Why did you stop subscribing to DDI?

[Argyle King]

While reading this thread on the gap between book sales and DDI subscriptions, and more specifically about people who used to subscribe, have or had the downloaded character builder, and let their subscription lapse, I began to wonder on what drove people away.

So, if you were, but no longer are a subscriber to DDI...

• What was the turning point where you decided to cancel your subscription or let it lapse? Was it an economic issue, content issue?
• And, what other issues have continued to influence your ongoing purchase of D&D material?
• Did a ruling anger you?
• Do you suffer from errata fatigue?

What would WotC need to do to get you back?

There are a few other threads like this, but they all degenerated into flame wars and became unhelpful. So I am bringing this up again in the hopes that we can start off, and remain, civil. I am looking for enlightenment, not combat.

My free trial ran out. I didn't see anything which was (IMO) worth paying a monthly fee for, so I chose not to continue the subscription.

A few times I had considering going back, but as the game progressed, it moved further and further away from what I wanted. I still play it, and I still enjoy it, but -as of right now- I'm more inclined to spend my money elsewhere.

Beyond that, I'll also say that what DDi provides isn't -typically- what I want. I know that's a vague statement, but, really, just all around I felt from step two (at first I was enthusiastic before a lot of promises weren't delivered) it wasn't my cup of tea, and it seems to have only gotten further away rather than closer to want I want. As such, I don't believe there's much of anything WoTC could offer me right now which would prompt me to subscribe to DDi.

 

[eamon]

Stopped playing 4th edition. That pretty much sealed it.

What'd you switch to?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Never started.

Besides all the stuff I saw about the buggy CB, I simply don't see value in what they are offering through a subscription-based model.

 

[JoeGKushner]

50% attitude. Things like saying "it's piracy" on one side and on every other media channelo talking about 'universal utility".

25% utility. When I quit, it still wasn't as good as the old version. No more compilations of the magazines? What the hell? A monster builder that isn't a you know, monster builder?

25% content. Things look like they might be picking up on some venues but on the other hand reprinting older articles and still providing Dungeon issues with small encounters that are 'adventurers' with no printible maps seems ignorant.

I'm sure that if enough content comes out I'll eventually sub for a month or so but in the meantime I don't feel I'm suffering.

 

[Argyle King]

What'd you switch to?

Although it wasn't directed at me; provided to satisfy possible curiosity....

GURPS: Generic Universal RolePlaying System


I didn't stop, but I would have if it weren't for one of the groups in playing 4E regularly.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I first subscribed to DDI a month or two into it becoming available. We were super early adopters of 4e in my DnD group, to the point of playing an adventure or two before the PHB proper came out.



* What was the turning point where you decided to cancel your subscription or let it lapse? Was it an economic issue, content issue?

I turned off my auto-renew (I had yearly subs) when I heard they were no longer supporting the offline character builder. That feature was 95% of the reason for my subscription.

* And, what other issues have continued to influence your ongoing purchase of D&D material?

I don't mind the idea of Essentials classes (easier to create/less options) however I object to the branding. I would have preferred it be Players Handbook 4.

* Did a ruling anger you?

No, and if it had, I would have ignored it.

* Do you suffer from errata fatigue?

Gods Yes! Every month or so when the new errata would come out I would scan the list to see how one of my characters had gotten worse. Never better, always worse. Some characters changed so greatly I just ditched them (dwarven battlerager).

I don't forsee anything changing for 4e to get me enthused about playing it again. I am kind of stuck playing it since that is what my group wants to play, but if it was up to me I would have already jettisoned it for something else.

DS

 

[Dysturbed]

When they changed over Living Forgotten Realms to a fan/forum based thing. It pissed me off, when they made the character builder and the worst monster builder ever online only. I stopped subscribing because it just wasn't worth it anymore.

So i have my finaly version of the offline character builder and that works good enough for me.

Also I started developing my own SciFi based RPG system.
Hell with D&D anyhow.

 

[Dannager]

That said, I let my brother borrow my essentials books, but recently needed to build an essentials slayer, so I bought a 1-month subscription to see if the CB has improved. It doesn't crash any more, but it is still VERY slow.

This is likely a technical issue that you ought to look into. The new online character builder skips along quite nicely on all of the computers and connections I've used. Far faster than the offline one.

 

[drothgery]

This is likely a technical issue that you ought to look into. The new online character builder skips along quite nicely on all of the computers and connections I've used. Far faster than the offline one.

The online character builder seems very sensitive to connection speed to me. It was very sluggish over a hotel's wireless network in April when I was out of town for a couple of weeks, but on my home connection it's fine. Based on reports from non-US users, there may be some issues with latency if you're too far from Wizards' servers as well, but if you've got a fast enough connection and are in North America, ti should be fine.

 

[eamon]

The online character builder seems very sensitive to connection speed to me. It was very sluggish over a hotel's wireless network in April when I was out of town for a couple of weeks, but on my home connection it's fine. Based on reports from non-US users, there may be some issues with latency if you're too far from Wizards' servers as well, but if you've got a fast enough connection and are in North America, ti should be fine.

That's possible. But it doesn't look like it: I live in Europe, and searching+filtering is actually faster in the new CB than the old. However, overall snappiness of buttons, UI, printing, presenting the charsheet, etc is systematically down. These are typically actions that don't require network access (and presumably, hopefullly, don't involve any therefore), so as far as I can tell, the actual app is simply slower with the exception of the bits they moved to the server, which are faster. Of course, both character builders were very slow, and the old one was simply absurdly so on searches+filters (which never really worked well anyhow), so it's not a high bar to improve those.