantage of making one application cross-platform is that you can re-use the API's and the abstraction layer for future projects of a similar nature. So if they would have gone ahead and started over for the MB, they could have re-used the abstraction layer for the other 4 ATs with zero cost. Once again though, they decided to not put forth the tiny bit of effort it would have taken to make the program cross-platform. So once again they are going to miss out on the profitability of all the Mac users that just won't subscribe because they are being shunted out. Now you can argue that they can be emulated, but there are many annoyances and problems with emulating as has been discussed in many other threads. Suffice it to say that there are many D&D Mac users that will either cancel their subscription or not get a subscription to DDI because of the shortsighted views held by the team that planned this. It may not even be the developers. It might be some middle manager somewhere that just didn't know there was a quick and easy way to make it work on multiple platforms, and made a snap decision. I don't care. To me this is just another way that WotC and Hasbro shows that the only thing they care about is making a buck. Which means I will continue to pass their products over until such time as they start showing some loyalty and common sense to their customers.
#43 Herrozerro Aug 18, 2009 7:58:17	Wall of text of how it should be. In an optimized world sure, that would work. Continually improving and expanding if its as easy as you say it should be. But there are several limiting factors that can limit development Programmers are embedded in .net trying to push out on a schedule. (I have personal experience with this one. Where I work we use a SQL backend and MS access as the front end. Why? We have experience in other areas but the reason why we stick to it is because its familiar and we dont have the time to switch to anything because the workload wont let any major development happen.) Research might have suggested that the windows market was the easiest and most profitable for the time put in. All of these factors have a more "real world" feel then the "perfect world" feel of yours, sure it could be better but it's not.
#44 lokiare Aug 18, 2009 11:13:10	In an optimized world sure, that would work. Continually improving and expanding if its as easy as you say it should be. But there are several limiting factors that can limit development Programmers are embedded in .net I'm not talking about improving and expanding. Sure there are several limiting factors to development, corporate greed and a lack of knowledge. trying to push out on a schedule. (I have personal experience with this one. Where I work we use a SQL backend and MS access as the front end. Why? We have experience in other areas but the reason why we stick to it is because its familiar and we dont have the time to switch to anything because the workload wont let any major development happen.) Research might have suggested that the windows market was the easiest and most profitable for the time put in. All of these factors have a more "real world" feel then the "perfect world" feel of yours, sure it could be better but it's not. If you want to switch to another back-end or front-end why not work up a presentation that shows how much more profitable it would be to implement the new front/back-end. Then get a meeting with the managers of the company and show them the presentation. I'm sure if they believe you that they will make more money, they will find a way to switch. Now as to the developers being entrenched in .Net, that's plainly absurd. Look up what .Net is. Its an underlying framework that lies between the programing language and the compiler. Basically they still use all the same function calls and whatever and the compiler makes it .Net. Now maybe you are talking about the API they are using. In this case its a matter of them having a 1 hour a day class for a week or two on another API possibly one for Mac. Then they won't be as entrenched. Also if they implement the abstraction layer between the actual program code and the API, they won't have to worry about being entrenched because they will never make a direct API call after the first application is put out. Seriously if you are a programmer google 'cross-platform design' and see what comes up it will explain it better than I can.
#45 lokiare Aug 27, 2009 22:01:44	Just getting notified when this thread changes.
#46 phimitchell12 Aug 28, 2009 12:23:26	Hopefully these boards are being read by the WOTC folks. I am a mac user. Half of my gaming friends are mac users (penetration of mac users among gamers must be higher than normal) and I'd like to access the tools on my mac. "In the works" is good enough for me - just want to raise my hand and be counted.
#47 lokiare Aug 29, 2009 18:08:30	Hopefully these boards are being read by the WOTC folks. I am a mac user. Half of my gaming friends are mac users (penetration of mac users among gamers must be higher than normal) and I'd like to access the tools on my mac. "In the works" is good enough for me - just want to raise my hand and be counted. [sarcasm]I'm sorry, but counting is against the CoC or ToU or whatever it is now. Please don't count on these forums as real numbers might confuse the fanbase into thinking WotC is doing this on purpose, instead of on accident which is the general consent.[/sarcasm]
#48 lokiare Sep 04, 2009 12:03:41	Apparently you can have polls on your blog, so I set up a poll to count the number of Mac and other platform users to give WotC an idea of how many want the Tools ported to another platform. You can find it here: community.wizards.com/lokiare/blog/2009/...
#49 marlett Sep 08, 2009 16:26:12	A half-assed job is never one to be proud of.  I know it's not the dev team's fault - they didn't make the schedule, but it doesn't make it right.   There are far too many low and no cost options to either port the app as is, or make it cross-platform natively.   It costs less in the long run to do something right, and the WotC accountants should take a hard look at the sustainability of the model they are running now.
