The Problem of DDI...Solved! (Well, not really)

[Mirtek]

A) Nothing is destroyed, you just no longer have access to it because you're no longer paying for it.

I haven't received a demand to send back my magazine either. I have shelves full of issues of dragon I can read anytime I want despite no longer paying WotC, because I paid when I bought them. Changing from getting them to renting them without any benefit whatsoever is worsening the deal

the half second or so upon selection.

Too bad that selecting things is actually what creating a character is all about. Way to go making the CB slower during every step of building a character. And if you're finished you can't even get it printed the way you want. Want the defences over there and not show the familiar fluff text at all? How dare you demand such silly things? Be glad we offer you the two fixed layouts we graciously chose for you. And what are talking about these strange international paper size norms used in the majority of the world? We have our letter and you better learn to like it and buy a new printer! Who calls a format A4 anyway?

 

[Arlough]

They could have offered subscriptions in year and half year formats only.
Of course, this doesn't solve the problem of people only getting a subscription long enough to update errata. I think the real problem here is they didn't have something that was valuable to those customers (the ones who no longer subscribe), or at least valuable enough to justify the amount WotC was charging.

The reason I stopped subscribing (and probably why many didn't feel the need to maintain subscriptions) is because I really didn't want to buy corrections. If I am buying something, make it content.

EnWorld gives me content, and I pay a monthly tribute to EnWorld in thanks for that. I get access to multiple adventure paths from beginning to end. I also get periodic articles and updates, as well as access to interesting and well thought out ideas. And, if there is an issue, I can rest assured that EnWorld will take into consideration the input of the users and make changes based on what the users think would be best for the games we play.

If DDi offered even just that, I would be happy paying $5 a month for the service. If they really wanted to get money from me, they would offer things that facilitate me, as a DM, making sure their game was played.
If, say, we could get a group account for 1 DM and 5 players for a monthly fee of $20 to $25, then not only would my group pay that, but I as a DM would probably be willing to pay even if the group wouldn't.

But as it is, I just didn't feel like it was worth it. DDi didn't provide me, as a DM, any tools that really helped me make the game happen. No digital dash where I could look at all the characters next to each other, digital DM screen where I could reference data easily, and no way for me to create custom elements for my game. I also don't feel like there has really been any value add to the rules since PHB3 came out (and even that was of questionable value), and I don't treasure the flood of feats, powers, and accompanying errata that have lead to the current power creep sprint.

And since I have frozen the rules at pre-essentials, and the OCB doesn't allow for house rules, then my players certainly have not found it worth paying for either.

It's not that I am unwilling to pay. It is that the amount I pay must be proportional to the value I feel I am getting.

 

[Herschel]

A) I haven't received a demand to send back my magazine either. I have shelves full of issues of dragon I can read anytime I want despite no longer paying WotC, because I paid when I bought them. Changing from getting them to renting them without any benefit whatsoever is worsening the deal

B)Too bad that selecting things is actually what creating a character is all about. Way to go making the CB slower during every step of building a character. And if you're finished you can't even get it printed the way you want. Want the defences over there and not show the familiar fluff text at all? How dare you demand such silly things? Be glad we offer you the two fixed layouts we graciously chose for you. And what are talking about these strange international paper size norms used in the majority of the world? We have our letter and you better learn to like it and buy a new printer! Who calls a format A4 anyway?

A) Nor can they demand your DVD when you let your Netflix subscription expire. I also have articles saved as PDFs of a few things I want access to easily and repeatedly. There are benefits to buying hard copy, which is why I own DVDs for almost every movie I may want to watch more than once. I also generally buy CDs and load them on to my PC rather than iTunes purchases.

B) The time is marginal and loading is so much faster and the feat organization alone more than makes up for it. If that half second is so hard on you, maybe you need to try deep breathing exercises.

 

[Mirtek]

If that half second is so hard on you, maybe you need to try deep breathing exercises.

Half a second on every step, every ability score, every power, every feat, every item adds up. It's simply slower than before while having less options (not rules items, it has obviously more since they stopped updating the old CB, but options how to use the program and create your sheets)

 

[Scribble]

Half a second on every step, every ability score, every power, every feat, every item adds up. It's simply slower than before while having less options (not rules items, it has obviously more since they stopped updating the old CB, but options how to use the program and create your sheets)

I think part of that might be user specific... I personally even when first released have seen no noticeable lag when making selections.

