Years after completely ditching the system, WotC makes their move!

[StreamOfTheSky]

See for yourself. Crystal Keep - D&D and d20 System

All I can say is WTEverLoving?!!!!

I admit, it probably shouldn't have existed in the first place, pretty clear violation of copyrighted material, etc, etc... But, it did exist. For many years. With nary a peep from WotC as far as we could tell. And now all of a sudden...gone? I reiterate, WTF?

EDIT: Looks like BG has a pretty active thread on it already, complete with amusing, yet grandma-unfriendly dialogue: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10410.0

 

[Dandu]

There is a simple explanation for this.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

 

[DumbPaladin]

I'm sure most people have downloaded the files they needed by now.

I wonder how this is going to help anything ... entire books, scanned in, are available for $0 via torrent websites. Is shutting down the spotty charts from CrystalKeep really a major problem, in the face of entire book downloads?

 

[Veven1290]

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

And it is very cold in space. The space left at crystal keep to be precise.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

There is a simple explanation for this.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

What, like WotC's taking revenge on us for some reason? I don't think taking down the pdfs hurt crystalkeep much, never even noticed any ads on the site, not sure he was making any money off of web traffic...

EDIT: It has a single slim banner ad on the right side, my bad. Still no ads on the pdfs themselves, which is where people spend most of their browsing time.

 

[Dandu]

We're not buying 4e. Clearly, this is because there is still 3.5e material still floating around. It must be purged.

Lock your doors at night, people. WotC law-ninjas will soon be coming to torch your obsolete deadtree.

 

[DumbPaladin]

With any luck, WotC will go away very soon and leave us all in peace.

 

[Jhaelen]

Huh. Really odd that they're asking them now to pull their files. I don't actually see how this might hurt WotC in any way, _now_ (unless they plan to re-release all of their 3e books...).

With any luck, WotC will go away very soon and leave us all in peace.

And what kind of 'luck' would that be?! Wishing for WotC to go away is wishing for D&D to go away. And that would be a bad thing for the whole hobby, not just D&D players.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Huh. Really odd that they're asking them now to pull their files. I don't actually see how this might hurt WotC in any way, _now_ (unless they plan to re-release all of their 3e books...).

I'm gonna go out on a limb and venture that this has something to do with the release of Essentials. You know, the new 4E thing intended to win back previous players supposedly. Can't win 'em back if there's a better product still visible and accesible in any way, shape or form, after all.

Seriously, not sure if the timings match too well, haven't paid any atention to Essentials. I do think it's safe to assume this issue's been going on a while now. Months ago CC removed the classes index without any explanation. Quite likely that was an earlier WotC demand, only for them to seek all the pdfs removed later.

Alternative theory: WotC just really, really has a deep illogical fear and hatred of pdfs which will eventually lead to them attempting to mail bomb Adobe's headquarters.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Heh, so I'm effectively undead to WotC. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I suppose CK was borderline infringing, but, man, what a petty move on WotC's part-- especially so long after they've moved on. This matches their M.O. of torching anything that supports past versions, though, so I'm not surprised.

[edit] Is this an omen? Will WotC be removing their 3e archives in the near future?