Does anyone else find it curious that since the acquisition of DDB by WotC, and since Joe Starr left and the Dev Update was cancelled, that this site hasn't had any progress or communication of progress? What gives? Where is our shared inventory slots, our general features tab, and our homebrew containers?
This is more concerning than corious. It didn't just suddenly stop when Wizards bought DDB though; Things were already declining before that. The lack of communication is extremely disheartening, and it's sad that the mods and staff aren't really as active in places such as the forums when they could be. Updates and dev updates seem to be slowing, and at this point it really feels like the designers are just doing maintenance rather than developement.
All in all, I've lost quite a bit of confidence in DDB. However, it is still easily the best digital toolset for the game, and there are a lot of awesome things going on too.
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BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
Does anyone else find it curious that since the acquisition of DDB by WotC, and since Joe Starr left and the Dev Update was cancelled, that this site hasn't had any progress or communication of progress? What gives? Where is our shared inventory slots, our general features tab, and our homebrew containers?
Their primary focus is very likely the OneD&D VTT. Jumping through hoops to code in a bunch of features for an edition with less than 2 years of shelf life left is probably not the best use of their time.
Their primary focus is very likely the OneD&D VTT. Jumping through hoops to code in a bunch of features for an edition with less than 2 years of shelf life left is probably not the best use of their time.
Good point. More communication from the mods and devs explaining things like this would go a long way to help assuade much of the community's concern on subjects such as this though. That being said, it does make a lot of sense that more focus would be put on 1DD and less on developing new features.
From Andrew Searles' Twitter from January 8th: "Quick story. When DDB was first acquired by WotC, I had a conversation with someone on the WotC side. They told me that DDB was only successful because of the D&D logo and not the work we had put into it for 5 years. It’s a culture of arrogance."
Adam Bradford's response: "This was starkly evident well before the acquisition. In the early days of the partnership, things went about as well as you could imagine, and something truly special was created as a result of that. Some top level leadership changes later, and it all took an abrupt nosedive."
For those that don't know, Adam is the founder of D&D Beyond and Andrew was a Product Manager.
I think it's safe to say that D&D Beyond is not in good hands and they don't give a crap about improving the service. Just those sweet, sweet subscriptions and all the other predatory monetizing that Chris Cocks, Cynthia Williams, Tim Fields and the other worshipers of Mammon at Hasbro/WotC can't wait to spring on their victims.
From Andrew Searles' Twitter from January 8th: "Quick story. When DDB was first acquired by WotC, I had a conversation with someone on the WotC side. They told me that DDB was only successful because of the D&D logo and not the work we had put into it for 5 years. It’s a culture of arrogance."
Adam Bradford's response: "This was starkly evident well before the acquisition. In the early days of the partnership, things went about as well as you could imagine, and something truly special was created as a result of that. Some top level leadership changes later, and it all took an abrupt nosedive."
For those that don't know, Adam is the founder of D&D Beyond and Andrew was a Product Manager.
I think it's safe to say that D&D Beyond is not in good hands and they don't give a crap about improving the service. Just those sweet, sweet subscriptions and all the other predatory monetizing that Chris Cocks, Cynthia Williams, Tim Fields and the other worshipers of Mammon at Hasbro/WotC can't wait to spring on their victims.
I stopped really visiting this site back when Adam and bunch of the team left, as it was clear that they were the driving force on making this site great. After that, the updates became fewer and fewer and now I don't even come here when running a game. It's sad, I evangelized the site to my group when it first came out, and I religiously used the homebrew tools for all of the stuff I had designed on the side, and now it feels like a shadow of what it was. No updates to homebrew tools, the encounter builder, or other tools they've had on their roadmap. Just more virtual dice.
DDB is still a good toolset in its current state. There is lots of good things they can do to continue improving it. One would think that with the new physical digital bundles they recognize it’s importance and potential, but it may not be top priority anymore.
"It was only popular because of the D&D logo" Is that why sites like Orcpub were taken down, because that was pretty popular, or it could be that it made making and maintaining characters simplified
From Andrew Searles' Twitter from January 8th: "Quick story. When DDB was first acquired by WotC, I had a conversation with someone on the WotC side. They told me that DDB was only successful because of the D&D logo and not the work we had put into it for 5 years. It’s a culture of arrogance."
