White Wolf can take their Web Extras & Shove it!

[Vraille Darkfang]

Once again I reiterate that I don't really have strong feelings about this, in my mind it's WW's perogative to charge or not to charge unless they explicitly state it's free.

How explicit does explicit have to be?

1. Every time a mention is made of a Class, Feat, Item, etc in this book it is done in 1 of 2 forms.

A) See WOW World Guide. See Alliance Player's Guide, See Land of Mystery. 95% of all references are in Bold Face. Every one References another product. These are clearly other books in the series. There are only TWO exceptions to this practice.

B) See "chapter 4 monster feats". See "web extra". The only 2 times the Bold Face is not used when referencing information elswhere is to refer to another chapter in the book & the web extras.

This implies a similiar status. If 100% of everything in Bold Type you know you have to pay for & 50% of everything in non-bold type you know you get for free (it's right in the back of the book) what is the implication of the other 50% of the non-Bold type?

2. The call it "Web Extras" They direct you to log on to http://www.warcraftrpg.com/. There's a big Button at the top called "EXTRAS" Guess what, the Extras that they direct you to are, indeed free. Not that does you a lot of good. The "Extras" is like a Character Sheet & an old preview. (I was actually a lot more frustrated by the Web Site that is impossible to find the actual link to anything useful. WW; take those 4 buck a pop & invest in reasonable facsimile to a useful websites. My 12 year old niece's Myspace Page is better laid out).

As the Big EXTRA button does, in fact, not lead to any Extras (contrary to the explicit directions in the book) we now have to play Web-Hunt.

Try the Warcraft Downloads Section. No luck on the Monster Guide Extra. But you can find the "Lands of Mystery Extra" & its free.

So. The "Web Extras" You can actually find by going to the WOW Website & download, are in fact 100% Free.

That would, again indicate a Free Web Extra. (If it wasn't for a side window showing the last thread posted in the Forums & the MG Web Extra costing 4 bucks wasn't one of the last 5 posts, I still wouldn't have found it).



And now the BIG ONE. The reason I know this was supposed to by Free until some guy wanted to squeeze out a few more bucks.

3. The Monsters by CR Table in the Back. Quote:

"Animals and vermin appear in the web BONUS"

Right there in Black & White (Actually Black & Pale yellow). "Bonus"

Right from the Dictionary:

1. something given or paid over and above what is due.
2. a sum of money granted or given to an employee, a returned soldier, etc., in addition to regular pay, usually in appreciation for work done, length of service, accumulated favors, etc.
3. something free, as an extra dividend, given by a corporation to a purchaser of its securities.
4. a premium paid for a loan, contract, etc.
5. something extra or additional given freely: Every purchaser of a pound of coffee received a box of cookies as a bonus.

I Highlighted the Appropriate ones.

You tell me it's a bonus & then make me pay 4 bucks for it... I'm not going to be real happy with that (even if the bonus itself is pretty meaningless to me).

But you want to know a way to not only make me Unhappy, but really really frustrated?

Tell me its a bonus. Tell me how to get to said bonus. Said procedure gets me nada. Hunt around & find other "Web Extras", & still find Nada. Go to WoW MG Home Page... And find less than Nada (actually an infinite loop that takes me from Product Page to Home Page to Product Page to Home Page...) Finally noticing the Phrase "Web Extra to Monster Guide is out but..." on lower side bar of "Latest Posts" Bar...

Reading through post of Random User who happened to finally find it on Drivethru & the 4 Bucks Cover charge. Having to read through Page 3 of the thread to even find out what my 4 bucks would get me...

Now, I'm upset, frustrated, & 15 minutes of my life are gone never to return.

For some reason, my opinion of your company just dropped to FFE Level (Briefly, I can tell you the S&S Logo no longer makes me more likely to buy a product).

There.

They called it a Bonus. They told you how to find it.

It wasn't a Bonus. It wasn't where they told you it would be.

0 for 2 is not confidence in my book.

Do I think WW owes me an apology for charging 4 Bucks for a Web Extra?

Not really. A company is there to make money. If they feel it stands on its own & is worth 4 Bucks. Go right ahead & charge that.

But, if you are going to design it to be free, indicate it is going to be free, then change your mind after that fact & not even have the decency to make a mention of it ANYWHERE, then I think at least an Explanation is due.

 

[eyebeams]

That's okay. I'm not at all interested in garnering your respect for my opinions.

You misunderstand. I really *do* respect your opinion as far as I understand anything about it, whether I agree with it or not. Without any information about why, that's the best anyone can do. If it was about Pimp, for instance, I could easily see why. If it's about how Justin Achilli made fun of furries once or you played in a bad MET Larp once, not so much.

 

[eyebeams]

But, if you are going to design it to be free, indicate it is going to be free, then change your mind after that fact & not even have the decency to make a mention of it ANYWHERE, then I think at least an Explanation is due.

Why don't you email them and ask for one, then? Or post on the WW WoW RPG board? I think your annoyance is somewhat valid, but if you're looking for a response from the company, this probably isn't the best place to get it.

