Disappointed D&D Insider Customer

[Brax]

Seems fair.

If they don´t improve the utility of the character builder until 07/11 (I hope you meant July 2011 i won´t renew my subscrition too.)

And I hope they get the localization issue fixed until 07/11/2010^^

Sorry, I'm in the US, where we do some things backwards from the rest of the world. I meant November the 7th 2011 (three days from today, when my current subscription is up). None of this is bound to happen before then, so I'll just wait and see what they do in the next few months. Hopefully they will be able to deliver on the improvements to the new character builder, and I'll be back on board.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Even in the early days of DDI, they had the upcoming features listed, like VTT, visualizer, etc. So you really can't blame people for having those expectations. Now, the second year sub...yeah they promised new tools way back in April last year IIRC after the survey was completed (which had the Campaign Management tools as #1) but nothing's come of that. I never got my hopes up and was quite happy with the CB.

Those people who signed up for DDI at the very beginning because they thought they were getting the VTT et al... yes, they had the right to get upset when they found out it wasn't coming. However, those people who had heard these products were once on the docket but were no longer... if they signed up for it anyway, they cannot then go back and start using that excuse to justify why they are currently upset.

And as far as people who sign up for DDI not for what they ARE getting for the money they spend, but for what they EXPECT to possibly get in the future... it is very hard to feel sympathy for those people. If you don't feel that a DDI subscription is worth the price for what you DO get with it currently... why in the world would you subscribe NOW, just in the hopes that some of these other features that WotC has said they are working on will eventually come to pass?

I mean, do I get to complain if I sign up for HBO RIGHT NOW because I know that George R. R. Martin's A Game Of Thrones is eventually going to be broadcast on their channel... but in six months time we discover they went so far over budget that the plug was pulled on the show? Whose fault is that? I am willing to say that it's MY FAULT for paying for multiple months of HBO while not getting what I signed up for it for. I was the idiot who paid for something I didn't want ahead of time, just so I'd be right there to have it when the thing I actually wanted finally got released.

 

[Sunseeker]

As far as piracy goes, I really don't care what other people / deadbeats are doing.

You should. Because their actions are harming an already wounded gaming market. The more you and everyone else "doesn't care", the more it happens, the fewer books WotC sells. WotC doesn't see this as "people are stealing our stuff" they see it as a drop in interest, when the interest becomes too small, it stops. And don't expect it to start up again.

I want to buy PDFs at a reasonable additional cost to the hardback books. I am willing to pay them for it, and they can choose to take my money or get nothing from me.

Good for you, unforunately many more people want to steal them and get them for free.

As you said, stopping the PDF sales has not slowed down piracy; all it means is a legitimate customer (me) can't get what he wants anymore. I think the move was also about preventing some stores from ripping off WotC by selling download tokens multiple times, and other shenanigans and not (or not just) piracy.

To this I say: tough. This change has been happening for the last 20 years all over the technology and software industry. And it's only going to get worse as hackers, crackers, and thieves get better. WotC isn't going to just put it back out there with no security for it to get stolen again.

The creative minds at WotC do deserve to get paid, and I want to do that. The answer is to sell me the products I want rather than try to prevent imaginary 'lost sales' (meaning no pirate will buy that stuff anyways, so if they nab it, you weren't going to make that money). The only way to stop piracy is to make a better product: more features, like an on-line account *cough*DDI*cough* that records your purchases for additional downloading later if something happens to your original copy. Possibly an updated copy with errata included automatically every time there is a change. Make it more convenient than piracy and more people will want it.

Lets face it, there are a LOT of D&D books, some of them are incredibly hard to find, and after dropping $500 in books, it's understandable to feel somewhat justified in just taking that one new book that's $20 bucks. Some people however, will always steal, for that is just the kind of person they are, they don't respect the creators or they don't see the value in it.

You, and everyone else, will continue to get nothing until WotC comes out with a suitable way to secure their product. Perhaps by releasing their own Kindle-like e-reader developed only to read their propritary formats which can be bought digitally and read in the e-reader.

 

[Brax]

Okay Brax... you were asking for the ENWorld community's response to your letter that you sent to Wizards of the Coast. I am a member of said community, and here are my thoughts about what you included.

I appreciate your feedback. I honestly do. I disagree with you about what my intent was for certain portions of my letter, however, and I will try to explain better.

That being said... the fact that you've spent $1500 on D&D products has no impact on anything WotC does in the future. You chose to spend money in the past on certain items... you received those items. That in no way entitles you to anything WotC might produce in the future. Just because you've been a "good customer" does not put your desires ahead or behind anyone elses.

I gave this information, not to expect recompense, but to illustrate how much I love their products, and how much they stand to lose in the future. I felt it was important for a business to know what the bottom line was in my instance.

