A Technical Look at D&D Insider Applications

[JoelF]

Maybe I'm not understanding you, but I don't get why you'd specifically want the DDI w/o the magazines. Are you just hoping for a lower price or is it sour grapes over the elimination of the print version?

I'm also looking for DDI without the magazines, or with one magazine but not the other. It has nothing to do with sour grapes, it has to do with the fact that I'm not that impressed with the new versions of the magazines currently, and also, for a while I've been tempted to stop subscribing to Dragon, but keep my Dungeon subscription - before the print versions got killed. Furthermore, in general it's good for consumers to be able to buy products separately as well as bundled.

 

[Hussar]

I'm also looking for DDI without the magazines, or with one magazine but not the other. It has nothing to do with sour grapes, it has to do with the fact that I'm not that impressed with the new versions of the magazines currently, and also, for a while I've been tempted to stop subscribing to Dragon, but keep my Dungeon subscription - before the print versions got killed. Furthermore, in general it's good for consumers to be able to buy products separately as well as bundled.

Not necessarily. More options increase costs which get passed onto the consumer. By making everyone have the same package, they can charge less than if you separated it out into individual packages. Individual packages would mean that you would need separate accounts for those who can access different material, which would mean separate security measures and so on and so forth.

By putting everything into one account, they actually reduce costs. Remember, membership isn't just for the magazines, there is also the chargen, VTT, and dungeon builder as well. Separating out several variations of membership types is probably far more trouble than its worth.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Not necessarily. More options increase costs which get passed onto the consumer. By making everyone have the same package, they can charge less than if you separated it out into individual packages. Individual packages would mean that you would need separate accounts for those who can access different material, which would mean separate security measures and so on and so forth.

By putting everything into one account, they actually reduce costs. Remember, membership isn't just for the magazines, there is also the chargen, VTT, and dungeon builder as well. Separating out several variations of membership types is probably far more trouble than its worth.

Well, that's a question for the bean counters.

But I haven't subscribed to Dungeon or Dragon for almost ten years now, and how no intent of starting again. I might be interested in the game table though, for something less than $9.99/mo. That's why I'm hoping they'll go with a more a la carte system.

I'm a bit worried that Scott hasn't replied to my two questions though. They're both "easy" answers; so if they don't get answered its either because he doesn't want to (deliver bad news), or they just don't know yet - which is a different kind of unsettling. Hopefully though he hasn't just because he's really busy and will get to it eventually.

 

[(contact)]

Not quite true.

If it's cheap enough, I'll happily pay for a PDF that I can cut & paste from, and that's smaller & easier to read than those giant scan-PDFs (uh... which I've heard about).

Cheers, -- N

+1

In fact, I recently bought the entire Age of Worms Adventure Path on .pdf and for the way I run these things, it's much better for me. I can cull out images, mark them up, put all the stat blocks onto one page, etc.

Cut and paste FTW!

 

[(contact)]

I'm disappointed. A PDF is lazy! I've already got the index and TOC in my printed book. All they're adding is search capability, which isn't fast enough for the game table.

4e is supposed to speed up play.

For me, .pdfs are worth their (megabyte) weight in (virtual) gold when prepping for a session. I've used a complied SRD .pdf for game prep for the last five years or so.

It lets me pull the stuff I think I'll need from the ruleset/adventure and lay it out as I see fit, for ease and speed of use.

.pdf has been making my games faster for years.

Nonetheless, books are more fun to use at the table, and have a nostalgic value as well as being a bit more resistant to spilled beer, coffee, spit or blood.

 

[Hussar]

Irda Ranger - honestly, I think if you're looking at just a VTT, then you're probably much better off with any of the ones already on the market. Paying 120 bucks a year for just a VTT and a chargen program is way too much IMO.

I really, really hope that they actually unbuckle the VTT from the DI and make it free for everyone to use. After all, the more people they can entice to play the game, the more books they sell. So, it makes sense to me to give out a platform that everyone (well everyone but Mac users, but they don't matter ((I kid I kid)) ) can use to play on.

But, that's just my opinion of course.

--edit for another thought--

Even if they simply made a lite version of the VTT. One that does none of the autocalculating for you, for example, or doesn't come bundled with minis (you have to make your own tokens) would be a very nice nod to the community.

 

[RFisher]

Those that still pirate music continue to do so. But, there's certainly a decent amount of money to be made from honest people.

Yep.

Two assumptions that are often made about "intellectual property piracy":

• if people who like a product can pirate it, most of them will
• if people can't pirate, the pirates will pay for a copy

All the evidence I've seen suggests that neither are true.

 

[carmachu]

So you're expecting to pay a fixed monthly fee, and get free access to all published materials? Methinks you're expecting a little much there. The unique code lets WotC confirm (in theory) that you are in fact the legit owner of the book. If you buy a used book, caveat emptor.

I agree the code is there to 'coinfirm' that you indeed have the hardcover book....but I'd rather the nomial fee be built back into either the subscription and/or the book price....It just has a nickle and dime feel.

I have no issues confirming myself...just....has a bad feel to it....

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Yep.

Two assumptions that are often made about "intellectual property piracy":

• if people who like a product can pirate it, most of them will
• if people can't pirate, the pirates will pay for a copy

All the evidence I've seen suggests that neither are true.

Well, also, the premise of the second assumption almost always fails to obtain. I think I remember that it took only a couple of weeks before people were starting to report cracked DRM-"protected" PDFs after DriveThruRPG started producing them...and this demonstrated the futility of the exercise, and was part of the basis for dropping DRM. There is no "if people can't pirate."

 

[3catcircus]

Ok - I'm getting into this thread very late (due to being without internet access for the past week).

I don't buy the "...nominal fee... to cover their overhead" argument. The pdf *already* exists as a result of the publishing process - they don't have to spend time and energy creating a pdf since it just has to sit on a server.

Any pdf that WotC offers for a nominal fee will most likely have some form of DRM (watermarks, password-protected, whatever). It doesn't matter. Within hours, a completely clean, unrestricted pdf will be shared on p2p networks.

The only thing this will do is prevent legitimate customers from using content the way they want. I predict that this is solely designed to prevent the DM from giving copies of books to his players as pdfs.