d20 Weekly: Are you going to subscribe?

[Grazzt]

I didn't see anything stunning in the four-week subscription.

I'm with Vaxalon. I signed up, but am not impressed enough with what I saw to subscribe.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I think it's good but...

Name brand recognition from authors isn't going to cut it for me. I don't care whose writing the stuff as long as it's high quality.

Two, the whole no art issue has got to go. There needs to be art in a D20 magazines.

Three, I don't think HTML is the way to go for a D20 Zine. Just post it as a PDF and let me decide what I want to print. I hate uneven margins.

Four, when you say "staff reviewers" here, you know it's an unpaid position right? D20Weekly does pay it's reviewers. I can see why people would want to submit their ideas there.

Five, the "crunch" or rules factor has been very light. I have a Pyramid subscription for stuff that is idea generated. I haven't seen anything in three weeks so far that makes me go "Damn, I need that PrC! I want that Feat, I have to have that Magic Item."

Six, I hate it, truly hate it, when I hit tab and it sends me to the cover page icon instead of the post icon.

Now despite this, I've already subscribed. I figure the worst that happens is I'm out $20 bucks and have a new message board to play around in.

 

[jaerdaph]

I've signed up for the free trial subscription to SJG's d20 Weekly, but I still haven't decided yet if I will subscribe. I'm sort of on the fence. At face value, the price is right. Some of the gaming articles have been very enjoyable, even if I'm not familiar with some of the authors. The html page layout is so-so, but certainly not unusable or unreadable. The product reviews, however, seem to be the same names that publish their reviews in multiple places around the Net where there is free access.

I've heard wonderful things over the years about SJG's Pyramid online subscription, but I don't subscribe to Pyramid. Are there any Pyramid subscribers out there who want to comment on how d20 Weekly stacks up compared to Pyramid? Are the layouts and content types similar? Do you think this idea will sink or swim, and do you have confidence that SJG will pull it off?

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I've been reading through the trial subscription material, and I have to say that I think it's OK, but not good enough for me to subscribe. Either more content or a lower price would make me think a subscription would be worthwhile.

 

[jaerdaph]

I also want to add that the people who are seeing an underlying "anti-d20" sentiment at SJG are living in that same fantasy world where WotC is Evil with a capital "E" and the publishing and distribution of RPG games are somehow the ultimate conspiracy of the capitalist world of the military-industrial complex.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I think that so far, D20Weekly compares poorly to Pyramid in a number of venues. D20Weekly isn't supporting any settings per say, as much as the game system and the articles have been light on game information. These articles would probablly be better on Pyramid.

Pyramid offers a wide variety of support for many SJG lines like GURPS, In Nominie, Ogre, and others. Because these games don't get a lot of support outside the magazine and SJG releases, the articles are often very detailed, very useful for those game systems.

In addition, they have Dork Tower. Why you'd want to go with Absurd Notions when you have Dork Tower is beyond me. How much money can they be saving?


Pyramid too puts you on the cover page when you hit the tab button so that also bothers me. How much programming does it take to put the damn command to put it at Post Article?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Wow. Not a lot of replies to this thread eh? Oh well, this is the last free week so I hope everyone checks it out. I think that was a problem too that you had to sign up. Even when it's free, people don't want a lot of hassle. Might've been a mistake on SJG part to make you register for the free stuff.

 

[Valmur_Dwur]

Yep that's EXACTLY why I didn't bother to read the free issues. We all get enough "junk" telemarketing stuff that I don't want to hassle with signing up. If you wanted to get reaction just put up the first issue "no strings attached" If it's good you could give those that sign up 3 special issues for the same $20. Just seems like spam down the road to me?!

 

[EricNoah]

I find it cool that the print ad for d20weekly.com mentions EN World ("reviewer Alan D. Kohler of EN World" or somesuch, specifically).

 

[Krug]

I don't think people are aware of it and the visual presentation of the site has been lacklustre at best. Most of the info isn't new either.