February 2010 Character Builder & Compendium News
As I’m sure you all know, the Character Builder, Compendium, and Adventure Tools were updated on February 2nd, 2010. Here’s a summary of the new data and features for these applications.
Data Update:
Data from the following published materials are new this month:
- Books
- Underdark™
- PHB Races Dragonborn™
- Online Magazines
- Dragon® Issue 382
- Dungeon® Issue 173
- Debut material from Player’s Handbook® 3
- Battlemind
Remember: you need an active D&D Insider subscription to update your Character Builder with the new data and features. Each account is limited to 5 updates, per application. Every month, when a new data set is released, this limit will be reset for each application.
Check the Character Builder FAQ [wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg...] for additional information.
Studio:
I just got back from DDXP in Ft. Wayne, IN. Great event, and wonderful to meet so many enthusiastic D&D players and fans! While there, I got many questions about Character Builder features, expansion of the Adventure Tools, etc. For the record: If we have something special to announce, we will. If we don’t, we won’t. Simple as that. We continue to work on all kinds of things to make your DDI experience the best it can be. So stay tuned. (I think 2010 is going to be a fun year.)
Community feedback:
We like to hear from you. Post things in the forums, send in-community messages to DDI WotC staffers, and just keep the discussion going. Many people report “My ____ magic item doesn’t seem to work in Character Builder.” Check out our Known Issues lists, but by all means, say something! (You may have found a bug we need to fix.)
Game On!
Chris
About the Author
Chris Champagne is the Studio Director of the D&DI Digital Studio. He first rolled for initiative in the summer of 1978, and has been a life long fan of D&D ever since.
... For the record: If we have something special to announce, we will. If we don’t, we won’t. Simple as that. We continue to work on all kinds of things to make your DDI experience the best it can be. So stay tuned. (I think 2010 is going to be a fun year.)...
I want to give a thank you for this part.
Silence from a company is frustrating to customers. especially those paying a monthly subscription.
In some cases its because a company doesnt want to communicate their plans and ideas. Others like in this case its because nothing note worthy is going on.
Obviously we would want something note worthy going on lol but at least our expectations are set.
I dont fully understand why all 3 months needed delays but I do appreciate you guys getting back on schedule. That must have been a time crunch between the Jan update and Febs.... For the record: If we have something special to announce, we will. If we don’t, we won’t. Simple as that. We continue to work on all kinds of things to make your DDI experience the best it can be. So stay tuned. (I think 2010 is going to be a fun year.)...
I want to give a thank you for this part.
Silence from a company is frustrating to customers. especially those paying a monthly subscription.
In some cases its because a company doesnt want to communicate their plans and ideas. Others like in this case its because nothing note worthy is going on.
Obviously we would want something note worthy going on lol but at least our expectations are set.
yeah, I agree. good reasons to stay a non-subscriber.
I don't want to sound negative, but since you asked for feedback, I'll share some of the things that have been really bugging me. Many of these problems are simple oversights or little nusances which could be fixed in about an hour or less.
But before I complain, I just want to say Thanks for all your hard work. I love CB and got hooked on DnD just over a year ago. The game is lots of fun, but automation like CB and MonsterBuilder (which push the tedious paperwork to the background) are an amazing resource for players.
It lets us spend more time playing and goofing around rather than pause to do paperwork. And, of course, the tinkerers get their fair share out of it too. Of course you know that. But thanks anyway.
Most of these are things I've mentioned before, so rather than beat a dead horse I'll just summarize and link.
1) Improved inventory management.
Things like overburdened, gold management, and item searches.
2) The Diety list in the back is nearly useless; I can never find what I'm looking for, mostly because I always forget the names. Restructuring this to mirror the feat/power selection style would shut me (and others) up promptly.
3) Build Option Menus
The ordering of races, classes, paragon paths, and EDs is frustratingly inconsistent.
PHB choices are grouped into their own category, but everything else is just randomly in alphabetic order.
I propose another two groups: Power Books and DDI articles.
This would make the following categories:
PHB1, PHB2, PHB3, Power Books, DDI, other. Makes finging things much easier.
I recall seeing space issues, where the book column wasn't wide enough (especially for Manual of the Planes), and the info was breaking into two lines. Funny thing is, all the text hardly filled 1/3 of the total menu's width, even with an older monitor.
I'm not seeing the problem now. It looks like that was fixed.
(edit: actually, it looks like someone tweaked the StringFormat options; Racial Handbook Dragons is on one line, but is truncated with an elipsis (...). That works too.
)4) Skill Check bonus details
Basically, a breakdown of how skill checks are calculated, similar to power attack info.
This is a bit more involved, but it should be straightforward. I've looked at the XML, and all the data is there, it just needs to be displayed better.
5) Limitations with Compendium
Mostly a list of things that don't work, or don't work as they should.
Feats are the worst, because the choices are so open-ended. Power choices are, by default, limited to about 3 categories of powers. Easily less than 20 choices per level.
Feat choices are simply overwhelming
Also, turning CharBuilder into an offline Compendum would be an awesome feature; the data is already there, and making dummy characters just to look something up when I don't have internet access (such as at the hobby shop) is irritating.