Disappointed D&D Insider Customer

[Brax]

Here is a letter I wrote to WotC


Wizards of the Coast Customer Service:

I am writing this to inform you of why I am not continuing my subscription to D&D Insider. I suspect your department is being inundated with this sort of thing, and hope that you will read this letter and act upon, or pass along the information here within.

Here is a brief summary of what kind of customer I am. I have played D&D since about 1981. In that time I’ve played D&D (Basic, Expert, Master, Immortals), AD&D, 2nd Edition AD&D (including the revisions with Player’s Option and the like), 3rd Edition D&D, 3.5, and now 4th Edition D&D. Of the products that your company has been responsible for (3rd Edition and on), I estimate I purchased a total of $1500 worth of books, miniatures, software, and online services from you. This includes two years worth of the D&D Insider subscription paid in advance.

I love this game. I look forward to meeting with my friends every week to play. The most recent edition, 4th, is the most fun yet to play (at least tactically). The exceptions based rules, however, make it very difficult to make and maintain a character. There are so many options and interdependencies that playing only with pen and paper became too much of a hassle for me. Your character builder became indispensable for me.

Over the last two years, however, the subscription to DDI has lost its appeal. After some amazing software preview videos, and a few months of amazing Dragon and Dungeon magazine content, I figured I would spring for a whole year of the DDI service, figuring that it was worth the money despite my strong aversion to the software-as-a-subscription model of pricing. I can’t stress how much I dislike that business model. As a customer, I like to own things, not rent or lease them. When it was announced that pricing was going up, seeing how good the first tools turned out, I signed up for another year to get the best bang for my buck, so to speak.

In those two years, your DDI team disappointed me several times. No virtual tabletop, no 3d character visualizer (not as big of a deal, but needed for a good VTT), no campaign manager, several oddly missing features to the existing character builder (not all feats and items implemented fully, house rules not interacting with the character’s statistics, incomplete tracking of conditions and current state of the character), several delays, and declining content in the magazines.

I own so many books, that they stopped fitting on the table after the first year of 4th edition, so I switched to using a laptop and tracking everything with that. I currently use a few purchased PDFs, the compendium, the character builder, and iplay4e to play at the table. With the shortcomings of the current character builder, I needed to make my own custom dice rolls using Crystal Ball Lite. The table is much less cluttered now with everything electronic.

The changes announced in the new version of the character builder concern me, and frankly I don’t have any faith left in your software division to implement all of the missing features in a timely manner if ever. My subscription is up as of 11/7, and I won’t be renewing. WotC won’t see any more of my money until one or more of the following happen, in order of my personal preference:

• You release a working virtual tabletop.
• The new character builder is improved to the point where I can play with my laptop at our real table without using any physical books or paper. This would mean that I can use only the character builder, or some combination of it plus 3rd party sites (like iplay4e). Being able to export a character and manipulate it outside of your service will be needed, since you won’t be able to think of every want the community has.
• You start selling PDF versions of your books again. I’d ultimately like to see you sell a physical book and the PDF together for one price, or possible a small amount more ($5 or less) than just the physical product. I like to read a physical book when going cover to cover, but like the PDF when referencing at the table. Honestly, if I buy the physical book, the PDF version costs pennies to distribute to me as I’ve paid for the content in other form.
• The Dragon and Dungeon content quality improves to what it was before.
• You release a campaign manager.
• You finish the monster builder.

I know this is a long email, and I appreciate you reading it. I hope to see these changes made to DDI soon, and would appreciate notification if any of this comes to pass. I have money, and I want to give it to you, but you have to deserve it again.

Sincerely,
[real name withheld]


I rarely post, as you can see in my info, but was moved to share this to get the communities feedback. Am I way off base, or do you share my concerns?

 

[Katana_Geldar]

As much as I admire your pluck, making what could be seen as demands.

I tried to do something about my subscription last night but couldn't, the site is laggy.

 

[BobTheNob]

Alot of people feel like you, but I am not one of them. I for one am absolutely delighted with the coming news of the online solution, because my players are all tech savey nut-heads who will jump on this. Our game is totally automated, with 2 pc's (one on projector) me dm'ing with a laptop and 2 ipads floating around the players.

The only crutch we have is printed Char Sheets, and now that will be irrelevant as we can just browse from the one site. Brilliant.

If anything, this is absolutely the wrong time to jump ship. The reason there has been little content of late is because this is what they have been working toward, and the release will represent the new foundation they needed to proceed with the features you requested.

But, if you are unhappy, so be it. But cancelling your subscription just before the new tool comes out without even having a look. Thats just odd.

(I must admit though, so much negative response, so much vitriol from the boards in general...and not one person has even used the new tool yet! Its like saying "I refuse to even test drive that car because its yellow and doesnt have a cup holder")

 

[Mirtek]

The reason there has been little content of late is because this is what they have been working toward,

Which was taking away what they already gave us instead of giving us something new. Hooray for WotC

 

[Brax]

If anything, this is absolutely the wrong time to jump ship. The reason there has been little content of late is because this is what they have been working toward, and the release will represent the new foundation they needed to proceed with the features you requested.

But, if you are unhappy, so be it. But cancelling your subscription just before the new tool comes out without even having a look. Thats just odd.

(I must admit though, so much negative response, so much vitriol from the boards in general...and not one person has even used the new tool yet! Its like saying "I refuse to even test drive that car because its yellow and doesnt have a cup holder")

Just so you know, I am not canceling my service, as much as I am letting it lapse by not renewing on 11/7. I'm not interested in paying another years worth of money up front before I see how the new tool does (by looking at feedback, or using a friend’s computer). I wish my account wasn't up so soon, but it is.

