GCB Dice Roller

[FaydTarkin]

One of the things I loved about GCB (and miss in GCA) is the Die Roller. Question for those more knowledgeable about software issues: can the Die Roller be extracted from the larger program, and, if so, is there any chance it will be added to GCA or sold as a standalone on e23?

[Blood Legend]

I hope and wish...

[Chunk]

Unlikely ... but check out Armin's site.

http://www.misersoft.com/utilities/index.shtml

He's got a freeware toy on there called Dice Plus v1.7 that'll do the same thing and is apparently very customisable.

[Blood Legend]

I hate complicated dice rollers... The reason I believe everyone loves the GCB Dice Roller is because it was simple and easy to use. No stupid options or whatever. You just type in how many dice, and how many sides and it rolled it. I dont want a sleezy math engine I want a random number generator with parameters.

If it rolls dice, I'm happy.

Other things I liked about the Dice Roller were the simple graphics, the quick and delightful sound of different amounts of dice falling, and that it didn't show itself as a calculator with dice rolls, but a dice roller that can be used like an advanced calculator.


http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...ht=Dice+Roller A link to my thread on the dice roller.

How much did the Dice Roller cost to commision? How much would it cost to get it for GCA?

Edited: Sounded Rude (more accurately, it was rude)

[Armin]

Originally Posted by Blood Legend

I hate that thing...the reason everyone loves the GCB Dice Roller is because it was simple and easy to use. no stupid options or wutever. You just typed in how many dice, and how many sides and it rolled it. Best worst failure what? What's with the dumb options? I dont want a sleezy math engine I want a random number generator with parameters.

Are you serious? Really? You hate another die roller because it has features that you never even have to see? Seriously? And when you can use it exactly in the fashion you're saying you like, where you just type in the dice and sides and get the result? I'm boggled, truly boggled. The GCB die roller is really easier to use than typing in "3d6" and hitting Enter (or clicking Roll) to get a result, and to keep getting a result for "3d6", you just keep hitting Enter (or clicking Roll). That's some impressive ease of use it must have.

Originally Posted by Blood Legend

Best worst failure what? What's with the dumb options? I dont want a sleezy math engine I want a random number generator with parameters. I can figure out on my own the lowest or highest number values on my own with a post it note, a pen, and 3 seconds of thinking should it be especially long.

3d6 = 3-18
5d12 = 5-60
3d6+2? = 5-20

I do not need a program to do this.

Clearly, you paid no attention to what the extra features were. Which is fine if you don't want them, but not if you're then going to complain about them. The @best() and @worst() don't determine anything about the range of possible results--they return, respectively, the best die roll, or the worst die roll, out of a pool of rolled dice. In other words, exactly the type of functions that some people do want out of their die roller. You don't want them, fine, nobody who uses Dice! has to use the extra functions. At it's simplest, it's just a box you type a roll into, and a box you see the result in.

Originally Posted by Blood Legend

Other things I liked about the Dice Roller were the simple graphics, the quick and delightful sound of different amounts of dice falling, and that it didn't show itself as a calculator with dice rolls, but a dice roller that can be used like a calculator.

Clearly, you have your preferences. I personally despise aural and visual frippery like the sound of dice rolling, or pictures of dice being rolled, and other such things.

Clearly, however, you've also allowed your preference for some features to cloud your judgement of other tools. Normally, there's nothing wrong with that, either--unless you do it in public, and you're clearly wrong about some things.

I'd also suggest it's not a good idea to bad-mouth some things in an effort to promote other things. I'm sure Bruce is happy that you love his die roller. I'm sorry that you don't like mine. But a sure fire way to make sure that I don't listen to what you want is for you to bad-mouth my efforts, and be wrong about them in so many ways. That's just human nature.

Originally Posted by Blood Legend

How much did the Dice Roller cost to commision? How much would it cost to get it for GCA?

The GCB die roller probably cost nothing to commission. My guess is that Bruce wrote it for inclusion in MetaCreator, and it was therefore included in GCB by default. If SJGames had cared about a die roller, they'd probably have asked for me to include one in GCA.

I'd suggest that you email Bruce Kvam, and see if he's willing to make the die roller available seperately from MetaCreator. You're most likely to get exactly the tool you want, that way.

Armin

[Armin]

Originally Posted by Armin

Are you serious? Really?

I'm not going to delete this previous post, but I apologize for being snippy in it.

