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Yes, absolutely. Normally I like making characters in various systems, considering it kind of a sub-hobby in and of itself. With 4e I've found the process of making characters by hand almost physically painful whenever I've tried it. Flipping through three or more books for power options, six or...

Defeating steganographic watermarks is as easy as buying the PDF using an anonymous pre-paid credit card and a pseudonym. I'll add my name to the list of those who believe that nothing is going to happen on this front. Wizard's isn't going to come up with an alternative to PDFs that will keep...

Back in the early 80's, some relatives who pretty much live on a bible camp came to our home and told some bold-faced lies to my parents about D&D. I tried to argue against it, saying that I had read the books cover to cover and what they described just wasn't in there. My parents chose to...

Well, large companies and industry groups have been trying for the last decade or so to come up with the DRM you describe, and have failed. The odds of a bunch of people on a message board actually figuring this out seems remote, to say the least. Worse than that, large companies and industry...

This. I expect to keep playing older editions (OD&D, BD&D, 1e) for the next 30+ years, and paying $120 or whatever it is per year just for access to the books I'd be looking for is simply not reasonable. If they did come out with something like that, I'd sign up and then format-shift the...

I think they voted for services they want, for those services on which they want Wizards to spend their resources developing, for those services they want to be part of what they pay for.

I'd be stunned if we don't see the first item, and I'd bet on the third showing up as well. The second and third I'd be very willing to bet against. They're looking for more control, and those two items undermine it. I'm hoping to see the back-catalog show up. I'd love to finish my collection...

In addition to the study I cited, there's also the individual experiences of content producers such as Baen Book and singer/songwriter Janis Ian who found that freely available and shareable copies of their works increased sales. I'm mad at that guy and I'm mad at Wizards. That guy I'm mad at...

It was multiple choice. They didn't have to vote for the VTT at all, but 2/3 did. If 2/3 of my clients want a certain service, that's a pretty good sign that I should provide it.

I'm going to go with "To make shareholders, stakeholders and others who don't understand the issues feel good." To understand what's happening here, you have to first start with the understanding that the music industry has back way off on actually fighting piracy, both through legal and...

As roguerogue mentioned in another thread: Summary: A joint study by the Harvard University Business School and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill proved that the RIAA’s argument is not as strong as they would like. Harvard professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee’s results showed that it took...

As a developer, I have some sympathy for what you're saying here. However, my sympathy is tempered by the fact that the VTT is nearly a year overdue. I hope this doesn't become Wizards' Duke Nukem Forever. Correct. What's more, watermarks can be defeated with no breaking required, just an...

Welp, taking it on faith that this conversation is going to do some good: "You have stated WotC is exploring options for digital distribution of it's content including older editions. Will you commit to including older editions in this new digital distribution format, providing your customers...

The difficulty there is that what an MMORPG such as WoW sells for $14.95 a month is constantly dynamic content. WotC's content is almost completely static. There may be errata, additional articles, etc, but the content is essentially static. If Wizards offers their electronic book versions on...

While I don't believe the WotC executives are afflicted with acute idiocy, I think there are other alternatives than the one you present. I believe the WotC executives saw the piracy of their IP, and afflicted with accute naivete in tech matters reacted in the way we have seen. I feel confident...

Well, let's start with this simple truth: piracy is not a new problem. It is a problem that goes back over two decades if not longer. In that time, companies and industry associations which dwarf WotC (and Hasbro for that matter) in terms of size, warchest and technical prowess have tried and...

It can discourage the casual pirate, and even provide some punitive measures such as canceling their accounts. For someone who actually sets out to pirate a book, it does nothing. Not even the hidden, single pixel watermark does anything. These pirates will simply purchase the downloads using...

Heh, vendors responding to competition. It's an interesting world in which we live.

First, this isn't software you or I or WotC can just install on a computer and start running it. It's intended to be installed by ISPs and only monitors traffic into and out of that ISP. When considering what WotC can and cannot monitor, it's important to keep in mind the fact that they are not...

That's an interesting question. While PDF is the undisputed champion, there are other formats such as Microsoft's XPS. In the ICv2 interview, Leeds spoke postively about WotC's experieces with the Kindle, but there's a script available which strips off the DRM. I suppose they could try creating...