DDI Subscribers: Are you satisfied with your subscription?

[mudbunny]

For the log-out, there are some workarounds that people have found.

1 - Make sure your browser is set to a DDI page, and have it set to relaod every 10 minutes.
2 - On the WotC forums, someone has written a greasemonkey script which mroe or less does the same thing.

 

[fissionessence]

I voted 'very'. I read all of the magazine content, and I've been disappointed by my perceived decrease in overall content, and article potential being replaced by previews of stuff that I'm going to see in a couple months anyway. If the content increased back up to what it was a few months ago, I would be 'extremely satisfied'. However, I still think the magazine content I'm getting is worth the price, hence my vote. I am worried that the quantity will continue to degrade, while the price will increase due to more and more tools being released . . . that I don't use. Then my opinion would go way down

I almost never use the compendium, and I've never used the monster builder or encounter builder. I use the character builder only to quickly generate team mates for playtest characters . . . but I use Photoshop for my own characters and for the ones I'm playtesting, because the character builder doesn't very well support 'house rules', plus the character sheets/power cards look like a terrible mess.

So yeah . . . very satisfied for now, but I'm worried about where things are going.

~ fissionessence

 

[Asmor]

Yea that sorta bugs me too, when I am using the compendium in game. They need to set the session timeout on that web app at 60min instead of the standard 20min set by IIS. That way, if you don't hit refresh or look anything up for an hour, you still have to log back in, but in game, it shoulds stay active most of the time.

Or better yet... Something like 24 hours or a week.

Are they really that worried that I'm going to go to all my friends houses and log them in? Especially odd considering they don't seem to have any limits on concurrent connections...

 

[Scribble]

Or better yet... Something like 24 hours or a week.

Are they really that worried that I'm going to go to all my friends houses and log them in? Especially odd considering they don't seem to have any limits on concurrent connections...

I was under the impression it has to do with server load, rather then any kind of piracy issue...

 

[chriton227]

My biggest points of dissatisfaction are with the fiddly bits of the UI, primarily dealing with the login. For a long time their login prompt on the main page didn't follow standard login form behavior (enter login <tab> enter password <enter>), you had to actually click the login button or tab to the button and hit the spacebar; that appears to have been recently corrected. I have yet to successfully log in from the compendium, and as a result if my session times out, I have to close the Compendium, log in on one of the normal DDI pages, relaunch the compendium, then search for what I was looking for again. I also don't like that there is no "remember me" option. I'm still trying to figure out why they insist on opening the Compendium in a new window. I also don't like that all the magic items are lumped into one blanket "magic item" category, there are times I'd like to be able to search by a specific category like "magic armor" or "wands". I'm generally satisfied, but I see a lot of room for improvement.

 

[chriton227]

I was under the impression it has to do with server load, rather then any kind of piracy issue...

If they are storing a lot of information in the session state, I could see some load issues by lengthening the session time-out, but I haven't seen much of anything that they should be storing in a session beyond your identity and an indicator of if you are a subscribed user. That should be trivial overhead for a commercial venture like DDI.

If they implemented a "remember me" type solution, it could get around the session time-out issue by transparently starting a new session if the user's original session expires. They would probably still want to revalidate that the authenticated user is a subscriber, but that should be less resource intensive than going through the full authentication process, the user might see a slight delay (2-3 seconds) while the new session is created and their subscription status is checked, but that would be vastly preferable to forcing the user to log in again.

 

[Asmor]

That should be trivial overhead for a commercial venture like DDI.

When it comes to WotC and computers, nothing is ever trivial.

 

[the Jester]

My group went in on a sub a coupla weeks ago.

Up to about two weeks before that, I was very disappointed with what I'd seen of DDI. I'd really wanted to like it, and had originally thought I'd buy in on day one, but as less and less of the promises were kept, my affection for it got fainter and fainter.

But once it was subscription-only, one thing after another sounded so damn cool that I finally gave in and talked to my group about it, then forked up the cash and plunged in.

I was immediately VERY glad that I had done so.

I haven't gotten a lot of "in game" use out of it yet, but I tell you what, I'm EXTREMELY pleased with it. Between options for my players, insights, previews and everything else, I am ecstatic with it. I hope to some day run some of the 4e adventures in Dungeon; I hope that soon my players will pick up a few powers and so forth from Dragon.

As always, there are a few warts here and there, but we'll deal with those as we come to them. I'm sure that my homebrewed stuff will be similar.

 

[Scribble]

If they are storing a lot of information in the session state, I could see some load issues by lengthening the session time-out, but I haven't seen much of anything that they should be storing in a session beyond your identity and an indicator of if you are a subscribed user. That should be trivial overhead for a commercial venture like DDI.

If they implemented a "remember me" type solution, it could get around the session time-out issue by transparently starting a new session if the user's original session expires. They would probably still want to revalidate that the authenticated user is a subscriber, but that should be less resource intensive than going through the full authentication process, the user might see a slight delay (2-3 seconds) while the new session is created and their subscription status is checked, but that would be vastly preferable to forcing the user to log in again.

I have no idea what any of that really means as I am not a web programer guy.

I was just relaying what I remember reading their reasoning was.

 

[yesnomu]

Very satisfied. Only suckas bought Martial Power! (well, and beastmaster ranger players, I guess)

Seriously, though, Dragon is worth the cost alone, and the Compendium has been incredibly helpful to me. I don't really need the Character Builder, but I can appreciate that it's useful for people who do. The class previews (love the way the druid is shaping up) are just icing on the cake.

My complaints are:
-Logging me out after five minutes. Annoying when making a character with the Compendium.
-Compendium lacks some stuff I'd like to see, like animal companion stats and backgrounds. Also the ability to exclude search terms, like looking for all the feats that aren't racial or class-restricted. Tiamat and Vecna aren't there for whatever reason.