I use a mac, and would rather run a windows all in a virtual machine than this option. Simply put, it sucks. Silverlight actually runs on LESS platforms than the other app! No ipad, no android.
I wonder how long it'll be before Wizards servers crash and they lose everyone's characters, or the servers are overloaded (like right after every update) and folks can't access the system.
Booooooo!
Silverlight is available for both Windows and OS X. Right there, that's more platforms than the prior version of the software ran on. (In any supported fashion, anyway.) It certainly never ran on iPad or Android before, so I have no idea what you're complaining about there. Also, something that can be done with Silverlight apps is to have them download and run locally. It doesn't appear to be in the cards for the first release, but it's comparatively straight-forward to enable it, so it may be a feature that shows up later, which would back the ability to run it locally. (And the usual server load issues that go along with those updates.)
Part of the reason the servers are always so overloaded right after every update is becuase everyone needs to download those updates. You don't have to do that any more, so that's not going to be a problem. The FAQ (linked to in the announcement) says they're planning to add character export capabilities soon. (I'll admit I'd prefer to have it up front, but they felt it was more important to get the app out in the first place.)
Personally, as a fellow Mac user, I'm thrilled that I won't have to boot up my VM just to update my players' character sheets after each session. What, exactly, are you afraid you're going to lose?
A big thumbs down on the web-only, online-only, character builder. The loss of offline capability is huge for me, and the requirement to use Silverlight is terrible (it's almost as buggy and insecure as flash). Why on earth, if you were going to rebuild it from scratch, would you use a proprietary technology that locks out many many platforms?
I use a mac, and would rather run a windows all in a virtual machine than this option. Simply put, it sucks. Silverlight actually runs on LESS platforms than the other app! No ipad, no android.
I wonder how long it'll be before Wizards servers crash and they lose everyone's characters, or the servers are overloaded (like right after every update) and folks can't access the system.
Booooooo!
Ihotka, I completely agree with you. I run linux and I use a windows virtual machine for only two things, the character builder and a IE only app that I need to use for remote access to the office.
I don't like flash and I like silverlight even less. With most web related development utilizing open standards it is a stupid decision to use a proprietary (and buggy) framework that does not allow for true cross platform support and has few installations even on windows computers.
The really sad thing is that with the current state of web development, it is possible to create an interface just as good as the current character builder that is truly platform independent using just HTML, CSS, and Javascript. All this without the need to cripple the program with a lack of export options.
Server and bandwidth is a very important aspect of this, as you are going to have several million users online at any given time running this, and if our characters are stored on your sever, it seems a little risky to me.
would you let someone you really don't know hold onto your hand written character sheets? I wouldn't.
I also understand it kind of forces people to buy the books as something to use offline. Many people have stated they stop buying the manuals because everything they need is in the CB.
And i also know that many people only update thier DDI maybe two or three times per year, just to update the CB.
With a web based CB, now you are forced to pay each month to access your stuff.
The good thing is now you can access the CB from anywhere with all your characters on it. again, assuming there is an internet connection. In my neck of the mountains in upstate new york (think Adirondack Mountains people!), there are lots of places that don't have an internet connection or are forced to go with dialup as satnet is not overly affordable. (We're lucky to have cell phones work up here!)
you can't please all of the people all of the time (please someone forward that info to those running for gov jobs!), and I am proud of WotC for at least doing something and letting us know about it before three days after the product was released.
My friends and i played 4e for a year until we got bored with the game, and we switched to pathfinder. We are still playing pathfinder, but the d&d essentials is drawing me back to a 4e style game (it's easier or my 8 year old daughter to play).
Ultimately i have mixed emotions, because I just renewed my DDI after almost a year, and I find i didn't really miss much.
I miss the days when my dragon magazine came in the mail and i could take it into the bathroom with me, or run to my friends and start up a game or rebuilt the pc's with the new articles.
I also miss the days when rolling up a character meant spending a little while with some dice, pencils, and books. Now, it is almost impossible to create a character without a pc based program to do it.
I have a lot more i could say. (Like for example how the original 4e designers say that 4e was not based on WoW, yet in one of thier behind the scenes vids one of the lead designers is berrating a member of his staff for not updating to the next WoW patch, IN THE BLOODY WOTC OFFICE!)
suffice to say I feel these moves, while being innovative, exciting, and neat for a younger generation of people who are ultimately on line, jacked in, etc., are there just to make money.
I have to pay 10 bucks a month to just to make and level characters without spending hours writing out my powers, or flipping through books and doing math on the fly.
why not use the model where you pay a dollar or two per update, or even itemize every manual, with a dollar or two price tag if you want to get the download.
My group doesn't use psionics, or dark sun, or ebberron, or even use anything from PHB2 or PHB 3. and yet I still have to pay the same amount as the next guy to get the updates or whatever. And I am of the same crowd that feels the quality of dragon and dungeon has lessened since the Wotc online transition. but then I am a grognard about such things, having been around for a bit.
I am also a father of 4 kids and i work 40+ hours a week and i have a mortgage and bills and etc, and so that 10 bucks a month might have to go to diapers or the cable bill, or even the internet bill. and i feel the DDI is not always the best way to spend the money for my tight budget.
But kudos to WotC and their software forgers for what they have done, and I pray to the gods of the pixels and data-packets that they can build on these things.
peace
singe
Otherwise, I'm going to reserve judgement until I see it but I'm naturally concerned that such a drastic change will mess with my gaming.
(yes, I care enough about this that I'm making my first post ever and I've been a subscriber for almost a year)
The FAQ (linked to in the announcement) says they're planning to add character export capabilities soon. (I'll admit I'd prefer to have it up front, but they felt it was more important to get the app out in the first place.)
Here is just one of my big gripes about the new software. Is it really that important to get the app out, with limited features, when you already have an app out there that has the capability the new one lacks? Perhaps this would be more understandable if they were at least temporarily continuing support (including updates) for the old application until the new one had all the kinks worked out?
Even if we were still given that, I hate the loss of support and updates for the offline application. Granted, the Internet is perhaps more accessible in my area than it is in some other places, but there's still the occasional back-room or home game where I don't have the Internet readily accessible but still want to use the Character Builder to manage my character. I much prefer using the application for on-the-fly updates to my character, rather than documenting stuff on a paper sheet and then taking it back to copy into the builder.
It's a shame, but I'll still have the one I have now and it was good while it lasted.
This, web-only, character builder is the final straw.
A massive thumbs down from me and the other players at my table.
1) The characters are stored online. If you cancel your subscription they only last a year, and then they're gone. This really sucks.
2) The characters are stored online. If WOTC wants to kill 4e and go on to 5e they can just kill the service and thats it. I really like 4e but I am still in a 3.5 campaign that just simply isn't over yet (I am in other 4e games). It would suck to suddenly lose character builder support mid campaign.
3) They did the old model right. You pay for content, and once you get it, you have it forever. Now, you are renting the content. If you end your subscription, thats it. Lame, lame, lame!
I do not want to have my characters stored 'online' or be able to use an only 'online' system.
WOTC. I do not like this move.
A subscriber to DDI from before the builder who is about to cancel and ask for his money back.
