Monte Cook's new Dungeonaday.com?

[carmachu]

True or not, he certain could make arrangements for a special license from WotC. Apparently other companies have made special arrangements, and he has more of an inside track than many others.

That being said, Monte might not be interested in doing 4E (I haven't heard very much from him about the 4E system). Also, WotC might not be interested in this being out that at all (I suspect they don't care too much).

What is it with folks telling others to go make arrangements or special license with Wotc lately? If they were interested in the GSL, they would have signed on.

Instead of asking for him to get a special license, which judging by the GSL and DDI coming is probably not going to happen, take what it is and convert it.

 

[carmachu]

$7 a month is a pretty big amount. I wonder how much it takes to run the whole thing?

Is the material retroactive? If you subscribe, do you get all the old material? I know pay news sites (like Wall Street Journal) have only limited archives available.

If your getting an item a day-map, encounter, town, whatever basically new game content every weekday....$7 a day is a steal for what you get.

It sounds like a better deal than DDI currently.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

If your getting an item a day-map, encounter, town, whatever basically new game content every weekday....$7 a day is a steal for what you get.

It sounds like a better deal than DDI currently.

Yes, the every weekday certainly is interesting. But there is no Character Builder, no Compendium and no "Bonus Tools" in that package either.
Dungeon has 2-3 adventures each month, that come with several maps and encounters with them, plus supplemental material. And then there is a Dragon content with rules and stories.

I think that changes the content for DDI considerably.

But the real amazing thing I'd like to point out: The size of Montes team. Most of the stuff will apparantly be created or commissioned by him personally! To keep that up every day... Impressive.

 

[DaveMage]

Or he could provide 4e stats without using the GSL. There are already several products that have done this.

Providing for-pay online gaming materials using 4E content has not gone well for at least one site lately....

OGL = safe haven, and Monte knows the OGL.
Non-GSL 4E = no safe haven, and Monte is not a lawyer (though, of course, he may be qualified as a "rules lawyer"). Granted, he could get a lawyer and "go copyright", but in such a case the benefits to doing so might be outweighed by the cost and/or risk.

 

[Dog Moon]

For the retroactive thing, this is what monte said: Monte's next RPG project - Line of Sight and Monte's Blog - Montecook.com - Okay -- Your Turn - Message Board - Yuku

{if we don't get on this right away, will I not get certain information?}

This was a difficult issue. Obviously, I have to create features that reward people for not waiting. People willing to jump on board this early on need to be rewarded. And they will be. (To begin with, the charter membership plan lasts only through March. After that, the rate goes up. There will be other benefits to being a charter member as well.)

In addition to that, there are two stages of cycled content that I'll be introducing. The first, short term cycle will involve only the bonus content. So while the dungeon rooms will remain, the town encounters and other stuff will get replaced with newer content. I still haven't determined how long this cycle will be, but I'm sure nothing will come down until the end of the summer at the ealiest. The longer term cycle will involve large chunks of the main content. At some point, maybe after more than a year or more, some of the earlier main content will likely be replaced with new stuff. Current members will always be alerted to any kind of cycling change well ahead of time.

So in short, early adopters who stick with the site will get all the content. Others may not get quite all of it, but I'll make sure that this process never actually screws up anyone's play experience. I'm not out to hose anyone.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Hmm.

I'm a big fan of megadungeon underworlds, but I'm not sure. The 'rules light' approach is good for me (I'm running original D&D), but $7 seems steep for a subscription that I'd probably mostly use for inspiration, rather than something I'd actually run. (I'm more into doing my own thing, these days.) Also, there's a lot of good content and inspirational material coming out on various old school sites, blogs and zines, and I know it tends to match my design preferences and requires no real conversion.

I think I'll be waiting to hear some reviews and such. A free preview might be a good idea.

 

[Nikosandros]

Providing for-pay online gaming materials using 4E content has not gone well for at least one site lately....

Kenzer & Co., Wolfgang Baur and Goodman Games have all provided 4e compatible products for sale witoous using the GSL.

How can you compare producing compatible products and reproducing copyrighted material?

 

[carmachu]

Yes, the every weekday certainly is interesting. But there is no Character Builder, no Compendium and no "Bonus Tools" in that package either.
Dungeon has 2-3 adventures each month, that come with several maps and encounters with them, plus supplemental material. And then there is a Dragon content with rules and stories.

I think that changes the content for DDI considerably.

But only if you play 4e. Its worthless to those of us that dont.

2-3 adventures a month, plus a couple maps and encounters and suppliment...vs something every day. Plus preview material from Dragon on stuff.

*shrug* Its all in what you want.

 

[Alzrius]

I'm excited for this, but I'm wondering how cost-effective this'll be over the long run.

$7/month comes out to $84/year, which doesn't sound so bad, given that Monte will be posting new material each weekday, but how much is that over the course of a year?

If we assume that Monte writes one page of new material each weekday for a year, that's 260 pages of material (52 weeks x 5 weekdays per week). Now, that's basically two 128-page sourcebooks. The average price of a sourcebook that size (last I checked) is $29.99...so we're paying about the cost of three sourcebooks, but only getting about two.

That's not a very good deal, all things considered. Of course, if Monte gives us more than one page per weekday, or the basic cost of sourcebooks goes up (if it hasn't already) then this becomes a much better bang for our buck.

 

[FunkBGR]

In addition to Alzrius's math, figure in that it's only $7 if you join in March. It bumps up in price to be more for less (since you're out the first month).