What do you want to see from DDI, Dragon, and Dungeon?

[JeffB]

I like 4E, but I'm just not getting the professional vibe out of either magazine at this point. As someone else said, "amateur hour". Not that I have issue with "amateur" publications, there's some great stuff going on for OD&D (Fight on), C&C, and the like. And for the most part I find them far more interesting.

The Paizo and previous WOTC print versions, while not always having a plethora of info I could use in each issue, at least were very well done professional magazines- I don't mind paying for that.

As for the DDI versions, Dungeon is most useful to me as I rarely play

1) That one adventure Ari did was pretty nice, but the rest (quality-wise) seem to be along the same lines as the intitial 3.0 website freebies (The Burning Plague, etc) - which are great when they are free- not so much to pay for.

2) The adventure format SUCKS. The KOTS format is excellent, I don't understand why they cannot use that.

3) Not a fan of the Adventure Path.

4) Around 2001 or so, 3.0 Dungeon mag started to hit it's stride after a first year of "ho-hum", so I'm sure the 4E version will do so in time. Problem is, I won't be able to peruse the magazine like I used to get an idea how the quality is improving (or not).

5) I hate the PDF-online format. I know it's not going to change (unless DDI tanks), but it bothers me to no end. I don't buy PDFs of game products either ( New products, that is. I bought many of the old TSR product PDFs)


4E Dragon has had a few more interesting articles than Dungeon has had interesting adventures, but not enough for me to subscribe.

Bottom line- the DDI versions will have to "double wow" me compared to previous print versions to get me to buy and then spend more money printing everything out. Unfortunately they are not even remotely close at this point.

 

[Kzach]

I'd like to see a bunch of quality applications and skill-fully created magazines that don't make me ashamed of being a gamer and to think, "Geez, a five year old with ADD could do better than that."

Mac versions of the aps.

This too.

On the full page bit - I just realized that the maps in the adventures can be cut and pasted into Paint or Gimp and blown up as large as you could possibly want. They are more than high enough quality to be used as battlemaps.

The 4e version of the Ashenport maps are terrible quality. I had to hunt down fan versions and eventually found the 3.5 high-quality version which was just good enough to blow up to 1" = 5' to print out for the game table.

Personally, I don't see why they can't provide these maps as separate files already sized to print on A4 at the 1" = 5' scale. It's a big, "Grrr," PITA to do it myself and would be a massive draw-card for actually paying for the content.

 

[Harlekin]

So what are your issues with DDI you want fixed or changed before the free preview is up? What do you like and dislike about DDI? Let's make this an open letter to WoTC about what we want with DDI.

Nothing actually. Dragon is the best it has ever been, with flavorful fluff and crunch that actually works. It is a clear step up from the Paizo Dragon that contained many good ideas, but half of the new rules material was underdeveloped and could not be used in a game without serious fiddling. It shows that Dragon is written entirely by pros these days. Hence it is worth the fee of $5/month by itself.

Dungeon has some room to grow, several suggestions in this thread would be a good starting point. But is still has many nice encounters to steal and the adventures are about as good as the print version was. I expected to find one good adventure per issue in the print Dungeon and that is roughly what I am finding in the new Dungeon.

In summary the magazines are a good value.

However, if I was not playing 4ed, I don't think I would be interested in those magazines either.

 

[The Little Raven]

I want to see a character visualiser on par with Poser/Daz Studio.

I'd suggest keeping your expectations realistic, instead of setting an impossible standard that even a fully dedicated software company would be hard-pressed to meet (and could never meet in the short time span that the visualizer has been in development). Wanting a pen-and-paper RPG development company's limited software division to produce a 3d modeling program (which has been in development for 2 years at the most) that is on par with one of the premier 3d human modeling programs (which has been in development for 13 years) is beyond unreasonable.