And, I'm sorry, store the character in the Cloud? No frackin' way. I'm sure there will be some provision all characters stored online are fair use for advertising, etc.
I really need to figure out if it's worth paying them more money to continually redevelop tools that were already out there.
Hey, they keep redeveloping the game, maybe I should've seen it coming with the tools.
Cheers
I like that now our DM will be able to use it.
I hate that the rest of us won't be able to in-game. And as I appear to have picked the two least updated options for race and class in the magazines, I'm not seeing much point to keeping my subscription. I don't suppose that there will be a final update to the tool with last month's magazine's content? That'll tell me whether to cancel immediately or to wait a few days for the last CB update. At least I have most everything I need from the last one. There was one feat in the last magazine that looked interesting, but I'm fine with house-ruling it in.
And just out of curiosity, how much of a focus group was done on this move? Judging from the responses I've seen so far, not much.
What gets me is the marketing effort to tell me how great this is supposed to be for me.
Tell me that you want to exercise tighter controls, or you want to encourage people to actually buy your books instead of just using the online tools, or you conceived this as an (ineffectual) attempt to cut down on pirated PDFs kicking around, or I don't know, whatever rationale is behind this. Maybe just tell me, "This cuts down on the work we have to do to make this tool available."
But don't try to convince me that you're making some awesome change for MY benefit. "OMG you don't HAVE TO store your characters on your hard drive!" Yeah, but what if I WANT to? "OMG you can be directly connected to all the content over the Internet!" Yes, but what if I don't want to do that?
If I have to eat poo, at least call it poo.
And, by the way, WotC guys, there still are those four or five empty buttons on the Adventure Tools... any progress on those? Monster Builder is awesome and all... but "tools" implies more than one.
I used to preorder each book on amazon and go through the whole thing the day it arrived in the mail. After about 7 months noticable flaws started to become apparent in gameplay and errata was issued to "correct" it. This might include changing some bad grammer, correcting previous errata, clarifying what to do in a vague circumstance, or just outright changing the power to rebalance it with everything else.
I'd really not like to have carry around my copy of the PHB and the 3 ring binder of errata to know how to build a character. The sign of a good long term design and QA is that less errata is needed. The 3.5e PHB has 3 pages of errata in 5 years, that's all. The 4e PHB now has at least 23 pages of errata in under 2.5 years. The 4e PHB has, in my mind, at least gone to 4.5e with essentials just under the 4e name. With WoTC tinkering with content after it's published so much, there is no good way except a computer program to build characters anymore.
This is so sad to me as I liked sitting together in a room with friends, pencils, paper, books, and dice. I don't think I'm alone in this one. I think the mentality has shifted with the rise of MMORPGs that you can be shorter sighted and fix bugs in design later with just a patch. I wonder how much longer a printed format is going to be viable as a business model with the continued tinkering that's going on.
erdana, 'sans-serif'">Wizards made this decision for two main reasons:
They intend to make the files non-exportable so we have to keep our subscription up to date or be unable to access our character files, and of course they destroy them completely if we don’t subscribe for a while.
They are making the builder online only to stop Torrents of stolen character builder updates from reducing sales. unfortunately this makes the builder horribly less useful.
Well I have been in insider subscriber from the beginning and I'm cancelling my subscription in protest.
I understand it seemed like a good business move WOTC but your going to lose more money from angry previously loyal customers leaving then you'll ever make back with this underhanded move.
I expect this will be the same.
If you cancel your subscription they only last a year, and then they're gone. This really sucks.
Is this in the FAQ? I was wondering about this. I don't just pay 4e and so would only subscribe while actually in a game, but if that means a year between finishing a campaign and returning to play with the same character I will be out of luck.
This, along with the lack of PDFs, really isn't doing WotC any favours. I am sticking with 3.5 for the most part, but my current 4e campaign I am running is likely to be my last (to run or play in).
This to me means the game is growing, and what was good on Friday may no longer work well with what is good on Tuesday.
One can always impement Rule 0 and ignore erratta, or simply make their own, or what I have and done and USE BOTH VERSIONS depending on the needs of my players.
I think the new CB looks awesome by the pics i got in my email.
However, it is plainly obvious whay they are making it web only, and while there are good things, i think the negative things far outweigh the good.
These guys are a business, and a business needs to make money. Monthly subscriptions for games seems to be a trend right now in making money. if you consider there are 6 million people playing wow, and 6 million people pay 15 bucks a month to play, that's 90,000,000 (90 Million) dollars per month. Multiply that by 12 and that's your per year.
JUST ON SERVER ACCESS FEES!!!!!!!
My jedi powers also tell me what will happen; the new web based CB will come out, some will use it some won't. along the lines someone will develop code or a new prog to create the 4e characters, and it will be available offline, and it will be more popular than the CB, and Wotc will give them a cease and decist order, and then as the reigns grow tighter, people will jump ship, and the star systems will slip through their fingers.
Remember what happened to TSR? ever get that feeling of Deja-Vu?
Maybe they should put a little code somewhere in thier books, or send the retailers some special access cards, and each time you buy a manual you are given so much access to DDI, or maybe even the card you get enables you to download the updated content for the web builder and/or offline CB.
Like, "OOOH!! Ms. Borders lady, is that The new D&D essentials book, Heroes Of The Apathetic Waistline? Wow! Yes, I have my D&D Insider card! What? WHat's that you say? When I purchase a manual I get credits added to my D&D insider card that enables me to renew my subscription and/or download content to my character builder? SWEET Booyah! In that case, also gimme 'Keep On The Borderlands: The Next Generation Part 6: Will this mortar ever dry?' and 'Oh gods, Not Another Expedition To The Barrier Peaks!'"
Maybe it will be a good thing in th end. I guess i will wait and see.
And guess what? Error, error, error. Since October 26th I have tried to update my account information, and I get:
Error:
We are currently unable to perform the selected action. Please accept our apologies for this inconvenience. We have been notified and are already working to correct this issue as quickly as possible. Please click your browser's back button and try this action at a later time, or take a different action.
Error Number: SYS_000001
Is this the level of non-service I am to expect from a web-only CB?
The idea that the web only model will increase revenue in any way is completely false. Support costs do not dissapear in the magic cloud...in fact they INCREASE...clearly whomever is making descisions is the problem. Cloud computing drives costs UP, creative acounting tries to claim that this is not the case.
Quantify the loss of the CB being downloaded outside Insider.
Now quantify the costs of supporting a web based app (bandwidth and increased development costs - because now your program will be under CONSTANT attack because it is live on the web, and the devices serving the app will be under attack).
Now deduct revenue the people who depart becasue the program no longer provides the utility the customer wants (note: most of those lost will be consistent subscribers like me), and drive honest customers to find dishonest methods to regaining a lost capability.
You can spend time and lose money finding this out, or you can fix this out of the gate.
I do this Risk/Cost calculation thing all the time. 305176.
Wouldn't it have been simpler to limit licenses to two, and web-verify that it was linked to an active Insider subscription each month or every other month instead? How much would that have cost? Not nearly as much.
I do not pay to rent software. I pay to buy software.
