Character Creator Open Beta – Do You Care?

11 Dec

Posted by rjstreet as RPGs

Character Creator Art

The new D&D Character Creator is in open beta (and therefore available to those without a subscription), but does anyone care?  It looks good if you’re able to use it (its Windows only) and seems to do the trick, but will the program stay current with new release (which was the deathknell for the 3.0 version of the character creator)?  And how dedicated is Wizards to this initiative after the layoff of Randy Buehler (all around nice guy and head of their digital gaming division)?  I was an early adopter for 4E and a pretty unapologetic fanboy, but I just don’t understand what WotC is doing any more…

7 Comments

1. Trask on 11.12.2008 at 22:03

   I give this “Digital Initiative” about six months. After that, high costs and low subscription rates will drive it into extinction.

   Trask, The Last Tyromancer

2. ARMistice on 12.12.2008 at 00:55

   And whats about the fun of creating my character manually? Doing that stuff with friends? What about the last rest of paper falling apart after using the rubber on it one hundred times. I remember the important traces of coffee / tee, sweat and blood on my character sheets after playing the whole day and night with it .. and in the end .. one question remains:
   Can u fall asleep on your character sheet if its in your computer?

3. Psynister on 12.12.2008 at 08:21

   The whole subscription concept was a horrible idea from the start. You don’t take free content and then bundle it up with a price tag and expect your fans to appreciate it.

   Making digital copies of things available for customers was a great idea, but taking away the physical versions (talking about the magazines here) was a huge failure on the part of WotC. A lot of their players embrace the digital age, but many of them do not. And, even with those that do there are not a whole lot of people who care to run the game over the internet or even with a computer there with them. I personally have no problem with it, but I’m the only one in my groups that’s willing to even give it a try.

   Subscriptions work for things like World of Warcraft (I know, another D&D vs WoW comparison), but seriously – D&D is not the kind of game that you get so addicted to that you play it 5 minutes after you get home until 3 hours before you have to go to work. Why would I want to subscribe to D&DI, when I’m only going to use it once a week at the most. Many of the gaming groups that I know in my general area are only able to play every 2-3 weeks, or once per month. The subscriptions are not worth it in most cases.

   Now, back on topic. Do I care about the character creator? Absolutely not. I didn’t care for the one they came out with in 3.5, and I don’t care for what I’ve seen/read so far concerning 4e. I’m a bit biased on that since I’m a programmer and I prefer to make my own character generating programs anyway, but I find very little in any of these products that makes me want to use them over a straight pencil/paper setup. I know with the 3.5 version, I was able to put out 2 full character sheets in the time it took one of my players to get through a single character with their software.

   Truth be told, I’m probably going to download the software when I get home today just to give it an honest test before I start talking too much crap about it, but so far I really just couldn’t care less.

4. Dave T. Game on 12.12.2008 at 09:03

   Well, to answer your core question without getting into the other stuff, I’m the only D&D Insider subscriber in the two 4e groups I’m in, and many of the other players were interested in getting the character builder without subscribing.

5. .o. on 12.12.2008 at 10:22

   ARMistice – yes, you can. But the consequences for drooling are more severe.

6. Brent P. Newhall on 13.12.2008 at 07:19

   Thanks to the free online 4th Edition character creators out there, I really don’t need the official one.

7. lee on 08.03.2009 at 22:59

   Its not the best one the price and the other thang is the house rules !!! basicly it sucks

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.