Just Cancelled DDI
Jester David
Hero
The magazine does need some love.
It's really in an awkward place right now, with shrinking page counts and an inability to release crunch. With just under two years left before 5e is released the magazines CANNOT maintain like this. People will leave and DDI will be a huge money hole in a department that is already likely hemmoraging money. The magazines are going to die and that cannot be allowed to happen.
WotC really needs to work faster and do what they're planning to do with DDI and the magazines sooner rather than later. They need to drop the price as few people are really paying for the tools) and do articles focused on ALL of D&D.
Release back issues. Publish more fiction and cartoons. Focus on advice articles. More optional rules for 4e. Really stretch the system with more Unearthed Arcana content.
How about reprinting some if the side systems from 2e or 3e that are more neutral? Like honor or victory points.
It's really in an awkward place right now, with shrinking page counts and an inability to release crunch. With just under two years left before 5e is released the magazines CANNOT maintain like this. People will leave and DDI will be a huge money hole in a department that is already likely hemmoraging money. The magazines are going to die and that cannot be allowed to happen.
WotC really needs to work faster and do what they're planning to do with DDI and the magazines sooner rather than later. They need to drop the price as few people are really paying for the tools) and do articles focused on ALL of D&D.
Release back issues. Publish more fiction and cartoons. Focus on advice articles. More optional rules for 4e. Really stretch the system with more Unearthed Arcana content.
How about reprinting some if the side systems from 2e or 3e that are more neutral? Like honor or victory points.
possum
First Post
Honestly, I'm planning on doing that within their last few months. I just haven't seen any reason at all for justifying a subscription once the Character Builder went online only. Ironically, I was going to subscribe when the Dark Sun and Essentials stuff would have went live for the original Builder, but WOTC just ticked me off majorly with that decision.
Also, I do find it slightly funny that with the prefix, this thread's titled "WOTC Cancelling DDI."
Obryn
Hero
Because the Live tools are probably 90% of what I'm subbing for nowadays.
Like I said, I think the "loaded" offline CB is superior to the online offerings, but the online Adventure Tools has a full database of monsters for me to export to Masterplan. And the Compendium is just awesome - I rely on it fairly regularly.And when Dragon/Dungeon were getting good content on a regular basis (which was even as late as last winter) I wanted to see the new articles as they came out, rather than waiting for them.
If all you care about is Dragon and Dungeon in late 2012, your way makes sense.
-O
Tony Vargas
Legend
IMHO, DDI hasn't been worth it since they went to the on-line tools. The off-line tools weren't great, but they mostly worked, and it was worth it to keep them updated.
4e is basically over at this point, new products will be "edition-neutral,' until 5e. You don't need to subscribe to playtest 5e, which is about the only thing left going on at this point.
RangerWickett
Legend
Maybe they need to release 5e adventures in Dungeon. Like, you'll get a free adventure via the playtest every few months, but Dungeon could have a new one monthly, using whatever version of the rules is most recent.
Make it hectic and chaotic. That's fun.
Make it hectic and chaotic. That's fun.
Scrivener of Doom
Adventurer
I'm still subscribing despite having both an offline Character Builder and now an offline Compendium. I still like the Monster Builder most of the time but I suspect someone far more computer literate than me will scrape one together in short order... and then I will get that too.
My sincere hope is that, once 4E ends, WotC will sell downloable versions of all three of their online tools. Although I do have the illegal versions, I would much prefer to have legitimate copies (much like how I have PDFs of all the 4E products and used to actually pay for them when they were available from RPGNow!).
The paucity of content has been an issue for a long, long time and now the website is filled with lots of articles about Next which do not interest me. That's fine; most of the customer base isn't interested in what I like, either. However, I'm also a long-term FR fan so I plan to maintain my subscription ad infinitum simply for the FR lore... even if I am sticking with 4E.
Oh, and I do like grabbing the art and maps when they're released. There is always something useful to be found there.
My sincere hope is that, once 4E ends, WotC will sell downloable versions of all three of their online tools. Although I do have the illegal versions, I would much prefer to have legitimate copies (much like how I have PDFs of all the 4E products and used to actually pay for them when they were available from RPGNow!).
The paucity of content has been an issue for a long, long time and now the website is filled with lots of articles about Next which do not interest me. That's fine; most of the customer base isn't interested in what I like, either. However, I'm also a long-term FR fan so I plan to maintain my subscription ad infinitum simply for the FR lore... even if I am sticking with 4E.
Oh, and I do like grabbing the art and maps when they're released. There is always something useful to be found there.
Jack99
Adventurer
I still have my subscription. I don't play 4e anymore, and I don't think we will ever return, and I rarely ever read the articles. It's a bit like my ENworld sub. I am not sure why I still have it. Guess I am just too lazy to bother cancelling it. /shrug. Maybe they will do something that will make me not cancel it next oktober, when it is time to renew it again.