I've now been roleplaying for over 30 years. This will not stop that. It just means I'll be playing a different game. I've dropped D and D before when packing 47 friggin books and complexity impeded the quality of the game. Looks like we are heading back there.
I don't live in the middle of nowhere, and I'm not on dialup, but I'm still concerned about the tool being remote from my computer.
I have Comcast broadband that just sometimes stops working for an hour or more, because that's the kind of service you get under a monopoly. I suspect that people who live places that are remote or not fully wired have way more concerns, but the fact that I have issues in the middle of a major U.S. city tells me that it's not a minor thing.
When that happens I can't use the compendium, which is super annoying, and I am not real happy to think that I will now have the same problem with the character builder.
So, mixed bag I guess. Big Yay for Mac access, but nervous about the online-only aspect. I will stick with DDI, though, because I use the compendium all the time. I wish it would get fixed so it could not be so feeble-minded in its search methods, though. Truly it is afflicted with the dumb.
MK
Ok, I may be missing something, but as a software developer (not for WotC) your post doesn't make any sense. Silverlight is simply nowhere near as buggy as Flash, that's pure hyperbole. Silverlight is based, at the core, on the .NET runtime which has been thoroughly tested and debugged to the point that .NET applications are used at all levels of the Enterprise space. (Like I said, I'm a software developer, that's what I do for a living.)
Silverlight is available for both Windows and OS X. Right there, that's more platforms than the prior version of the software ran on. (In any supported fashion, anyway.) It certainly never ran on iPad or Android before, so I have no idea what you're complaining about there. Also, something that can be done with Silverlight apps is to have them download and run locally. It doesn't appear to be in the cards for the first release, but it's comparatively straight-forward to enable it, so it may be a feature that shows up later, which would back the ability to run it locally. (And the usual server load issues that go along with those updates.)
Part of the reason the servers are always so overloaded right after every update is becuase everyone needs to download those updates. You don't have to do that any more, so that's not going to be a problem. The FAQ (linked to in the announcement) says they're planning to add character export capabilities soon. (I'll admit I'd prefer to have it up front, but they felt it was more important to get the app out in the first place.)
Personally, as a fellow Mac user, I'm thrilled that I won't have to boot up my VM just to update my players' character sheets after each session. What, exactly, are you afraid you're going to lose?
Silverlight is a technology that Microsoft has largely abandoned (not officially, but it's dying due to lack of care and feeding).
Right after every update, everyone playing is going to want to go update their characters with the new errata. I build large distributed systems for the world's largest IT company - centralizing the computing load is a dangerous and tricky thing to get right.
One thing I find curious with 4e is that they are shooting themselves in the foot with the old fashon printed books. Personally, I've quit buying copies of the books because WoTC has taught me that in 6 months they will be useless.
I used to preorder each book on amazon and go through the whole thing the day it arrived in the mail. After about 7 months noticable flaws started to become apparent in gameplay and errata was issued to "correct" it. This might include changing some bad grammer, correcting previous errata, clarifying what to do in a vague circumstance, or just outright changing the power to rebalance it with everything else.
I'd really not like to have carry around my copy of the PHB and the 3 ring binder of errata to know how to build a character. The sign of a good long term design and QA is that less errata is needed. The 3.5e PHB has 3 pages of errata in 5 years, that's all. The 4e PHB now has at least 23 pages of errata in under 2.5 years. The 4e PHB has, in my mind, at least gone to 4.5e with essentials just under the 4e name. With WoTC tinkering with content after it's published so much, there is no good way except a computer program to build characters anymore.
This is so sad to me as I liked sitting together in a room with friends, pencils, paper, books, and dice. I don't think I'm alone in this one. I think the mentality has shifted with the rise of MMORPGs that you can be shorter sighted and fix bugs in design later with just a patch. I wonder how much longer a printed format is going to be viable as a business model with the continued tinkering that's going on.
Ditto here, especially if I'm going to have to subscribe to insider to build characters, I'm going to drop the books. I do miss the AD&D days, when all you needed was books and an hour to build a character.
For all their protestations otherwise, essentials is 4.5. Calling a duck a goose doesn't make it one.
Without an off-line edition of the software its all but useless to me. Not everyone has access to the internet 24x7x365, I know we don't when we're playing (at work - even though the network admin is a player he won't allow us the app installed at work and silverlight? forget it.)
Oh well, I'll just not renewing my ddi subscription any more. I'll live with the books I have and the players will just have to lump it.
My job has a lot of down-time, and there is no internet access at our office. I enjoyed working with the Character Builder and Monster Builder in that down-time. I had no distractions, and could focus my attention on working out encounters and playing with the Character Builder like it was Freecell or Spider Solitaire.
I don't use any of the tools at the table. I find the presence of computers at the game table to be too much of a distraction, not to mention table space being at a premium.
The addition of Silverlight is also a point against the Tools for myself and my group.
I've been subscibed to DDi since launch, but upon reading the developments for the new tools, I immediately logged on and cancelled my subscription.
In a way, I can thank the folks at Wizard/Hasbro as I will be saving money on subscriptions and books.
Lets be honest that most of the online content has been very week in recent months. I am not interested in Essentials either. So really, this move just makes the decision simple for me.
If Wizards does ever add the virtual table top, then they will have my subscription back (as well as all the players in my game.) I think I have enough content as-is with the stack of 4.0 books I already own and the current CB build. I also own 95% of the 4.0 books released to date (just no Essentials).
So maybe this is a good move by Wizards, and maybe it isn't. But for me, it makes my personal decision VERY simple.
Thank you for being the bully of our play ground to take away our toys. Being that I just decided to start running the game and nabbing the tools after suscribing to DDI, you take this away. The internet while very useful doesn't cover 100% of the USA let alone the rest of the world. You've already broken our hearts by not giving us the promised tools when you brought out the DDI you take one of the major ones away.
Pro's
Easier for you to update content
Steady income for wizards
Con:
--Not everyone has internet access at the game table
--Internet is a luxary not a necessity and usually 1st thing to be shut off to keep bills paid see above
through the "Cloud" there are soo many different problems that will arrise to get to the CB it might make it not worth it
--I can't export my characters? really? so my 4 people that were DDi members that update their characters can't send me their characters so we all have to have different characters or be logging in with each others accounts.. hmm why doesn't that sound like a good idea
--DDI is a luxary not a necessity so if I have to cancel I cannot keep records of my campaign on the characters without printing them out and keeping paper notes again.
--I own the books but I don't like to carry my milk crate with me, I got spoiled... looks like I'm back to lifting it again packed full with books
--I could edit things at my job if I wanted to with the offline version, yea good luck with the online one, I won't be able to touch it.
--so many other things you could have devolped to improve our ability to run campaigns, instead you take them away
Because 3.5 was a totally fair and non-broken game? Yeah, right. If you wanted to fix all loopholes and exploits in 3e you'd need three times the number of errata as 4e has. Instead, WotC decided to leave most things unfixed (Wall of Iron + Fabricate abuse, Genesis, Diplomacy skill, ...) and you see that as an advantage? May I please play a wizard or CoDzilla in your campaign? ;)
Also, you conveniently ignore the fact that 4e errata always reprints the whole errata'ed paragraph/item/power/feat, while 3e errata only mentioned the changes. It's no surprise that 4e errata requires more pages because WotC actually made the errate more useful and easier to use.