Armin

[Blood Legend]

Originally Posted by Armin

Are you serious? Really? You hate another die roller because it has features that you never even have to see? Seriously? And when you can use it exactly in the fashion you're saying you like, where you just type in the dice and sides and get the result? I'm boggled, truly boggled. The GCB die roller is really easier to use than typing in "3d6" and hitting Enter (or clicking Roll) to get a result, and to keep getting a result for "3d6", you just keep hitting Enter (or clicking Roll). That's some impressive ease of use it must have.

As unreasonably human as hating say...butterflys, but they're so pretty! So? Hate is hate.

Originally Posted by Armin

Clearly, you paid no attention to what the extra features were.

I see. I could see that being useful.

Originally Posted by Armin

Clearly, you have your preferences. I personally despise aural and visual frippery like the sound of dice rolling, or pictures of dice being rolled, and other such things.

I dont mind my other senses being used If it's enough without going overboard. I like the audio because it lets me know someone made a dice roll, or tampered with mine. If it just had a familiar low-tone beep I'd be happy. The animation of a dice roll however is a bit much, thats uselessness I wouldn't bother with. Simply displaying a familiar picture is enough for me because I recognize the side of a dice easily.

Originally Posted by Armin

I'd also suggest it's not a good idea to bad-mouth some things in an effort to promote other things. I'm sure Bruce is happy that you love his die roller. I'm sorry that you don't like mine. But a sure fire way to make sure that I don't listen to what you want is for you to bad-mouth my efforts, and be wrong about them in so many ways. That's just human nature.

If you mean that directly and not metaphorically, I apologize for it. In my defense either way, I was partially making broad generalizations to a lot of die rollers I've seen and used extensively and been irritated with simply because there were too many functions I'd seen no use for, but failed to mention I wasn't being specific. This only further made worse because I was rushing and said "I hate that thing" instead of somethin like "I hate complicated dice rollers" Reading over it, the first sentence is completely inaccurate toward what I wanted to convey ontop of being just plain rude. Dont get me wrong though, I dont really prefer your dice roller all that much, but apologize nontheless. I did not mean to attack you =3

Edit: AH I see...the post says directly who made the dice roller. =/ *smooooth.* Once again, I apologize, I didn't mean to attack your dice roller, and I've done programming so I know even little things need effort to write.

Originally Posted by Armin

Clearly, however, you've also allowed your preference for some features to cloud your judgement of other tools.

Intended to be a mass generalization that failed horribly, which tools do you mean? I've only been to your site twice. First time there I downloaded everything to see what they did. I never got around to pressing all of the buttons because my computer had a big crash right before I needed to use any of it.

Originally Posted by Armin

The GCB die roller probably cost nothing to commission. My guess is that Bruce wrote it for inclusion in MetaCreator, and it was therefore included in GCB by default. If SJGames had cared about a die roller, they'd probably have asked for me to include one in GCA.

I didn't directly target any dice rollers besides the one that was linked because it was handy to do so without going back to all the other dice rollers I used, so I dont really know who made what. Bruce is the one made the one for GCB I'm to understand?

Originally Posted by Armin

I'm not going to delete this previous post, but I apologize for being snippy in it.

Armin

I lol'ed hard...it's all good, you were perfectly justified in defending your dice roller. I edited my previous post, it was just plain rude.

Edit: Which one on your site is the actual dice roller? Top link? Aside from not knowing who people are, I'm also absuredly inept at anything with a "V-38-49" description. I owe to at least try yours out again and see what it was I didn't like.

Edit again: figured it out. Surprisingly simple dice roller, which makes me wonder what tools and features you were reffering to that I'd sporked, unless you meant the roller for that shadowrun statement. The lack of audio is a disadvantage when the GM is using the laptop, and a nuisance when someone else gets my computer and starts making rolls until he succeeds. I'd probably use my own dice out of habit unless I forgot them at home. I get a 402 error whenever I try to "add" a defined die type.

[Armin]

Originally Posted by FaydTarkin

One of the things I loved about GCB (and miss in GCA) is the Die Roller. Question for those more knowledgeable about software issues: can the Die Roller be extracted from the larger program, and, if so, is there any chance it will be added to GCA or sold as a standalone on e23?

The GCB die roller probably could be extracted from MetaCreator (which was the basis of GCB), but whether the author wants to do that or not, is up to them. It's pretty much never going to be integrated with GCA, regardless. (Not to say GCA couldn't have a die roller, but one wasn't asked for, and it likely wouldn't be much like the GCB one, anyway.)

Your best bet for finding that die roller separately is to email Bruce Kvam over at Alter Ego Software, and see if he'll consider making the die roller available as a separate product.

Armin