Why did you stop subscribing to DDI?

[Evilhalfling]

We are having alot of the same issues:
When CB went online, I dropped off.

lack of support for off-line character builder.
Fix monster builder, I'm addicted to this even if it does lose triggers for immediate actions, recharge numbers and aura descriptions EVERY time I load a monster. It does not bother me much that it stopped updating. I will probably buy every monster only book that comes out. Even if they did upload them.


I liked Dungeon when I had it available, downloaded and read adventures. can't say I have gotten alot of use out of them though. The only published adventures I have run were Thunderspire and Caern of Winter King (MV extra)

I was admittedly one of the update 2-3 times a year people. But now they won't even be getting that much from me. I'm less interested in essentials in general for this very reason. The individual feats and powers I can and have added as custom rules to the old CB, but there is little point in me buying a book with new classes that are too much trouble to use.

 

[Incenjucar]

The CB is getting better, though, I'll give it that. It's great to see them bug-fixing.

Is the Online CB still officially in "Beta?"

 

[Dausuul]

I have not canceled my subscription. I did, however, turn off auto-renew after the mess surrounding the release of Essentials (Essentials material took months to show up in the Character Builder, and when it finally arrived, it was in a new CB so buggy that no one in our group will use it).

At this particular moment, given what is available to me right now, I probably would not pay to renew my subscription. The new Character Builder is getting better, but it's still largely useless to my group; I do not have access to Monster Vault content in Adventure Tools; there's some good stuff in Dragon, but I've never been big on the magazines. And while the Compendium can be useful for charop, I mostly use it as ammunition for rules arguments on ENWorld.

However, there's no point rushing to judgement. My subscription has a fair few months to run; if WotC has started delivering enough value by then to justify the expense, I'll renew. If not, not.

 

[Holy Bovine]

And yeah, I know it's silly, but the whole "compiled issue" thing is, to me, the most ridiculous part. It's not tough to patch together a PDF, and "not everyone uses it" is hardly a reason to discontinue them. It's asinine.

-O

WHile this is just a gut feeling I really think this is another attempt to combat piracy. Incredibly ham-fisted and short-sighted attempt but an attempt nonetheless. Maybe they think if they don't offer the pdfs of the mags they will not appear on torrent sites? WotC needs to stop worrying about people who d/l pdfs of books (hint:those people weren't going to buy the thing anyways) and worry more about their shrinking fanbase.

 

[JeffB]

Dropped mine a little over a year ago, IIRC.

Biggest reasons-

1) Magazine quality went downhill quick. The adventures were pretty bad from day one, then again we are talking WOTC here, and adventures have never been a strong suit.

2) I hate reading large amounts of text on a computer screen- another minus for the online magazines.

3) The VTT becoming vaporware- it was the main reason I subscribed.


From what I see on various forums, I probably got out at the right time.

EDIT- The only thing that would get me to sub again would likely be a DAMNED good VTT.

 

[SteveC]

And yeah, I know it's silly, but the whole "compiled issue" thing is, to me, the most ridiculous part. It's not tough to patch together a PDF, and "not everyone uses it" is hardly a reason to discontinue them. It's asinine.
-O

The saddest thing about this is that I'll wager the pirates will take the time to compile the different articles into a magazine. It will be another case of people getting a better product for free than those who pay.

That's not a winning business strategy, WotC, it really isn't.

 

[Festivus]

I really liked the compiled issues, because I could save them to my laptop and read them on my van ride. But since the quality went downhill, it really doesn't bother me that they don't have compiled issues, because I am no longer a subscriber partly, and because I hadn't bothered the last few issues to even download them they were so bad.

Just another reason to not re-subscribe. WoTC has a way to go to win me back as a DDI subscriber, and they don't appear to be making any of the moves in the right direction.

 

[TheHand]

1) The turning point for me was the decision to go online only with the Character Builder. Since this was coupled with some salary decrease in my household, it was an easy decision not to resub. Now I was not a regular subscriber, but nor am I regular player, and I would sub DDI during months when I was actively running D&D 4e games.

2) I've purchased a few of the books since then, namely the Rules Compendium and the Monster Vault, but I haven't been too excited by WoTC's offerings lately. The announced books they recently canceled were ironically the ones that piqued my interest the most.

3) Not any particular ruling, though some of the management decisions at WoTC (pressures from Hasbro suits??) have left me... disappointed.

