Quote from terrywilcox >>

So here's the secret to buying software: purchase based on what it does right now. Don't make decisions based on what you think or hope it will do in the future. 

I agree with this 100%. 

I've played MMORPGs and other video games long enough to know that buying something based on what the devs say it will have in the future is destined to waste my money and frustrate me. Either it has what I want, now, and I pay for it... or it doesn't get my money.

I got started on DDB to have online versions of the books and to use the character sheets. That's it. Combat tracker, encounter generator -- nice but not why I got started here. VTT, same thing.

"Code head? That seems a bit derogatory..."

It's not. It just means a person who can have a head full of code and make sense of it. Not all people who work with code are technically "programmers" nor are they all technically "scripters". But, both can have heads full of code, so, codehead is a nice, easier, cute,  catch-call term for people who experience making scripts, programming things and similar.

Quote from BioWizard >>

Quote from terrywilcox >>

So here's the secret to buying software: purchase based on what it does right now. Don't make decisions based on what you think or hope it will do in the future. 

 

I agree with this 100%. 

I've played MMORPGs and other video games long enough to know that buying something based on what the devs say it will have in the future is destined to waste my money and frustrate me. Either it has what I want, now, and I pay for it... or it doesn't get my money.

I got started on DDB to have online versions of the books and to use the character sheets. That's it. Combat tracker, encounter generator -- nice but not why I got started here. VTT, same thing.

The part that is frustrating with that is that WotC seems to keep them in the dark for far too long on this kind of stuff.  Like sure you might not know where stuff is going if you are trying to predict a larger concept like Social Media or Marketing.....but this is DnD.  They know what is going to print well ahead of time and could warn one of their biggest partners of what is coming especially knowing that it takes time to implement.

Otherwise what does "Official Digital Toolset" even mean if you get no forewarning of new features/subclasses/abilities. 

Otherwise what does "Official Digital Toolset" even mean if you get no forewarning of new features/subclasses/abilities. 

I think you will be a lot happier if you make your peace with the fact that "Official digital toolset" means literally nothing -- since R20 and FG both get the same content at about the same time as DDB gets it. Probably per deals WOTC has had in place with them for a long time.

Quote from BioWizard >>

Otherwise what does "Official Digital Toolset" even mean if you get no forewarning of new features/subclasses/abilities. 

I think you will be a lot happier if you make your peace with the fact that "Official digital toolset" means literally nothing -- since R20 and FG both get the same content at about the same time as DDB gets it. Probably per deals WOTC has had in place with them for a long time.

 Which is what I am criticizing here....software lead time is needed to make people happy with the digital product and they dont give that to their partners.

Terrible idea IMO. 

Official digital toolset just means a digital toolset that WotC has given permission to so that they can legally include non-free content in those tools. D&D Beyond, Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds are all Official Toolsets.

All of this is perfectly true, Terry.  Nobody ever outlined when the business was built that an amphibious yak-shaving NecroMansion would need to be built on a twelve-dollar budget.

However, the other thing that's true is that DDB committed to a certain ideal when they started this business and began selling books.  That ideal being that everything in the books would show up on your sheet, and it'd all work nice and clean and intuitive, the way you'd expect it to.  That's the whole thing their business does.  if they can't accomplish that, then it's a core failing of their system and it needs to be addressed.

Fortunately for us, Adam And Co. have been working on it since Guildmaster's Guide to ****nica dropped and despoiled our D&D.  Which makes exactly *one thing* that book did right, so hurray.  My 'complaints' - which have been addressed, but the thread's still going so here I am - were simply that if the character sheet doesn't work, nothing else matters.  DDB has proven this.  In only threeish years they've caught up and are working steadily on eclipsing VTT tools that have been in the market for significantly longer, simply because their lookup system and character tools are actually usable.  The character sheet is the core of their business and they know it.  Everybody complaining about a lack of VTT and saying "I can just fudge the stuff that doesn't work on the character sheet!" doesn't really realize that this exact train of thought is what led to Roll20 and the like being what they are.

And I think we can all agree that nobody EVER should set out to be Roll20.  Not even Roll20.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

All of this is perfectly true, Terry.  Nobody ever outlined when the business was built that an amphibious yak-shaving NecroMansion would need to be built on a twelve-dollar budget.

However, the other thing that's true is that DDB committed to a certain ideal when they started this business and began selling books.  That ideal being that everything in the books would show up on your sheet, and it'd all work nice and clean and intuitive, the way you'd expect it to.  That's the whole thing their business does.  if they can't accomplish that, then it's a core failing of their system and it needs to be addressed.

