White Wolf's pdf store?

[RangerWickett]

How good is White Wolf's PDF store? I'm thinking of picking up the new psionics book from Malhavoc, but I've only ever shopped at RPGNow. I want to make sure that, if I were to have a disk disaster, the WW store would let me redownload the pdf, like RPGNow does.

Can anyone give me some testimonials?

 

[Funksaw]

How good is White Wolf's PDF store? I'm thinking of picking up the new psionics book from Malhavoc, but I've only ever shopped at RPGNow. I want to make sure that, if I were to have a disk disaster, the WW store would let me redownload the pdf, like RPGNow does.

Can anyone give me some testimonials?

Reports vary wildly depending on who you ask.

Suffice to say, however, that if you were to have a disk disaster, it would be more difficult to redownload the file than RPGnow. Although a corporate shill will likely come on board right after this to tell me I'm wrong, you need to sign-in with Adobe and DTRPG everytime you "activate" a file, you cannot backup that PDF file to CD Rom and use it on another computer, in short, you're only able to actually use it on computers you activate.

What'll likely happen is that you *can* make a backup - I will admit this - of an otherwise useless file to CD-Rom. If you have a crash and you are able to recover, you can use up another one of your limited activations in order to get your "new" computer or reformatted computer to view this file.

However, if you do not back up, it will not let you redownload the file.

The lucky thing is that Malhavoc products are available in a NON-DRMed (in other words "normal" PDF format from the White Wolf catalogue (not DriveThruRPG.) I don't believe you can redownload there BUT you can back up to a CD rom, you don't have to reactivate, you can use it on as many computers as you want, cause it's a normal, non-fubared PDF file.

Malhavoc products are the only products that get this special treatment, and I will go so far as to say that I am perplexed as to why other companies on DTRPG have not done so.

 

[Planesdragon]

What'll likely happen is that you *can* make a backup - I will admit this - of an otherwise useless file to CD-Rom. If you have a crash and you are able to recover, you can use up another one of your limited activations in order to get your "new" computer or reformatted computer to view this file.

Adobe will probably let you "unregister" a computer that has a hard drive FUBAR. You probably don't even have to have that PC online to do it.

And, worst comes to worst, you can always quite legally crack your own legally purchased DRM'd file if you try and fail to comply with the DRM. (You just can't tell anyone else how.)

 

[Crothian]

Funksaw: He's not asking about Drivethrough RPG....he's asking about the White Wolf store which also sales pdfs that are not DRM. But the response was amusing none the less.

RW: I've never used their site to get anything so I have no idea.

 

[Kesh]

There's actually two things you're asking here.

1) White Wolf's PDF store is really just their normal online store. It has a few PDFs, but only WW products (mostly old, old ones). PDFs here do not have DRM.

2) DriveThru RPG is a seperate entity, owned by some of the same people who own White Wolf. This is where Malhavoc and other companies have their products. PDFs here do have DRM.

I'm guessing you meant DTRPG. Personally, I really like it. The stuff I've bought has been high quality, and the DRM limits have never been a problem for me. I don't print often, and have my own laser printer so it's not much of a big deal when I do. I don't copy & paste from the PDFs much, so the "10 passages in 10 days" limit doesn't bother me. And I don't have other machines to put them on, so the registration doesn't affect me either.

Anyway, the documents are good quality and quite useful. My only complaint is that pricing varies by company. Most of White Wolf's older stuff is reasonably priced, Monte's Malhavoc books are the same as ever... but some, like FFG's Dragonstar books are almost full-price.

So, just be sure to check the price of what you're interested in, and whether you can live with the DRM restrictions. Better yet, download the free PDF of the week, and you can check them out for yourself to see what you think.

 

[Kesh]

Funksaw: He's not asking about Drivethrough RPG....he's asking about the White Wolf store which also sales pdfs that are not DRM. But the response was amusing none the less.

RW: I've never used their site to get anything so I have no idea.

Are you sure? I didn't think Malhavoc Press PDFs were ever sold through WW's store.

 

[Kesh]

Adobe will probably let you "unregister" a computer that has a hard drive FUBAR. You probably don't even have to have that PC online to do it.

It apparently requires a phone call, whether the computer is online or not.

 

[Funksaw]

They're sold in both places. It's one of the reasons that Monte's off the "boycott" list.

 

[Henry]

Are you sure? I didn't think Malhavoc Press PDFs were ever sold through WW's store.

Actually,I believe Malhavoc's stuff was sold at the White Wolf Store before it was even available on RPGNow.

 

[Derulbaskul]

I recently used WW for the first time so that I could get the new Psionics book without DRM (NB: I do shop at DTRPG and am otherwise happy with them but if I have the choice then I [obviously] choose non-DRM files).

I'm on dial-up and it worked fine.