Comments on: WTF is up with D&D Insider

By: Mea

Mea — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:07:26 +0000

Not a mac user, not really caring because the cost of DDI is enough to put me out f the market for using it. Some of us are college students scraping to get by as it is, and 15 dollars a month is two boxes of ceral and a couple pounds of ground meat. Which would you choose? Anyhow, I’ll by 4e PRINT products the way I’ve been doing since I first found out about D&D and DDI can bite me since there’ll be plenty of people offering similar services for free. Only thing I’ll miss out on really is the visualizer.

That being said, yay 4E boooooooo DDI

By: Graham

Graham — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 03:30:55 +0000

The 3d apps (character visualiser, virtual tabletop) can not.

Most of the rest are web apps, and are thus OS-independent. There may be other programs that are not web apps, but if so I don’t remember them.

That all said, I think some people have had luck emulating DirectX under linux, possibly under WINE. The same things could theoretically be done under OSX, though I don’t know if it’s been tested.

EDIT: http://wine-review.blogspot.com/2007/11/directx-90c-on-linux-with-wine.html
Yep, you can use DirectX under Wine. And Wine does run on OSX, I believe. Check it out. If it works, you can use every part of DDI, even if it’s not Mac-native.

Graham’s last post: Pathfinder 16 & 17 - Good sections, but…

By: OriginalSultan

OriginalSultan — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:37:04 +0000

So wait, what features of D&D Insider can run on Macs, and what features cannot run on Macs? Anyone know for sure?

By: The Game

The Game — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:21:59 +0000

Bartoneus: For example, look up the Rogue entry in the Compendium. There is an extra build listed that’s not in the PHB (and there’s a spot for a build called Thief-Acrobat but no game rules.)

Douglas: I wouldn’t say they’re not listening, there was a long apology post on the messageboards by the lead in DDI who tried to address concerns, but what it boiled down to “it’s not ready, and we’re not sure when it will be ready, but we’re going to make sure it’s done before we release it.” What they failed on was making it sound like it was tied to the game itself, then not even delivering that. (I’m sure there would be fewer people decrying that 4e was a videogame, for example.)

By: Ish

Ish — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:06:43 +0000

The content of Dungeon and Dragon are of roughly equal quality to what WotC was producing before they passed them to Paizo… however, they’re releasing only about a third of the quantity.

TSR’s Dungeon and Dragon were better, Paizo’s Dungeon and Dragon were better, and WotC’s print Dungeon and Dragon was the same but containned more.

Sorry to say, I personally think WotC dropped the ball on all aspects of DDI. The launch of 3E was handled much better than the launch of 4E, and the main reason for that was the magazines. Tons of preview content, and an excellent 3E minicampign in both magazines (Legends of Sherwood) the day that the books hit the streets.

I love the 4E rules, but WotC is fast becoming one of thos game companies where I only ever buy the core book and never look back.

(And, of course, I’m one of those angry Mac users too.)

By: Douglas

Douglas — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:55:33 +0000

I too am outraged. I expected much more and sooner. Dungeon and Dragon were released but in a very limited form, “mostly” is generous… yet the content was excellent.

I love 4E, but I hate the way it had been launched and the Mac issue boils me up. Stupidity on Wizards part and may spur me on to rebel against a DDI account….

BUT ARE THEY LISTENING TO THE OUTRAGE?

By: Bartoneus

Bartoneus — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:20:52 +0000

What is this additional content you speak of?

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:20:22 +0000

They haven’t shown they can program working software for Windows, yet. Until they do, I consider expending the service for other OSes to be a far-off and unlikely dream.

- Brian

Brian’s last post: Stupid Random Encounter Table Tricks

By: Graham

Graham — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 05:01:04 +0000

The decision was apparently made because they already had an in-house 3d engine that used DirectX, and programmers that were familiar with it.

What accounting department would approve additional spending in that case?

Graham’s last post: Pathfinder 16 & 17 - Good sections, but…

By: The Game

The Game — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 03:26:04 +0000

It’s even funnier when you realize that most of the designers and developers of 4e use MacBooks as their personal computers. I know the brand team is very aware of how upset Mac users are over it, so I have to wonder if the decision was made at some higher level.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 02:17:42 +0000

And, DDI does not support those of us using Macs — not for the supposedly cool stuff to come. Yeah, sure, we’re a relatively small percentage of os’s on the world scale, but I wonder how many gamers are Mac users, and therefore cut right out of the features that, if they work, would make DDI worth subscribing to.

I understand the idea of a business decision — appeal to those who will pay the bills. Sure. But c’mon..with so much cross-platform and browser-based apps out there now, isn’t it a bit silly (stupid?) to ignore Mac users?