Did anyone bother to take a (at least) one year old computer and try to download the beta program onto it to test the user friendliness of the program?
Obivously not. Otherwise they would have known that we, the users and buyers, would have had to download an outside program to get the beta version to work. Remember, we are paying for this beta version. Again very poor marketing and planning on the part of WotC.
I hope that this is not a preview of things to come, or my and others money will be a wasted effort for a worthless product.
Please, I beg you, get your act together. If people are going to pay for something, we expect ease and sophistication. Complication and headaches are not part of the bargain or the payment price.
Remember, in sales, the customer is always right, whether you disagree or not. Just by looking at the number of posts connected to problems downloading (not just using) this program, a significant number of customers are not having an easy time. Get your act together.
I'm working off of a computer at least 3 years old here, and have had no problems on my end. Is there an issue downloading the program? Installing it? Running it?
If the issue is with the .NET framework, I can understand your frustration. During my first couple attempts of program installation, it froze quite readily. It seemed fine after I let it simply have a bit of time to itself, though, so patience is a factor. It is also a good idea to have up-to-date .NET files anyway, providing you with ease of use for future products related to any of the .NET programs.
All I can suggest is look for the solutions in the other threads to see if your problem stems from there and work with them :/ Betas can be pretty nasty at times and I'm sure Wizards did not expect the initial setup to be a problem. I'm also certain they were working on it the moment the first thread popped up explaining the problem.
Best of luck with your problem.
-Khelben
You... ARE familiar with what a "beta" is... yes? ;)
I'm working off of a computer at least 3 years old here, and have had no problems on my end. Is there an issue downloading the program? Installing it? Running it?
If the issue is with the .NET framework, I can understand your frustration. During my first couple attempts of program installation, it froze quite readily. It seemed fine after I let it simply have a bit of time to itself, though, so patience is a factor. It is also a good idea to have up-to-date .NET files anyway, providing you with ease of use for future products related to any of the .NET programs.
All I can suggest is look for the solutions in the other threads to see if your problem stems from there and work with them :/ Betas can be pretty nasty at times and I'm sure Wizards did not expect the initial setup to be a problem. I'm also certain they were working on it the moment the first thread popped up explaining the problem.
Best of luck with your problem.
Remember, that we are paying for this "beta" addition. Thus, it is not really a "beta" addition. This is also a sort of "foreshadowing" of things to come. So far, I have not been impressed with the sort of software of product that WotC has generated.
I have gotten this product to work. I am satisfied with the way that has happened. No not at all. WotC should have identified this problem up front.
I hope to all that is holy that WotC can get its stuff together when it comes to releasing the "real" programs. Although, we all know that will, in reality, not be the case.
It is altogether unreasonable to expect "closed beta" to mean the same thing as "gold". The purpose of a beta version is to work out the inevitable bugs that arise in software development. As human beings are not infallible automata, there's no way to build a thing like this by committee and not make mistakes.
Having access to a beta is not exactly a "perk" unless, like me, you enjoy suffering. If you're really in a lather about it, I suggest you just ignore it (as the other 99.99% of D&D players in the world have) until the gold version comes out. There'll likely be plenty of nits to pick, still.
P.S. I had the damned ".NET" hangup, too. Took me nearly an hour to get the thing running.
Remember, that we are paying for this "beta" addition. Thus, it is not really a "beta" addition.
"Beta" does not mean "free." This is really a beta. If you're going to participate, you must expect problems to occur. It is by definition unfinished software. I sympathize with your frustrations - it took me an hour and a half to get it to work - but you knew what you were getting into.
To quote Dictionary.com (as it seems to have the closest, most complete definition out there):
/bay't*/, /be't*/ or (Commonwealth) /bee't*/ n.
1. Mostly working, but still under test; usu. used with `in': `in beta'. In the Real World, systems (hardware or software) software often go through two stages of release testing: Alpha (in-house) and Beta (out-house?). Beta releases are generally made to a group of lucky (or unlucky) trusted customers.
I appreciate the effort that WotC is putting forth and their trust placed upon us to help them with this product that will, one day, be PART of a subscription plan and WILL be solely charged for (or, at the very least, be considered such a strong aspect of a subscription that it merits the increase in price). Bugs will inevitably arise and this IS one of the bigger ones. Let's tell them about it so it can be fixed before the 1.0 release.
Did anyone bother to take a (at least) one year old computer and try to download the beta program onto it to test the user friendliness of the program?