Adam Bradford's response: "This was starkly evident well before the acquisition. In the early days of the partnership, things went about as well as you could imagine, and something truly special was created as a result of that. Some top level leadership changes later, and it all took an abrupt nosedive."
For those that don't know, Adam is the founder of D&D Beyond and Andrew was a Product Manager.
I think it's safe to say that D&D Beyond is not in good hands and they don't give a crap about improving the service. Just those sweet, sweet subscriptions and all the other predatory monetizing that Chris Cocks, Cynthia Williams, Tim Fields and the other worshipers of Mammon at Hasbro/WotC can't wait to spring on their victims.
WotC has proven time and time again they CANNOT handle digital. Their original online character builder for 4e was a piece of bottom scum and one of the reasons I left 4e for Pathfinder. They did not have their own forums until they purchased DnDBeyond. I personally do not trust WotC to handle the digital side of things. Period.
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Watch your back, conserve your ammo, and NEVER cut a deal with a dragon!
"It was only popular because of the D&D logo" Is that why sites like Orcpub were taken down, because that was pretty popular, or it could be that it made making and maintaining characters simplified
Probably had more to do with him starting up a Kickstarter with intent to charge people for content without having distribution rights.
I've been using Evan Bailey's Improved Initiative because DnDBeyond's Encounter tool is just not up to snuff. Improved Initiative is great, but I'd really like to not have to pay for a tool that should be included in DnDBeyond's platform. Their support of Dm tools has been abysmal. For example: I want a dice roller I can use outside of the encounter builder!
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C. Foster Payne
"If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around."
For example: I want a dice roller I can use outside of the encounter builder!
You have one. Character sheets have a dice roll option to click and roll dice. If in a campaign, the results are displayed in the campaign game log for the DM and others to see, and you can make private rolls to the DM.
If you are the DM you can make a character named "DM Rolls" or something. Add NPCs you make using the Extras tab for easier access. Set character to private. When you want to roll, just use the general roller to roll what you need. You can choose to have those rolls appear in the game log for players or private so only you can see.
I mean, I know what you mean. Just being able as a DM to roll into the log without having to make a fake-char would be good. Or have a campaign be joined without needing a character so you can roll ability scores and have them show in the log, etc. Defo needs more. Buuut, it's just not accurate to say you lack the option now - because you do have it. A bit of a roundabout way, aye, but it's there.
-
But yes. Things were dying even before Adam and peeps left. And has pretty much outright died entirely since WotC took over. I have stated this before so I'mma just copy it.
It used to be pretty decent. They worked to get books fully functional and kept you informed along the way. You had a trello for the ongoing big things so we, the consumers, could easily see progress. There were Dev Updates that were videos but would also get transcribed or given an overview post - for those of us who didn't have the time to watch through long videos just to see if the update they wanted was even mentioned or not. And small but annoying things were quickly found and resolved. Easily fixed bugs were fixed within days. There were frequent changelogs. If you raised a Support ticket, answers came within 1 to 2 days. If more than that, the mods were happy to escalate if you made a forum post. Devs/staff were frequent on the forums even just for regular discussion. If somebody posted in the Bugs forum then staff or mods would be answering within 2-3 days at most.
Then the site was bought by Fandom. There was a spark of enthusiasm and then things started to slow down. It was a very noticeable drop in dev activity, updates, and fixes.
Then Adam and more all left. We were all told these were all unrelated. Only to find they actually left together to go work together in a new DNDB-esque platform for rivals. And their platform has frequent updates while this one stagnated (#sus). Trello disappeared.
Then WotC took over stating it was to improve the speed of the dev projects - to finally get things working like they should (because there's something from every official book not fully implemented) and they wanted to improve everything. Great. Except it didn't happen.
And now everything has gone dark. There's barely any updates, even less communication, books are released with even more functions missing from site with no sign or promise of ever being implemented. Devs almost never grace forums in any capacity and even mods are really scarce now. Simple bugs now take months to fix, if ever, and not a single tidbit of progress on the ongoing stuff relayed to us. There's still stuff from PHB and DMG not fully implemented. There's almost no communication on anything. Most mods and staff seem to be gone now and the mods who are here barely post. Support tickets typically take a week or two - often longer - and raising a forum post about it gets nothing. Very few new threads in bugs forum gets seen by mods now, it's rather rare to see. It's usually the ol' timers here who are doing all the helping there.
