Dragon & Dungeon--Any Free Content?

[catsclaw227]

Badjak -- If you hop over there on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, you will find some free stuff there. Also, I recommend you check the Editorial Calendar. It will tell you what's coming and when. Very helpful.

 

[Dire Bare]

I don't know. I'm kind of bummed about the WOTC site. I realize that there is some stuff that is free, but it actually is kind of hard to find, and mostly relating to minatures or other things. Certainly the magazines shouldn't be free, and soon as I get some time and money on my hands, I plan on buying a subscription, but it seems like there isn't that much marketing information on the site, I mean part of the benefit of their website is that it is advertising. It's suppose to convince me to buy books, and the free stuff I want is mainly details about what those books contain so that I can get pumped into buying them. Now it seems like that information is less. So I really less informed over all about what there coming out with and why I should buy it. The net effect basically is, I've stopped going to the site, which I think has lessened my ardor for buying books. Anyway, obviously a balance needs to be maintained between exclusives and ads, and I like the fact that they are making you pay for the stuff, because that generally means that stuff is going to be higher quality, but I think they've gone in the wrong direction. Mainly, because I used to hop on there site once per day to check for updates and now I don't. One thing that I think should be free was their design and developement articles (someone can correct if I'm wrong and these are still free, but I haven't seen them). It was the editorials on how WOTC did game design which were the biggest draw for me buying the books. I liken it to an aha moment. Like when I first read about their concept of minions on their website. In my head, I was like aha! that's a good idea. That fullfills a obvious need I've always had in my game. Now I want more and shall buy their books. Since the design editorials are now in dungeon magazine, I get bummed out. If they could only make those design articles free, then I would be a happy camper. Everything else I'll indeed shell money for, but those articles were basically advertisements for me anyway since they were my biggest draw to buying the books. Now that I don't have access to them, I tend to buy less.

While there is a lot of free content on the miniatures game, all of the free content I listed upthread has nothing to do with miniatures. There is quite a bit of free RPG content available on WotC's site.

But your comment on the "hard to find" . . . I'll give you that! WotC's site is very poorly designed and organized in my opinion. I suppose the value of free stuff is diminished if it's not easy to find in the first place!

The subscription content is well worth it, if you're thinking about subscribing I'd highly recommend it. Then you can just check the "What's New" tab on D&D Insider and read everything, free or not!

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Well, they don't exactly owe us anything. However...

Once upon a time, every WotC-produced book had an index. No more.
Once upon a time, every WotC-produced book used new art. No more.
Once upon a time, every WotC-produced book came with a web enhancement. No more.
Once upon a time, WotC-produced books had more words per page and less white space. No more.
Once upon a time, WotC-produced books were errata'ed for free. At some point, they stopped doing this for 3.x (offering a lot of different excuses for doing so), and they are now offering some errata for 4E, but to have the most up-to-date stuff, you have to subscribe to DDI.
Once upon a time, WotC gave away a lot (perhaps too much) free stuff on their web page. Now they give away some, but most of it is in the form of product previews (which are advertisements... but since they got some people to buy not one, but two hardcover advertisements for 4E, I guess it's just a matter of time before the customers are expected to buy their advertisements).

Verily, it was a golden age, back then.
And buying your advertisements is totally unheard of. Except, well, in magazines.
And the preview books are awesome. Sorry.

 

[Knightfall]

(This post seemed appropriate for this thread.)

Forked from: digital insider: Monk in PH3, playtest in May

Digital Insider: Where We Are

Oh and also they decided to discontinue the digital insider column...

But Monk!

So, no more Digitial Insider. That's one down and how many more to go? That's the difference between being a subscriber and not being a subscriber.

The free content* that does exist can be ended at any time. They wouldn't be able to get away with that for the DDI content.

*I do acknowledge that WotC's website does have some free content, but I don't consider that content to be DDI content. DDI is an elite-level, paid subscription. I'm sure 4e fans love it to death, but I cannot get behind an online subscription model that doesn't allow me to get DRAGON Magazine and DUNGEON Magazine content in a printed format.

 

[Phaezen]

(This post seemed appropriate for this thread.)

Forked from: digital insider: Monk in PH3, playtest in May


So, no more Digitial Insider. That's one down and how many more to go? That's the difference between being a subscriber and not being a subscriber.

The free content* that does exist can be ended at any time. They wouldn't be able to get away with that for the DDI content.

To be fair, Digital Insider has run its course as a news mouthpiece for 4e and they have other means of getting the news out.

When this column began, information was streaming at an amazing rate. It was a time of constant change and constant growth, and we had a lot to let you know about. That’s no longer the case, and as many of you have recognized, I don’t have a ton of new information to pass along on a weekly basis. So, this will be the last regularly scheduled installment of Digital Insider. We will stay in touch, just not on a weekly basis. When we have something new or exciting to say, you’ll see it as a news item, or on the message boards, or in an editorial or column. In most cases, we’ll use a combination of these methods to best get the word out.

