New Issue of Dragon+

Issue 4 of DRAGON+ is here! DRAGON+is an app from WotC available on iOS and Android devices (find it in the respective app stores). This issue contains Duergar information from Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, a free Adventurer's League module, and more - plus tons of information on the various videogame projects for WotC.

Editor's Letter from Matt Chapman - "Matt Chapman gets tearfully nostalgic for old D&D videogames, overly excited for new D&D videogames, and a little bit scared by a newcomer known as Belaphoss, Devourer of Hope and Dread General of the Gibbering Hords. Gulp."

Discovering the Gold Box - "As Goog Old Games dusts off thirteen classic D&D titles, the original staff who worked on them and the videogame designers and producers they inspired share their favorite memories."

Winning Races: Duergar - "An in-depth look at these dark reflections of the more traditional Forgotten Realms dwarves."

Travel Talk - "Things get a little crazy when our intrepid reporter Melissande Calador dares to descend into the Underdark."

Imagining the Ampersand - "Lars Larsen, design engineer at LZX Industries, on creating a high-tech interpretation of the Dungeons & Dragons Ampersand."

Neverwinter Strongholds - "John Hopler, senior content designer at Cryptic Studios, shares the secrets to a successful PVP siege campaign in the free-to-play MMORPG."

Demononicon of Iggwilv: Belaphoss - "Everything you ever wanted to know about Sword Coast Legends' main baddie Belpahoss but were too petrified to ask."

Fiction: The Thweem - "A peace-loving Underdark inhabitant gets a brush with madness in D&D writer Adam Lee's short story."

Interview: Jay Turner - "The narrative director of Sword Coast Legends offers an exclusive behind-the-scenes peek at the CRPG."

Video & Audio Highlights - "Canadian rocker Matthew Good talks about his love of the world of Greyhawk and charity fundraising scores a critical hit with Extra Life 2015."

Beyond the Board: Dice Masters - "Dungeons & Dragons Dice Masters draws upon classic D&D elements to bring a fantasy touch to this dice building game."

Gauntlet Gophers - "Tavis Maiden's exclusive comic strip for DRAGON+ proves there are all kinds of crazy in the Underdark."

D&D Adventurers League - "Download the official D&D Adventurer's League module Shackles of Blood and investigate a string of disappearances in the Hillsfar region."


[h=4]Original Post[/h]
Not sure if this had been posted already, but the newest issue of Dragon+ is rolling out. Just downloaded mine a few minutes ago.

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[Hussar]

Because people with Android or iOS devices are a subset of people with web browsers. So you start by building a web app, which has the broadest availability, then you build platform specific apps to enhance the experience where it makes sense.

The app is free, the content is free, and neither depends on the features of a mobile device. So why target it first?

No idea. But, apparently, there was a reason. Perhaps it drives interest by having content that pops up on your phone. The daily content stuff comes off their Facebook page and Twitter. Website magazines can be horrible to navigate. Now, I've got a nice, neat collection of Dragon magazines that I can open up on my phone, that are designed to be read on my phone - trying to read websites on a phone can be a PITA - and I'm fairly happy.

Now, if they could just up the content a bit more, I'd be very happy.

 

[Morrus]

I did hear that the makers of Angry Birds hate book readers. Hate them!

 

[CapnZapp]

I did hear that the makers of Angry Birds hate book readers. Hate them!

It's a matter of where you are when you use the product/consume the content.

Angry Birds apparently fit mobile better. People don't want to play brain-dead games on their computers, but when it comes to killing time waiting for the bus, or secretly wasting away your workday in the restrooms, it's okay.

Reading about rpgs and using content to prep your own game? Very frustrating to be led through the hoop of having to use your phone, when all you want to do is sit in front of your computer.

Add to this the suspicions WotC desperately wants to avoid the desktop in order to make it as hard as possible to share and copy the content (cue the lack of 5E pdfs, official ones anyway) despite how the desktop is the natural place for magazine:ish-articles, and it's easy to see the complaints as perfectly understandable.

 

[delericho]

Angry Birds apparently fit mobile better. People don't want to play brain-dead games on their computers, but when it comes to killing time waiting for the bus, or secretly wasting away your workday in the restrooms, it's okay.

Reading about rpgs and using content to prep your own game? Very frustrating to be led through the hoop of having to use your phone, when all you want to do is sit in front of your computer.

Well, except that Mearls has in the past mentioned that very issue - that people may find themselves with an hour or two to kill (in an airport, for instance) with access to a mobile device but not a PC (in an airport, for instance), and that they should therefore provide content/tools to enable them to use that time on gaming stuff.

Looked at in that light, it's not a totally mad decision, especially if this is the beginning of something and not the end-point.

 

[CapnZapp]

Nothing you say excuse mobile-ONLY content.

 

[delericho]

Nothing you say excuse mobile-ONLY content.

True, assuming of course that they need an excuse.

 

[Zaukrie]

I don't mind the articles I won't use directly in play being on the app, it is the difficulty of getting what will be used at the table into usable formats. They appear to be fixing that, so, good.

 

[Shasarak]

I would assume Paizo's threshold would be considerably lower than that. Nonetheless there is a minimum number of subscribers that are absolutely essential for a magazine of that sort to be viable, and it's not unreasonable to suggest that it might not have survived the dark days of 2012 on its way to the new dawn of 2014.

I thought we were talking about print magazines? The economics of digital-only distribution are vastly different.

A Print magazine would be optimal for me but I thought the discussion was about producing "a" Magazine.

If we are limiting to only print then of course we have not seen a print Dragon since WotC killed it off around 2006.

 

[delericho]

A Print magazine would be optimal for me but I thought the discussion was about producing "a" Magazine.

If we're talking digital-only then, technically, we have one now - and the fourth issue has just been released. True, I don't consider it a particularly good magazine, but on the other hand it has the advantage of being free.

If we are limiting to only print then of course we have not seen a print Dragon since WotC killed it off around 2006.

True, if somewhat circular - we had been discussing whether the print magazine would have survived to now if WotC had renewed Paizo's license. I'm not sure what value there is in discussing undisputed facts.

 

[Shasarak]

If we're talking digital-only then, technically, we have one now - and the fourth issue has just been released. True, I don't consider it a particularly good magazine, but on the other hand it has the advantage of being free.

And it is worth every penny of the cost too =;0)

True, if somewhat circular - we had been discussing whether the print magazine would have survived to now if WotC had renewed Paizo's license.

I would suggest that the Pathfinder Adventure path books are, for all intents and purposes, the true successor to the Dragon/Dungeon magazines.

Which means that not only would the Dragon magazine have survived under Paizo and by now would have added an extra 100 issues to their total.

I'm not sure what value there is in discussing undisputed facts.

Undisputed facts? You have been on the internet before, right? =;0)