@lhotka:
Wrong. Perhaps people should start reading what's actually said instead of reading what they want to see?
--> team.silverlight.net/announcement/pdc-an...
And for your supposed expertise you are very quick to jump to false conclusions. As a professional you should know that one should always use the right tool for the job. "If you only have a hammer all problems are looking like nails" or something like that.
If your team is focused on C#/.NET development and your systems are running on IIS/ASP.NET it would be stupid to switch over to a totally new and unfinished technology (*cough*HTML5 is not yet feature complete*cough*) because it was "trendy" or "hip". You'd basically have to rewrite everything from scratch with crappy authoring tools in a programming language none of your team was used to work with. That's a train accident waiting to happen.
I'd like to hear the reactions if they made the nCB with HTML and had to push back the release date half a year.
@jhg03a:
Because 3.5 was a totally fair and non-broken game? Yeah, right. If you wanted to fix all loopholes and exploits in 3e you'd need three times the number of errata as 4e has. Instead, WotC decided to leave most things unfixed (Wall of Iron + Fabricate abuse, Genesis, Diplomacy skill, ...) and you see that as an advantage? May I please play a wizard or CoDzilla in your campaign? ;)
Also, you conveniently ignore the fact that 4e errata always reprints the whole errata'ed paragraph/item/power/feat, while 3e errata only mentioned the changes. It's no surprise that 4e errata requires more pages because WotC actually made the errate more useful and easier to use.
@lhotka:
Wrong. Perhaps people should start reading what's actually said instead of reading what they want to see?
--> team.silverlight.net/announcement/pdc-an...
And for your supposed expertise you are very quick to jump to false conclusions. As a professional you should know that one should always use the right tool for the job. "If you only have a hammer all problems are looking like nails" or something like that.
If your team is focused on C#/.NET development and your systems are running on IIS/ASP.NET it would be stupid to switch over to a totally new and unfinished technology (*cough*HTML5 is not yet feature complete*cough*) because it was "trendy" or "hip". You'd basically have to rewrite everything from scratch with crappy authoring tools in a programming language none of your team was used to work with. That's a train accident waiting to happen.
I'd like to hear the reactions if they made the nCB with HTML and had to push back the release date half a year.
Ahh, you miss my point - they should not have moved to an online-only solution to begin with. That's the decision that was the mistake. Once having made that, of course they picked Silverlight to leverage their existing code base - the best of bad options, but that doesn't make it a widespread platform (Microsoft's handwaving notwithstanding). As much as I hate flash, it's won the battle for interactive content (and for the record, yep, I agree, HTML5 isn't fullly baked yet). Given that Silverlight was the only financially reasonable choice for an online solution (I agree with that), that very fact should have given them great pause and been a major factor in NOT moving online-only.
It was a reasonably sized effort to move to an online-only solution, including a large investment (hopefully) in infrastructure. The change resulted in a major loss of functionality and usability, with very little gain for users. Clearly it was financially (not technically) motivated to generate additional revenue for DDI. Fine, that's a business decision, but don't try to spin it as 'better for players'. That's just insulting.
Just like the whole Essentials isn't 4.5 spin, Wizards seems afraid to tell us the truth. For example, I'd like to see them try this instead.
1) "Yes, we promised not to do 4.5, but we found problems in 4e, and learned a lot, so we decided to make the change to make the game better. Oops, we screwed up, but we think it's the right thing to do in the long run - and from the overall feedback, it seems that most players agree. We'll do everything we can to let you continue to use the existing books, but there are some things that just have to change. Sorry."
2) "We're moving to a subscription based service for the character builder to reduce piracy and increase our revenues. Because of a long-ago technology choice, we're going to use a product from Microsoft that you probably don't have installed, limits where it can run and isn't really a true web application. Yes, that means you can't use third-party apps like i4e, you can't work offline (we all have 100% internet coverage, don't you?), and we have access to all your characters and custom content for analysis, research and marketing purposes. Sorry."
A little honesty would be refreshing.
Perhaps, but they needed to do something about the piracy. One person subscribing for two months per year to get five people the full content for the whole year is just not a business model you can sell to your superiors. Basically, the way the CB currently works (all content stored on the client side) is an invitation for piracy (and just a quick search on Google or Bing will support that statement).
In many ways the situation WotC faces is similar to what many publishers of single-player only games face. Either introduce some draconian (and likely, crappy) DRM to try to protect your property or simply drop it and make an MMO/multiplayer focused game that can't be (easily) pirated. What option should they have chosen? What would YOU have suggested to reduce piracy of the CB?
Would you have rather wanted to be forced to install some ring 0 DRM driver that checks the validity of your CB installation each time you start? Or be forced to log into your DDI account each time you want to use the CB? Or require a permanent online connection for as long as the CB is running?
The gaming industry tried all of that and it all failed or backfired horribly. On the other hand, I have yet to see a guy complain about an MMO requiring a permanent online connection. ;)
Imho, switching over to a web based CB was not only the (probably only) way for WotC to effectively fight the piracy of the CB but also offered at least some benefit to the customer as well (instead of only disadvantages like a "normal" DRM solution would have done). You can access your characters from pretty much anywhere where you have Internet and don't need to copy/carry them around on a USB drive or something like that.
Would you have rather wanted DRM with only disadvantages, or a web app that at least has some advantages?
@Ihotka:
Perhaps, but they needed to do something about the piracy. One person subscribing for two months per year to get five people the full content for the whole year is just not a business model you can sell to your superiors. Basically, the way the CB currently works (all content stored on the client side) is an invitation for piracy (and just a quick search on Google or Bing will support that statement).
In many ways the situation WotC faces is similar to what many publishers of single-player only games face. Either introduce some draconian (and likely, crappy) DRM to try to protect your property or simply drop it and make an MMO/multiplayer focused game that can't be (easily) pirated. What option should they have chosen? What would YOU have suggested to reduce piracy of the CB?
Would you have rather wanted to be forced to install some ring 0 DRM driver that checks the validity of your CB installation each time you start? Or be forced to log into your DDI account each time you want to use the CB? Or require a permanent online connection for as long as the CB is running?
The gaming industry tried all of that and it all failed or backfired horribly. On the other hand, I have yet to see a guy complain about an MMO requiring a permanent online connection. ;)
Imho, switching over to a web based CB was not only the (probably only) way for WotC to effectively fight the piracy of the CB but also offered at least some benefit to the customer as well (instead of only disadvantages like a "normal" DRM solution would have done). You can access your characters from pretty much anywhere where you have Internet and don't need to copy/carry them around on a USB drive or something like that.
Would you have rather wanted DRM with only disadvantages, or a web app that at least has some advantages?
No disagreement on the piracy issue - understand, and agree completely. I use a lot of games and applications with DRM (e.g. DragonAge, Doom, Photoshop, Office, Windows, etc), and haven't found it to be too intrusive (probably because they can't do some of the things on a Mac that they can on Windows). There's no DRM scheme that can be 100% foolproof - especially if it's an offline solution, but most are generally effective at keeping piracy somewhat limited. Even dongles are hackable, though those applications tend to not be targets of hackers.