 

[Balesir]

You obviously have no idea how profitable business models work. Here's a nugget for you: The goal of a business is to maximize profit, not to have the most units in use. In other words, more gamers is not directly correlated with more money. They're not in business to break even, they're in business to make a profit. That means finding a product or service and providing it to a market at the most profitable level of cost and price.

Of course they are in business to make a profit - that was originally my point. But when production capacity is in practical terms unlimited and production cost is close to zero, that does equate to getting maximum paid for (at some level) units in use.

If it's a luxury item, which gaming is, there may well be people who want it but can't afford it. Either come up with the cash or deal with not having it. This sense of entitlement among many gamers is sickening. If you can't afford it and want it, save, adjust your budget or get a (better) job. Heck, I can't swing that $300,000 boat I "want" from the boat show. Should they be obliged to sell it to me for cost? Or how about that hot tub? I mean the design is paid for, all they should charge me for is cost of lumber and labor, right?

You are getting all confused in your examples, here. "Charging (only) the cost of lumber and labour" is the equivalent of selling for the marginal cost - which is zero in the case of digital downloads. I.e. it is the equivalent of saying WotC should give away the software for free. I'm not suggesting that; for a business it would be a crazy thing to do. Selling the CB (or any other software) for any price at all is selling above marginal cost - which is something any business has to do to survive. If production capacity is limited (and I would be very keen to hear of any boatyard or hot tub factory where it is not), there is a minimum premium above the marginal cost that you have to sell at, even assuming demand will sell you out. If production capacity is massively larger than demand (at little or no capital cost), as is the case with downloadable software, then the only factor that sets the minimum premium is the demand. I imagine this was just the issue WotC had (although I have no way to know, for sure). If so, they had to do something, certainly. But as I said above, I think there were far better options available than what they actually did, which was to change from a sales-and-service agreement to a rental agreement (for the same price!).

From a business standpoint, it does cost WotC money every time someone only updated sporadically. Every person who doesn't pay costs them profit. The goal is to find out at what point the market bears the most profit, period. That means the most people who will buy a product or service at the greatest price they can get.

That's like saying every person who doesn't buy a boat costs the boatyard profit when they pay a fare to use the ferry. If the revenue for the OCB wasn't enough, the answer was simple - put the price up. That price hike didn't need to come via deciding the boats are now only available for rent, and they reserve the right to reclaim the boat if either you stop paying or they just no longer feel like taking your money for it. Oh, and no other boatyard has any right to make boats to actually sell to you, because this boatyard has exclusive rights to all boats.

 

[Balesir]

More easily updated then the offline CB- nothing for the user to download each time. I turned on the CB after Mudbunny's announcement and the changes were there for one thing.

OK; a once-a-month download doesn't bother me, but I can see that others might find value in this.

Easier to integrate together eventually since everything is running on WoTC's servers.

Fine - if you happen to see the need/use for integration. For players on the VTT this could be a marginal advantage - for my group playing face-to-face with character sheets we print out (and, if neccessary, re-print during play) it's not really useful. All we want is something that lets us generate characters with rules text as we are using it correctly on the cards, etc. As a DM, I just want monster cards for the monsters I'm using. The two utilities don't need to "integrate". Nor do the (putative) ones to generate treasure cards, battle map prints etc., etc.

I can use it on any computer I log onto not just those I am able to install a program on (well anyone that has silverlight, but I haven't found one that doesn't yet...)

With the offline CB my players (who were subscribers - one still is) could use the CB at home with the campaign file I sent them. They could also use either their laptop or my copy while we were playing. We never needed to use it anywhere else, but even if I did I can see it being in a convention where I have my laptop but no internet access, in any case. I don't really count this as a "win" for either option - both have places they aren't available - internet access being the big limitation on the new CB.

It's just letters and numbers... Enworld let's us create/store the same thing everyday- Storage is cheap.

Good point - maybe houserules will make it to the new CB yet.

My guess is the real reason they turned off house rules in the CB is because they want to move them over to the DM's side.

My guess is they just aren't interested in putting resource into it because they don't own the content and don't see value in getting to. Even the offline CB had pretty poor houserule capability.

I'm betting they ultimately want you to be able to log on, see a game on the VTT, join the session, open your character builder and all the house rules for that campaign will be there waiting for you.

