What if Dragon and Dungeon go online only?

[darjr]

I actually don't see how they could make Dungeon online-only. They're modules. They need to be printed out so we can have them at the table when we play. And while I think they are eventually trying to move to a system where you can DM games with a computer at the table... they're nowhere near that point yet.

Besides which... all the magazines are is just pages of text and images. Even if they didn't put them into PDF form for us to download... we'd just copy/paste the text and/or make screen grabs of the modules so that we could print them out ourselves.

They could hide the crunch in the builder and compendium.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I actually don't see how they could make Dungeon online-only. They're modules. They need to be printed out so we can have them at the table when we play. And while I think they are eventually trying to move to a system where you can DM games with a computer at the table... they're nowhere near that point yet.

Besides which... all the magazines are is just pages of text and images. Even if they didn't put them into PDF form for us to download... we'd just copy/paste the text and/or make screen grabs of the modules so that we could print them out ourselves.

How? Wel, Marvel has its own online viewer so its possible to make material that is mean for print online only.

Heck, Dungeon used to be in print and it had a different format back then too so yeah, change is a possible and it may rely on people to print them from the viewer.

 

[evilref]

How? Wel, Marvel has its own online viewer so its possible to make material that is mean for print online only.

Heck, Dungeon used to be in print and it had a different format back then too so yeah, change is a possible and it may rely on people to print them from the viewer.

So you print to pdf via the viewer rather than downloading a pre-made pdf. You can then ocr the file (if needed).

Apart from a couple of extra steps this makes no difference to what we have now. OCR'd pdfs are less user friendly but if printed out are generally of similar quality (I say generally because it depends on how the pdf is generated, what settings etc.)

This makes no difference. Publishing in general would love to have a totally secure system for publishing electronic files. But given how much money and effort has gone into failing to achieve this, i don't see wotc cracking it any time soon.

 

[wedgeski]

For content designed to be used at the table, there might be a minor benefit to be gained by going online: customised CSS for browsing vs. reading offline/using at the table.

 

[DEFCON 1]

They could hide the crunch in the builder and compendium.

True. But like I said... until DMs having computers at their game tables to run their games becomes ubiquitous... Dungeon Magazine as online-only is basically useless. They might as well not even bother publishing the magazines then.

The only more likely thing I could forsee that would go along with Joe's point would be the ability to download that month's magazine PDFs only during those months in which you are a subscriber. Thus you can't go back and download "back issues" (nor if they wanted to, even let you look at them necessarily.) For the months you subscribe, those months' magazines are downloadable PDFs... for any other issues, you have to pay an extra "back issue" fee. THAT is something I think WotC could do if they were so inclined.

Although personally I wouldn't think they would do this either for the simple fact that all of the crunch, art, and maps that appeared in those magazines would be appearing in the CB, Compendium, Monster Tools and the website anyway. So they'd basically be putting only HALF those magazines behind a "back issue" paywall (the fluff half). And at that point... that's an awful lot of work and effort on WotC's part for two magazines which most people would agree aren't exactly burning the house down with what they give us each month anyway. Their time is better served elsewhere, and I think they'd agree with that.

 

[Ryujin]

Because it allowed you to lets say have it on your laptop and desktop. And if for some reason you had lost your current install say to a OS update or reboot you could update the CB again. And it even allowed for you to allow a minor child of yours to use the program.

It was never meant for a group of gamers to be cheap and have 1 person buy it and everyone use it.

As long as I can print my character I am fine with this move to web based. Its the way it should have been from the start

Or for the several times that the update crapped out in the middle, then started a whole new download, and counted it as a use of the update. Twice I even had to contact CS about resetting my count, because 5 hadn't been enough to complete an update.

As for the original question it would mean almost nothing to me, compared to what has already been done.

 

[Saeviomagy]

How is that any more flawed than the idea that I can only make characters on those specific computers upon which I've downloaded the current Character Builder program?

Because in your scenario there are steps that can be taken to rectify the issue. It's pretty trivial to put the CB installers onto a USB stick, or have them installed on whatever computer you have access to.

My scenario is pretty unfixable: if you don't have net access somewhere, it's a non-trivial problem to solve.

Now admittedly if your scenario is "I don't have a computer where I want to do this stuff", that's another kettle of fish, but suffice to say it's not one solvable by any computer-based character builder.