Given all the trade-offs, I'd rather have seen them drop back to a single-install/single-update DRM solution with offline access. I don't see any advantages of web/cloud based solutions for this, and I certainly don't remember my very long random password when I'm at a friends house (and would NEVER use a public terminal). Frankly, I don't use any public cloud services for exactly the same reasons - security, privacy, reliability, offline access. That's why I have a laptop.
This really hurts players who don't have internet access during a game (like at a store) and need a new character when the old one dies, or when we're building characters at 30,000 feet. I'm sure that the terms of service completely disclaim any responsibility for data loss when the servers go down, and make no guarentees about service accessibility at all.
Back to my last point, I absolutely understand why they did it. But they need to be honest about it and stop treating us like idiots.
OMG, I do NOT get the "You don't have to carry your characters around on a USB or on your hard drive now" response as though that's a feature.
THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT A LOT OF US WANT TO DO... not because we're trying to take advantage of WotC, but because we find it more convenient to have access to our character sheet whether we have internet access or not.
You might as well be saying:
"You get to eat turd! Yay!"
Thanks. Can I not eat turd?
"Sorry, no, that's all we have on the menu."
Ok, then I guess I will go to a different restaurant or cook my own food. Thank you.
@Ihotka:
Perhaps, but they needed to do something about the piracy.
I agree, but I don't think this was it. It's not the best - or even a good - option if reducing losses to piracy is really the aim.
One person subscribing for two months per year to get five people the full content for the whole year is just not a business model you can sell to your superiors.
That's not piracy. That is customers using (abusing?) your Ts&Cs to maximise the value they get for minimum cost to themselves. It might be something that grates, because you might imagine that you could or should get more of these customers' money. But I actually think that is rarely true; people resort to this sort of trick mainly if they do not have the money to spend or do not wish to spend money on this hobby. Forcing a "pay or walk" policy on them will just prompt them to take pirated software instead of paying any amount at all - and that is not a way to maximise WotC's profit at all.
Basically, the way the CB currently works (all content stored on the client side) is an invitation for piracy (and just a quick search on Google or Bing will support that statement).
Sure, it's piratable. So will a web version be - piratable or copyable, at any rate. However, a client-side version also provides value for the paying customer. I think this is key - but I'll leave that to below.
In many ways the situation WotC faces is similar to what many publishers of single-player only games face. Either introduce some draconian (and likely, crappy) DRM to try to protect your property or simply drop it and make an MMO/multiplayer focused game that can't be (easily) pirated. What option should they have chosen? What would YOU have suggested to reduce piracy of the CB?
Take a look at Paradox Interactive. They are a company that makes Grand Strategy PC games, playable single-player or multi-player over LAN or internet. They use no DRM at all. They are expanding rapidly. They sell their games largely by on-line download, but what you get is standalone software that you can install to any PC in any folder and run. Thay have a policy against DRM because they have realised that what gets sales is making products that maximise the utility, convenience and content for their paying customers. By adding DRM, online-only and all that crud what you do is make the product you offer of less value and utility than the one the pirates offer; this is not a great way to sell product or get enthusiastic customers.
What Paradox do do, is they let you register your games on their site. When you buy (i.e. not pirate) one of their games you get a 16-character code. Register with it and you get technical support, access to private forums where the developers (themselves - not customer service peeps) offer technical and game advice, answer questions and solicit customer feedback. Lots of Paradox gamers make Mods of the games - they are deliberately made to be easy to modify or "houserule". The 'technical support' they offer sometimes includes advice and information to help such modding. In short, as a pirate user you can get the game, sure - not much Paradox can do about that. But as a customer you get treated as a guest at their site, with access to the best information they have about your game. Transfer that to D&D and I think it would work. Sure, the devs can't give individual attention to every question - but they don't need to, since most will be answered by the regulars on the forums. But make the Errata forums places where only registered customers can gain entry and devs will read and respond to threads and you add a whole load of value to actually purchasing the book. Use the (offline) Character Builder forum (registered/DDI access only, of course) to post hints and tips on adding houseruled items, make CB so that houseruled items can be imported and publish one or two in that forum as "hotfixes" or just 'freebies'. Give those who have registered books an icon to "wear" under their avatar on these forums, so that we can all tell who is using the Compendium on the cheap or Pirate PDFs and who actually bought the stuff. Even give those who register the books a PDF download - it's gonna be pirated anyway, why not give legitimate customers one that references their registration? The registration code doesn't have to be in the book itself, although it could be (under a tear-off strip, to prevent in-store cheating), but it could be distributed by the storekeepers - just give them one per book they buy into stock.
In answer to your question, then, I think it's the wrong question. Nothing WotC does will reduce the piracy - but that is not what they need to do. What they need to do is maximise their paying customers, not minimise the pirates; if pirates = nil but paying customers = nil you do not have a viable business. And in answer to "how should they maximise their paying customers?", I suggest the model described above. It works for one PC games company and it can work for RPGs, too.
In answer to your question, then, I think it's the wrong question. Nothing WotC does will reduce the piracy - but that is not what they need to do. What they need to do is maximise their paying customers, not minimise the pirates; if pirates = nil but paying customers = nil you do not have a viable business. And in answer to "how should they maximise their paying customers?", I suggest the model described above. It works for one PC games company and it can work for RPGs, too.
WOTC does this now. Pay for DDI and what do you get?
* Character Builder
* Online Compendium
* Dragon Mag
* Dungeon Mag
* Monster Builder
Between the Character Builder, the Compendium, both magazines and the Monster Builder, that's pretty much every iota of crunch (and a lot of the fluff) in everything they publish. Dragon & Dungeon are effectively the modding instructions that you refer to. Heck, they publish complete Adventure Paths - you don't even have to write anything yourself if you don't want/have time to.
Are there some tools they have shown that would be great to add to that? Sure. But as far as the published material, I don't really know how they could give you much more for your subscription without emailing you a PDF copy of the fluff and scheduling Chris Perkins or Mike Mearls to come run your game.
So, they are changing the way the CB works now. There are some good and some bad aspects to it, but it does protect and monotize their intellectual property and increase the platforms from which you can run the silly thing. That seems like it improves things for both sides. (I use a Mac at home, so I'm thrilled.) If WOTC sees the riotus desire for exporting character info (which I'm sure they do), then we'll just about be at parity with the current version minus the part where all of their intellectual property was at risk.
(Chris & Mike - if you're reading this - you're welcome at my house anytime. When Seattle get really cold and wet, come hang with me in Austin where it's warm! I need some help with my campaign - see what happened is ....)
TMan
WOTC does this now. Pay for DDI and what do you get?
That is sale of a separate (additional) product - which is not what I was talking about at all.
* Character Builder
A nice product - but the change places the value of their IP over the value of mine, which pisses me off as a customer. I would actually not mind if I needed to register a book to get content in the CB, but the choice not to require that was theirs, not mine.
