Comments on: Wizards continues to lag behind in the electronic age

By: Melvin

Melvin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:57:04 +0000

Don’t fall over yourself to apologize to CMP.

WotC pulled the license for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that CMP bugfix and dataset releases were commonly delayed due to CMP working on their own competing program to eTools, the “RPG Foundry”, or whatever they’re calling it now.

WotC was open to a complete code re-write, as long as people that had already purchased the software were able to freely download the new application and datasets for the new application, but CMP didn’t want to do that – they figured they could screw WotC over with their own application, and then unofficially release an unsupported tool to migrate the eTools data into their application.

Timely release of the fixes and datasets did not happen, many complaints came in to WotC about the lackadaisical attitude, and one of the CMP founders even left in disgust and embarassment.

Given the hole that CMP had dug for eTools, and that there was talk of D&D 4th Edition coming out, WotC decided to just pull the plug.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, CMP has had nearly two years to release the final patches and bugfixes to eTools and all of the datasets, but just can’t seem to find the time – i.e. there’s no money to be made, so who cares about the customers who have already payed for it?

These idiots are in for a rude awakening when and if they actually release the vaporware they’ve been touting for years and years – anyone who wanted to give them money has moved on, either in disgust at their unethical business practices, or they’re just plain tired of waiting.

Make no mistake – WotC didn’t screw anyone over in this fiasco – the blame for that rests solely on CMP’s shoulders.

By: Elwyn

Elwyn — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:53:57 +0000

Hey guys, this has probably already been corrected I am guessing, but Fluid made the original code for ETools (the character generator) and it was Soooo buggy WotC put it out to the market to see who could fix it. CMP Won it and they fixed a LOT of bugs to make the unwieldy software at least half way decent, and then they continued to produce datasets on this code and try to improve the code… they took the original code to the absolute max of its limits.

The only way they could make it better would be by starting from Scratch, writing new code from the ground up…

They began this venture and then WotC pulled the rug from beneath their feet, so this has set things back a little… though they are getting round it and something should be appearing in the not too distant future…

Further information can be retrieved from CMP website… that’s my 2 cents worth

By: Carl

Carl — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:09:11 +0000

Frankly, lots of people (in the UK) have bought into 4e on the grounds that you cna play it remotely. Instead, what are we doing? We are using laptops on the table with webcams in the place of the missing players.
4 days (I say again, 4 days!) after the release of the PHB, there were fully functional character generators available for 4e (most ran in Open Office or Excel but if I’m going to pay £60 for the game books, I’m not going to balk at using the free Open Office product).
Card generators and card sets are readily available.
The ‘bonus tool’ on the WotC website to build encounters was up on a forum long before it appeared on Wizards (or it’s twin was!)
I am furious that DDI is not available. A week after release, fine. A month after release, well maybe there are serious problems that they should be telling us about. After three months; tough, WotC, we have found (and paid for) our own solutions (like the Battlegrounds software, which you just pay for once). Game Table would have to be something incredible to get my money now.
Three months is long enough that we have found our own solutions.
One person said that new players will be younger and not resistant to new technology. They are also of the instant gratification generation and don’t take the endless ‘coming soon’ statements; they take their money and interest elsewhere . 4e will only be the ‘new thing’ for so long and after that period is up, it will be a long climb to get back up to that peak of player interest.
My two penneth.
Carl

By: reveal

reveal — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:08:56 +0000

@Dillon – I realize that many FB apps have run into issues of being too popular. But this is Wizards. They have to realize how popular they’re going to be and need to be ready for it. They are a huge company with millions of fans. There is no excuse for not being ready, especially given how much people wanted to use their other electronic items.

By: Stargazer

Stargazer — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:46:55 +0000

@Insider: your “interview” with that “technical guy” confirms my fears. The people responsible for the “digital initiatives” either don’t have a clue or they just don’t care. But from what I’ve seen all around (the failure of Gleemax, the delay of DDI and the state of the official D&D website) they just don’t have the necessary skills. If they want do done it right they should get a decent web designer, a bunch of talented web programmers and start by recreating the website. And although I would love to see all of the announced DDI features, I think it would be probably better just to cancel DDI and put Dragon and Dungeon back to print. WotC has shown that they just haven’t arrived in the digital age and so they should return to their basics before they hurt D&D.