Phaezen

 

[DarkKestral]

Let's talk about the difference between Magic's side of the house and D&D's. Magic's development articles? Weekly and free. Magic's preview articles? Weekly and free. Magic's equivalent to the compendium? Free, and regularly updated with every block release and every official ruling that changes the effect of cards. Magic's art? Not generally reused except for re-releases of cards (which is a bit different, since one of the ways people recognize cards quickly to speed up play is by their art. Even then, between editions, they sometimes change the card art to fit the theme.) Magic also has free tourney reports and free deck guides... in short, darn near everything that the D&D side of the house makes you PAY FOR, Magic's side of the house gives away, and does so on a far more regular basis, since they don't have one preview a month, they can have as many as four. Sometimes more, if multiple columnists get into the act.

Admittedly, Magic Online is a pay-for-play service. But it's closest companion on the D&D side is the combo of the character builder and the game table, which are separate products from the rest of DDI. That doesn't give me any confidence in the DDI. Admittedly, I'm not really into 4e. But the amount of free material that's coming out for Dragon and Dungeon does not impress me, particularly when most of the material now in Dragon and Dungeon is material they gave away as recently as a year ago. Similarly, I might see the value in saving 30 dollars per book and spending 15 a year for the compendium, but that presumes they've managed to hook me into buying their books. And I really don't see a reason, at least with the material they've put out for free...

Frankly, what's left of the free content is simply advertising or what is generally required content for a major RPG manufacturer...

I'll run down the list:

Character sheet --- required (seriously, unless it's FUDGE, most companies have character sheets so that players don't have to rip out the page in the book with it.)
Upcoming Product Excerpts --- advertising
Use this Book --- advertising
Image and Map Galleries --- often required for GMs.. again, no one wants to have to rip out pages out of the books in order to produce a map of the area, particularly if the map is nice looking.
In the Works --- advertising
Screensavers and Wallpapers --- not directly advertising, but given that most advertising sites for movies, comics, books, and whatnot are likely to have them if there's any visual content at all, it's fairly likely this is the purpose.
Character Builder Demo --- obviously advertising a pay-for-play product. Limited feature demos are quickly becoming standard in the software industry.
Spotlight Interviews --- advertising

D&D Podcast: haven't listened to it, so I can't say much about it.

Vicious Venues and Steal this Hook are the only real "content" that actually has an in-game use in general that isn't directly advertising specific products. In comparison, columns like Design and Development used to explain things like "why are we moving in this direction for the next few books" were free but long-form material designed for direct in-game use tended to be pay for play...

So tell me again about the oodles of free material that comes out for D&D? How does this compare to the pre-4e era in any good ways? Because I don't see any trends towards opening up material and letting people see it for free, but I do see one of canceling free material or putting it behind a pay wall.

As for giving away stuff for free, there are companies (including multi-billion dollar ones) whose business model revolves around giving certain stuff away, and making money elsewhere. For example, companies like Red Hat. They give away unsupported versions of their software for free, but charge for support. The New York Times gives away it's entire content on a daily basis for free online; they charge for adspace and the physical costs of printing. In fact, there's a large amount of daily content they put on the website that does not ever show in print, despite being considered top-tier content. For a company like Wizards, they can charge for the game table; if it uses their servers and provides a nexus of services that is useful, particularly if they add integration with other things like the character builders and a place to save character sheets online, I could see why people would pay. But the thing is, you now pay for what you used to get for free, and what you get is in total a lot less than what you previously would have gotten for free, much less what you would have gotten if you'd have paid for the magazines.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Dude. Seriously. I bought the magazines, back then. 8€ a piece. Now, i share an account with a fellow DM for DDI and get Compendium / Dungeon / Dragon / Charbuilder / Tools / Previews. 24€ a year. Its a steal, pure and simple.
I´ve even considered writing to Wotc saying "raise the price for DDI - seriously, this is too cheap!"

 

[Sammael]

Sharing an account is not exactly legal.

 

[catsclaw227]

The free content* that does exist can be ended at any time. They wouldn't be able to get away with that for the DDI content.

*I do acknowledge that WotC's website does have some free content, but I don't consider that content to be DDI content. DDI is an elite-level, paid subscription. I'm sure 4e fans love it to death, but I cannot get behind an online subscription model that doesn't allow me to get DRAGON Magazine and DUNGEON Magazine content in a printed format.

I suppose that's why the "I" in DDI stands for "Insider" and not something else. It's designed to be a service exclusive to paying subscribers. This model is in lots' of places and is appropriate for DDI.

If you want to get some cool stuff, you can subscribe. Otherwise, you can enjoy all the other parts of 4e D&D that are perfectly fine without a subscription.

Some people didn't pay for the paper magazines and guess what? They didn't get free copies of that either!

 

[Zaukrie]

DarkKestral - most newspapers are going out of business and declaring bankruptcy right now. The NYTimes might be fine (I don't know), but the industry is in big, big trouble. Why? They give away their content.

Magic has a completely different business model than D&D as a whole (you know, the one that the minis have/had that no one here seems to like). They would logically have different models for supporting them. Also, given that Magic has been WotC longer, and that they made waaaaaaaaaaaay more money on it than they ever will from D&D also likely has an impact on their free vs not free content.