* Online Compendium
Handy - but not worth the full subscription. And it's still part of a separate product (DDI), not a bonus for registering a product.
* Dragon Mag
Has broken the back, with me, for the broken consumables item that worries me greatly about the route D&D design philosophy is taking. I don't allow Dragon content in the game I run as I've seen more cheese there than elsewhere.
* Dungeon Mag
Not bad - but still part of a separate, stand-alone product.
* Monster Builder
Poorly supported to date - my guess is that they will put this on line, too - not as big an issue as the CB for my own data, but bloody inconvenient for game prep (when I don't always have internet access).
Something you didn't mention is the maps and art in digital form. This is another area where it seems strange that I can get this stuff if I subscribe to DDI, but don't own the books, yet I can't get them if I own the actual book but don't subscribe to DDI... It's a very strange, suboptimal way to run the digital side of the brand, it seems to me.
WOTC does this now. Pay for DDI and what do you get?
That is sale of a separate (additional) product - which is not what I was talking about at all.* Character Builder
A nice product - but the change places the value of their IP over the value of mine, which pisses me off as a customer. I would actually not mind if I needed to register a book to get content in the CB, but the choice not to require that was theirs, not mine.* Online Compendium
Handy - but not worth the full subscription. And it's still part of a separate product (DDI), not a bonus for registering a product.* Dragon Mag
Has broken the back, with me, for the broken consumables item that worries me greatly about the route D&D design philosophy is taking. I don't allow Dragon content in the game I run as I've seen more cheese there than elsewhere.* Dungeon Mag
Not bad - but still part of a separate, stand-alone product.* Monster Builder
Poorly supported to date - my guess is that they will put this on line, too - not as big an issue as the CB for my own data, but bloody inconvenient for game prep (when I don't always have internet access).
Something you didn't mention is the maps and art in digital form. This is another area where it seems strange that I can get this stuff if I subscribe to DDI, but don't own the books, yet I can't get them if I own the actual book but don't subscribe to DDI... It's a very strange, suboptimal way to run the digital side of the brand, it seems to me.
I guess I don't quite understand you making the point you did earlier (about supporting the purchased product with nice extras to valid customers) and then saying that the Compendium, magazines, etc are separate products.
We pay one fee for DDI and we get all these things. There's no getting one or the other, no a la carte. If you consider the CB to be the product, then all the rest are the nice extras - which is the point you were making: Valid customers get nice extras. Wait, you can also get all the maps from the books you didn't actually buy? Wow - that's a really sweet extra, eh?
You mention the value of your IP, in the form of characters. Their IP is demonstrably worth millions of dollars per year. I think we can see why they want/need/must to protect it. If you aren't comfortable risking your great ideas/IP, then yes, you'd have to consider not using the CB. (Once the export function is ready, you could just import/edit/export/delete I suppose.) It's probably not worth it for WOTC to steal your unpublished ideas and risk their millions of dollars, but at the end of the day, you do have to protect yourself. As for me, I'm not going to come up with anything very clever (I have players who do, to my teeth-gnashing chagrin) that I would be afraid to lose or see in a new D&D product without attribution.
As for the point about codes in books, that was talked about in the beginning of DDI. Consider how hard that would be to manage. Print a bunch of unique numbered codes on stickers for a particular book (say, PHB3). Send the books out the door. Oh, wait, you've got to shrink wrap them. Can't let someone wander into a store, snap a pic of the code with their phone and redeem it. Then you have a fight with whoever does purchase the book. And the retailer has to have a 'store copy' to let people look through. Oh, what if I buy the book and then sell it to Half price Books. Does the new buyer get to use the code? They have legal possession of the physical book and the code. It's a whole lot of hassel.
Now, if what you are buying doesn't work for you, I understand. But I don't really see how you can make the case that we aren't getting a whole lot of D&D for a lot less than the cost of one book per month along with our subscription to the CB.
I guess I don't quite understand you making the point you did earlier (about supporting the purchased product with nice extras to valid customers) and then saying that the Compendium, magazines, etc are separate products.
No, you clearly don't understand, but I'll assume it's innocent misunderstanding and try to explain it to you.
A separate subscription scheme for content separate from the 'core' products that are sold without ongoing subscription is not the same as "bonuses for genuine customers who buy core products". The only point where it may come in is where someone considers the character builder a product (as I did) - in which case the other DDI content may be considered the "bonus for paying customers". I thought that was working well. But now they have taken the core product away - how does that make sense?
We pay one fee for DDI and we get all these things. There's no getting one or the other, no a la carte. If you consider the CB to be the product, then all the rest are the nice extras - which is the point you were making: Valid customers get nice extras. Wait, you can also get all the maps from the books you didn't actually buy? Wow - that's a really sweet extra, eh?
Absolutely - I did think that DDI was a product (two, actually - monster builder was coming along, too) with some exceptional "bonus content". Now, WotC hasn't taken away the bonus content - they've taken away the actual product!
You mention the value of your IP, in the form of characters. Their IP is demonstrably worth millions of dollars per year. I think we can see why they want/need/must to protect it. If you aren't comfortable risking your great ideas/IP, then yes, you'd have to consider not using the CB. (Once the export function is ready, you could just import/edit/export/delete I suppose.) It's probably not worth it for WOTC to steal your unpublished ideas and risk their millions of dollars, but at the end of the day, you do have to protect yourself. As for me, I'm not going to come up with anything very clever (I have players who do, to my teeth-gnashing chagrin) that I would be afraid to lose or see in a new D&D product without attribution.
What?? No, no, no - I'm not worried about WotC stealing the ideas! I have enough faith in their basic honesty, never mind that they are hardly worth stealing commercially - but I am worried what happens to the characters when Wizards decide to stop providing the "service", or decide to upgrade to 5E, or decide to sell the brand but not the software, or decide to save money on IT costs by cutting the servers off...
The best I can expect in these situations (with the web-based tool) is that I end up with a bunch of files in bespoke format that I can neither read nor modify. I want to make sure I can keep my campaign data and continue using it without WotC's support and permission. If you don't, good luck to you - but it's what I have now and I'd rather not give it up.
As for the point about codes in books, that was talked about in the beginning of DDI. Consider how hard that would be to manage. Print a bunch of unique numbered codes on stickers for a particular book (say, PHB3). Send the books out the door. Oh, wait, you've got to shrink wrap them. Can't let someone wander into a store, snap a pic of the code with their phone and redeem it. Then you have a fight with whoever does purchase the book. And the retailer has to have a 'store copy' to let people look through. Oh, what if I buy the book and then sell it to Half price Books. Does the new buyer get to use the code? They have legal possession of the physical book and the code. It's a whole lot of hassel.
A tear-off strip (such as credit card suppliers and the like use all the time) is all that would be needed. Only the original buyer gets the code - the idea is to support your direct customers and FLGSes, not some guy who looks for a "bargain".
Now, if what you are buying doesn't work for you, I understand. But I don't really see how you can make the case that we aren't getting a whole lot of D&D for a lot less than the cost of one book per month along with our subscription to the CB.