I would also think that it would be very relevant if I was a "good customer" as opposed to, say, someone who steals all of their content and plays anyway. I can say that the company I work for places more value on the wishes of our paying customers as opposed to the non-paying, or late paying customers.

This is neither WotC's problem, nor WotC's fault. You made the personal choice to include all of these options from all these books in your D&D game. You cannot hold WotC responsible because you now feel the need to HAVE to use the Character Builder to manage your characters. Nobody can. You could easily play the game with just Player's Handbook I and no errata (just like everyone did 2 years ago when the game was first produced). The fact that you choose NOT to do that does not put any onus back onto WotC to make it easier for you to play that way.

This is again for illustrative purposes, to explain why the character builder is important to me, and to set up the future paragraph where I mention how I also depend on other, 3rd party tools to fill in what I see as gaps that could be served by WotC products.

I have more fun with the newer, better designed classes and options, and am not interested in going backwards. Yes, that is my choice to use more of WotC's content, but to suggest that it is all on me because of that choice seems unfair. A ridiculous, hyperbolic comparison would be blaming a smoker for being addicted to nicotine during the 50s, when tobacco companies were actively hiding the addictive properties of their product.

In short: I like their stuff, I use all of it, and that is my fault that it is too much to easily work with? A software tool should (and does, quite nicely) help deal with this complexity.

Again... most of this is not WotC's fault. You set up expectations in your mind of what WotC should be giving you... and then became disappointed when they didn't. But they shouldn't be giving you anything. They give you what they give you. And you make the choice to pay for it. You chose to pay for your second year's subscription despite already knowing that there was not (nor going to be at the time) a VTT, a campaign manager, house rule functionality in the CB, or a visualizer. But you chose to sign up anyway.

I paid for my first year on November 6th, 2008 and the second year right before the pricing went up on July 1st, 2009. WotC had at the time recently promoted tools that looked like they were still going to come out "soon", and the existing character builder, Dragon, and Dungeon magazines were enough to hold me over until the rest of the promissed tools would be out "soon". If I knew for sure they weren't coming out within 16 months, I may have decided differently. I'm not sure. But I didn't already know they weren't coming out at the time(did anyone back then?).

I remember they were going to raise rates because of all of the new tools that were just around the corner. If I missed some important announcement in or before June of 2009, then you are right: It is totally on me for extending that second year.

Again... not WotC's problem, not WotC's fault, and nothing WotC has to respond or justify to you.

No, this is not WotC's problem as far as how much space I have at the table, but again illustrates why I would like better tools due to my needs as a customer. I am being under-served and there is a business opportunity there.

This is the kind of hyperbole that drives me crazy, and is what causes people like myself to respond to these threads to offer a little perspective.

In the time WotC has been updating the Character Builder, I think they were late just one time prior to the September Dark Sun / Essentials fallout. So where were your letters to WotC at all those other months where you were telling them that you had no faith in the software division? My guess is... you didn't write those letters, because all those other months you were happy with their implementation of the features in a timely manner. If you weren't happy, you wouldn't have signed up for a second year's subscription.

So to NOW come out and say you have no faith that they can do the job ever again... is in my opinion disingenuous. You have every right to be annoyed with these past two months of the DS/Essentials debacle... but these two months should not and do not wipe away the two years of them doing the job correctly and on time. And I think you know that. But to write othewise is to use hyperbole in order to make your letter "stand out" by implying that you're more angry than the average person writing in to complain. But guess what? That's just not true.

I didn't indend the statement "The changes announced in the new version of the character builder concern me, and frankly I don’t have any faith left in your software division to implement all of the missing features in a timely manner if ever." to sound hyperbolic.

From my point of view there are at least 2 tools that have yet to come out, 2 full years after their announcement (and promotion during August 2008 at Gen Con): the Game Table, and Character Visualizer.

As of the final update for the old character builder:

• There is still no way to have a flaming weapon add in it's fire property to your powers so that fire based feats interact properly.
  
• There isn't a way to add a Syberis Shard of the Mage to a weapon so you can actually gain its benefit on your sheet.
  
• There isn't a way to select a concordance level for an artifact so that your powers can vary accordingly.
  
• Items can't or don't add trained skills to your sheet (as required by a certain Head of Vyrellis artifact)

Some of these things have been an issue for a long time, and WotC hasn't fixed them. There are more that I don't have off the top of my head.

Add this to the past and recent delays and I refuse to believe them when they say "soon" anymore.

What you're basically trying to do here is "blackmail" WotC into giving you what you want, regardless of how feasible or useful it might be. You won't give them their subscription money until they give in to your demands. Which, in my opinion, is the highest level of silliness.

I'm not trying to blackmail them. I don't have any pictures of them naked in bed with White Wolf, or anything, and I'm not demanding money. I'm simply telling them I'm not buying anything from them until they have made some forward progress on the products and services I care about.

