WOTC Online Content

[bamajon1974]

I have been recently attempting to save online web content from 4th Edition D&D products. However, I have found that the WOTC/DND website no longer hosts 4E related content. Links from outside websites are redirected to the DND homepage with an "error 404" message.

Note that all v3 and 3.5 material is still available though the "archive.wizards.com" trick. However 4E material is not. There appears to be no way to access the content from around 2007 and up. The archive.wizards.com trick does not work. When I try to retrieve the documents via the internet archive, WOTC is blocked from archiving due to an illegal robots.txt message.

Did anyone save all of this stuff for 4E products that would be willing to share? Thanks!


For example, from Enworld this page "4th Edition D&D Collector's Guide", half-way down in "web articles and downloads"

enworld.org/forum/showwiki.php?title=4th-Edition-D-and-D-Collectors-Guide

All of the links are gone, particularly the Vicious Venues, Success Along the Adventure Path, and Steal this Hook are gone.

Another example...."Forgotten Realms Collector's Guide (part 3)" from Enworld, 3/4 down on the webpage in "Misc. Web Content:

enworld.org/forum/showwiki.php?title=Forgotten-Realms-Collectors-Guide-part-3

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

That's a good question.

I've got every issue of Dungeon and Dragon in PDF from that era with my subscription, but I didn't save much of anything that *wasn't* in the mags.

It's not surprising that it's hard to find. I wouldn't even be surprised if they just deleted all of it. They're trying pretty hard to pretend 4e never existed these days. In fact, I'm pretty sure their website says that new subscribers don't get access to the 4e tools.

 

[bamajon1974]

Apparently now all Dungeon and Dragon Magazine PDFs are available to download for anyone who registers for D&D Insider. However, there are tons of articles not included in the magazines I am wanting to save. Any ideas who might have done due diligence and saved them before the WOTC purge?

That's a good question.

I've got every issue of Dungeon and Dragon in PDF from that era with my subscription, but I didn't save much of anything that *wasn't* in the mags.

It's not surprising that it's hard to find. I wouldn't even be surprised if they just deleted all of it. They're trying pretty hard to pretend 4e never existed these days. In fact, I'm pretty sure their website says that new subscribers don't get access to the 4e tools.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Not a clue, personally. You could wait and see if someone here has it, but you may also wish to try crossposting to other forums. RPG.net, 1d4chan, and Something Awful, are all large communities that may have what you're after. Reddit also has a ton of D&D subreddits.

 

[bamajon1974]

I did post on RPG.net forums. I completely forgot about 1d4chan and Reddit. I am not familiar with Something Awful. Do you know how to post in 1d4chan? Looks like a bunch of Wiki pages but I think I am missing something.

Thanks, Jon

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Something Awful is the largest "general" forum on the internet, or it was, until Reddit came along. It has a good RPG section, but believe that you need a membership to post and it actually costs money to join, but it is a fantastic resource for just about any topic.

I know very little about 1d4chan. I occasionally go there when looking for things, but I've never tried to post there.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's a good question.

I've got every issue of Dungeon and Dragon in PDF from that era with my subscription, but I didn't save much of anything that *wasn't* in the mags.

It's not surprising that it's hard to find. I wouldn't even be surprised if they just deleted all of it. They're trying pretty hard to pretend 4e never existed these days. In fact, I'm pretty sure their website says that new subscribers don't get access to the 4e tools.

What do you mean "New Subscribers?" There's nothing to subscribe TOO. I mean you can get a DDI subscription (assuming they fixed whatever was broken there with that, I'm not sure). But there are no forums, no D&D Wiki, etc. I guess you can get the "Dragon+" app... Truthfully, there's 5e content, but even that's pretty darn limited.

As for what happened to many of the things that were posted in various places on WotC's site in the 4e days... You know that stuff was HORRIBLY organized. There used to be a searchable database of material, but unless you knew to look for something it could be exceedingly hard to find stuff that wasn't an actual part of DDI, even back in the day. Its QUITE possible most, or all, of it is still there, but that doesn't mean you'll find it! I tend to think though that they just purged everything when they ditched the forums. There were a lot of things that were peripheral parts of those, staff blogs, 'groups', etc that were used a lot.

