D&D Insider - Pay tomorrow for what you get today for free?

Although the new D&D Insider subscription has a bunch of stuff that will be inarguably new, is anyone else struck by home much of it is already on the WotC site for free today? Unless they're going to double the amount of product previews, Class Acts and the like, it looks like the day of free content on the Web site (in the name of marketing) may be going bye-bye.

This strikes me as a bad idea, but I guess time will tell ...

It's interesting.

If it includes DM tools, that would make it a very easy sell for me.

For example, if it offered, essentially, what e-Tools does, but includes *all* sourcebooks, that would be much better than paying the hundreds of dollars that CMP required to have access to all of the data.

If it lets me, for example, create a 7th level character using any D&D sourcebook, I think it would be worth something.

As to getting content for cost that has been free, it all depends on what the price actually is. If it's a $4.99/month subscription, I'll take it in a heartbeat. If it's $59.99/month...not so much.

It looks like we know know why there haven't been many new Dragonshards or Eberron Expanded articles even though Keith Baker has turned many in. They are waiting so they can charge extra for them.

As I was reading through the sales pitch I was thinking to myself, "Why on earth would I pay for this stuff?" If it's free, I'll read it. If it's not, I won't. Case closed.

Then I got to the last item: online tabletop gaming. If WotC developed a system that worked well, now that I would be interested in.

Personally, if I lose out on the free stuff I have been getting from their site, which they shoe into their pay site for leverage, then they've not only lost my casual browsing, but any chance of my paying for the extended service.

Now, if they keep providing the same level of free support AND a ton of new content in the pay sight, then I'm more likely to think about buying the service.

Ogrork the Mighty said:

Then I got to the last item: online tabletop gaming. If WotC developed a system that worked well, now that I would be interested in.

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While I agree with this, so far I've considered every piece of software developed by WotC (and not at arms length) to be pretty much a disaster. Also, if ALL players need to have a subscription, it's useless to me (since my group is scattered far and wide, and doesn't like paying for subscriptions).

In addendum, I will say that the price will also greatly influence if I were to purchase an 'Insider Package'.

Out of all the features listed, I gotta admit, as well as agree with Ogrork, that if they implimented a consistant and ease of use method for doing tabletop via the net, that'd be a high selling point for me, too.

One of my biggest gaming-fears right now is moving away from my current gaming group, as I'm in my 30s now and very comfortable with the group I play with. So comfortable, in fact, that the idea of getting into a new group is something I dread since, knowing my luck, I would not be able to find a new group of 30-somethings, but instead a 'just out of high school and into college' group. No offense to any of those, but aside from the growing need to tell kids to get out of my yard and not to touch things, I've developed a need to gaming with people my own age.

Heck, I remember this one guy I gamed, nice kid, pretty smart in fact, but it dawned on me that not only did he only know of Thundarr the Barbarian from re-runs, but he wasn't even born when the show was on the air.

Feh, now I gotta find some kids and tell them how something was better when I was their age, BRB. I know it wasn't computers, that's for sure.

Friadoc said:

Personally, if I lose out on the free stuff I have been getting from their site, which they shoe into their pay site for leverage, then they've not only lost my casual browsing, but any chance of my paying for the extended service.

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Agreed. Then I'll pay for the Dragon and the Dungeon even more happily, because I can browse through the magazine before buying.

Friadoc said:

Heck, I remember this one guy I gamed, nice kid, pretty smart in fact, but it dawned on me that not only did he only know of Thundarr the Barbarian from re-runs, but he wasn't even born when the show was on the air.

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I don't know... I haven't seen anything yet listed for this service that'd be cool enough that I'd wanna pay for it. I know that the monthly supscription model is attractive from a business standpoint because of MMORPGs, but shoehorning D&D content into a monthly package just doesn't seem that cool of a deal to me. Some of these things should be free, like product previews and tactics sections. It doesn't make sense to me to not build a buzz for your own products and not try to help people learn the game.

I can understand people wanting to play with the digital gaming table. I personally don't- I spend way too much time in front of a computer every day as it is. One of the things I like about D&D is that I actually get to talk to real people across a table. But still, if it's done well I can see this as being a strong selling point.

Now perhaps if they took a Dungeon format and offered free adventures, that'd be something that'd interest me. I'm always for more grab-and-go adventures.

I'm sure that the content will also improve over time. But I'm still not interested in paying a monthly fee (no matter how small) for the content they have listed now and a few more bells and whistles. Maybe I'll give it a look once it gets rolling.