At the moment, I agree - I have subscribed to DDI for nearly two years because I consider that it has been excellent value and a fine purchase. What I see happening now is that the core product is being withdrawn. In its place is a rented utility that gives no record keeping or continuity benefits at all - hence why I intend to cease my ongoing subscription to the service.
I guess I don't quite understand you making the point you did earlier (about supporting the purchased product with nice extras to valid customers) and then saying that the Compendium, magazines, etc are separate products.
No, you clearly don't understand, but I'll assume it's innocent misunderstanding and try to explain it to you.
A separate subscription scheme for content separate from the 'core' products that are sold without ongoing subscription is not the same as "bonuses for genuine customers who buy core products". The only point where it may come in is where someone considers the character builder a product (as I did) - in which case the other DDI content may be considered the "bonus for paying customers". I thought that was working well. But now they have taken the core product away - how does that make sense?
I see now where my (genuine) confusion comes from.
I don't see the changes to the CB as taking the CB away as you do. To me, it's merely changing our methods of getting at it. I think being able to print a character (especially to a PDF file) provides me with a method of storage which protects my 'work'. When they add in the export feature, even better, though I'd probably do the PDF too for my players anyway. [I'm a system admin in charge of network backups/disaster recovery, so multiple copies of everything is a way of life for me.
]So, we just disagree on that point. If that's the way you see it, then yeah, this is a big problem and you should drop your subscription.
I like your idea for digital book sales - treat it like a gift card at the point of sale. I had mused about something similar, but never put it into words.
I guess I don't quite understand you making the point you did earlier (about supporting the purchased product with nice extras to valid customers) and then saying that the Compendium, magazines, etc are separate products.
No, you clearly don't understand, but I'll assume it's innocent misunderstanding and try to explain it to you.
A separate subscription scheme for content separate from the 'core' products that are sold without ongoing subscription is not the same as "bonuses for genuine customers who buy core products". The only point where it may come in is where someone considers the character builder a product (as I did) - in which case the other DDI content may be considered the "bonus for paying customers". I thought that was working well. But now they have taken the core product away - how does that make sense?
I see now where my (genuine) confusion comes from.
I don't see the changes to the CB as taking the CB away as you do. To me, it's merely changing our methods of getting at it. I think being able to print a character (especially to a PDF file) provides me with a method of storage which protects my 'work'. When they add in the export feature, even better, though I'd probably do the PDF too for my players anyway. [I'm a system admin in charge of network backups/disaster recovery, so multiple copies of everything is a way of life for me.
So, we just disagree on that point. If that's the way you see it, then yeah, this is a big problem and you should drop your subscription.
I like your idea for digital book sales - treat it like a gift card at the point of sale. I had mused about something similar, but never put it into words.
You have far too much trust in cloud services "protecting your work". I'll pretty much guarentee that the TOS for the new version exclude liability for data loss (which will eventually happen).
But you did get at the nut of the issue - they are changing the method for getting at the CB, and that's what the complaint is about. The lack of offline access is a major loss of utility for many players.
I'd have exactly the same argument if Microsoft moved Office to the cloud, or Apple moved iWork there. Lack of control over my own data, blind trust in their competence to back it up, no guarenteed SLA, and no offline access. That's why I don't, and will never use, Google Docs or other cloud services like it.
But my biggest gripe is that Wizards is, again, treating us like idiots and engaging in spin that this is a "change for the better". We're not dumb, and it's insulting. I completely understand the profit motive here, which is what's really driving thes changes. One could argue that Essentials is both profit and benefit (but if there weren't any money in it, they wouldn't do it). But this change is strictly about revenue - there is no advantage to players.
Now, am I going to cancel my subscription and stop playing DND? No. But, I will probably stop buying printed books because I'll have to have Internet access at the gaming table and when creating characters anyway, and will just use the compendium, rather than the offline builder and a pile of books. I never shared my login (I don't do that), so Wizards will lose my book revenue without gaining additional subscription revenue from me.
What I am going to do though, is to keep the CB in a Windows VM to isolate the crappy silverlight plugin (just like I'm about to do with the flash plugin after the recent battery performance benchmarks) and avoid the performance/security/stability issues that come along with it. So for me, I still have to run Windows on my Mac (which was never a big deal for me anyway).
All of the models imply some inconvenience, but none of them have to be as bad as "We are taking away all of your offline capabilities".
Also, on the issue of piracy, you can get PDF version of the books if you look in the right places, so this doesn't really help protect their property, it just makes things harder on the legitimate consumer. WOTC, did you even bother to look at different models before dooming us to this awful choice?
So, wizards, the new online CB will not meet my needs as a customer. The currently updated program covering all the books up to psionic power is really all I will need anyway sense it appears that the only products that will be released for at least the next six months will be for essentials, which I likewise have no interest in. I have voiced off an honest appraisal for why it will not be useful for me personally and other customers like me, and I have voted with my wallet. If wizards thinks that online-only CB is a better route for their company, they are free to try it.
I'd have exactly the same argument if Microsoft moved Office to the cloud, or Apple moved iWork there. Lack of control over my own data, blind trust in their competence to back it up, no guarenteed SLA, and no offline access. That's why I don't, and will never use, Google Docs or other cloud services like it.
Actually, if it was Office I wouldn't mind so much - I have other programs I can read .doc and .xls files with. It's more akin to putting Windows itself up as a "service". You sign up for XP and then, one fine day, boot up to "Sorry, Windows XP is no longer our version of choice and is no longer available. By paying a one-time charge you can upgrade to Windows Vista. Have a nice day!"
Even then, I bet we'd see comments along the lines that "dude, it's totally untrue that you can't do your stuff any more! U cud totally print out all that stuff (before losing XP, presumably) and do it all using a pen and paper, just like back in the day..."
Wow. I JUST bought a subscription to get the downloadable and updatable builder and this was not told to me at all.
Canceling immediately and I'll ignore the future updates. Flatly, you may have just turned me off ever. EVER trusting WOTC with my money again.
I'm going to call my credit card company and insist on a chargeback for this bait-and-switch.
1. I don't want to have to be online whenever I want to use the CB. I like to run the CB while playing but the internet connection where I play is pretty slow. I'll be back to using pencil and paper and killing more trees by printing out my character sheets whenever I make a change.
2. The fact that if I ever cancel my subscription to DDI, which seems a lot more likely to happen sooner now, then I loose access to the characters I've created. Hope I have an up to date printed copy of them somewhere.
3. I've lost control of my characters. They don't reside on my local computer and I have to rely on WotC's ability to keep their service going to access them. Given the number of broken links I find on the existing web site, I'm not confident that an online CB will have the reliability I expect if I'm paying a monthly subscription to access it.
4. WotC now has my characters hostage. Whatever changes they make to their service in the future I just have to live with it or loose access to my characters. "I have altered our arrangement. Pray I do not alter it further."
I've noticed that a few Mac and Linux people have spoken up saying that they run virtual Windows instances to run the CB. That's what I do. I can see the benefit of a web based application for allowing people to use the tool on different platforms. I find the drawbacks outweigh the benefits however.
Salient points from related threads:
So basically, I'm paying a sub to get less functionality than I had before, and was barely able to justify that sub based on the lack of follow through with bringing out the tools that would enable remote play without resorting to buying other products.
