Thanks to those who gave me a few minutes of their time at Dragon*Con, and online, to give feedback on the Powerz beta. One common comparison that keeps coming up is the crossover in Powerz functionality with DDI’s Character Builder. I find this interesting because Powerz was created for an entirely different use. This is why it’s great to talk to real users, both potential and current, in person. I love this stuff.
Character Builder
Character Builder was created to solve a bunch of problems. Some of those are, but not limited to:
- Allow efficient player character creation by speeding up the process.
- Helping new players create characters by providing context during character creation.
- Easy print generation. When your character changes, you can then nicely print out your updated character vs. using tons of erasers.
These will also change and improve over time if Wizards of the Coast iterates on the software, responding to customers’ needs.
Powerz
Powerz was created to solve 1 problem: Reduce the amount of time it takes a player to find out what their character can “do”. The Character Builder solves this problem as well in that it prints out your character’s powers.
This, too, has changed and (hopefully) improved over time as I’ve gotten feedback from both players online, and my own gaming group.
Differentiator
The differentiator here, or what makes them different in solve the problem of players knowing what their characters can do, is that the Character Builder outputs to paper via printing, whereas Powerz does not. You CAN print the powers if you want to, however. A player on the WotC forum asked for this feature, and I added it in there. That is not that main use case, however. The point here is that most users of Powerz prefer to keep their character’s details in a digital format vs. paper. That’s a broad statement, and I’m sure there are many hybrid approaches, like my group who keeps powers digital, and everything else on paper… or in your head.
Paper vs. Digital
When I talked to some D&D players at Dragon*Con, they pretty quickly responded in an excited tone that either they, or their DM, already has software to do that. Some sounded pretty organized, too, in their player characters upkeep. The point here was that the software was a means to a paper end.
The World of Warcraft Generation
To me, this is yet another clear example of the generation gap, and the challenges it presents in creating digital toolsets for D&D. My first D&D group back in 1995 enjoyed the same workflow. We used that software program they had for 2nd edition to create & update our characters, and then print them out.
Fast forward 13 years, and the first thing my group members expect is some digitial way to represent what their characters can do. To be fair, most are gamers and tech savvy. As such, they are not a totally accurate representation of the younger demographic who grew up with texting, and the internet has always existed.
Regardless, there was a lot of shared sentiment online when Powerz started gaining traction. Some users of Powerz associated it’s use much to how they play Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game’s (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft, Star Wars Galaxies, and others. I modeled Powerz visual interface specifically after these types of GUI’s. All share the same concept of concisely showing abilities in hidden menu’s, and use an visual icon system in a tray of drag & drop capable block containers that show information about the powers upon rolling over them.
Almost all MMORPG’s use this visual metaphor, and players immediately “get it”.
Caveat
If you’ve ever read the WotC D&D forums, or others, you may have seem debates on how DDi should be implemented, and the tools specifically. In reading those, it’s pretty clear that this demographic & generation issue ISN’T clear at all. There are many factors at play, and I’m certainly painting a more black and white picture of how things are then they are in reality.
Regardless, I think it’s still pretty accurate from a 30,000 ft view. Gamers and the younger generation not only are comfortable with digital tools for gameplay, they EXPECT them just to magically be there working, and on multiple devices, with digital equivalents to the rule books. The older generation is fine with rule books as real books… software is a perk. While a tall order, it’s certainly fun to cater too.
Hope for Traditional Pen & Paper Players?
It was pretty clear my marketing, both in me explaining Powerz to others, and on Powerzapp.com needs some clarification when targeting that demographic who wants everything on paper, and continues to use non-digital rule books. I don’t think it’ll really help, though. If you like using a laptop as a digital tool when playing D&D, you’ll get Powerz. If you like everything on paper, and don’t mind using a PC (or a Mac/nix box with a emulator installed), then Character Creator seems to be working great.
The only way I feel Powerz will be valuable to that latter demographic is if I implement the networking features, allowing you to play online with your friends. It’s not as black and white as that, either because the whole point of D&D is the intimate feeling of being near your friends when you play. Allowing the tools to enhance your play vs. BEING your play may be the key. I’ve already had feature requests which ask me to allow Powerz to be networked so the team can immediately get a sense of what powers their other players have, and have used. That is more of a game enhancing feature than a game unto itself. I’m not sure if traditional players will find value in that; I know my group, and others who use Powerz currently sure will.
Anyway, it was a great learning experience, and hopefully next year I’ll have more WoW gens attending Dragon*Con to get more feedback on whatever software I have then. Thanks again, and see y’all next year.