By: Dillon

Dillon — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 07:15:38 +0000

*commenting only on TA*

Tiny Adventures is back up and running and it’s a lot of fun. They weren’t the first FB developer to run into problems when their app got far more attention then they intended and they won’t be the last. Personally I think it’s a bit rich to lump it in with the rest of your gripes… and you are only really complaining because you couldn’t play it.

In fact I guess you are only really complaining full stop.

By: Insider

Insider — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 01:46:12 +0000

OK.. interesting speculation on the CMP/WotC side. I was ACTUALLY involved with both PCGen and CMP, albeit peripherally… So to clear up a few misconceptions and outright false statements…. The guys who formed CMP came from the PCGen Open Source project. Once CMP was formed only Brian (who also created PCGen) stayed active.

At GenCon after fluid bungled 1.2 (I saw the code… it was an abortion… ) WotC approached CMP to have them “fix it” and if possible make data for the new books that had been released.

THESE WERE NOT “cracks” that is a blatant false statement. The main problem with some of the features however was the ORIGINAL product had significant flaws in the design and that cause CMP to create creative workarounds within the code to get certain features to work. Somethings just couldnt be done…

As to the pricing of Data Sets. WotC had their specified “piece of the pie” and CMP charged a very MINOR percentage on top to pay for people to create the data sets, website hosting, overhead and a very little bit to the principals… believe me NO ONE got rich at CMP…

As far as why CMP did not move forward wtih a 4E version of the E-Tools… well from what I understand WotC pulled CMPs license with NO Explanation… just a “we do not wish to renew”…

Now seeing Gleemax and DDI I see that they thought they could do better/different/etc…. However… after looking at Character Creator and Visualizer, I am both interested and disappointed. Here is why…:

CC: Looks good, however the true test is in seeing how it handles updates and custom options. A few thing that bother/bug/irratate me:

1. No Mac OSX support.. yeah yeah I know, quote whatever percent you want.. but when you focus on gamers realize that we are a bit of everything. Multi-OS should have been in the design. Also the “we used what tools we had available” excuse that I saw on the WotC forums is BS… I know for a FACT that they have a license for QT a multi-OS UI Framework tool b/c CMP had to buy it to use of E-Tools and WotC has access via that agreement….

2. When asked where is the “game table” hosted at for a given game I was told “on a server”.. :S this was the “technical guy”… when I dug further I was finally told “we are not sure just yet but in North America” So any international users with be dealing with serious lag.

3. When asked what their load testing has been and how many concurrent sessions they believe they can handle, I was told “we have not determined that yet..”

4. When I asked what is the bandwidth utilization requirements for Game table/CC/CV I was told “a dsl or cablemodem connection” so I again drilled further.. by asking “ok so if I am in a hotel room or an EVDO connection I need to know how much data per hour I am using as some places (outside the US) charge per MB or have bandwidth caps in hotel rooms and ALL EVDO cards have a per month bandwidth cap.. I was told “we haven’t tested that yet…” so I asked then how do you know a dsl/cablemodem will work? I was then told “because that’s what most people have so it should be enough”… so I pointed out that one of the “touted features of game table” was to connect REMOTE users…

5. While the character creator looked nice it was obviously an executable running locally.. so I asked how this was an “online tool” and was told that that was what they were showing… *sigh* again pointed out that it was running locally and asked what the requirements where.. was given a VERY generic “windows with IE” spec… I asked did it REQUIRE IE.. and was told yes.. I asked “why?” and was told because that’s how we tested it….

At this point the “technical guy” literally in the middle of his own sentence walked away…

So do I have hope for the product.. well yes.. if you are going to run it from your house using XP/Vista running IE on a QuadCore processor machine with a Cablemodem that has a 16MB down with no monthly cap… it should be adequate… anything else.. well.. YMMV….

By: Drew

Drew — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:56:25 +0000

My NDA expired a while ago. I wasn’t involved in the CMP-WotC deal, but I was involved from a CMP side at the beginning, so I did have a bunch of inside info. It is a bit fuzzy because of how long ago this all was.

