D&D 5E Are You Planning on Subscribing to D&D Beyond

[Gardens & Goblins]

earlier in this, I pondered a hypothetical government-implemented archive that would maintain our digital purchases from companies that go defunct.

While we wait, I like to think I'm helping through my extensive 'archiving' of digital files, media products. Sure, some might play for the moral high ground *now* but when the internet crumbles and mole people rule the Earth, humanity will be thankful!

Sidenote: I live in a country where the concept of piracy and intellectual property are known but widely ignored. There are busy, public streets selling photocopied books openly for all to see and for about the cost of bottle of milk a stationary store will photocopy and bind whatever you ask them to, with a smile.

 

[CapnZapp]

Even if everyone converts to XML or XPS? Or something totally new.
Whether it be 10 years, 25, or 50 the PDF formal will eventually be replaced and reader programs will become less common.

Sorry what?

Either I lost track or you're suggesting with a straight face that I should be okay with not getting open, unlocked and offline content because my preferred format will be obsolete in 10 or 50 years time!?

You truly are a jester, David.



Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[Obryn]

It's annoying not to be able to keep what you pay off. But that's a modern problem. I don't really "own" any games in my Steam queue or anything I watch on Netflix. Its worrisome to think that the site might go down, and lose access. But... DDI is still up. But does anyone still use it? I wonder how many people here still have their subscription. Before that, there was the downloadable Character Builder. You could keep that. But how many people still have that installed on their machines?

I've kept my own DDI sub active - mostly for the Compendium - but I have no illusions about it being up forever. One big server outage, and they might decide it's not worth fixing. I also still have the downloadable Builder along with all of the installation files; it has been fan-modded to include everything through the end of the edition's run.

I own the Core Rules CD-ROM.
...
The best character building software 1995 had to offer.
With some amazing document formatting of the included books. No PDFs here. RTF instead.
...
Of course, despite the fact I own the program, it no longer works, being seven-ish iterations of Windows out of date. "Owning" it means little in this case.
...
Not that I'm likely to pay 2nd Edition again any time soon...
...
Okay... PDFs have been around for a while. And might continue to be around.
Or not. Amazon's Kindle format is a contender. Adobe might do a revision of the format. 25 years is a longtime and the above is only 22 years old. After all, modern tablets have really made PDFs usable at the table but are less than 10 years old. Will we still be using them in 25 years?

PDFs are fairly ubiquitous now. Yes, at some far-distant point they may vanish. But it's notable that there have literally never been comparable alternatives throughout the decades. It is an evolving format, but it's incredibly backwards-compatible.

And like another poster mentioned - if a superior format comes out and gains universal acceptance, there will be converters.

You cannot compare an executable file with a document format. Note that you can still read the RTF files, too.

I've literally bought some movies four or five different times. Army of Darkness. Star Wars. Because the formats and standards change. Because the media is updated.
Why shouldn't rebuying digital books immune?

Because it's universally recognized nowadays as consumer-unfriendly, and you can buy nearly anything nowadays - legally - in an unlocked digital format. Music, PC games, RPG books, videos, etc. And purely-digital formats don't suffer from the same obsolescence problems that physical media do; you might have problems finding a CD-ROM drive in 10 years, but you will not have problems reading an RTF or PDF file.

 

[Jester David]

Sorry what?

Either I lost track or you're suggesting with a straight face that I should be okay with not getting open, unlocked and offline content because my preferred format will be obsolete in 10 or 50 years time!?

You truly are a jester, David.

No.
I was responding to a comment that PDF digital books would be readable in 25 years and we'd still want to use modern purchases in 25 years rather than re-buying.

