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Is Software next?
- Thread starter smetzger
- Start date
Leopold
NKL4LYFE
smetzger said:
1. There is still one man in charge of PCGen.:Bryan McRoberts. he is the lead developer and coder for the app. The rest of us support him and the application in what ways we can. We at pcgen have an 'understanding' of sorts with WOTC. We negotiated this almost a year ago with the powers that be at WOTC. Hopefully this 'understanding' will remain entact in the months and years ahead, we shall see.
2. IF they shut down jamis' site that would be a tough thing to stomach. He has done allot of hard work in keeping all the material open source and close to OGL.
3. I hope clarification and legalise will be present on the future documents. This doc was very poorly written and needs clarification. Please check the 3E conversion thread in the general area as it has more information therin.
Leopold
NKL4LYFE
Re: Re: Is Software next?
I for one would like to know how? and if this is possible to kill that part of it. The text in pcgen is MEANT to be vague and REQUIRING the end user to have possession of the said material in their hands. If people are skirting around this, I for one, would like to know how we can better kill this situation and rectifiy it to better protect pcgen and RPM from incuring the wrath of WOTC if and when MT comes out.
Luke said:
I for one would like to know how? and if this is possible to kill that part of it. The text in pcgen is MEANT to be vague and REQUIRING the end user to have possession of the said material in their hands. If people are skirting around this, I for one, would like to know how we can better kill this situation and rectifiy it to better protect pcgen and RPM from incuring the wrath of WOTC if and when MT comes out.
Re: Re: Re: Is Software next?
The message I'm referring to was somebody using RPM and PCGen together. I assume it's actually the use of RPM that avoids needing books most. RPM contains all the legalD20 SRD content for feats, spells, magic, classes etc, which is virtually word-for-word with the core books. By operating under the OGL RPM is fully protected.
It's PCGen's safety that worries me. After a long time WOTC decided to toughen up about the ESD conversions, despite all the flak it's causing. I'd say that in the early days it suited WOTC, since it provided a wealth of material that made 3rd ed more attractive. Once MasterTools is released, PCGen could suffer the same fate, since it would no longer suit WOTC to have this electronic character generation utility available. In fact, as already stated by "WOTC", the future line of MasterTools expansions (to finally reach it's original vision), will depend on strong sales of the initial product. They took out so much of the original plan, that it's now probably head-to-head with PCGen in functionality. Killing offerings such as PCGen is likely to be percieved as helping with funding MasterTools' future. There would originally be a backlash, but I suspect the larger part of the fanbase would convert. At the end of the day, the "non-legal" standing of PCGen will make it's case very hard to defend from a moral high ground. A precedent has definitely been set here. What WOTC tolerated yesterday, they can revoke tomorrow.
Prior to MasterTools, PCGen fills a void that greatly helps players. Also, with it's wealth of 3rd party source books, PCGen encourages the purchase of non-WOTC material. WOTC can't stop you using other 3rd party material with permission, but they can force you to gut ALL the WOTC material (even the core stuff, unless you start conforming to the OGL). That would dramatically change the usefulness of PCGen to people.
Let's just hope it all pans out okay... PCGen is a huge effort based on dedicate gamer's efforts, but then so were the ESD conversions...
Leopold said:
The message I'm referring to was somebody using RPM and PCGen together. I assume it's actually the use of RPM that avoids needing books most. RPM contains all the legalD20 SRD content for feats, spells, magic, classes etc, which is virtually word-for-word with the core books. By operating under the OGL RPM is fully protected.
It's PCGen's safety that worries me. After a long time WOTC decided to toughen up about the ESD conversions, despite all the flak it's causing. I'd say that in the early days it suited WOTC, since it provided a wealth of material that made 3rd ed more attractive. Once MasterTools is released, PCGen could suffer the same fate, since it would no longer suit WOTC to have this electronic character generation utility available. In fact, as already stated by "WOTC", the future line of MasterTools expansions (to finally reach it's original vision), will depend on strong sales of the initial product. They took out so much of the original plan, that it's now probably head-to-head with PCGen in functionality. Killing offerings such as PCGen is likely to be percieved as helping with funding MasterTools' future. There would originally be a backlash, but I suspect the larger part of the fanbase would convert. At the end of the day, the "non-legal" standing of PCGen will make it's case very hard to defend from a moral high ground. A precedent has definitely been set here. What WOTC tolerated yesterday, they can revoke tomorrow.
Prior to MasterTools, PCGen fills a void that greatly helps players. Also, with it's wealth of 3rd party source books, PCGen encourages the purchase of non-WOTC material. WOTC can't stop you using other 3rd party material with permission, but they can force you to gut ALL the WOTC material (even the core stuff, unless you start conforming to the OGL). That would dramatically change the usefulness of PCGen to people.