I'm also not going to pre-judge the new tool beyond the already stated lack of features. You can bet I will be test driving that new baby when it is possible to do so. It's more like "I'm not going to buy that new car now because it is yellow and has no cup holder, but when you get that fixed, I'll revisit my decision".

 

[UngainlyTitan]

To OP: I did not read you open letter, I really do not care but:

Ya know, I am getting a little tired of people posting open letters to WoTC here, go to WoTC's boards and post them there. If ya don't like their service then don't pay for it. If ya want to complain, complain on WoTCs boards. I would much prefer to discuss 4e with people or possible future scenarios regarding DDI development. But all this is starting to get to me. There was a year of edition war that never really had a ceasefire just settled down to sporadic sniping and the occasional artillery duel.
Then we had Essentials which I find interesting but that gave us the Edition Proxy war where some 4e warriors were complaining about watering down their precious game.
Now we are getting more crap now about the online services, so some people are disappointed, so what, don't buy WoTC stuff. There is really no obligation to do so. Not id their any obligation to play with the lastest errata. I play several rgps over the last 25 years without bothering about any erratta. I played 4e with erratta because the character builder included erratta, however, I never checked the math of the CB not did I check the math of CB produced characters for my players. A +/- 1 here or there is not the end of the world and we have enjoyed our games so far. I expect we will enjoy our future games also.
/rant

 

[Solvarn]

Alot of people feel like you, but I am not one of them. I for one am absolutely delighted with the coming news of the online solution, because my players are all tech savey nut-heads who will jump on this. Our game is totally automated, with 2 pc's (one on projector) me dm'ing with a laptop and 2 ipads floating around the players.

The only crutch we have is printed Char Sheets, and now that will be irrelevant as we can just browse from the one site. Brilliant.

If anything, this is absolutely the wrong time to jump ship. The reason there has been little content of late is because this is what they have been working toward, and the release will represent the new foundation they needed to proceed with the features you requested.

But, if you are unhappy, so be it. But cancelling your subscription just before the new tool comes out without even having a look. Thats just odd.

(I must admit though, so much negative response, so much vitriol from the boards in general...and not one person has even used the new tool yet! Its like saying "I refuse to even test drive that car because its yellow and doesnt have a cup holder")

The excuse about reducing content doesn't hold water. They aren't charging anyone less, why should they be putting out less? The project plan they had, if they had one, obviously went very poorly. This isn't uncommon, I think that something like 63% of all IT projects fail. The issue is that right now, as is, the value of what is being offered doesn't equate with the cost.

I'll agree with you about test driving the software though. Testing it will be interesting to see, but at this time I don't believe that option is on the table. I haven't heard anything a free trial if it's offered.

 

[Brax]

To OP: I did not read you open letter, I really do not care but:

Ya know, I am getting a little tired of people posting open letters to WoTC here, go to WoTC's boards and post them there. If ya don't like their service then don't pay for it. If ya want to complain, complain on WoTCs boards. I would much prefer to discuss 4e with people or possible future scenarios regarding DDI development. But all this is starting to get to me. There was a year of edition war that never really had a ceasefire just settled down to sporadic sniping and the occasional artillery duel.
Then we had Essentials which I find interesting but that gave us the Edition Proxy war where some 4e warriors were complaining about watering down their precious game.
Now we are getting more crap now about the online services, so some people are disappointed, so what, don't buy WoTC stuff. There is really no obligation to do so. Not id their any obligation to play with the lastest errata. I play several rgps over the last 25 years without bothering about any erratta. I played 4e with erratta because the character builder included erratta, however, I never checked the math of the CB not did I check the math of CB produced characters for my players. A +/- 1 here or there is not the end of the world and we have enjoyed our games so far. I expect we will enjoy our future games also.
/rant

I did send this letter to WotC customer service, I did post it on their forums, and I posted it here to get an idea of what this smaller, more reasonable community thinks of what I said and how I said it.

I can appreciate that it was long, and many people won't read it because of that, but if you are going to go on your own rant, you could at least read the posts on the thread you are ranting on, or start a new thread.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I did send this letter to WotC customer service, I did post it on their forums, and I posted it here to get an idea of what this smaller, more reasonable thinks of what I said and how I said it.

I can appreciate that it was long, and many people won't read it because of that, but if you are going to go on your own rant, you could at least read the posts on the thread you are ranting on, or start a new thread.

There are already 7 threads on the first page of the 4e board alone on the subject of DDI on all of them the majority of the posts since the announcement are complaints and open letters similar to your one. You could have tacked it on there.
And if all you wanted was the reaction of ENWorld to the news you could have read them.

 

[Ryujin]

Alot of people feel like you, but I am not one of them. I for one am absolutely delighted with the coming news of the online solution, because my players are all tech savey nut-heads who will jump on this. Our game is totally automated, with 2 pc's (one on projector) me dm'ing with a laptop and 2 ipads floating around the players.

The only crutch we have is printed Char Sheets, and now that will be irrelevant as we can just browse from the one site. Brilliant.

If anything, this is absolutely the wrong time to jump ship. The reason there has been little content of late is because this is what they have been working toward, and the release will represent the new foundation they needed to proceed with the features you requested.

But, if you are unhappy, so be it. But cancelling your subscription just before the new tool comes out without even having a look. Thats just odd.

(I must admit though, so much negative response, so much vitriol from the boards in general...and not one person has even used the new tool yet! Its like saying "I refuse to even test drive that car because its yellow and doesnt have a cup holder")

For many of us the connectivity requirement issue is a rather large hurdle. It's far from a cup holder issue. It's more like saying that you don't want to take a car for a test ride because it's hydrogen powered and there's a station down the street, but there's no hydrogen source where to plan to travel TO. What's the point? It might in fact be a fine car, but it doesn't meet your needs.