Interview with Scott Rouse, Chris Perkins & Bill Slavicsek

[Morrus]

The promised interview has been posted on the news page. Feel free to comment here. Please remember EN World's rules and the recent moderator warning when doing so.

The interview is with Scott Rouse (Senior Brand Manager for D&D), Bill Slavicsek (Director of R&D for D&D) and Chris Perkins (D&D Design Manager).

Repeating my intro to the interview: As promised, here is the interview with WotC. Apparently, with so many people away at the GAMA tradeshow, it took a few days to get this together over email. One thing to note is that, in several places, Scott, Chris and Bill ask for opinions on what people would like to see happening regarding the planned online content model, and that they'll be watching the forums to see what people have to say. So, if you do have any thoughts, please feel free to have your say.

 

[Vigilance]

Awesome job Morrus. A lot of good information to ponder.

Thanks.

Chuck

 

[Simplicity]

Hmmm. I'm not actually finding the interview to be very revealing... At least none of the answers I really was interested in were answered directly.

Two points of interest:
(1) The DRAGON and DUNGEON names will probably be used in the Digital Initiative somehow.
(2) This quote.

We have not come up with a solution for “portability” of content after your subscription has ended but we are discussing ideas with in our development team. We do not have a DRM solution yet but have a range of options available to us.

This is a very telling quote. It means that there *is* DRM in use for certain (if there weren't DRM, the solution would be pretty obvious. Keep the PDF). How draconian (hmmm...) a DRM system is still up for grabs at least.

What really confuses me though... It sounds like I REQUIRE a subscription to access the content? It really isn't going to be ala carte then? I wonder if we're just going to be getting a bunch of webpages (not even PDFs) with a subscription model like TimesSelect

 

[Ghendar]

Nice job compiling Morrus. It is appreciated.

However, after reading it I know little more now than I did a week ago. The answers provided really didn't answer anything for me. <shrug>

 

[JeffB]

meh...lotsa corporate speak. i.e. little content, lots of words.

 

[Imaro]

I'm concerned about the "portability after your subscription ends" bit. It makes it seem like I will only have access to material for the duration of my subscription(unless of course they come up with a solution by release). I don't think I'd be too cool with that. It's like I'm renting instead of buying(like with the magazines). If I pay for something I want it to be mine. If this is implemented for the online material, I would have to seriously ponder subscribing for it.

My general impression is that it really didn't fill in much of what I was wondering.

 

[Fieari]

At least there's going to be print compilations alongside the online content.

 

[MerricB]

"Portability after your subscription ends" is troublesome because they're probably referring to quite a bit of content there.

If there's a character generator, then having access to it after your subscription ends is troublesome.

Mere information pages... I can't see anything they can do to stop you saving those on your computer for the future, or printing them out, etc.

We're looking at a lot of potentials here, so it's hard for them to say anything definite. I'd like there to be more information, but - in some ways - them not giving too much information out allows Paizo more of a good time for the last few issues.

Cheers!

 

[Vigilance]

DRM could mean watermarking as well. I hope they go that route, and given that they use watermarking for full-fledged PDFs, it doesn't seem to stretch the mind much that they'd go that way again.

 

[Alynnalizza]

My biggest concern seems to be we are what... four months away from Dungeon/Dragon ending, and there are still a lot of open-ended questions out there for a decision that started over a year ago.

Why not pump the heck out of the DI? The final months of the mags are gonna sell, probably even more now that we know they are ending.

Give us bits and pieces, gives us TEASERS. I've found nothing to get me to go...ewww, gotta sign up. Four months may not be that close to some, but it goes by quicker than most realize.

Haven't decided on DRM yet? Really? I get the sense of too much cloack and dagger. Cryptic can be good sometimes, but a starving dog only gets angrier as time goes by.

I really wish that something more substantive would have been said by the 'interview'. Kinda sad, and has me really not caring about DI.