Minority Opinion: Why is the loss of the magazines just fine?

[Aust Diamondew]

No one in I've gamed with has subscribed to them in years. Even when some guys I gamed with did subscribe to one/both of them we rarely used material from them.

 

[Felon]

It is not a problem because there is bugger all we can do about.

Well, that's a non sequitor.

"Nothing we can do about" does not equal "not a problem".

And acceptance is not always a virtue.

 

[Felon]

Cursiously, I find reading message board posts online very different to reading documents online. It's something to do with the formatting, I think, or perhaps to do with the length of each individual unit of information.

Well, you'e got a good point. Columns of text don't read well on a monitor screen. I'm not sure why columns are favored in the gaming PDF's I have read. It makes them more "magazinish"?

 

[morbiczer]

It is not a problem because there is bugger all we can do about. Adapt, move on, and hope that the new thing WotC does works well.

You're right that there is nothing anyone can do about this particular decision, but our reactions now can probably influence how WotC would act in the future if a similar situation arises.

 

[WayneLigon]

I guess I'm hard to faze, rather than the other options. I liked Dragon and Dungeon, and I've been a subscriber in the past (in fact, I'd just decided to resub a week or so ago). But the loss of both magazines doesn't move me to anger, feelings of betrayal or anything remotely like that. Really, I moured the passing of MegaTraveller Journal or The Space Gamer more than I will Dungeon and Dragon.

I think that it's not the greatest decision I've ever heard, but I'll see what the new digital initiative will be like. I'll decide based on several factors, but the main ones will be:

1. Price per month
2. Will it have the same number and length of articles and adventures and actual content that the print magazines have?
3. Will print-friendly PDF compilations be made available? Hopefully at least I can download copies of articles like I currently can.
4. Will they take submissions? (I doubt that the people currently working for WOTC have the time to suddenly start producing n full-length articles and adventures and maps and such every month).
5. How often will we see new content?
6. Will there be a cumulative index/table of contents?

My concerns are:
1. The price. I'm assuming the because you're not paying printing and shipping costs then it will be cheaper for them to make than a paper magazine, but you still have to pay the (much higher paid) web-backend guys (I'm assuming that they'll have to hire in this catagory, because one or two people can't do something on the scale I'm thinking on by themselves), as well as the content providers and such.
2. Content. My fear is that someone is thinking 'Hey, we have these design people and R&D people and such.. creating content is part of their job; we can get content produced with a few hours of overtime!'.
3. Length and number of articles. My other fear is that they'll consider the kinds of things they produce now to be the equivilant of magazine articles and just do that. That ain't gonna fly.

The main advantage of an online magazine? Searchability.
It will enable them to reach a greater number of their customers, too; I don't think anyone can dispute this. My conern is that, well, gamers are generally cheapskates and they're not going to go for content they've previously expected to receive for free.

 

[DreadArchon]

Also, everyone complaining that they hate to read online, who has more than 10 posts about this today, grab a ruler and smack your own hand

That actually occured to me. I've sat and thought about it for a few minutes, and as near as I can tell, I only hate online content for difficulty of navigation, not ease of reading once I've found something.

I can't just "pull open" a PDF to the approximate location of something I want. I can try to yank the scroll bar to that position, but (unlike with books) I can't make fine adjustments from there (I have to use different interface mechanics to change pages--the scroll wheel is a pain to use for more than a page or two, but dragging the scroll bar doesn't update the location of the page for page up/page down purposes, so I have to hit a couple buttons before I can use my arrow keys; also, obviously, dragging the scroll bar to make fine adjustments doesn't work). I also can't keep track of multiple pages, like I can by sticking a finger in the current page of a book. And even when I find something, I can't read it with my eyes only, because I have to scroll to see the rest of it. Since the information-holding area is physically much smaller, this gets pretty bad, especially when I want to look at two things on one page (since a full page won't fit on my screen).

It's not that I mind reading on the internet, it's just that's it's visciously difficult to physically access the information.

If PDF's were formatted with the pages sideways (11" x 8.5"), such that I could at least view one page at a time without jumping through hoops, it'd be nice.

 

[bento]

I chose "other" because the loss of D/D magazines has so far ADDED to Paizo:

* Pathfinder adventure series
* Planet Stories publishing arm
* Partnership with Necromancer Games
* Game Mastery Adventures

Without the push to change, Paizo would probably have never rushed into trying these new and exciting ventures. Sure, some may fail, but they're smart enough to find new things to take thier places.

As for WoTC's electronic venture, we haven't seen anything yet, but I'm just as hopeful they'll be putting out a lot more content on their site. Yes, I'll have to pay for it now, but seeing that I don't buy many books each year, the thought of perhaps getting just the content I want makes me happy. I'm a regular buyer of electronic content at all the e-book sites, so this is exactly what I want to see.

The king is dead! Long live the king!

 

[bento]

I can't just "pull open" a PDF to the approximate location of something I want.

Did you know that Adobe Reader has a "search" function that allows you to search the specific words you want to find and provide you with an index?

Did you know that publishers can "bookmark" the starts of chapters and sub-chapters?

Not wanting to come off as a smart mouth, but I think all of your complaints are addressed by the software. Take some time and look at the buttons across the window and try them.

 

[DreadArchon]

Did you know that Adobe Reader has a "search" function that allows you to search the specific words you want to find and provide you with an index?

Did you know that publishers can "bookmark" the starts of chapters and sub-chapters?

I'm aware of both. Neither solves the matters I presented--search features take longer to use than hand-navigating if one knows what one is looking for, handy though they may be when one doesn't.

 

[Waylander the Slayer]

It saves trees.