It's a woeful shame because this is one of the best character building tools out there, and a great source for the books and whatnot. But man, oh, man does it now feel like a sinking ship these days.
Change : bring back the old dev team enthusiasm, the open discussion between company and customer, the peeps who were happy to go "here's our projects and where we're at with them!" Bring back that show of progress and pride.
And for "add" : a new system of prioritisation. Stuff from core books you have openly said you're working on are still not implemented. Stuff that's simple as heck to make, we've been waiting years for, because of how you prioritise your projects. You seem to always have the stuff we, the customers, scream for are things you're leaving at the bottom of list. You got rid of UA so you could focus on prioritising the old and new stuff but that has not happened. You didn't have a great system in the beginning (and your trello even showed that) but you seem to have abandoned all sense of priority now.
So.. Yeah. A little bit of enthusiasm from the devs - some actual rapport with us who fund you - would be incredibly appreciated. I am aware your job isn't easy (I've done similar myself) and I'm not trying to discount the amazing work that has been put into this site. It's just before there was always something, and now we get slightly more than nothing.
Oh.. and: A better homebrew system / backend system.
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Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
I don't think it has stopped, but I do think that Wizards are doing things differently (possibly under the mandate from their parent company). It's also true that large companies generally don't spend a lot of time giving little updates, and mostly roll them all into release notes when they release new features.
One D&D is under development, so development for DDB hasn't stopped - it's just changed direction.
That is only what I think though. I have no direct knowledge either way.
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A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
I don't think it has stopped, but I do think that Wizards are doing things differently (possibly under the mandate from their parent company). It's also true that large companies generally don't spend a lot of time giving little updates, and mostly roll them all into release notes when they release new features.
One D&D is under development, so development for DDB hasn't stopped - it's just changed direction.
That is only what I think though. I have no direct knowledge either way.
Nobody is disputing that they are working on One D&D and the inevitable micro-transaction heavy digital tabletop.
It is a fact that there have been no major updates since Feb '22, when containers were introduced. The changelog corroborates this.
Avrae and mobile app updates are appreciated of course, but this isn't the core product. More core product updates please!
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Does anyone else find it curious that since the acquisition of DDB by WotC, and since Joe Starr left and the Dev Update was cancelled, that this site hasn't had any progress or communication of progress? What gives? Where is our shared inventory slots, our general features tab, and our homebrew containers?
This is more concerning than corious. It didn't just suddenly stop when Wizards bought DDB though; Things were already declining before that. The lack of communication is extremely disheartening, and it's sad that the mods and staff aren't really as active in places such as the forums when they could be. Updates and dev updates seem to be slowing, and at this point it really feels like the designers are just doing maintenance rather than developement.
All in all, I've lost quite a bit of confidence in DDB. However, it is still easily the best digital toolset for the game, and there are a lot of awesome things going on too.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Their primary focus is very likely the OneD&D VTT. Jumping through hoops to code in a bunch of features for an edition with less than 2 years of shelf life left is probably not the best use of their time.
Good point. More communication from the mods and devs explaining things like this would go a long way to help assuade much of the community's concern on subjects such as this though. That being said, it does make a lot of sense that more focus would be put on 1DD and less on developing new features.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.From Andrew Searles' Twitter from January 8th: "Quick story. When DDB was first acquired by WotC, I had a conversation with someone on the WotC side. They told me that DDB was only successful because of the D&D logo and not the work we had put into it for 5 years. It’s a culture of arrogance."
Adam Bradford's response: "This was starkly evident well before the acquisition. In the early days of the partnership, things went about as well as you could imagine, and something truly special was created as a result of that. Some top level leadership changes later, and it all took an abrupt nosedive."
For those that don't know, Adam is the founder of D&D Beyond and Andrew was a Product Manager.