Yes, I am telling them what I want as a customer. It seems like the responsible thing to do as a dissatisfied customer.

Your demands could just as easily be the following:

>>WotC won’t see any more of my money until one or more of the following happen, in order of my personal preference:

• You release all hardcover books with holograms on the front.
• The new character builder be able to talk to me, and I to it.
• You start selling D&D miniatures at 9 inch sizes because I want to play at a bigger scale than at 1".
• The Dragon and Dungeon magazines need to be printed again and available on the shelves of my local Waldenbooks.
• You release a personal automated Dungeon Master.
• You finish every book you're ever going to produce and get them into the CB and Monster Builder right now, so I can have all the info I'm ever going to get as soon as I sign up.

You see how silly that is? The only reason why you might think your list has more weight, is because it includes things that WotC had thought about or had done at a previous point in time. But as they have since said on multiple occasions that those things WEREN'T happening... your list is right now just as unlikely to occur as mine. But the fact you and other people keep clinging to these ideas and try to use them as ammo to force WotC's hand... is absolutely ridiculous. Especially considering WotC's unspoken response is and always will be "If that's really what you have to have to be an Insider Customer... don't let the door hit you on the way out."

Okay, now I realize you are being hyperbolic on purpose here to make a point. I obviously don't think my desires are silly any more than you think what you want is silly, so I won't argue with you on that point.

Keep in mind I said "one or more", not "all".

There you go. There's one community member's response to your letter. I hope it gave you what you were looking for.

All the best,

DEFCON 1

Yes, I was looking for honest opinion here, and can see where I wasn't as clear as I could have been. I still stand by me decision (like I'm sure you stand by your opinions), but I thank you for the discussion.

 

[Brax]

You, and everyone else, will continue to get nothing until WotC comes out with a suitable way to secure their product. Perhaps by releasing their own Kindle-like e-reader developed only to read their propritary formats which can be bought digitally and read in the e-reader.

I seriously doubt that locking things down further will solve anything. WotC's software or hardware engineers will likely lose an arms race to the hordes of pirates out there.

Almost every piece of software ever made has been cracked. Multiple 'secure' hardware devices have also been cracked: Xbox, PS3, iPhone, you name it and there are likely ways of breaking the device's security.

As I said before, the only way I can see to truly defeat piracy is to come up with a better product than what the pirates offer.

• Timeliness could be a factor: Faster updates from the source (WotC) when compared to piracy (scanning rulebooks, OCR, updating with errata, when WotC has a head start).
  
• A reasonable price could be a factor: No physical book means no printing and distribution costs. Low price + legal is more attractive than free + hassle + illegal.
  
• Innovative, hard to steal features could be a factor: Sharing characters/ story ideas / whatever through a community based web site and matching service for games for instance.

All of these things are better than what pirates could offer, and so the pirate's product looks worse.

I like the idea of a e-book for D&D books, since I have so many. It might offset the price of the device, even, if the resulting e-books were lower in cost than the printed ones. Ultimately I would rather use something that can work directly on my PC / Laptop, though. I never know what I may want to do with my D&D book contents and having them on the PC means I have future flexibility you can't get with a proprietary device. Maybe like copying and pasting sections into my own DM notes for an upcoming session.

 

[delericho]

DEFCON 1, you make several accurate observations, but there are two things I take issue with:

This is the kind of hyperbole that drives me crazy, and is what causes people like myself to respond to these threads to offer a little perspective.

In the time WotC has been updating the Character Builder, I think they were late just one time prior to the September Dark Sun / Essentials fallout.

With the glorious exception of the Character Builder, WotC have a really bad record on software tools for D&D, going back as far as Master Tools for 3.0e. They basically have one success under their belt, and they've just pulled it. (And even that success was only one part of an overall set of promised functionality that they have largely failed to deliver.)

There's strong justification for not taking any WotC promises about software on faith.

What you're basically trying to do here is "blackmail" WotC into giving you what you want, regardless of how feasible or useful it might be. You won't give them their subscription money until they give in to your demands.

I think you're wrong about this. Just as WotC can provide whatever they want, and the customer then choose to pay for it or not, so too can the (potential) customer say what they would pay for, and then WotC choose to deliver it or not.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I appreciate the feedback, delericho, and I'm happy to respond to your issues in an attempt to make my feelings a little more clear about this one particular thread.

With the glorious exception of the Character Builder, WotC have a really bad record on software tools for D&D, going back as far as Master Tools for 3.0e. They basically have one success under their belt, and they've just pulled it. (And even that success was only one part of an overall set of promised functionality that they have largely failed to deliver.)

My point to Brax was thus: He paid for his second subscription to D&D Insider because he wanted what they were offering... DESPITE the knowledge he had of all the past so-called failures of Wizards' computer programs in the past (Master Tools, Gleemax, the VTT, the Visualizer etc.) However, at no time did WotC EVER say that what a person would get if they subscribed would be recompense for the previous failures. They never offered a new Master Tools, they never offered a VTT, they never offered to "make up" for any of that stuff.