Fortunately for us, Adam And Co. have been working on it since Guildmaster's Guide to ****nica dropped and despoiled our D&D.  Which makes exactly *one thing* that book did right, so hurray.  My 'complaints' - which have been addressed, but the thread's still going so here I am - were simply that if the character sheet doesn't work, nothing else matters.  DDB has proven this.  In only threeish years they've caught up and are working steadily on eclipsing VTT tools that have been in the market for significantly longer, simply because their lookup system and character tools are actually usable.  The character sheet is the core of their business and they know it.  Everybody complaining about a lack of VTT and saying "I can just fudge the stuff that doesn't work on the character sheet!" doesn't really realize that this exact train of thought is what led to Roll20 and the like being what they are.

And I think we can all agree that nobody EVER should set out to be Roll20.  Not even Roll20.

 Just in case any of my comments got construed as "I can just fudge the stuff that doesn't work on the character sheet" for more than a temporary basis, that's not the intention I've had for anything. The closest I've come to that notion is for the interim basis: either for this social distancing thing or until something comes along that makes it so we don't have to fudge stuff. I'm fully on board with do it right if you're going to do it at all. It took me quite a while to invest anything other than time on this site before I felt comfortable with the tools to do so. I looked into Roll20 and a few other options for VTT and didn't like what I was seeing enough to give any a go with paid content. That's part of what I liked about BioWizard mentioning the free trial earlier in the thread, it gives people a chance to see what the tools will actually look like during a time when they're more likely to use it.

Quote from terrywilcox >>

Quote from IamSposta >>

 Sure, but they could explain it enough for the code heads to understand why it’s taking so long so that they could help assuage the doubts the rest of us might have. 

 

 Code head? That seems a bit derogatory...

Credentials: I've been a professional software developer for over twenty years. I've worked on a dozen or so commercial software products.

Here's why it takes so long: software development takes longer than you think. Much longer.

I don't need to know how many yaks they've had to shave today. I don't need to know what requirements have changed dramatically since they designed the architecture. I don't even need to know what technology they're using.

I already know what the problem is. Nobody said the car had to be amphibious. The house plans were for a sprawling mansion, but the lot is only 12 feet wide. Resurrect the dead, on a budget?

Here's a case in point: the class variant rules add optional features to base classes. That follows neither the "subclass option selects features" system, nor the "features can include options inside them" system. It's a new, optional system. Maybe.

Should D&D Beyond invest a lot of time adding this new system to classes? What if they invest the time and Wizards decides not to go ahead with it? Or Wizards changes how it works? That could be a lot of effort wasted. But it might be needed. Who knows?

Either way, the D&D Beyond devs are still working on 5e functionality and 5.Xe might be looming on the horizon. Where do they commit resources? The VTT or the potentially game changing rules update that must be coming from Wizards? They might be able to work on both, but something has to go on the back burner.

And that's why they don't give timelines. If Wizards pops out a book full of new character creation rules, D&D Beyond has to change priorities. It has to re-allocate development resources. Timelines must change.

Tough decisions will have to be made. They won't make everybody happy. People will complain that their pet project deserves priority because it's what all the right thinking people want.

So here's the secret to buying software: purchase based on what it does right now. Don't make decisions based on what you think or hope it will do in the future.

And don't expect status updates from developers. They're busy.

 

 No offense intended, my apologies. You don’t have to explain it to me. Like I said, I’m well aware how long it takes and am personally okay with a simple “Still workin’ on it.” Thank you for taking the time to explain it though.

There's been a few calls in here, and in other VTT threads, of "look, edge case weirdness that doesn't really affect my game is just that - edge-case weirdness.  Nobody uses homebrew tools and I can just kludge it if a player uses one of the handful of things that doesn't work, but everybody wants to be able to roll dice right on their sheet or see the map they're on in my game!"

Which is just as wrongheaded as my adamant refusal to accept VTT functionality at all.  My frustration got the better of me and I acknowledged that, but the idea that the character sheet is allowed to be broken if it means MOAR VTT is anathema to the entire reason DDB exists and is a successful business.  Functional integration of the character sheet has to come first.

Fortunately, Adam agrees and has told us all it's in the cards real soon now, and once it's done more resources can be thrown at VTT tools.  Huzzah!  Victory for errybuddy.

I get it, like I said. I just wanted to know if it was one of those projects you decided to shelve “until the concrete was dry,” or if we could still expect those juicy new variants. 

