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

[Vigilance]

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.

Mmhmm. So we used to get all this stuff for free, and in the future, we might have to pay for it (this is assuming they even offer this product and that they don't remove all the currently available stuff on the site).

So in other words, you've gone from getting the biggest bargain in the history of gaming to something reasonable. They are paying writers to make content for you, so if you want it, you pay them and they make a profit.

Capitalism.

No more manna from heaven.

Yeah, this really makes them bad people.

 

[2WS-Steve]

Isn't Pyramid still chugging along? Granted, it's the sole survivor of the model that I know of, but it's not unknown that this can work.

Yah -- like sjmiller said.

I had actually subscribed to both it and the d20 version (back when they had it), but let those subscriptions lapse. $20/year struck me as reasonable -- though apparently not reasonable enough to keep me a subscriber. But I'm not sure how good, or many, articles WotC would have to publish before I'd consider paying even $5 a month for a subscription.

So, if the text articles aren't going to sell me, then the software has to do it.

I'll subscribe for at least a month, though, just to check it out.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Mmhmm. So we used to get all this stuff for free, and in the future, we might have to pay for it (this is assuming they even offer this product and that they don't remove all the currently available stuff on the site).

So in other words, you've gone from getting the biggest bargain in the history of gaming to something reasonable. They are paying writers to make content for you, so if you want it, you pay them and they make a profit.

Capitalism.

No more manna from heaven.

Yeah, this really makes them bad people.

Er, none of this has anything to do with what I said.

MMORPGs have to charge for bandwidth and servers (unless they're not-really-MMORPGs like Guild Wars, which is just Diablo II in a nice suit, but that's another thread). The comparison with WotC charging for "hey, here's a preview of Cityscape and hey, you can store 10 characters online" when D&D works just dandy without the Internet -- or even a computer -- doesn't work at all.

 

[Maggan]

Didn't they run that survey several months ago?

That was my impression. But I think it was quoted as news to give background to other bits and pieces floating around at the moment.

/M

 

[Vigilance]

Yah -- like sjmiller said.

I had actually subscribed to both it and the d20 version (back when they had it), but let those subscriptions lapse. $20/year struck me as reasonable -- though apparently not reasonable enough to keep me a subscriber. But I'm not sure how good, or many, articles WotC would have to publish before I'd consider paying even $5 a month for a subscription.

So, if the text articles aren't going to sell me, then the software has to do it.

I'll subscribe for at least a month, though, just to check it out.

I found Pyramid a great value back when I was running nothing but GURPs (in other words, during the dark days of second edition). Once I stopped running GURPs (guess when that was) then I let it lapse.

I dunno, to me this idea sounds good. It's no different than many similar pieces of content people sell as micro-PDFs all the time.

My gut feeling is that coming from Wizards, this content will be as good, if not better.

Add in a character generator and virtual gaming table and it sounds like a great idea (assuming the price is in the $20 per month range- and assuming everything offered- the character generator, the gaming materials and the virtual game table are all high quality).

I just feel people knee-jerk saying what a horrible practice this is for WOTC, sight unseen no less, are just spoiled by all the fantastic free content they've been getting for years.

 

[Vigilance]

Er, none of this has anything to do with what I said.

MMORPGs have to charge for bandwidth and servers (unless they're not-really-MMORPGs like Guild Wars, which is just Diablo II in a nice suit, but that's another thread). The comparison with WotC charging for "hey, here's a preview of Cityscape and hey, you can store 10 characters online" when D&D works just dandy without the Internet -- or even a computer -- doesn't work at all.

If that's what they ACTUALLY DO, then they're dumb and I will be shocked.

I think a monthly fee for well done game supplemental material (crunchy bits and adventure material), world updates, a character generator and a virtual gaming table all adds up to a great product package.

Assuming all of them are well done of course.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I just feel people knee-jerk saying what a horrible practice this is for WOTC, sight unseen no less, are just spoiled by all the fantastic free content they've been getting for years.

Or we've had years of seeing what their Web tools are like.

 

[frankthedm]

To me it looks like they want to make an electronic 'Dragon magazine'.

Since I am not a person who pays money for web resourses, I'll pass.

Put me in the 2WS-Steve camp.

 

[DonTadow]

Or we've had years of seeing what their Web tools are like.

The software experts on here are not telling us anything new. Yes New software may have a few bugs in it, but the more money goes into a product (the bigger the company) the less likely there is of signifcant mistakes. I think we are naive in thinking that Hasbro's going to put their name on a piece of crap after the last launch.

We are also being naive in thinking that the internet will have premium free content forever. What "good thing" is free anymore?

We're bashing wotc, but they have developed some decent webtools as of late. The forgotten realms calender was neat as was the java tile generator that wasn't bad. The original charachter generator that shipped with 3.0 was good for its time as well.

Consider the free content a 3 year preview and now the demo is over.

 

[Thunhus]

I'm not paying online content. There is already tons of books and magazines to get content. I seldom read articles that they have in Wizards website for free now.

Thunhus