Let's just hope it all pans out okay... PCGen is a huge effort based on dedicate gamer's efforts, but then so were the ESD conversions...
Ds Da Man
First Post
Actually, couldn't PCGen still just have a tutorial on how to input "things" into the program? Then, regardless of WotC items, you could still just "put" them in.
And the ESD conversions didn't have a problem until the cash started to play a factor did it? I mean WotC didn't step in until they tried to market it right?
And the ESD conversions didn't have a problem until the cash started to play a factor did it? I mean WotC didn't step in until they tried to market it right?
Last edited:
Re: Re: Re: Re: Is Software next?
Yes, yes they can force the issue by telling us to remove all non-SRD stuff, and I expect eventually they probably will, TSR/WotC have a bad habit of pissing off the public, but like sheep, we keep going back.
Regardless, they can force us to convert our list files to ONLY SRD stuff, and that's fine, it's sort of expected at some point. They only shoot themselves in the foot (is this really a surprise to anyone?) again.
But, if someone at TSR/WotC thinks about it a minute (hell, even 10 seconds), they'll realize it's futile to do so.
Why?
Because the genie is literally out of the bottle... Yea sure, PCGen will continue to evolve, add other d20 publishers, expand functionality, etc... but the list files for the existing WotC files are already out there. Someone would undoubtedly make the older, previously released list files avaiable somewhere, someone would undoubtedly update said list files and release them them somewhere. And everytime TSR/WotC went after that person, they would close shop and someone else would open up. It would become like the warez scene, and that's just ugly and bad publicity for TSR/WotC.
TSR/WotC would actually be better off working WITH every 3rd party program out there. Maybe set up a 'Software Consortium' With 3rd party software creators, WotC one corner, Free Software another, Open Source Another, and Pay software the last... Get together with the predominant forces as they exist now and work out some standards that everyone can live/work with.
But I don't expect that to happen either.
TSR/WotC has demonstrated entirely too much stupidity over the years, and their sometimes, mindless Microsoft style strategies, have jaded many people into trusting them without reservation.
*shrug* either they'll go after people or they won't, either they'll work with people or they won't, either they'll learn from the past or they won't, but whatever they do, they will probably make a hash of it.
Luke said:
Yes, yes they can force the issue by telling us to remove all non-SRD stuff, and I expect eventually they probably will, TSR/WotC have a bad habit of pissing off the public, but like sheep, we keep going back.
Regardless, they can force us to convert our list files to ONLY SRD stuff, and that's fine, it's sort of expected at some point. They only shoot themselves in the foot (is this really a surprise to anyone?) again.
But, if someone at TSR/WotC thinks about it a minute (hell, even 10 seconds), they'll realize it's futile to do so.
Why?
Because the genie is literally out of the bottle... Yea sure, PCGen will continue to evolve, add other d20 publishers, expand functionality, etc... but the list files for the existing WotC files are already out there. Someone would undoubtedly make the older, previously released list files avaiable somewhere, someone would undoubtedly update said list files and release them them somewhere. And everytime TSR/WotC went after that person, they would close shop and someone else would open up. It would become like the warez scene, and that's just ugly and bad publicity for TSR/WotC.
TSR/WotC would actually be better off working WITH every 3rd party program out there. Maybe set up a 'Software Consortium' With 3rd party software creators, WotC one corner, Free Software another, Open Source Another, and Pay software the last... Get together with the predominant forces as they exist now and work out some standards that everyone can live/work with.
But I don't expect that to happen either.
TSR/WotC has demonstrated entirely too much stupidity over the years, and their sometimes, mindless Microsoft style strategies, have jaded many people into trusting them without reservation.
*shrug* either they'll go after people or they won't, either they'll work with people or they won't, either they'll learn from the past or they won't, but whatever they do, they will probably make a hash of it.
Ds Da Man said:
Well, while there isn't a 'tutorial' per se, there is a list of valid tags used in the list files for creation of anything. All it requires is looking at another set of list files and copying much of what you would want until you learned how to make them from scratch.
It's not really that hard to learn, but can be time consuming to say the least.
There are plans to have a UI to input most common things, but that's still a bit down the road yet.
But no matter what happens (or doesn't happen) with TSR/WotC vs the rest of the 3rd party software people, there will always be some type of 3rd party toolsets out there. It happened with 2nd Ed, all manner of character creators appeared, and the Core Rules still sold Strongly (hell I bought em. ;p)... but I think the difference this time is the fact they've horribly mis-managed time and time again, the whole MT issue. *shrug* We'll see what happens when/if it happens.
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