Please note: the e-Tools nasty interface was what CMP was handed from E-tools. The first release they put out was basically a bug-fixed (and there were a LOT) version of what they were given.

Data-set selling was NOT CMP’s idea. That was WotC’s. And WotC made more off the datasets than CMP. CMP bore all costs, minus oversight review. It was seen as another source of income for WotC, and without that, there wouldn’t have been a deal between WotC and CMP.

All CMP wanted from the beginning was permission to release datasets for PCGen. WotC wouldn’t go for anything unless they could make money.

By: reveal

reveal — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:16:04 +0000

@Billy – Actually, I’m one of the most positive people you’ll meet. I’m not calling the DDI a failure. I never said that and, in fact, in one of my earlier posts suggested people subscribe to it because it’s worth the cost. What I am stating in this post is that Wizards has failed to live up to its promises, up to this point, on any of their digital initiatives. I truly hope they do not stay consistent in this regard.

By: Billy

Billy — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:09:16 +0000

You talk about 2008 as though it’s ancient history, but it’s not even September yet, for goodness’ sake!

4E has been released for all of two-and-a-half months already. It’s still a little early to call DDI a failure, especially given the (generally) positive reviews of the .pdf format magazines so far.

The Compendium has been available for a while now, although you failed to mention that it has been expanded regularly and substantially in terms of functionality and content since release. The Encounter Builder includes monsters from a variety of sources already. WotC has started weekly reports regarding the status of various DDI projects, giving us a clearer picture of when to expect new tools and new functionality.

Given these details you’ve ignored, I can only assume that you must prefer thinking about dark clouds to silver linings.

By: reveal

reveal — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:48:45 +0000

@Theocrat – Thanks for posting! I will say that I understand copyright but I assumed that CMP had Wizards’ blessing for their data sets. I understand paying for the data sets to compensate the programmer’s for their time and effort, but I think that Wizards should have given part of the proceeds from the sale of each book if the code included in the back was used to get a free data set. That would have been good marketing and made the tool more useful because people would have rushed out and said “Hey! I can get this free!” even if Wizards was really just bumping up the cost of the books a few bucks to pay for it.

By: Theocrat

Theocrat — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:06:11 +0000

Hi all –
While I agree with the overall attitude that TSR/WotC/Hasbro has failed with any sort of Digital Initiative it has attempted, there are some bright spots.
First, with 2e there was the Character Generator (I’ve got it around here somewhere) that came out and was updated and then later updated with Spells & Spellcraft and Combat & Tactics source books. It was also clumsy to use, but looking back, so was 2e. They then had the Dragon Archive. This was a scan of all the back issues of the magazine and PDF’d, but then used some software in an attempt to hide it’s PDF background. This was a clusterfrack. Once again, the idea was great, but the execution was horrible.
With the release of the 3e PHB and the CharGen – it had lots of promise and one group I played with 2yrs ago was still using it. Many fans made it modifiable, allowing new classes, races and updating it to 3.5. It had a lot of promise. Yet, as you mentioned, the promises made for it were exhausting. The CharGen was scrapped for a “better” e-Tools product, however Fluid could not keep up and WotC took their license. Later Fluid finished one part of the CharGen idea with it’s Dunjini product as a map maker and as mentioned, Code Monkey Publishing took over official control.
CMP had been giving the updates and “cracks” for e-Tools as well as creating PCGen and source book material. WotC didn’t like it. This is where the original poster is way off base and needs to review a tad thing called Copyright. When you buy the book, WotC is granting you use of the knowledge inside that book. Game Mechanics are not copyrightable, but the content is. Thus Feats and their overall concept are not copyrightable, but the Feat “Improved Initiative” is. The concept that you get a +4 to initiative is not copyrightable, but the term, initiative when used in D&D’s context, could be (and with Hasbro’s lawyers, I’m sure they could convince your $300/hr attorney that it is!).
So e-Tools was out and getting no support with the release of each new splat book. WotC was suffering with the “in” crowd and those that liked e-Tools. I’m sure they didn’t like CMP’s “cracks” but they didn’t have anything else and in a way, it at least furthered their game. Thus at a GenCon, CMP was persuaded to end it’s cracks and go legitimate (again with the lawyers – or at least there could have been a threat). Thus, when CMP became a legitimate provider of the data sets for each new book you had to pay for the information. This is because, and as you’ve said, you paid for the book, and its information as used in the printed form. But not the electronic form, nor the way it was utilized in the program. This same as all the other copyright law issues out there. Just because you bought Metallica’s CD doesn’t mean you can post it on your computer and share that with me, even if I also have that same Metallica CD.
Besides, if you aren’t or weren’t able to make the time to enter in the information into you e-Tools, then why should CMP’s time not be compensated? If your time is valuable, then so too is CMP’s and the people that they hired to enter in the information. Additionally, each data set was $5-$10. Although I make way more than $10/hr, I usually use that as my base for how long I’m willing to wait in line to save some money. I’m not going to wait in line for 3hrs to get gas at 97c because in the long run, my time is more valuable than the $30 that I’d have wasted just sitting and waiting. Thus, by that same comparison, a $10 data set is undervalued. I made a data set using a fan created e-Tools Helper and made a soldier class and entered several Greyhawk deities and other things for my home campaign and it took me several hours over several weeks.
I realize you don’t really make much of an argument for why you should have to pay for the CMP data set after you bought the book, but I feel its important for it to be understood why would would pay for the data set, not based upon the source material or the copyright issues. But based upon the time issues of your fellow gamers, who instead of reading the latest book or playing another session, they were at their PC typing away at a program in which they had to hack to figure out how to make it better.