Doesn't need online CB; just give subscribers access to a "campaign file area" that players joining the campaign will automatically download to their CB copy. The character vault and campaign file access can be controlled by license registration, as I said before.

Take a look at for instance Amazon's new Cloud music scheme. I buy music from amazon and it's instantly there ready to go, anything I upload is there as well I build a playlist- all on my computer, walk out the door and listen to it on my phone, or my wife's phone. No wires, no downloading, no time lost prepping my phone to go.

This is Amazon US, I assume? I haven't seen it over here. Can you get an actual downloaded file of the music as well? If you can, it sounds excellent (but equivalent to a combined online and offline CB, not just an online one).

Take a look at gmail, or yahoo mail or any of the other web based messaging systems- another instance of the cloud benefiting the consumer. BEfore web mail I had to have an email program on any computer I wanted to check my mail on, set up to access my account.

Sure, I have webmail - but I can have a local copy on my PC as well as the server version, if I want.

The cloud has become much more then asset sharing within data centers.

Hmm, OK - I don't really call that the cloud - it's just renting server space/functionality, and it was around well before virtualisation or real asset sharing. I've had the facility to store a webpage at my ISP since around 1995, I think.

Same sort of thing I envision here. I set everything up on my desktop computer, walk out the door with my laptop and game on. I can make changes on my side and my players see it pretty much real time. No need to download/install my updates. We're all on the same page about the campaign at all times.

Yes, I can see some coordination advantages there - but you're still SOL if your venue has no internet access. So far, I am seeing advantages to having both online and offline versions, but not exclusively online access. The codebase could even be the same, and the offline version could have a start-up setup charge; that would be awesome.

Eventually when they re-instate houserules (and I have absolutely 0 doubt they will) I'll be able to set up my campaign, then my players can log on, open up the CB and everything is ready to go as mentioned above/

If they did it as I would prefer, I could do the setup offline and then upload just the bits I need to share (campaign file, including any houserule elements - nothing else unless we're running over the WotC VTT).

That's the type of advantage I see a cloud based CB having over a desktop one.

I see one serious advantage of online there - version synchronisation. Although, that is also a failing, in that if I decide I loathe an update, I can't exclude it. Other than that, I see a balance of plusses and minuses - with the best solution being to have both online and offline with the same database and rules engine.

Ok- now this is a little dissengenuos don't you think? You're really saying downloading a free application is the same as buying setting up and running emulation software?

Well, I did say "not ideal". I think the language choice was poor, but it's too late to fix it, now. And surely there is an open source emulator out there by now?

I don't think that (missing features aside) switching to the current form was anything but a boon to the average mac user.

Agreed - it's one advantage for the switch, but not for an online CB per se. Offline that also works on Mac (and *NIX) would be better, IMV.

Database structure wasn't really what I was talking about. The front end also being on WoTC's side allows them to more easily integrate everything together without having to worry about everyone downloading patches and accounting for umpteen billion system differences.

Good point about system differences and synchronisation, but what if some folks don't want the latest "update"? What if I think Magic Item rarity sucks (for example), and I don't want to have my CB "updated" for that? This is part of what I mean by "the new CB is under WotC's control, not the users'".

As to the front end, I don't see the rules engine for character formulation needing to integrate with anything? Even using wetware computing and a pencil, character generation is separate from run-time for the game.

It also ensures that everyone is always on the same page when things do integrate. (IE they don't have to worry about Joe Gamer trying to use the new table system and then flipping out because it doesn't work with his version of the CB that he hasn't updated for the past 3 updates...)

As I said above - good point, but doesn't allow for me not wanting specific "updates".

Less time spent solving various problems for various setups means more time to work on new features and abilities which ultimately benefits everyone involved.

Fair point - although using a standard base environment/GUI engine makes this easier - the GUI engine provider has all those headaches, not you. E.g., they could make an offline CB that uses Silverlight for runtime but sits on your hard drive rather than a server.

I don't think it's possible for instance to "strong arm" someone into buying a luxury item. You can tempt them sure- but strong arm is not an adjective I'd use. (And I kind of think it somewhat cheapens the word when it comes time to use it in regard to companies that really CAN strong arm their clients.)

Mea culpa - I overstated. Put another way, WotC wants more control over how, where and why users use the product, and they have taken steps to increase the attractiveness of the new CB over the old to the extent of deliberately withholding content from the old while still claiming to support it.

