It must be easy, its just a PDF - Forked Thread from What's new with the GSL?

[El Mahdi]

One minor difference is that there's effectively an open review period as each article is posted but before everything gets compiled into the final product.

Yeah, they do get the benefit of some free proofreading and editing (actually not free, people are paying them to be allowed to do this).

 

[Echohawk]

Claiming that Dungeon & Dragon don't count towards the success of DDI is either ignorant or disingenuous. Those who are complaining so loudly oftentimes have never had to manage or execute a similar project in the past.

I suspect that many of those who complain loudly aren't DDI subscribers, so they don't have first-hand experience of the high quality of the online magazines. I imagine that it is easier to be dismissive of the contribution of Dragon and Dungeon if you are assuming that they aren't very good.

I was sad to see the paper versions cease to be. I have every issue of Dungeon, and almost every issue of Dragon. There is something special about reading paper. But, I've also come to realise -- a little reluctantly -- that I use the electronic magazines far more than I ever used the paper versions. I can easily search them; I can cut and paste from them into my game notes; I can print out specific articles for my players to look at. And the quality of the articles is good enough that that's exactly what I am doing. I think I would now find it very awkward to go back to paper versions.

The various DDI components are clearly going to be cunningly integrated. The Character Builder contains links to the Compendium, and material from Dragon and Dungeon is being promptly incorporated into both. Having that ongoing stream of quality content makes all the other parts of the DDI much more valuable. So I agree with you that it is wrong to discount the importance of getting Dragon and Dungeon right for DDI as a whole.

I had very low expectations for the DDI, which were at first borne out by the delays. But Dragon has been consistently good. Dungeon is improving. The Compendium is very useful and regularly updated and improved. The Character Builder Beta is very, very good.

At least for me, the DDI has been anything but "utter fail". If anything, it is perhaps a bit worrying how dependent I've already become on it for my game prep.

 

[The Little Raven]

All of the creative and editorial problems are still there, same as any print magazine, with the exception of not having to include advertisements in your layout decisions.

The volume of creative and editorial problems is increased, due to the fact that the lack of ads requires them to fill that space with even more content.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I agree wit the OP> the eD and eD emags () are great. If only they were in print or we had some real good PDF epaper readers out there, says the man who has just brought a binding machine!

 

[El Mahdi]

The volume of creative and editorial problems is increased, due to the fact that the lack of ads requires them to fill that space with even more content.

Yeah, probably true. You know though, I miss the ads. Some of them were pretty cool. It would be awesome if the magazine staffs could make some fake medieval fantasy themed adds, like "Visit The Bird in the Hand. Best Meat Pies in the Realms", or something similiar. Of course, with the downsizing, I'm sure this would be an unrealistic use of limited resources.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Content is content. If it's laid out on a page with art, and care given to the visual presentation, then it's only different than a paper product in that it lacks paper. The only valid criticism of this format, as far as I'm concerned, is that people don't want to incur the expense of printing. Still, black and white printing can be done pretty cheapy by investing in one of the less expensive laser printers out there. I own one that does a pretty good job, and I get thousands of pages from a toner cartridge, so the only thing I don't have on hand is a means for binding. Maybe someday I'll get on that.

 

[mach1.9pants]

A manual binder is a cheap thing as are the consumables, and it comes out looking good.

I got mine off TradeMe (NZ's eBay) for 70NZ incl postage. (50 US?)

 

[DaveMage]

Yeah, probably true. You know though, I miss the ads. Some of them were pretty cool.

The ads were definitely part of the appeal of the print magazine for me. I would often learn about products there that I hadn't even heard about here on EN World.

Personally, I think the loss of print Dragon & Dungeon advertising hurts some 3pps more than the current GSL.

(Although if I recall clearly, Erik Mona has mentioned that some of the 3pps were lax in actually PAYING for those ads....)

 

[catsclaw227]

I was sad to see the paper versions cease to be. I have every issue of Dungeon, and almost every issue of Dragon. There is something special about reading paper. But, I've also come to realise -- a little reluctantly -- that I use the electronic magazines far more than I ever used the paper versions. I can easily search them; I can cut and paste from them into my game notes; I can print out specific articles for my players to look at. And the quality of the articles is good enough that that's exactly what I am doing. I think I would now find it very awkward to go back to paper versions.

This happened to me too! I have a ton of print Dungeon and Dragon mags, going back to my Dungeon #4. And when I decided to start running Savage Tide, I was cursing the lack of a pdf version that I could use to copy and paste for my players (and for DMGenie). I even scanned and OCR'ed them for personal use (what a pain that is...) with mixed results.

The search-enabled compendium is awesome, and I grab stuff from that all the time, even using their own stylesheet so that I can keep the formatting looking nice.

 

[Scribble]

The search-enabled compendium is awesome, and I grab stuff from that all the time, even using their own stylesheet so that I can keep the formatting looking nice.

Where is said style sheet?

I cut and paste from the compendium all the time, but in order to keep it usable I have to select each thing I pasted and change some of the formatting... It's only 3 clicks... but no clicks would be better.