Arcane Power: How long before the pirated copy appears

[Hawkwind]

Well the pirates are faster than amazon uk in getting out arcane power.I'm still waiting for my pre order. I wonder when we will see stage two of hasbro's legal strategy? Perhaps they will ask for a few account details and IP Addresses from the admins of enworld

 

[armorclass10]

I can also verify chaps 1-5, lots of seeders BTW more than I usually see for stuff. It will be up and done in a day or two is my guess.

There are also two versions, a searchable one and a non searchable one.

 

[Mirtek]

Guess they save the best for last (meaning chapter 6)...

Well, is that really the best part? I mean full descriptions of feats, familiars and ED was up on spoiler threads (like here on enworld or on rpg.net) a few days before release.

I would say that these were the best known parts of AP. While these threads also spoiled quite a few powers, there just so many new powers that the percentage of already known stuff in chapters 1-5 was much lower than for chapter 6 (which was almost 100% known before AP was even released in most places *lucky japanese*)

 

[WhatGravitas]

Well the pirates are faster than amazon uk in getting out arcane power.

Well, thanks for reminding me about that. Amazon.co.uk got very, very cruddy with 4E books in the last couple of months - really disappointed, whereas the core set arrived right on time, back then.

In a way, it's deeply unsettling that pirates get their stuff faster than I do.

However, that should change - fast piecemeal scans are cropping up? Sounds like a kneejerk reaction. After the outrage about the PDF pulling has died down, the next releases should be pirated in considerably more time, which may be critical, as the initial release of books is the phase with the highest sales for WotC (at least that was probably the motivation for the whole thing).

Cheers, LT.

 

[nnms]

However, that should change - fast piecemeal scans are cropping up? Sounds like a kneejerk reaction. After the outrage about the PDF pulling has died down, the next releases should be pirated in considerably more time, which may be critical, as the initial release of books is the phase with the highest sales for WotC (at least that was probably the motivation for the whole thing).

The slowest case would likely be how quickly the books got scanned back during the 3.x days before WotC started selling PDFs. Which was 3-6 months after the book came out.

 

[lutecius]

The slowest case would likely be how quickly the books got scanned back during the 3.x days before WotC started selling PDFs. Which was 3-6 months after the book came out.

err... weeks, not months.

 

[CardinalXimenes]

The state of the art tech has changed - the cruddy scans of earlier years are pretty much gone. A kid with no scanning experience can scan pretty well by following directions. I think that of course WOTC will try to spin it like they somehow accomplished something positive, but it is clear that they didnt.

Yes, they have. It took the pirates four days to even begin getting parts up, and tomorrow's DDI update will quite likely put the crunch into the Compendium and the Character Builder before the full book is available. As it stands right now, the vast majority of people who preordered or who have a DDI subscription will have the book's info before pirates do.

That, ultimately, is about the best case WotC's going to get. They've got first-week sales completely unhindered by piracy and the delay is a reason for would-be pirates to seriously wonder how long they're going to have to wait before they get the books. The only sure way to get the material within a week of release now is to buy a physical book. It's a certainty that the books are going to get scanned somewhere down the line, but with the 10:1 ratio they were looking at with PDFs, they really do not need to sell a whole lot more copies with their new policy to make it a flat win in financial terms... to say nothing of the goodwill they're buying from LGS retailers by killing their PDFs. They're losing points with players that insist on a PDF format and refuse to use DDI, but it's pretty clear that WotC is completely willing to make that trade.

 

[baberg]

They're losing points with players that insist on a PDF format and refuse to use DDI, but it's pretty clear that WotC is completely willing to make that trade.

One thing I'd like to point out is that DDI does not include everything in the books. All of the powers, Paragon Paths, and feat options, yes. But when I made my Invoker in the Character Builder I had to go back to my PHB2 to find out what the "Summoning" keyword meant for my Angel of Fire ability. Nothing (that I can see) in DDI tells me what a Summoned creature's defenses are, or what their hit points are, etc.

The same can be said for Familiars here in Arcane Power or for some keywords in the other books. Unless I'm missing something obvious, those rules are in the splatbooks and nowhere else.

 

[baphomet68]

Yes, they have. It took the pirates four days to even begin getting parts up, and tomorrow's DDI update will quite likely put the crunch into the Compendium and the Character Builder before the full book is available. As it stands right now, the vast majority of people who preordered or who have a DDI subscription will have the book's info before pirates do.

Well, I guess that is a matter of opinion. If its about a race to get the preorders to customers before the Pirates get a PDF, then O.K. Contrasted to the number of people that learned as I did how easy it is to make our own PDF (for personal use), and spiral bind the book afterwards, I think they lose out. I doubt I will ever bother to purchase both a PDF and a book again; all the delay accomplished with me was slowing my purchase by a few days, waiting for someone I know to let me spend a few hours with it to read over & decide if I wanted it.
I think that there are a lot of people like me who will always want the physical books, for character design, casual reading, etc., but who use laptops exclusively for actual gaming, and so will alw3ays want electronic media too. It stings that WOTC has yanked PDF's without a replacement in place.
But as I read over this string, it seems that a number of us (like, me for instance) are being led by our feelings, and a lot of noses are out of joint. And it clearly goes straight to the top - it all began with WOTC's nose out of joint reiracy.

[response to point 2, "tomorrow's DDI update" - yes, and a day or two later the new April patch will appear for the Cracked character builder, and those damn Pirates will be neck and neck with us again!]

 

[baphomet68]

fast piecemeal scans are cropping up? Sounds like a kneejerk reaction. After the outrage about the PDF pulling has died down, the next releases should be pirated in considerably more time, which may be critical, as the initial release of books is the phase with the highest sales for WotC.

Kneejerk reaction? More like a community stepping up! The "Pirate" community had little notice that WOTC was pulling PDF's, and so were not prepared for the new playing field. I beleive that their next (Major) release will be out as a piratre PDF sooner - perhaps even before release - than it is this time around. It will be a better example of the Pirate community reaction.
While it requires special skills to strip copy protection from a PDF, running a scanner and OCR software is easy peasy; a far larger segment of the "Pirate" community can participate in it. Making it more likely that the printer, WOTC employee, or other person with opportunity to get advance copies can Pirate them if they are so inclined.