#50 Sarlax Sep 08, 2009 17:03:05	First, people ought to stop throwing numbers around as much as they have been. Sure, maybe everyone you game with owns a PC, or half own Macs, etc. It doesn't matter. All that matters is the number of MAC owners with the cash but not the will to get DDI running in an emulated environment. I really have no idea, but I suspect that this number is pretty low. I'll try to explain why without depending too much on anecdotal (non)evidence. Someone threw out 10% as the number of people who own Macs. I don't know how accurate that is, but I expect it's in the ballpark. What we don't know is how many of those people are playing D&D and how many of those D&D-playing Mac users can't or don't use emulators. I'll confess that I'm a PC user and I don't want to research this (I'm not getting paid or graded) too much, but why can't Mac users run DDI software in an emulated environment? I understand it's not ideal, but the DDI tools are not the kind of thing that that you need to be running all of the time - it's not as bad as email software needing to be emulated. The character builder really only needs to run once in a while - when you level, for instance. I'm pretty sure this is what WoTC is asking, too. When development was just about to begin, I'm sure someone said, "What about Mac users?" to which another person replied, "It's already going to be hard enough to make this for Windows, Mac users can just emulate it." This isn't an unreasonable assumption. Several others have mentioned the intersection between D&D gamers and video gamers (lots of us do both). If you're the kind of person who plays D&D, wants DDI, and owns a Mac, you're probably also already used to emulating to run Windows software.  The number of Mac users who can't/won't use emulators but otherwise would be paying for DDI is probably a very small portion of the potential DDI market. *** Anyway, aren't you Mac users used to this? To me this seems like buying a helicopter and then getting upset that your grocery store doesn't have a helipad on the roof. Yes, it would have been possible to include one when the store was first designed, and you are a paying customer. But how many people are trying to fly helicopters to get groceries?
#51 Herrozerro Sep 09, 2009 8:33:13	Anyway, aren't you Mac users used to this? To me this seems like buying a helicopter and then getting upset that your grocery store doesn't have a helipad on the roof. Yes, it would have been possible to include one when the store was first designed, and you are a paying customer. But how many people are trying to fly helicopters to get groceries? +1 This will be my new Signature.
#52 gloom_of_the_night Sep 10, 2009 10:56:21	Not sure if this was mentioned in this PC/Mac flame-war, but Java runs on both PC and Macs.  Maptools (RPTools.net) is a great example of a crossplatform, independently devloped software for roleplaying online. Was anyone around when 3.5e was released and Wizards made the EXACT same mistake of releasing software late and only for PC?  I do.
#53 mudbunny Sep 10, 2009 11:45:47	This is from one of the (ex)-devs (elf) on DDI and macs: I would have love to have done a mac version. I have a mac. I also have an iphone. When I originally joined the project though I was given a 6 month time frame to full release, 3 months to beta, and by the way, that includes the time I could spend hiring a staff. Staff was, fortunately, hired in short order, and I was lucky to get some great people on the team. With the short schedule though we were making decisions between releasing it as a web app, or perhaps winforms. We mocked up a web app and it wasn't responsive enough, we mocked up a winforms prototype, and it was slow and lacked the ability to do all the things we wanted to do so we ported to WPF which set us back a week but was so worth it. We were able to do more things, have better control of the UI and development time was very fast. Given the short schedule that we had it wouldn't have been reasonable to make a multi-platform version. Once we were done with the initial build I did cost out what it would take to make a mac version, as I think it is short sighted not to make one. The problem being that Wizards just doesn't have enough mac customers yet. They would need something like 10 times as many in order for it to break even, and that's not counting the fact that the majority of mac users can run windows apps in some sort of vm setup. It's also entirely possible that by the time there are enough mac customers there will also be either native osx support for wpf, or some sort of rapid development tool for mac/iphone that could be trivially ported too. It's also possible that with the coming release of windows7 that XP will drop in price so much that it doesn't make sense not to have a copy running in a vm with your mac.
#54 gloom_of_the_night Sep 10, 2009 13:23:24	This is from one of the (ex)-devs (elf) on DDI and macs: I would have love to have done a mac version. I have a mac. I also have an iphone. Given the short schedule that we had it wouldn't have been reasonable to make a multi-platform version. Once we were done with the initial build I did cost out what it would take to make a mac version, as I think it is short sighted not to make one. Exactly.  Wizards 1) didn't give enough time for development and 2) doesn't want to "waste" on Mac users Honestly though, all of this could be EASILY solved, by making the database public by way of an API and letting the code go OpenSource, but oh wait, DDI is a subscription...