I have it running on a PC that I built around the time Win XP SP1 was released making it six years old and it runs ok.
Obviously not. Otherwise they would have known that we, the users and buyers, would have had to download an outside program to get the beta version to work.
A certain office suite freely available to download never used to be supplied with the Java RTE needed for all features to work so you have to download separately if you did not already have it installed. A lot of software is built using third party frameworks and technologies and not all are supplied with a one-stop installer that checks if prerequisite technologies are installed and installs them if not. In the case of the CB installer an attempt is made to downloaded and install the required version of .net. Unfortunately installers do not always play nicely but is that the fault of WotC or a third party supplier?
Remember, we are paying for this beta version. Again very poor marketing and planning on the part of WotC.
You are paying for the two on-line publications Dragon & Dungeon. As a result you have the privilege of accessing the CB before non subscribers. This is not poor marketing as it demonstrates that WotC value the opinions of their customer base and are keen to develop tools and products that meet our needs. Now a beta is never going to be perfect that is why we are testing it. It is very frustrating that people have been slating WotC for not releasing the beta earlier and now they have it, a beta version, they slate it for not being perfect.
Remember, in sales, the customer is always right, whether you disagree or not.
This is completely false, the customer can be wrong, and a lot of the time they are but companies cave in to consumer demands to maintain good PR!
And no I do not work for WotC!
And yes applause for WotC, keep up the good work both with 4E and the CB.
Remember, that we are paying for this "beta" addition. Thus, it is not really a "beta" addition. This is also a sort of "foreshadowing" of things to come. So far, I have not been impressed with the sort of software of product that WotC has generated.
Incorrect.
You are paying for a DDI subscription to the magazines, to the Compendium, and to the Bonus Tools.
You are being given early access to the builder as a thank you. It is not part of what you're paying for.
As proof in point, I know of two people who are in the Beta right now because they signed up at DDXP, but they are not DDI subscribers.
I have gotten this product to work. I am satisfied with the way that has happened. No not at all. WotC should have identified this problem up front.
I hope to all that is holy that WotC can get its stuff together when it comes to releasing the "real" programs. Although, we all know that will, in reality, not be the case.
WotC is not responsible for, nor able to change how Microsoft's .NET 3.5 SP1 Framework installer works. If you have suggestions on how to improve the process, I'm sure they'd love to hear them.
Just saying "well, it doesn't work, WotC sucks" helps nobody.
Remember, in sales, the customer is always right, whether you disagree or not.
This is completely false, the customer can be wrong, and a lot of the time they are but companies cave in to consumer demands to maintain good PR!
Actually, he's kind of right. In my experience salesmen will almost always practice "the customer is always" right. However, when the customer actually buys the product it's then up to customer support to occasionally politely explain that the customer is wrong ;)
And yes applause for WotC, keep up the good work both with 4E and the CB.
Ditto that. I'm very impressed with where the beta CB is right now. I was honestly expecting something more buggy.
dnd front page:
beta test the character builder
subscribe now for only 4.95
help shape the game
ddi front page:
peek behind the screen [...]
gain access to the character builder closed beta [...]
level up your characters and campaigns-
subscribe now
cb-page
Subscribe Now to Download the Character Builder Beta.
====
what they are doing is ADVERTISING with the cb beta to JOIN the ddi.
Remember, in sales, the customer is always right, whether you disagree or not. Just by looking at the number of posts connected to problems downloading (not just using) this program, a significant number of customers are not having an easy time. Get your act together.
Here's the part where I lol'd. "The customer is always right" is business policy -- sort of like an attitude, not a law. It's also a handy indicator of someone that should be escorted out and barred from the premises because they'll never be satisfied and will just waste your time.
I'm one of the folks that was able to download and install but not actually run the app. While I agree this doesn't bode well given the checkered past of the company, I'm not distraught. They'll fix it and I'll be able to check it out, or they won't fix it and I won't. There are plenty of other options for printing up character sheets available for free online. I didn't subscribe just to be that guy that waves his junk around to his friends by having something they don't.
Some encouragement for those suffering through the .Net issues - my install went flawlessly. I did have to restart after the .Net piece, but from work experience (I fight .Net issues on a daily basis as a support person) a restart should always occur after even minor .Net modifications.
I only created one character last night, but I really liked the overall flow. I think they've got some work to do with the way the powers are displayed on the character sheet, but from other threads it looks like they're already planning to make this more flexible to accommodate different play styles.
Nice job guys. Really, it's the best software effort I've seen from Wizards in a long time.