Elemental Evil Player's Companion Now Available in Print!

Drivethru is offering a POD version of the Elemental Evil Player's Companion (premium and standard).

While that's awesome all by itself, I'm hoping it means that older titles will become POD as well.

Nice find. $8.00 is way cheaper than OfficeMax was willing to charge ($15) to print the same thing.

I hope too that some of the modules and softcovers become PoD, but I'm not sure about the hardcovers/box sets.

 

[Remathilis]

It would be great if they could do this for the Basic Rules. But that would mean they have to finish updating them first (DM stuff)... I've asked directly about it and I've seen others ask about it, but for whatever reason they are really avoiding it. Not sure if that means there's something they're still working on or they're just letting it slide...

Jury duty

 

[halfling rogue]

Jury duty

I wish they would have given me that answer! I could deal with that. As it is, just after the DMG was released they've been stitch-lipped quiet.

 

[Louis Brenton]

Man, I think this is brilliant. WotC scores big brownie points from me with this. They gave the material for free in pdf form, & then, for those of us who would like to own a nicer physical copy (nicer than the 3-hole punch binder I put mine in) there's a way to make that happen through print on demand.

In my mind, this is just about perfect. WotC should seriously consider offering print on demand on...say...ALL of their old stuff. I think they'd be surprised at how many folks would be glad to pick up some of the older materials.

 

[Beleriphon]

The other question being, "Do we still have those files?"

"Of course we do Dausuul, on tape drive! Where'd were put that thing that looks like an 8-Track player?"

 

[Staffan]

"Of course we do Dausuul, on tape drive! Where'd were put that thing that looks like an 8-Track player?"

As I recall, that was actually an issue in the mid-90s.

I think it was prior to the Wizards buyout, and TSR was just starting to build up a presence on the actual web (instead of just AOL). One of the things they were putting on the website was old Dragon articles, and they said "Don't expect any articles from before issue X, because we have those contracts on old 8-inch floppy disks we can't read anymore, so we don't know what stuff we can put online and not."

 

[fjw70]

That looks like the one I bought when the basic game was first released. The link was removed right after I made my purchase. It's actually a pretty decent book.

I hope the basic rules books on Lulu is the same one I ordered before since I just ordered two more.

 

[Remathilis]

As I recall, that was actually an issue in the mid-90s.

I think it was prior to the Wizards buyout, and TSR was just starting to build up a presence on the actual web (instead of just AOL). One of the things they were putting on the website was old Dragon articles, and they said "Don't expect any articles from before issue X, because we have those contracts on old 8-inch floppy disks we can't read anymore, so we don't know what stuff we can put online and not."

There was an issue with the Dragon Magazine Compendium as well, which was why the magazines were done as "searchable PDFs" since releasing the articles separate would have invoked royalties and stuff.

I'm wagering a LOT of that stuff is gone, scans are the best we'll get.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

White Wolf has a fairly significant number of their oldest titles (1st Edition Vampire: The Masquerade) available in POD. These were from 1991 so it seems like WotC could do something similar with their older stuff.

 

[aramis erak]

White Wolf has a fairly significant number of their oldest titles (1st Edition Vampire: The Masquerade) available in POD. These were from 1991 so it seems like WotC could do something similar with their older stuff.

White Wolf was using newer software than TSR... TSR went digital early; circa 85. WWG went digital from their circa 1991 get-go. And that was a point when newer software was coming out with MUCH better, and was about the time better drives were coming out, too.

 

[Random Bystander]

Having tried to get old data off old drives, I can say this; even with an old floppy disk from EBay, an expensive converter so you can plug it into a newer computer, and VirtualBox (free) so you can install the Windows 95/98 disk from EBay and the software needed to read the data from EBay (if it can be found for a low enough price to recoup the investment)...The disk may still not be readable.

It is worth mentioning that everything is an iceberg. The top section, the interesting stuff you see, is only a low fraction of what's needed to get that part visible.

For anyone wanting to track delivery time, I purchased it today, and I will try to remember to post when it arrives. Generally, delivery estimates are pessimistic.