Offline programs are nice. But since I very seldom play outside in a farmer's field, it's not really a tension point for me. I have wi-fi, stores have wi-fi, the library has wi-fi. The only place it'd be an issue is a large convention, but I wouldn't want to go all-digital for a con anyway.
And, honestly, having it in the cloud means if I forger or lose my character, it's saved. Heck, I used to play 4e using iPlay4e: http://iplay4e.appspot.com/characters

Downloadable is also nice in theory. Like the downloadable DDI Character Builder. Which I no longer have because I've completely upgraded my computer two different times since I stopped subscribing in 2010, including multiple re-installations of the OS. Having the base program isn't useful, since it will require server access to download the patches, content updates, and the like. (That won't be stored locally, because they'd have to update the installation file each patch and having all the data in the base program makes it vulnerable to cracking).

Now, PDFs...
Yeah, I get many people would rather WotC release PDFs.
Now, I had PDFs already. They're not hard to find. Or even make: a smartphone or iPad and a $2 scanner app will do you just fine. (That's how I read Volo's Guide to Monsters so I could spare my collector's edition the touch of skin oils and sweat.) And my conscience is currently clean because there's no official PDFs.
If they released $10 or $15 PDFs I'd buy in a heartbeat. Even $20 PDFs I'd slowly pick-up. ($20-25 does seem to be the market mean for a core rulebook.) But we just know WotC will charge full price.
Do $50 PDFs really work for you?

 

[BookBarbarian]

That's how I read Volo's Guide to Monsters so I could spare my collector's edition the touch of skin oils and sweat.) And my conscience is currently clean because there's no official PDFs.

Smart.

Similarly, I took pictures of the Class options from SCAG then got the text out of the image to have just a Text file, which I find a little more useful than a PDF.

 

[Jester David]

Smart.

Similarly, I took pictures of the Class options from SCAG then got the text out of the image to have just a Text file, which I find a little more useful than a PDF.

I eventually gave in a bought a second copy so I could actually use the damn book and easily flip between monsters. Stupid obsessive collector's mentality

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

Now, PDFs...
Yeah, I get many people would rather WotC release PDFs.
Now, I had PDFs already. They're not hard to find. Or even make: a smartphone or iPad and a $2 scanner app will do you just fine. (That's how I read Volo's Guide to Monsters so I could spare my collector's edition the touch of skin oils and sweat.) And my conscience is currently clean because there's no official PDFs.
If they released $10 or $15 PDFs I'd buy in a heartbeat. Even $20 PDFs I'd slowly pick-up. ($20-25 does seem to be the market mean for a core rulebook.) But we just know WotC will charge full price.
Do $50 PDFs really work for you?

It's mostly a moot point outside of US and Europe. There are loads of game clubs and stores here that will never stock the original prints of the books, instead selling photocopied, rather neatly bound, copies. Granted the price of one book, at the local rate, is 10th of the average monthly salary, but really, its simply because Wizards has no intention on paying the cash to do something about it, nor the power to stop them.

On the plus side, thanks to the ease acquiring copies oif the books, many people play D&D here, so many more than when I was their age.

The problem Wizard's have is their key source of revenue is selling information - and that's becoming increasingly tricky to control.

If they're concerned about piracy/loss of control - as I'm sure they know, it's already happened. Releasing .pdfs for a chunk of change won't stop it, be it might provide folks that enjoy owning, 'legitimate' copies a way of thanking the company through giving them their money.

DND Beyond is obviously, in part, an effort to control the access to their information, presented as a convenience/luxury, and good luck to them. And it's not going to change anything around these parts.

 

[SkidAce]

If they released $10 or $15 PDFs I'd buy in a heartbeat. Even $20 PDFs I'd slowly pick-up. ($20-25 does seem to be the market mean for a core rulebook.) But we just know WotC will charge full price.
Do $50 PDFs really work for you?

Agreed.

And $50 would be too much.

 

[Mercule]

earlier in this, I pondered a hypothetical government-implemented archive that would maintain our digital purchases from companies that go defunct.

It's called PRISM (and successors). In 15 years, you should be able to make FOIA request to get the text of your 5E PDFs.

 

[Satyrn]

It's called PRISM (and successors). In 15 years, you should be able to make FOIA request to get the text of your 5E PDFs.

oh my. You make being spied on sound almost worthwhile.