The RPGA certainly still exists though, and its 4e content is still accessible, and that was another big chunk. So there's a lot of 'free to download' kind of stuff that's gone missing, but a lot is still around.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

What do you mean "New Subscribers?" There's nothing to subscribe TOO. I mean you can get a DDI subscription (assuming they fixed whatever was broken there with that, I'm not sure). But there are no forums, no D&D Wiki, etc. I guess you can get the "Dragon+" app... Truthfully, there's 5e content, but even that's pretty darn limited.

There is still the compendium, and the character builder, and the monster builder, etc. The "tools."

Say, for example, you tried 5e and didn't like it, but you gave 4e a go and really decided to get into it... too bad. No online tools for you. You can still go and download all the back-issues of the magazine though. Good luck making use of most of the content though without the character builder and monster tool. If you still can get compendium access as a new sub, I guess it's not too bad, but I'm not sure if that's included, and I don't want to pony up on a new account just to find out.

So, it's an obvious move to "phase out" the tools, and thus people playing 4e. Once subscribership drops past a critical point, and there are so few reasons to be a new sub, they will quietly drop support for the online tools and happily welcome you to drink the 5e kool aid.

I bet that most people will just happily go along and it won't cost them much new business to do so, since most people retroactively getting into 4e will just buy used books (which are cheap anyways), and anyone else who cares can just as easily pirate the PDFs (including the ones WotC themselves leaked online leading up to 4e's launch), and use the Loader-that-shall-not-be-named for the old offline builder. I've heard there's even a way to get the Compendium running on a local machine, and it's certainly the route I'll be going if they phase that out as well.

The old saying about WotC ninjas not being able to break into your house to steal your old edition books was always a laugh, but amusingly, with 4e, it might as well be true, what with all the hyperbole about the game being unplayable without the digital tools. Nonsense, to be sure, and more a statement on just how useful the tools are, even though they did a botch job of it.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I answered you on rpg.net - basically, you should be able to get into the 4e article archive via the Wayback Machine snapshots of the wizards.com site. Not guarantees, of course, but it worked for the couple of links I tried.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There is still the compendium, and the character builder, and the monster builder, etc. The "tools."

Say, for example, you tried 5e and didn't like it, but you gave 4e a go and really decided to get into it... too bad. No online tools for you. You can still go and download all the back-issues of the magazine though. Good luck making use of most of the content though without the character builder and monster tool. If you still can get compendium access as a new sub, I guess it's not too bad, but I'm not sure if that's included, and I don't want to pony up on a new account just to find out.

So, it's an obvious move to "phase out" the tools, and thus people playing 4e. Once subscribership drops past a critical point, and there are so few reasons to be a new sub, they will quietly drop support for the online tools and happily welcome you to drink the 5e kool aid.

I bet that most people will just happily go along and it won't cost them much new business to do so, since most people retroactively getting into 4e will just buy used books (which are cheap anyways), and anyone else who cares can just as easily pirate the PDFs (including the ones WotC themselves leaked online leading up to 4e's launch), and use the Loader-that-shall-not-be-named for the old offline builder. I've heard there's even a way to get the Compendium running on a local machine, and it's certainly the route I'll be going if they phase that out as well.

The old saying about WotC ninjas not being able to break into your house to steal your old edition books was always a laugh, but amusingly, with 4e, it might as well be true, what with all the hyperbole about the game being unplayable without the digital tools. Nonsense, to be sure, and more a statement on just how useful the tools are, even though they did a botch job of it.

Yes, you can, at least in theory, still get a new subscription to DDI, though last I heard it wasn't actually working, though renewals seem to work still (there's a thread here somewhere on the subject). What I meant was, there isn't anything you can 'sign up for' outside of that, WotC doesn't really HAVE a community anymore! Not online.

I heard this rumor about some sort of 'offline compendium' too, but I haven't found any sign that such a thing ACTUALLY exists. Its possible that it does. As for the CBLoader, good luck finding a copy of the old CB! I have one because of having DDI way back in the day, but its not easy to find, and it is increasingly difficult to install on newer versions of Windows.

In all fairness, all the DDI tools seem to work fine still. I was always really a very DYI type of DM, so FOR ME, the lack of some of the free material doesn't much matter. I might steal from some of it, but there are such vast troves of good RPG material online, and I have so much older material to mine if I want, that it isn't really critical. I can see how it would be disappointing to others though. You'd think WotC would care a BIT about their legacy, but apparently not. Frankly they disappoint me in a lot of ways, but I guess its all just business, there seems to be no passion there anymore.