Will there be a retooling of the Pathfinder (Paizo) website to mesh the community and game materials (similar to that other 5th edition RPG)?
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Certainly, it would make it easier for new players to join in. I know I've introduced players to both games core rules, and they found D&D Beyond's stuff- specifically that one click character build thing- invaluable, and immediately had a preference for playing it to PF. I reckon an official character building thing would be not too difficult to code and pretty damn useful in getting new players started.
I don't think Paizo are likely to put smart tools like that on their site. An active third-party marketplace is one of the things that keeps Pathfinder afloat, including both third party classes/feats/spells etc, and tools like character builders. Both of those groups could be severely inconvenienced if Paizo had an official character builder that only covered their own classes and material.
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So they should just continue to appear as the less friendly, less modernity-savvy system just to appease a couple third party character app makers? Seems like shooting themselves and everyone else in the foot, hurting adoption and sales and thus sales for every OTHER third party dev as well, just to help maintain an artificial status quo for only a couple specific companies.
An official character builder only makes Paizo look good if it's done really well. Paizo aren't a software company (and they still haven't published the SRD for Starfinder), so they'd have to partner with a third-party to do it properly. That would take substantial investment, and they'd have to start it now if they want it to be ready soon after the system launches.
Whereas if they don't bother spending that time or money, they can be reasonably sure somebody else will. There will be character builders, SRDs, and other things. None of them will be perfect or cover every conceivable case, but they'll be good enough.
I can see the argument for making Pathfinder look more professional, modern and like a market leader; I just don't think Paizo is in a good place to do that.
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(Also, speaking as one of those third parties, yes, they should be nice to third parties)
An official character builder only makes Paizo look good if it's done really well. Paizo aren't a software company (and they still haven't published the SRD for Starfinder), so they'd have to partner with a third-party to do it properly. That would take substantial investment, and they'd have to start it now if they want it to be ready soon after the system launches.
Whereas if they don't bother spending that time or money, they can be reasonably sure somebody else will. There will be character builders, SRDs, and other things. None of them will be perfect or cover every conceivable case, but they'll be good enough.
I can see the argument for making Pathfinder look more professional, modern and like a market leader; I just don't think Paizo is in a good place to do that.
Well, I can see the point about needing people decent at coding. XD I guess it was easier for Wizards / Hasbro to set up because of a simpler / less customizable character creation process and because of pre-existing relationships with game programmers and their 4E character builder.
Not having played 4e at all, or 5e beyond a few simple bits, can anybody here tell me: how successful were the digital tools that Wizards did for them? I have the impression that the 4e digital tools weren't well regarded, but that's second-hand information.
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Wizards partnered with Curse in order to create D&D Beyond, they didn't do any of the coding themselves (just granted Curse a license to make the digital tools).
This arrangement is something Paizo already does with Lone Wolf Development (and others) -- grant a license to use the Pathfinder name in creating digital tools. I imagine those relationships will continue for Pathfinder 2 and we'll be seeing character builders with official content in Hero Lab, Fantasy Grounds, d20pro, and Roll20. The extent to what features they offer and how they work will vary based on the developer and nature of the application -- some may just be glorified character sheets and buff trackers while others will implement the full character generation ruleset. In addition, due to how Pathfinder 2 will be OGL and will probably also have a Community Use Policy, others will be able to make unofficial builders that may or may not use any of the official protected content names; PCGen falls under this umbrella.
In other words, the relationship that bore out D&D Beyond already exists on Paizo's end, it's just up to those third parties to deliver on the toolset in an engaging and easy-to-use manner.
Not having played 4e at all, or 5e beyond a few simple bits, can anybody here tell me: how successful were the digital tools that Wizards did for them? I have the impression that the 4e digital tools weren't well regarded, but that's second-hand information.
I can't speak to 5E options but as for 4E, the official builder started out mediocre but got really good over time. They were good about incorporating everything from every splat and digital magazine, as well as all of the errata.
The difference is that none of those third parties are blessed as the official Pathfinder Character Generator. There's no big link on Paizo's website the way there is to D&D Beyond. They can't really favour just one of those tools without incurring anger from all the others.
While we're here, I have to say: Paizo's website is really old-fashioned. It mostly looks the same as it did a decade ago. I actually quite like the amateur retro charm of it, but if you're concerned with how professional Pathfinder looks, that's probably the thing to address first.
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While we're here, I have to say: Paizo's website is really old-fashioned. It mostly looks the same as it did a decade ago. I actually quite like the amateur retro charm of it, but if you're concerned with how professional Pathfinder looks, that's probably the thing to address first.
They literally just upgraded the site less than two months ago and are still struggling to put out the fires associated with that. I can only imagine how the suggestion that they need to revamp it again is making their website people weep.
As stated above, the PRD hasn't been updated in two years; new avatars haven't been added to the site in almost two years; the Starfinder SRD that was supposed to launch last fall is still non-existent; Paizo GameSpace was announced -- what? three years ago now? -- and has completely failed to materialize. Suggesting that any digital sidejob shouldn't be to difficult to get up and running is, frankly, ludicrous. They don't have the person-hours to keep what they've already committed to updated.
Not having played 4e at all, or 5e beyond a few simple bits, can anybody here tell me: how successful were the digital tools that Wizards did for them? I have the impression that the 4e digital tools weren't well regarded, but that's second-hand information.
The first wave of 4E digital tools were brilliant (though delayed) - you could download them and they included all options from all splatbooks.
They were a little too generous with the pricing structure and (typically for big companies) their response to that was to overcorrect to an online model so you had to keep your subscription current to access them. That caused them a lot of grief in the 4E community, although the online tools were still good - many felt they were too expensive. (There was also this weird "don't rent me information" thing I never understood, since you could download everything you wanted - they didn't store them for you longterm the way Paizo do, but they didn't come with watermarks either and were much easier to work with).
In my opinion, the switch from the standalone software tools to the online only versions marked the beginning of the end for 4E.
The initial character builder was great and the monster builder exceptional - you could level monsters up with a dropdown menu, cut-and-paste special attacks from other monsters. It was really intuitive and user-friendly.
Thanks for the info, everyone. It's interesting to hear the D&D tools were better than I'd appreciated.
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Will there be a retooling of the Pathfinder (Paizo) website to mesh the community and game materials (similar to that other 5th edition RPG)?
The most recent web site upgrade is an exemplary lesson that you should be careful what you wish for . . . .
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And equally important, *know* exactly what you are wishing for.
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Right now, Starfinder has a slight problem with the HeroLab Online, as the new browser online character aid is still needing to get out of Beta stage, at least from what I see. It will likely never get to the stage where the functionality will be as good as it would have been on the classic license on the Herolab Classic, as they call it now.
With the monthly charge, which is nominal, the problems and lack of features that are taken for granted with classic make it a less than stellar choice for the player. I hope by the time PF2 will release, HLO will have a lot of these things hammered out, and licenses for additional content that will be coming will be lowered to reflect the change to the inferior online "AOL" experience. (for all the content licenses, not just PF2)
An official character builder only makes Paizo look good if it's done really well.
And it's the kind of thing that can be surprisingly hard to do well. Unless they have millions of dollars to throw at it, I wouldn't bother.