I further disagree with another poster above. It does not appear that Hasbro is attempting to make WotC it’s digital arm. Hasbro sold the digital rights to Monopoly, Yahtzee and most of its other games to Infrogrames several years ago. An official of Hasbro/WotC stated 3 years ago at GAMA (this was later posted elsewhere, either on WotC’s forum or EN World) that they envied Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. At the time, WoW had 4million subscribers, each paying $15/month. Meanwhile, D&D had 4 million players (or whatever the total amount is, I don’t know off hand but lets just say that it’s 4million players), but even if each and every player paid for the PHB, that was still only $30 paid for the book – once. However, we know that there are many players at our tables that don’t even own a PHB, and it’s the DM’s that buy the DMG, modules and other source books, thus their overall players may be equal (or more than) WoW, their monthly income is much less. This monthly $15 x4million is where Hasbro felt they needed to go. Thus the modification to the game to allow for this concept, and the eventual idea behind 4e.
Thus, whether I like it or not, or believe that Hasbro is going after the money with the release of 4e is moot. When you feel your game (D&D) is the basis for all the WoW / EverQuest / City of Heroes games and so many more computer games are ultimately based upon your game, you feel its unfair that someone has such a dominating share. I’m not an insider, but I’m sure some lawyer somewhere in Hasbro looked into understanding why Blizzard isn’t paying some sort of royalty (because ideas are not copyrightable).

Thus in the end, I do agree that Hasbro has failed at its digital initiatives in regards to Dungeons & Dragons, including the MMO that bears its name. How is it that a game that has 4million hard core players (myself included, having played since 1979) has less than 250k players in its online version? I don’t play WoW, I play City of Heroes/Villains, but why is it that I felt that after 20days of playing D&D Online, I didn’t feel the game captured my experiences? How is it that they gave DDO to turbine after their failed experiment with such a classic D&D module, Temple of Elemental Evil? I realize that BioWare wasn’t doing MMO’s, but with their immensely popular Baldur’s Gate games, they seem like a better choice.
My lack of faith in Hasbro for Dungeons & Dragons is appalling. I remember missing my Dragon magazine issues when TSR was failing and when WotC saved the day. I even accepted the possibility that maybe some M:tG ideas would creep into my game. But I still felt that WotC at the time held the fans best interests at heart. Hasbro’s purchase of WotC made many people rich enough, which may have saved GenCon and may have helped form Paizo Publishing. If Paizo’s new Pathfinder can find an audience of even a million hardcore gamers, I will have faith that D&D’s idea may yet continue, and with it new digital ideas – just not with the D&D logo.
Sorry, it appears I’ve made my own blog, and for that I do apologize, but I hope I’ve added to the discussion and not confused it.
Be Well.
In His Path and Glory We Follow,
Theocrat Issak
Church of the One True Path of Pholtus
http://www.GreyhawkOnline.com / http://www.CanonFire.com

By: reveal

reveal — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:26:33 +0000

@Stouthammer – I’m not criticizing them for publishing early. If you look in the back of the PHB, it has a picture relating to the Game Table. So they released the PHB at the advertised time, not ahead of schedule, and the product they advertised in the back of the book is still not available. That is why I’m criticizing them.

