D&D 5E D&D Beyond No Longer Supporting Unearthed Arcana

Announced on their livestream Dev Update, D&D Beyond will be refocusing development on new features and content, citing an inability to keep up with Unearned Arcana in a timely fashion.

We at D&D Beyond regret to inform you that we will no longer be supporting Unearthed Arcana content on our platform.

While we have loved giving users the opportunity to use new Unearthed Arcana playtest material offered by Wizards of the Coast on D&D Beyond, there are a multitude of factors that have made it difficult for us to do so in a way that presents the content the way it was intended, and in a timely way that does not divert our development resources.

[News] The Future of Unearthed Arcana & DDB - News & Announcements - D&D Beyond General - D&D Beyond Forums - D&D Beyond

We at D&D Beyond regret to inform you that we will no longer be supporting Unearthed Arcana content on our platform. While we have loved giving use...

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[Iry]

I have seen so many projects completely flounder because they tried to build an overly flexible system. We don't know anything concrete about the internals of the system and as a company they need to focus on providing the most benefit for the least investment.

Spending significant resources on a tool that the minority of people use, that only a minority of that minority will raise a stink about is probably simply not good business.

Undoubtedly not. You can hardly afford to front that kind of money unless you're already successful. But I'm sure you've also seen companies who eventually do make it, that need to overhaul their entire system because it was built too limited to start with.

 

[TwoSix]

You're comparing apples to oranges. Unless you're on the dev team for DndBeyond or know someone who is everything you're posting is simply unfounded and kind of insulting to the team that works on the application.

I think the evidence points to them doing a half-assed job, you're absolutely correct that I'm insulting them. That doesn't bother me in the slightest. People do half-assed jobs all the time! That's just life. Screwing something up doesn't make them bad people.

Fortunately, I never bothered to pay for D&D Beyond because
a) 5e character creation is pretty simple
b) I use a ton of homebrew which D&D Beyond doesn't support.

 

[Umbran]

To my mind, the evidence points pretty strongly to 2, especially when I see something like Pathbuilder 2 being built by one hobbyist on a much more robust rule set.

So, one really big question - how many concurrent and potentially interacting users does Pathbuilder actually support? I'm going to guess that whatever it is, D&D Beyond supports one or two orders of magnitude more, and scale is a big deal in software.

That said...

"The evidence" being... pretty paltry stuff, to be honest.

I come at this from two perspectives, one professional, the other just a good idea....

1) The vast and overwhelming proportion of the people in software are actually bright, competent, and at any given moment are doing the best they can to make the right decisions with what they know at the time. Unfortunately, what they know is usually minimal, and the world changes around them in quickly in complicated and unpredictable ways.

2) The Golden Rule applies. Whenever you decide that some provider is just an idiot, you are basically asking the world to look at your work from the outside in the same way - so, when you make what seems like a minor, innocuous decision that may disappoint some customers, someone out there is saying you are completely incompetent nincompoops.

For everyone who says, "Well MY work is so much harder, and we do it better," perhaps that is true. But perhaps it is less true than you think, and perhaps it has not always been true. If I were a betting man, a bet that there were some really upset people that could be found looking through the customer contact records would be a pretty solid one to make. And every one of those upset people thinks of your work like you're thinking of D&D Beyond right now.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I won't comment on how complicated adding UA to DD Beyond is from a development perspective (I work with developers but this is not my wheelhouse), but at minimum we should all recognize that a service we once were getting is now being cut, while we pay the same price.

Considering how we should expect our products to improve over time, this is a step back. It doesn't effect me much as a "forever DM" who really only used to purchase statblocks on DDBeyond (I've stopped doing even that), but I get why subscribers would be really annoyed.

 

[darjr]

sigh it wasn’t that long ago where digital dnd was deemed doomed

 

[Umbran]

But I'm sure you've also seen companies who eventually do make it, that need to overhaul their entire system because it was built too limited to start with.

The maxim I have heard is that if you are not giving your system a complete overhaul every 5 years, you are very likely going to fail.

 

[Umbran]

I won't comment on how complicated adding UA to DD Beyond is from a development perspective (I work with developers but this is not my wheelhouse), but at minimum we should all recognize that a service we once were getting is now being cut, while we pay the same price.

Um... that content was available to non-subscribers. It was always a freebie extra. None of the features you actually pay for are being removed at this time.

 

[darjr]

The maxim I have heard is that if you are not giving your system a complete overhaul every 5 years, you are very likely going to fail.

It’s the law.

feels like it anyway

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Um... that content was available to non-subscribers. It was always a freebie extra. None of the features you actually pay for are being removed at this time.

True, but it's being cut for everyone, including subscribers. They are losing a feature they used to have.

 

[TwoSix]

1) The vast and overwhelming proportion of the people in software are actually bright, competent, and at any given moment are doing the best they can to make the right decisions with what they know at the time. Unfortunately, what they know is usually minimal, and the world changes around them in quickly in complicated and unpredictable ways.

Heh. We have very different experiences in the industry, then.

2) The Golden Rule applies. Whenever you decide that some provider is just an idiot, you are basically asking the world to look at your work from the outside in the same way - so, when you make what seems like a minor, innocuous decision that may disappoint some customers, someone out there is saying you are completely incompetent nincompoops.

For everyone who says, "Well MY work is so much harder, and we do it better," perhaps that is true. But perhaps it is less true than you think, and perhaps it has not always been true. If I were a betting man, a bet that there were some really upset people that could be found looking through the customer contact records would be a pretty solid one to make. And every one of those upset people thinks of your work like you're thinking of D&D Beyond right now.

Oh, I know for a fact there are. But I'm perfectly aware of being a just-competent-enough coaster whose primary skill is knowing what project to get on to avoid actual problems.

Why do you think I identified D&D Beyond as being a problem so quickly? Game recognizes game.