Quote from BadEye >>

Another aspect of the way this works that I think folks don't quite grasp is with Unearthed Arcana playtest content. The Class Feature Variants UA that came out (I believe in November) was our advance warning of a feature that WotC is experimenting with for the game. Throughout the design process, we really don't know how much that system will change, or even if it will see the light of day in a published book or not, until much closer to its intended release date. In those cases, we certainly don't get advance notice, because the rules are literally worked on for their UA form right up until the PDF is released to the public - and that's fine, because it's playtest content that WotC wants to test. However, fans don't always understand that we can't snap our fingers and "get it into DDB" as quickly as they want to play with it. (I get it - I love those new options too).

I can't recall which dev update it was but you said something about not knowing which UA will make it to published rules and therefore not necessarily having the bandwidth to implement all UA. I think it's pretty clear that the Class Feature Variant UA will definitely be making it to published rules in some form in the future solely based on how incredibly popular they are so it's good that you're working on implementing them; I highly doubt that it will be a wasted effort.

Even if they don’t, the updates to the framework were necessary for other stuff, so it’s all in the same kettle anyway.

For example, even though WotC knew many months ago (and in some cases years), that there would be a "Theros" book somewhere this year, the actual "final" version of that book only goes to the printer 4-8 weeks before release. 

Yeah that 4-8 weeks time is when they should be sharing the final book and giving you a chance to work on it.  Seems really crazy if they are not. 

 

Another aspect of the way this works that I think folks don't quite grasp is with Unearthed Arcana playtest content. The Class Feature Variants UA that came out (I believe in November) was our advance warning of a feature that WotC is experimenting with for the game. Throughout the design process, we really don't know how much that system will change, or even if it will see the light of day in a published book or not, until much closer to its intended release date. In those cases, we certainly don't get advance notice, because the rules are literally worked on for their UA form right up until the PDF is released to the public - and that's fine, because it's playtest content that WotC wants to test. However, fans don't always understand that we can't snap our fingers and "get it into DDB" as quickly as they want to play with it. (I get it - I love those new options too).

This part makes a lot more sense honestly but the biggest problem with this is how much things change with UA.  This one worked well it seems because by the time they do come out with class variants likely you will have it figured out on the site. 

UA gets a lot of attention and demand but honestly I think the work done on upgrading the homebrew system and the character sheet will make it a lot easier to implement faster.  I think y'all are aware of that and have said as much.  

The part that gets me is that the Spells of the Mark was something they seemingly threw in last minute as it never appeared in the Wayfinders Guide as additional playtest material and just came out with Eberron: Rising from the Last War.   One of the big issues there is that they only updated the Wayfinders guide once or twice while it was "UA".  No real changes were made until the last minute seemingly and it seems as if you guys were blindsided as much as we were with the new changes.

That doesn't seem productive for anyone really especially as the document was touted as "Living" but was only changed 1 or 2 times.

Overall I think the more I understand the process the less I blame DnD Beyond for delays as you guys are at the mercy of too many opposing forces. 

Quote from OptimusGrimus >>

Overall I think the more I understand the process the less I blame DnD Beyond for delays as you guys are at the mercy of too many opposing forces. 

 Yup, now yer gettin’ it.

Quote from IamSposta >>

Quote from OptimusGrimus >>

Overall I think the more I understand the process the less I blame DnD Beyond for delays as you guys are at the mercy of too many opposing forces. 

 Yup, now yer gettin’ it.

 
Yeah Adam's responses have been very helpful with understanding the process.  Still much sad but it shall fade. 

adam as far as the technobabble not being interesting for the majority of the users i do agree and there is a limit to what those who do understand the technobabble want to know as well.  but perhaps you can do some amount of technobabble outside the actual livestream video.  like when you put it up as vod also have a link in the description to a one or two page pdf that has some summary of the more technical side of progress for features that have been announced and are anticipated.we all know that "we are continuing to work on this" at many companies means about as much as it is coming "S.O.O.N."(Soon Or Otherwise Never).  if a pdf like that does not seem feasible maybe there is a way to add more detail to the roadmap and actually have it be update more regularly

As a technical person, I'll tell you there is almost no depth I won't go to to understand a system I'm interested in.

And, as much as well commented and explained code can be as valuable as pure gold, nothing beats having the actual developer there to explain it.

So, while I appreciate that not everyone cares about that stuff, from what I hear from the most active people, there are actually a lot of programmers around here. I would even dare to say around 50% of the most active users (here, on the discord server, in the twitch channel) are programmers of some sort who are interested in that stuff.

I'm not saying every stream should feature behind the scenes technical details but me and several other people would love to see more technical oriented updates.