 

[Thurbane]

Calling additonal material that didn't make it into the book, and which results in incomplete entries "web extras" which you have to pay for is decidedly shoddy, IMHO. Enough so that I would probably not think of buying a product from this company in the future...

As for the plastic bag issue - hell yeah, why not charge for plastic bags? It might encourage people to use re-usable carry bags, and stop choking landfills and the enviroment with plastic bags.

 

[Professor Phobos]

It's part of WW's new PDF publishing strategy, I think. They just released 3 or 4 scenarios for the nWoD as well. Likewise, a part of "Scroll of the Monk" was released as a PDF.

It sounds like these are more than just a couple PDF pages- they sound like pretty sizable micro supplements.

As for the website not being the way they said it was, that isn't surprising, since White Wolf easily has the worst website design out of any "major" RPG publisher, which is saying a lot given that most of them are pretty bad.

As for "White Wolf pisses off 50% of its customers at a time", that sounds like sour grapes, as it is not my experience at all, nor what I'm hearing from more WW oriented forums. They've been practically on fire with quality books in the last two years.

 

[Korgoth]

Just to toss in my $.02, calling content a "web extra" implies that it is extra content you receive... i.e. that you get something additional via the web for buying the product. If they also call it a "bonus" that's even more clear-cut... a bonus is something of value freely added to sweeten the purchase. In the game industry, "web extra" is synonymous with "free", and "bonus" certainly implies that something is free.

What they should have said was "This product will be supported with additional content available for purchase on the web!" It's a positive sales statement because it indicates that the additional material constitutes "support", but it clearly states that the consumer will have to purchase this material.

Is White Wolf guilty of false advertising and therefore liable? I don't know, but I doubt it. I do know that if I bought a product under at least the partial but reasonable expectation of receiving free content, and then I found out they were charging for it (particularly when competing companies routinely offer free content) I would consider not buying from them again. In other words, they made an un-smart business move.

 

[RedFox]

You misunderstand. I really *do* respect your opinion as far as I understand anything about it, whether I agree with it or not. Without any information about why, that's the best anyone can do. If it was about Pimp, for instance, I could easily see why. If it's about how Justin Achilli made fun of furries once or you played in a bad MET Larp once, not so much.

I don't misunderstand. I just didn't want to get into a protracted discussion about it, which is what these things usually devolve into.

Suffice it to say, I've had bad experiences with customer support on more than one occasion. I've received packages with missing material purchased direct from the company with no redress. I've grown sick of slapdash game design and the aura of contempt for their customers that emanates from the company. Incidents like this are not isolated, and Pimp and the MET thing are simply a sampling of further actions that seem to label their customers as either marks or the enemy.

You don't have to respect that opinion. You can call it churlish if you want. I really don't care. But my exasperation with the company leads me to not give them much benefit of the doubt when these sorts of practices come to light and warn others away as often as possible.

White Wolf occasionally has some brilliant stuff. Adventure! is still one of my favorite games. I've heard nothing but praise for them from freelancers who do work for them. Amongst other things, I hear that they almost always pay their freelancers, which is a depressingly rare case in this industry. I also really like the look of their new web adventure products, as the format seems really cool and actually innovative. However, as a customer I'm overall left with a foul taste in my mouth from my years of dealing with the company.

 

[carmachu]

Note that I am not advocating they do this (charge for web extras) but I can see why they're doing it.

No one minds them doing so, including the orginator of the thread.

But leading one to believe its free, when its not, is dirty pool. If it said web extras we couldnt fit in are availble for a nomial fee.....no one cares. But when one says Hey there are web extras to the product, and thats it, It implies its not for a cost.

As I said, dirty pool....

 

[eyebeams]

No one minds them doing so, including the orginator of the thread.

But leading one to believe its free, when its not, is dirty pool. If it said web extras we couldnt fit in are availble for a nomial fee.....no one cares. But when one says Hey there are web extras to the product, and thats it, It implies its not for a cost.

As I said, dirty pool....

I think it's rather premature to ascribe some kind of deceptive intent. It's not like WW can trick someone into using their Paypal account or credit card, and -- and I mention this to remind people of what we're talking about here -- I doubt that a non-applicable index and a reference to a monster totaling perhaps two pages has a decisive effect on the quality of the product. The originator of the thread also said the other 99% of the book was worth it.

 

[Vanuslux]

I think it's rather premature to ascribe some kind of deceptive intent. It's not like WW can trick someone into using their Paypal account or credit card, and -- and I mention this to remind people of what we're talking about here -- I doubt that a non-applicable index and a reference to a monster totaling perhaps two pages has a decisive effect on the quality of the product. The originator of the thread also said the other 99% of the book was worth it.

Web extras are a common value add, which can nudge a person undecided about buying the product towards purchasing it if the book specifically advertises the fact that it has "web extras". It's always in poor form to say you're going to give something you're not going to deliver.

Personally, what I suspect happened was that they intended the material to be a free web extra but at some point someone in the company said "Hey, that's a lot of material to just be giving out...we should charge something for it." and it was too late or they were too lazy to change the text referring to "web extras" to something more appropriate. I still think that's seriously uncool, but I don't think it was quite the deliberate scam some are making it out to be.