I think it's safe to say that D&D Beyond is not in good hands and they don't give a crap about improving the service. Just those sweet, sweet subscriptions and all the other predatory monetizing that Chris Cocks, Cynthia Williams, Tim Fields and the other worshipers of Mammon at Hasbro/WotC can't wait to spring on their victims.
Everyone cheered when WotC bought DDB and I warned people, but nooo, nobody listened to me.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I stopped really visiting this site back when Adam and bunch of the team left, as it was clear that they were the driving force on making this site great. After that, the updates became fewer and fewer and now I don't even come here when running a game. It's sad, I evangelized the site to my group when it first came out, and I religiously used the homebrew tools for all of the stuff I had designed on the side, and now it feels like a shadow of what it was. No updates to homebrew tools, the encounter builder, or other tools they've had on their roadmap. Just more virtual dice.
AdmiralChry's Homebrew Compendium - A collection of all my classes, subclasses, magic items, and etc.
Did you guys checked the changelog?
https://www.dndbeyond.com/changelog
DDB is still a good toolset in its current state. There is lots of good things they can do to continue improving it. One would think that with the new physical digital bundles they recognize it’s importance and potential, but it may not be top priority anymore.
"It was only popular because of the D&D logo"
Is that why sites like Orcpub were taken down, because that was pretty popular, or it could be that it made making and maintaining characters simplified
WotC is going to Elon DndBeyond and D&D in its entirety. lol
It's like letting a 2 year old drive the family car.
Info, Inflow, Overload. Knowledge Black Hole Imminent!
Avrae + Mobile Updates + new books.
No improvements to the character management side on their (what used to be main) web app.
WotC has proven time and time again they CANNOT handle digital. Their original online character builder for 4e was a piece of bottom scum and one of the reasons I left 4e for Pathfinder. They did not have their own forums until they purchased DnDBeyond.
I personally do not trust WotC to handle the digital side of things. Period.
Watch your back, conserve your ammo,
and NEVER cut a deal with a dragon!
Probably had more to do with him starting up a Kickstarter with intent to charge people for content without having distribution rights.
The changelog was hastily thrown together before Xmas. Read it carefully and note that there's a lot of padding out.
Other than mobile app and avrae updates, there is nothing of substance since Feb '22 when containers were introduced.
Remember when we'd be able to move items between party members, etc?
I've been using Evan Bailey's Improved Initiative because DnDBeyond's Encounter tool is just not up to snuff. Improved Initiative is great, but I'd really like to not have to pay for a tool that should be included in DnDBeyond's platform. Their support of Dm tools has been abysmal. For example: I want a dice roller I can use outside of the encounter builder!
C. Foster Payne
"If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around."
You have one. Character sheets have a dice roll option to click and roll dice. If in a campaign, the results are displayed in the campaign game log for the DM and others to see, and you can make private rolls to the DM.
If you are the DM you can make a character named "DM Rolls" or something. Add NPCs you make using the Extras tab for easier access. Set character to private. When you want to roll, just use the general roller to roll what you need. You can choose to have those rolls appear in the game log for players or private so only you can see.
I mean, I know what you mean. Just being able as a DM to roll into the log without having to make a fake-char would be good. Or have a campaign be joined without needing a character so you can roll ability scores and have them show in the log, etc. Defo needs more. Buuut, it's just not accurate to say you lack the option now - because you do have it. A bit of a roundabout way, aye, but it's there.
-
But yes. Things were dying even before Adam and peeps left. And has pretty much outright died entirely since WotC took over. I have stated this before so I'mma just copy it.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Another couple of months have passed. More avrae and mobile app padding in the changelog, but no updates of any significance still. Sigh.
I don't think it has stopped, but I do think that Wizards are doing things differently (possibly under the mandate from their parent company). It's also true that large companies generally don't spend a lot of time giving little updates, and mostly roll them all into release notes when they release new features.
One D&D is under development, so development for DDB hasn't stopped - it's just changed direction.
That is only what I think though. I have no direct knowledge either way.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Nobody is disputing that they are working on One D&D and the inevitable micro-transaction heavy digital tabletop.
It is a fact that there have been no major updates since Feb '22, when containers were introduced. The changelog corroborates this.
Avrae and mobile app updates are appreciated of course, but this isn't the core product. More core product updates please!