The one thing that isn't a matter of opinion, or even a matter of taste is simply that by making it an online only product, you take away its funtionality.
My FLGS runs LFR, and about half the players there bring their laptops along, both for in-game reference and for updating sheets afterwards. The store does not (For obvious reasons) offer the wifi key to anyone who walks in, and as such, this new 'improved' Character Builder is useless to us...A massive thumbs down from me and the other players at my table.
Now, you are renting the content. If you end your subscription, thats it. Lame, lame, lame!
To me it is simple. I do not want to have my characters stored 'online' or be able to use an only 'online' system.
Anyone else annoyed they spent how much development time to recreate a tool already in production instead of producing new tools? Better yet, how about the tools they demo'd before 4E ever launched? Now we have 2 CB and soon, 2 MB apps, but still no virtual game table, no character visualizer, no, no, no....And, I'm sorry, store the character in the Cloud? No frackin' way. I'm sure there will be some provision all characters stored online are fair use for advertising, etc...I really need to figure out if it's worth paying them more money to continually redevelop tools that were already out there.
As long as I don't pay a recurring subscription fee, I wouldn't have access to my own creations because WOTC has clamped down on all of their "loaned" intellectual property. They might as well come to my house and take all of my 4e books back, seeing how it's their property, even though I paid WOTC (and TSR before them) hundreds to thousands of dollars for this hobby.
no access if I am playing at a convention.
no access when I'm on a 5 hour train ride and decided to play with my travelling companions
no access when I am at the airport and decide to mess around with some character builds.
no access if the internet connection goes down at my house
This is classic bait and switch. It's also ridiculous. We turn off the internet router when we play, so people with laptops don't get distracted. I am with others - moving to an online-only model is neither worth the cost, nor the hassle. I'm saddened and incredibly disheartened by this maneuver.
Wizards will now own your characters, and everything you put in them. We're now paying to give them our stuff.
[You're at a convention, your character levels, there is no Wi-fi, and the public computers are taken up with everyone else doing the same thing.
Silverlight adds insult to injury, as one of the advantages of a cloud service could have been that all OSes could have used a web-based service. Access from your Mac, Linux PC, internet cafe or your mobile. That would have shifted the utility of the service from offline access to real cloud based access. Now you have could with severe restriction of access to MS Silverlight-enabled PCs...And no, it is not necessary, just convenient for WOTC. Not too hard to implement a browser interface to a standard piece of software.
Running on Silverlight...screws everyone with a 64 bit system like me. Unless you are running on the 32 bit IE, you can not run silverlight. Even if you open with the 32 bit, sometimes when IE opens a new window, (which it does even if you have it set not to,) it opens it in the 64 bit. Also Microsoft doesn't have the best trackrecord with stable programs before the 3rd or 4th update.
WOTC's servers are not impervious to failure. Imagine playing the game with your character on a laptop (or a netbook, like I do), the suddely you get an error, "SERVER DOWN". It happens all the time - what are you supposed to do in this case?
I have been a constant subsriber to DDI since it started. I purchase on a yearly basis, and just renewed my subscription for another year. I also own about 40 4ed books and twice as many 3ed books. I have the character builder installed on 3 personal machines and don't share my account with anyone. I'm not a cheat, I'm not a liar, I'm not taking advantage of WOTC in any way. All that said: I am very disappointed with the lack of an offline option. I have paid a great deal of money to WOTC, and I expect a product that suits my gaming style, and that is convenient for me to use.
So there I was...trying to update my acount information to make sure the annual automatic renewal for my insider subscription went smoothly (New CC number). And guess what? Error, error, error.
Since October 26th I have tried to update my account information, and I get:Error:
We are currently unable to perform the selected action. Please accept our apologies for this inconvenience. We have been notified and are already working to correct this issue as quickly as possible. Please click your browser's back button and try this action at a later time, or take a different action.
Error Number: SYS_000001
Is this the level of non-service I am to expect from a web-only CB?
The idea that the web only model will increase revenue in any way is completely false. Support costs do not dissapear in the magic cloud...in fact they INCREASE...clearly whomever is making descisions is the problem. Cloud computing drives costs UP, creative acounting tries to claim that this is not the case.
I do not pay to rent software. I pay to buy software.
WOTC has given us no real advanced notice, has not given us a chance to beta test the new software, or done anything to make me think that I am somewhat involved in this process...Don't take away our ability to use the CB offline!
We hope that WotC will include this export feature they say is coming soon though I'd be remiss if I didn't say that at this point: I simply don't believe them anymore.
What kills me...is the marketing effort to tell me how great this is supposed to be for me.
Tell me that you want to exercise tighter controls, or you want to encourage people to actually buy your books instead of just using the online tools, or you conceived this as an (ineffectual) attempt to cut down on pirated PDFs kicking around, or I don't know, whatever rationale is behind this. Maybe just tell me, "This cuts down on the work we have to do to make this tool available."
But don't try to convince me that you're making some awesome change for MY benefit. "OMG you don't HAVE TO store your characters on your hard drive!" Yeah, but what if I WANT to? "OMG you can be directly connected to all the content over the Internet!" Yes, but what if I don't want to do that?
If I have to eat poo, at least call it poo.
And, by the way, WotC guys, there still are those four or five empty buttons on the Adventure Tools... any progress on those? Monster Builder is awesome and all... but "tools" implies more than one.
Wow. I JUST bought a subscription to get the downloadable and updatable builder and this was not told to me at all.
Canceling immediately and I'll ignore the future updates. Flatly, you may have just turned me off ever. EVER trusting WOTC with my money again.
I'm going to call my credit card company and insist on a chargeback for this bait-and-switch.
Recommendation: Don't file the chargeback request until you have talked to Wizards' customer support. The chargeback won't be accepted if you haven't made the attempt to work through their process first.
For those who don't know: A chargeback is a request to the credit card company to cancel payment on an item. They are used whenever a product does not meet expectations and the company issuing the product refuses to refund the customer's money. There are some restrictions, notably you have to do it within 60 days of purchase and you have to have already attempted to get resolution through the company's processes. Chargebacks are required by federal law in the US; in other words, credit card companies MUST work with you on them.
The key point in the chargeback (as opposed to a vendor complaint process) is that the credit card company does the negotiating with the vendor. The chargeback filer doesn't have to debate with the vendor over whether the money should be refunded and why.
A side "benefit" of a chargeback (from the customers' perspectives) is that the company which has the chargeback request against them gets on the credit card company's "list" of companies with chargebacks against them. If they accumulate too many, the credit card company will refuse to allow them to process transactions via their cards. A company that I filed a request against about 20 years go went bankrupt as a direct result, all because they refused to send an instruction book out with a hard disk. Amazingly stupid of them. I think it was VISA I did it with. They told the company to refund my money, and when they refused, VISA paid me. And promptly cancelled the vendor's ability to charge against VISA cards. They were a mail-order only company, and this cripped their business. Really dumb of them.
Of course, Wizards can easily avoid the problem by having their customer service always grant the refund requests, thus preventing any chargebacks from even being filed.