4) No, errata fatigue never bothered me. If I had it in the CB or compendium, great. If not, then I didn't worry about it.

To get me back?

Difficult to say. I'd have to feel like I was getting value for my money, and that's a nebulous thing to assess (the Compendium was nice, but Dragon and Dungeon are not useful enough to me, and I wouldn't need a VTT). I think there would have to be a return to off-line support, like the Character Builder and (an updated) Monster Builder, and I just don't see that happening with their current business philosophy.

 

[Arlough]

So, what I am hearing here is, basically, that it isn't worth the cost anymore.

The Good (let's start on a high note)

• The character builder was a good start on a useful player application. I think that most of us will agree that it was our most used application.
• The monster builder was a good start too. It was the first sign that someone at WotC understood that what they had was a database.
• The compendium was a good step too. Allowing us to look up a rule without having to know all the details, or even what book it was in.

The Bad

• Dragon started diminishing in quality rather quickly, and then in content. (or maybe it was the reverse)
• Dungeon started diminishing in quality rather quickly, and then in content. (or maybe it was the reverse)
• The promised character visualizer disappeared.
• The 3d VTT disappeared.

The Ugly

• The monster builder had a disastrous update that broke it, and the response was too slow.
• The character builder went to an online only format.
• The online character builder was buggy as hell.
• Both Dungeon and Dragon moved from online magazines to blogs.
• Offline monster builder support vanished.

The Ugly being the straw(s) that broke the camel's back.

So, let's assume that WotC hears our call (keep with me) and decides that it is okay to admit they made mistakes (keep with me!) and want to not only fix the mistakes (seriously, keep with me) but actually wants to make them better. (this is all hypothetical, so use your imagination)
Addressing DDI only, not rules, let's go back up the lists and see what could be done, realistically, that could garner much future revenue from us by delivering us what we want.

Now, asking WotC to support all editions of D&D is a little unreasonable. but Asking them to create working tools that help us play the game is reasonable.
Asking for all the content ever published under the name D&D to be free and in any format we want would be unreasonable. But, maybe we could ask that the compendium be upgraded to become a replacement for the current books, or that the current books be released in a established DRM robust e-book format, like kindle or nook format.

How would you feel about that? What about Dungeon and Dragon being published in that format as well, but as article subscriptions? That would sate WotC's IP paranoia, but still give us our digital content in a form other than on the WotC website.

What about the tools? Yes, we know that most want an offline character builder, but most likely that was just the last nail in the coffin. You weren't paying $70 - $120 a year just for that. So what other tools do you want to see come out? An encounter manager? An item builder?

What about the magazines? What would you consider to be worth reading? Was it just the volume of the magazines that bothered you, or was it the content? What kind of articles woud interest you?

Maybe, just maybe, we can compile a useful list of what we want and submit it to WotC. And maybe, just maybe, they will look at that list and get to work on it.

I don't know how much clout us ENWorlders have, but I want to try something because I not only love playing this game, but I love what it does for people. Collaborative storytelling activates and exercises the brain, it encourages community, it forms bonds, and it makes us all really good as basic addition.

 

[shadzar]

Now, asking WotC to support all editions of D&D is a little unreasonable. but Asking them to create working tools that help us play the game is reasonable.

I dont think supporting all editions would be problematic or "unreasonable". If they have a stable and working database that can pull these things from, and the VTT ever gets finished, then pulling things from that database could allow ANY edition to play in it with at least existing support.

No new material would need to be added, just the database updated with existing material.

That would give non-current-edition players a reason at least to be interested in DDi and possibly subscribe. There would be a compendium for the edition where you could find the info you need to play, plus ability to play on a decent, or at least, game focused virtual table top.

Also other people wanting to look at older edition material to convert or use for gameplay that are subscribers have a LOT more value to their subscription because they could have access to the whole of D&D's history and vast amounts of material to use for whichever game they play. This could even be helpful to the design team for not having to sort through old books to find monsters or items and such to alter for the current edition, because they too could just grab it form the DDi interface and look at it with what they are designing to upgrade it to the new edition.

That is just the simplest application. If there was something to scale monsters of older editions by some kind of percentage when viewing them say in the VTT, then that would be a big help also. Otherwise jsut having access and all your players having the same access would make the DDi more broadly usable by many more players just for the simple access to older editions.

All that would be needed is a data entry person to fill in those databases with the material and use the existing compendium for the most part with slight changes per edition, to support older editions. Nothing new really need be created for them, as so much already exists.