Did they seem to rush the release in order to capitalize on their next big release? Sure, but still it's a luxury item, I'm not forced to buy it if I think it's crap. In fact they offered refunds to people who felt the new system was not in line with what they'd already paid for.

Sure - my bad feeling towards WotC in this area is not because I feel they have not given me, personally, what I paid for. It's that they have withdrawn a perfectly good product that I was using and paying for, and that I would happily have paid more for, had they asked me to. They have then replaced that product with something that I have no control over, no option to freeze and continue using should they take a path I dislike, and no guarantee whatsoever that it will remain available in the future whatsoever.

You can also argue that perhaps they felt that not protecting their next big release would harm them more then they could take.

Protecting from what? I bet I could have got a PDF of it shortly after release, had I tried.

In which case what choice do you make? Suffer some bad will for a rushed release, or go under and offer no future releases? Which is better or worse in the long run?

Given that the switch as likely as not caused a revenue reduction in the short term, I don't see that "going under" was a serious possibility for WotC, let alone for Hasbro.

If it wasn't a case of just some people only occasionally buying stuff while a strong base of core users brought in your main revenue stream that's not a big deal.

But if your business model unintentionally made it more desirable to do this causing your main revenue stream to slowly erode away? NOW you have a problem.

Add to this that it's not as 0 cost as you think... Those people still utilize things like customer service, and put some extra strain on the servers as they download updates when they do. (And who knows if it also put uneven burden on the servers as occasionally people logged on and started downloading large chunks of zip files and what not...)

You are referring to the loss of book sales due to folks just using the CB, I assume? I agree - I see their problem. I just think the solution chosen was the wrong one. I think it ties in also to the current slow down in printed product; I think they found they had a bind where they "had to produce" a book a month so the CB update was "worthwhile", but this was degrading quality due to pressure to publish. But why pay every month for DDI if some months the update is "empty"?

I still think a license registration scheme - not in the "you need to be online to use the software" sense but in a "you need a registration to link into the other cool stuff that interfaces with this" sense - would have been a far more attractive offer. And couple that with paying a setup fee to have the software in the first place - effectively giving it away free and charging just for updates was, um, unwise, I think...

 

[Herschel]

Selling the CB (or any other software) for any price at all is selling above marginal cost - which is something any business has to do to survive.

This is where your point breaks down. It isn't a "get whatever you can from whomever you can", that's not an optimal profit structure. In fact, that's a bleeding profit structure as users who have/had paid more suddenly stop paying your price and the business loses out on both ends.

The goal is to MAXIMIZE profit from a good or service, and maintain or increase that profit. Profit is needed for many things, including R&D for the next product or service. This is especially true with luxury items. Cheap/poor people aren't a good target market for luxury items if a company wants to stay in business, let alone grow.

 

[eamon]

Whatever the details, I don't think it's particularly exiciting that they replaced the slow, buggy, inflexible old character builder with the even slower, and even less flexible online version.

The only saving grace the character builder has is a captive audience: they control the material, and they choose to limit it to this character build.

Wizards has failed to produce anything decent on the digital front... ever. There've been tons of decent licensees - just never wizards themselves. I wish they'd concentrate on doing what they're actually good at, and why I still play D&D: make nice content.

This digital stuff: well, I'm not going to subscribe, probably ever, unless they miraculously improve. From my perspective this whole digital thing is just a waste of perfectly good resources; and I suspect the character build/compendium era has had it's hand in contributing to the overload of feats, powers and items that actively degrade my gaming experience. It's as if they're pushing people towards DDI by making the content less accessible in book format.

If they feel the pressure to go digital to survive some generational gap or something - let em do what's worked excellently before; license the stuff to a competent third party. Or even various third parties - some competition might better uncover good stuff.

 

[eamon]

there were many many keygens around for the character builder. Here is the thing I don't quite understand...is it really so hard to use a blank sheet and a pencil? I am not trying to upset anybody, but is it possible that maybe a bigger deal is being made of this than needs be?

I do this. Most of my group doesn't. People get used to the CB; they're afraid they'll forget things (and they're right), and they don't really want to bother thinking if the software can do it for you. Plus, you've got the problem of choice overload. There are way way too many non-choices or fantastically specific choices you'll never find. Then there are updates & errata, which they put out regularly, and which make it hard to maintain a decent character sheet.