All they offered was what they offered... the Character Builder, Dragon and Dungeon Magazines, the Compendium, Monster Tools etc. And they gave that to him when he signed back up. And during that time, all of those tools and products did what they were supposed to do, with a MINIMUM of problems (yes, there were always bugs or the smallest things missing, but they always left communication open for people to get in touch and let them know when there were problems, and they always tried their best to fix them). They basically did everything a proper software company does... offer a product, and fix said product in a timely fashion when they could (usually each month) when it wasn't working right. What more could Wizards have done?

There's strong justification for not taking any WotC promises about software on faith.

If he (or anybody) truly felt this way... then why would you EVER actually subscribe? If any of you truly felt that WotC did not earn the trust to produce a product (or in this case, several products) that pretty much did exactly what they said it would... but you made the choice TO SIGN UP ANYWAY... they cannot be faulted if your gut instincts were true. YOU KNEW RISKS AND YOU DISREGARDED YOUR OWN FEELINGS. Thus, you should be mad at yourself for ignoring your own advice. And I don't have any sympathy for you for burning yourself on your own stove.

However... the reason why I don't believe this is actually the issue... is because I think most of us truly know that the things you got with your DDI subscription ACTUALLY were good, and ACTUALLY worked, and ACTUALLY were more than worth the price you paid for it. We all saw what they were doing with the products... we all could try out the Character Builder for the first three levels and see for ourselves that it was a stable and very worthwhile piece of software... and we all realized that (for the most part) everything we got for our subscription was good, and useful, and right.

And because of this... to use their OTHER failures as examples to justify why you are upset with this ONE SPECIFIC CHANGE TO DDI AS IS PRESENTLY CONSTITUTED is completely unfair, and does not make your anger more important than anyone elses.

I think you're wrong about this. Just as WotC can provide whatever they want, and the customer then choose to pay for it or not, so too can the (potential) customer say what they would pay for, and then WotC choose to deliver it or not.

That is absolutely true. You are more than able to make suggestions to Wizards about what some really great tools might be and that they should consider it.

However... to make these suggestions at the same time you are chastising them for "screwing things up" and telling them straight away that you aren't paying one cent more for their products... *IS* basically attempted blackmail. You're telling them that you aren't paying ANYMORE until they satisfy YOUR NEEDS. But this begs the question... where was all this anger BACK IN JULY?!?

Back in July... Brax still didn't have a VTT. He still didn't have a Visualizer. He still didn't have a Campaign Manager. But did we see or hear him (and every other person using these excuses as explanations why they are quitting DDI) say these things back in July? No we did not. Because back in July HE WAS RELATIVELY HAPPY getting what he was getting. At least, certainly happy enough that he wasn't submitting letters of complaint to Wizards and/or telling them he was no longer going to subscribe once his time was up.

And that is exactly my point. He, and most other people like him, are trying to use things that have nothing to do with the CURRENT question in hand (no longer being able to have an updated offline Character Builder) as evidence why their anger is more important, and why they should be listened to more. At least, moreso than the person who writes a letter to Wizards that says "I subscribed to DDI for a year because I thought I would get a year's worth of downloadable Character Builder information. As that no longer appears to be the case, I would like the remainder of my money back because I no longer will be receiving what I paid for."

Had Brax's letter just said that? I wouldn't have made a single comment about it (nor commented on all the other threads). Because that would have been a reasoned complaint that dealt EXACTLY with the problem at hand, and NOT attempted to use past anger or WotC's past failures as bludgeons against them to exemplify why they are a "rotten company" with "horrible PR" and who care more about "the almighty dollar instead of keeping customers happy". And all other bull like that.

Hope that clears things up.

 

[Oldtimer]

...many more people want to steal them...

...thieves get better...

...for it to get stolen again...

... Some people however, will always steal ...

Newsflash. Copying is not stealing. It might be copyright infringement, but it will never, ever be stealing. Wise up.

You, and everyone else, will continue to get nothing until WotC comes out with a suitable way to secure their product. Perhaps by releasing their own Kindle-like e-reader developed only to read their propritary formats which can be bought digitally and read in the e-reader.

Not that I expect a more sensible move from WotC, but the way to earn money in a digital economy is not in DRM and tighter security. But some people will always choose the stick over the carrot.

 

[Ryujin]

Well, technically speaking as a part-time photographer, it's theft of intellectual property.

 

[nnms]

Well, technically speaking as a part-time photographer, it's theft of intellectual property.

That's simply not the case. It's a violation of exclusive rights, not the removal of property.

You can't ever remove intellectual property. Here's a helpful video:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4]YouTube - Copying Is Not Theft - Best![/ame]