General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
If WotC is worried about piracy, could they at least re-release previous edition books and modules through Lulu?
The books would be more expensive BUT it would cost WotC next to nothing and I'm sure there would be people out there who would jump at the chance to buy those books (again).
Green Ronin is doing this with their 3rd Era line and I applaud them for it.
There would undoubtedly be difficulties one way or the other, but making older edition stuff available as POD would be great.
/M
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Yup. I made this suggestion days ago in another thread. It would be possible to sell older material this way, and they could sell it as hardcopy ONLY. Yeah its more money than a pdf, but I sure would rather have an awesome physical product in my hands any day.
Heck, no need to reinvent the wheel, just POD redbox basic sets and you have a great introductory product.
I agree that this would be much better than a subscription service, and I think it's a good idea. But it doesn't do much for those of us with small amounts of shelf space.
I agree that this would be much better than a subscription service, and I think it's a good idea. But it doesn't do much for those of us with small amounts of shelf space.
That is an issue, but as a long time gamer living in 2 bedroom apartment I would still prefer a module with cardstock cover map goodness over printouts.
That is an issue, but as a long time gamer living in 2 bedroom apartment I would still prefer a module with cardstock cover map goodness over printouts.
Who said anything about printing the PDF?
Seriously, though, POD is something I could see doing if I ever had more space, and it's way better than no or subscription-only access, so I wholeheartedly support this request!
As someone who owns many of the PDFs I want in print...
OH YEAH!
I totally agree with this.
Bring it up, and provide some serious emphasis.
(or I'll have to just have a printshop do it for me with no benefit to WotC other than the money they already got from me for the PDFs)...assuming that is legal-I haven't yet checked into it.
I think this would work for many of the 3e products, since PDFs are likely printer-ready and have high-quality files available.
However, the real legacy products, such as works from 1e/2e are probably not very suitable, because of the quality of the scans, which in a lot of cases were primitive. You're not going to get a good copy of the "White Box", the Basic Sets, the AD&D hardcovers, or older modules. I doubt they'd work well in POD. In that case, I just wish they'd keep selling PDFs of the really ancient stuff.
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I think this would work for many of the 3e products, since PDFs are likely printer-ready and have high-quality files available.
However, the real legacy products, such as works from 1e/2e are probably not very suitable, because of the quality of the scans, which in a lot of cases were primitive. You're not going to get a good copy of the "White Box", the Basic Sets, the AD&D hardcovers, or older modules. I doubt they'd work well in POD. In that case, I just wish they'd keep selling PDFs of the really ancient stuff.
Isn't there a software that can measure the angles of text blocks and align them? I know there is plenty of hand written text recognition software. Alternatively couldn't they OCR them?
Awsome idea. I would buy them in preference to PDFs.
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Actually I would like to see WotC do to the pre-3E stuff what they did to the Star Frontiers stuff -- allow it to be freely copied and distributed. I can't imagine that they are making much on these products nowadays.
This way some fans could recreate these products digitally and we could have cleaner copies of them.
Technical question here, because I'm ignorant about printing matters.
What happens if you upload to Lulu (or some equivalent service) a PDF that contains a crappy scan as opposes to an OEF?
I think that all the pre-3e PDFs are scan and the quality of those I've seen isn't that great.
What is the end result? Is the quality of the printed book acceptable?
A quick check at my PDFs - the files are OCR'ed. So the text is actual text. So that helps improve the chances of decent print outs.
My other question is what about poster maps that were scanned into sections. It would truly be awesome if those could be included as poster maps again, even at the needed higher cost, but that probably ain't gonna happen.
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![[Forked Thread: WotC president Greg Leeds] Ask Wotc to set older titles on a POD shop](http://www.enworld.org/forum/iconimages/general-rpg-discussion/forked-thread-wizards-coast-president-greg-leeds-ask-wizards-coast-set-older-titles-pod-shop_ltr.gif)
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