Ema's RPG Sheet Website down...

[jaerdaph]

But the stench of T is in the air...

I guess this makes them Wot¢ LOL!

Be careful, dude. It's a proven fact that the amount of times you use "T$R" in your life is inversely proportional to the amount of times you will get laid in your life.

I wouldn't wish that fate on anyone.

 

[blargney the second]

This seems strange. I wonder what happened.
-blarg

 

[Drkfathr1]

Desperately low sales of 4e relative to those seen initially with 3.0 call for desperate behaviour, I suppose.

Yes, I'm having flashbacks of TSR during the 2E days with respect to their treatment of fan websites.

I've kind of been getting that vibe myself, but I may be reading too much between the lines.

 

[Xyxox]

It's nice to see Wot¢ return to its T$R roots.

The more I see, the more convinced I am that the OGL is the only way to go for gaming. NO issues whatsoever so long as you stay away from everything Wot¢ cosniders IP and closed.

IT seems to me, Wot¢ = ¢heapskates.

 

[jaerdaph]

The more I see, the more convinced I am that the OGL is the only way to go for gaming. NO issues whatsoever so long as you stay away from everything Wot¢ cosniders IP and closed.

But isn't the issue that Ema didn't do that with the character manager? (Not rhetorical - I'm actually asking because I never really used that - and was it 3e/3.5e?)

I discovered Ema's site when she did a d20 Call of Cthulhu character sheets and a GM's screen. Those were absolutely beautiful.

 

[Mark]

I'm sorry to inform you that this site is no more.
Wizards of the Coast asked me to take it down, and I complied.

I'm sorry for all the fans who will miss it - I will miss it, too - but it was the right thing to do.

Time to move on...

Ema.

I am surprised that WotC has chosen to begin going after fansites. I knew they were getting tough on file sharers and obviously are no longer interested in an expansive Open Gaming support system for their current edition, but I did not expect to see fansites targetted. At one point they intimated they would have a fansite policy coming on the heels of the GSL but that has yet to be provided, so I am not sure how they would have expected Ema to know what lines not to cross. I wonder how close to the line EN World is?

 

[Xyxox]

I am surprised that WotC has chosen to begin going after fansites. I knew they were getting tough on file sharers and obviously are no longer interested in an expansive Open Gaming support system for their current edition, but I did not expect to see fansites targetted. At one point they intimated they would have a fansite policy coming on the heels of the GSL but that has yet to be provided, so I am not sure how they would have expected Ema to know what lines not to cross. I wonder how close to the line EN World is?

I doubt they would go all Lorraine Williams on ENWorld. Open discussion of their game outside their own forum is absolutely necessary if they are to continue at all.

 

[Jack99]

I think the problem was that there was a charge to store you stuff up there. I think that if he had provided the site and space free of charge nothing would have happened.

Just my thoughts.

Could this perhaps be the issue?

 

[Mark]

Open discussion of their game outside their own forum is absolutely necessary if they are to continue at all.

Discussion is only a small part of what takes place at EN World.

Could this perhaps be the issue?

I doubt it. If it had been, the site could have remained open without charging and found some other revenue stream, such as selling some other commodity while keeping the site free.

 

[Remathilis]

Before we all go Nova and start using $ymbols instead of letters, take a deep breath.

Ema probably wasn't in trouble for his character sheets. He was probably in trouble for his auto-filling character generator which stored PC data on his website in a fashion similar to (though pre-dating) WotCs.

There has always been a "software" clause in the SRD. WotC has turned a blind eye to HEROforge and the like because they were free. Ema was charging (abit a small fee used to webstorage) for his char-gen, which seems to violate WotC's good-natured policy.

Why now? Well, maybe its because WotC has competing software (in a different edtion) and they wanted to make sure no one uses the OGL/GSL to make a 4e Ema site to compete against WotC's DDi.

Does it suck, yeah, I guess. But before anyone goes off about TSR or "that other Washington-based company", keep in mind They were probably looking at a direct competitor, not fan-sites in general.