By: Tom in central Illinois

Tom in central Illinois — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:26:10 +0000

I was a long-time customer of Code Monkey Publishing and the e-Tools character generator; the user interface for e-Tools was very logical and almost self-explanatory. Once you got into the ‘House Rules’ feature, you were able to customize the tool to your own satisfaction. While I can understand the frustration of paying for each data set update, I tempered my frustration by remembering that I was buying an update that had been tested and verified by Code Monkey and by Wizards. I would have much preferred for Wizards to entrust Code Monkey with the software support for the 4th edition character generator but such was not the case. I am still using e-Tools for my remaining 3.5 edition campaigns (my gaming group will probably not switch over to 4th edition until all of the 3.5 campaigns are finished (possibly January or so).

By: Stouthammer

Stouthammer — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:59:41 +0000

It’s also worth pointing out that for the stuff they promised would be released on Insider by the time the game was released — well, the Dungeon Master’s Guide wasn’t due out until barely over a week ago at GenCon. They were supposed to be spread over two months but instead we got all three right away. So maybe the compendium and other online tools weren’t out when the three books came out. But they /were/ out before the final book was due. Had the books been released on their original schedule, you wouldn’t be regarding those as a failure. Don’t criticize them for publishing books early.

By: reveal

reveal — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:53:53 +0000

@Talinthalas – If that’s the case, I can see why they charged for the data set’s. However, I still think that Wizards should have helped by offering the sets for free, or at a discount, for people who already purchased the books.

@disziplin – The website itself is ok but, yes, aesthetically it’s very poor.

By: disziplin

disziplin — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:17:58 +0000

And no one mentioned their website. Their website is truly awful, both aesthetically and functionally. It needs an entire redesign. There are aliased images, broken links, nigh impossible to find articles, and so on.

Designing a web site isn’t that difficult. To me this is just another indication that either they are clueless and too stubborn to admit they need help with IT, or they simply don’t have their heart in delivering the technology to support their products. Either way they should not continue to promise features/apps they cannot or will not deliver.

By: Talinthalas

Talinthalas — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:10:33 +0000

Just wanted to point out a few things. One was that Fluid released the character generator. Then Code Monkey was brought in to patch the already released and buggy character generator. Secondly since Code Monkey was creating the datasets (for both e-tools and PCGen) they were charging for the datasets to recoup their costs. And also if I remember correctly to pay for their license from Wizards. They never saw any money from any of the released books and needed to recoup their cost somewhere.

By: reveal

reveal — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:27:57 +0000

@Errant – I’m glad you found the chargen useful. I don’t know many people who ever actually used it, especially since PCGen was free and you could easily edit it to add your own info.

@Stargazer – I totally forgot Gleemax. I’m still saddened to see the message boards down about 10% of the time.

@Forgefly – I don’t know if anyone has, but I think it’s time for WotC to step and tell Hasbro they need to do better. I don’t know how much say WotC has in their digital initiatives, but if they have any at all they need to make better use of it.

By: Forgefly

Forgefly — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:13:04 +0000

It seems to me that I remember an article in a prominent business magazine which stated that Hasbro has a long history of these failed digital/electronic initiatives.

But then many companies across many industries want to switch to subscriber based sales to generate “revenue streams” and just as many companies fail to do it successfully. Once you hear about people paying $10-20/month to do ridiculously repetitive tasks (read: MMO’s) it is hard not to want a piece of that action.

The problem is that a company like Hasbro and even WoTC have no expertise in this area. Going Digital for them is like Coke suddenly announcing it was going to focus on sales of digital Coke and that for a monthly fee you could enjoy as much virtual coke as you could drink, but it would be a proprietary system, so you’d have to log in make a new character that could only drink coke.

Note to Hasbro and WoTC: If you want to go digital, License your brand name for big money and let some other company take the risk of a crappy product.