D&D Insider - Pay tomorrow for what you get today for free?

[Mark CMG]

BTW, it hasn't been announced.Nothing has been announced. No price point set. No feature set decided upon.

The text on EN World's front page is from the WotC survey.

That's a big point. The survey results might turn them off the idea.

 

[Psion]

Now why? That just sounds like the animosity at the big corporate giant talking. But considering the money and backing behind this new "stuff" I doubt it will suck.

Me? Animosity? Not in the least bit. In fact, you suggesting so in the face of me saying that I am all for this except for this one aspect makes me suspect you are zeroing in on this one point for a reason.

What you hear talking is the experience of a software professional. Brand spanking new software will have brand spanking new bugs in it and lack the capabilities of fully developed software. This is a pretty well known principle of software design.

See "Software Creationism".

My fears are deepened by talk of being able to save 10 characters. 10 characters? If I was DMing, that would be a paltry amount. This says to me "hobbled web interface". I really, honestly, don't expect this to come close to comparing to stuff out there already by CMP or for that matter, other designers creating real, tested, software generators.

 

[Razz]

I heard that Dragon can no longer put Substitution Levels and variant abilities in their Class Acts articles. Maybe the new paid content is the reason.

They're allowed to do Alternate Class Features but no more Substitution Levels. I believe the reason was that they said Alternate Class Features was more popular and accepting than Substitution Levels were. Sub Levels were an experiment that started with Planar Handbook and ended rather quickly for some strange reason.

I like sub levels and alternate features. Don't know why they exclude sub levels now.

 

[Psion]

They're allowed to do Alternate Class Features but no more Substitution Levels. I believe the reason was that they said Alternate Class Features was more popular and accepting than Substitution Levels were. Sub Levels were an experiment that started with Planar Handbook and ended rather quickly for some strange reason.

Nit of somebody on the R&D team? That'd be my guess.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

How many professional websites out there only charge $5/month? Not too many. $9.99 seems more likely to me.

 

[Kapture]

BTW, it hasn't been announced.Nothing has been announced. No price point set. No feature set decided upon.

The text on EN World's front page is from the WotC survey.

/M

Didn't they run that survey several months ago?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm not really sure I'd consider substitution levels and alternate class abilities terribly different ideas, myself. The differences are pretty marginal and, either way, they're kind of cumbersome to note on a character sheet, IMO. I'd rather they were turned into feats or something in great unnamed next edition of the game.

 

[jdrakeh]

I do feel that what they have achieved for free online is a fantastic support vehicle to get new gamers started and keep old gamers in the game (so to speak) so I would hate to see it change from how it is now.

Ditto.

From what I read, the free content is going away and will be supplanted by the subscription.

See, I'd have zero problem with all future content being released under a subscription model, but retroactively repealing the 'free' status of content that already exists seems like a real crappy thing to do.

 

[Vigilance]

This reminds me of something....recently.

Oh, yeah, the whole Xbox live debacle.

Uhhh.... except XBL marketplace has been a huge win for everyone involved both in terms of money and fan response.

So calling it a debacle is kind of silly just because you dont like it.

I love all the people in this thread saying they'll pay every month for their MMO but not for D&D.

Chuck

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I love all the people in this thread saying they'll pay every month for their MMO but not for D&D.

Playing an MMO without paying the monthly fee mostly consists of staring at the screen telling you to pay your monthly fee.

Playing D&D without paying for a monthly WotC Insider fee consists of, you know, playing the game.