Why did you stop subscribing to DDI?

[Chocolate Thief]

To get me back to DDI:
* A good quick character builder with save, export and import
* A good quick monster builder with buttons to level up/down
* Quality 4e Adventure Path
* Printable battle maps
Not sure if they are all quite there yet but maybe on the way?

 

[Balesir]

This month though looks to be the beginning of a great resurgence for DDI. If they can keep this up, I would definitely resubscribe.

Yes, I'm considering resubbing for some of the latest stuff - although I'm influenced as much by the recent release of the CC stuff outside the paywall as anything (it strikes me as an attempt at treating customers as customers instead of beef cattle). It'll only be for the odd month here and there, though - my days of annual subscriptions won't return unless I can have a tool set that suits me, not them.

It seems that rather than look at what the ideal world for the customer would be and than asking how do we turn that into a business plan? they've decided they want a subscription model and asked themselves how do we pressure our customers into paying?

Very well put.

Back in the day I bought the Core Rules CD-ROM. If I were to decide to run AD&D for the nostalgia I would use it again. Some piece of cloud-ware that forces me to play the game WotC tell me is "official" and cease playing to move onto the next edition when they feel like publishing it is about as useful to me as a tissue-paper fire guard.

 

[Riastlin]

My reason is much simpler. I no longer use credit cards and thus cannot subscribe to DDi. Even the PayPal option requires a credit card.

/shrug

 

[Obryn]

I'm glad I resubbed for a year in March.

I think I'm getting my money's worth again, now.

-O

 

[UngeheuerLich]

But that's kind of my point! 4e is finished. My issues just won't get fixed by some revamp in D&DI. I can happily continue playing 4e without D&DI - and any new rules will likely just make the mess worse. So as to the question what would make you subscribe? Well, a new edition .
The sooner the next edition comes along, the happier I'll be.

Hey, here are great ideas floating around for a 5th edition...

5th edition needs to be ADnD 2nd edition + D&D 4e mixed perfectly...

4e in general and especially the Essentials line already go a bit into the direction of 2nd edition. The only needed thing for me is a clear seperation of combat and non combat options for feats, less use of conditions - you are right about just spelling out the condition, best in flavourful words, just within the spell description - and less dependancy on a grid.
Rituals should also be revisited: 2nd edition had spells that needed money, components and more than a single round to cast (hours or even days).
Actually i guess there would be no harm done allowing any spell currently present as wizard spells to be cast as a ritual, but just needing time and components to use.
Some rare exceptions would be featherfall, which i would instead make a ritual that requires a component to be carried after performing a ritual before you start climbing on top of mountains...

 

[Stormtower]

I canceled DDI after trying the new online CB... it was just terrible, a travesty of bad software development. As soon as it launched, I knew my subscription was over. Adding house rule support would have been nice, but I was falling out of love with 4E by that time anyway, having straddled the fence from 2008-2010 supporting both 4E and Pathfinder.

The awesome support that Lone Wolf Software gives to Hero Lab for PFRPG was another nail in DDI's coffin. Also, no ongoing subscription -- I buy the data sets I want, and they work in perpetuity.

My cancellation of DDI coincided with my cancellation of support for 4E in general. It's a pretty fun game, but for myself, Pathfinder RPG with Hero Lab feels like home (in my heart I'm a 3.X/OGL guy, and probably always will be). I doubt WotC could get me back as a customer now, as my love for the "D&D Brand" has faded and I'm more concerned with running and playing in the sorts of games I enjoy rather than brand loyalty.

Yes, this is a pro-PFRPG post but if Paizo ever makes the same kind of mis-steps that WotC has, they would lose my business just as surely as WotC did.

 

[Aegeri]

What kinds of improvements are you noticing?

Although most of the adventures aren't really great, just a bunch of dungeon tiles with monsters thrown in - there have been some absolute standouts recently like Lord of the White Fields, Force of Nature and Beneath the Dust, which were all well constructed and immensely solid adventures. The magazine content also seems to be improving - at least in Dungeon anyway, especially with the advent of the article to redo older monsters to the new standard.

Player options across the board just seem to be getting worse, I have no idea what is going on there. But as the DM of two current 4E games, possibly a PbP and an IRL game starting soon: If the DM materials are worth my subscription then it is worth it. Assuming they sort out the monster builder into something actually worth using, I think I can forgive them... somewhat.

 

[Mallus]

Because my group put our 4e campaign on hold and started playing Savage Worlds. I'll sigh back up when we return to the 4e game -- unless we convert it to SW.

We're going to play out a partially religious Communist revolution, with goblins, and it looks like SW would handle larger scale battles better/easier.

 

[ShaggySpellsword]

Like many, they lost me when they stopped supporting the off-line builder and the on-line builder proved glacially slow in comparison.

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.

I do like the new themes, and will be happy to keep those PDFs, but I will not renew my subscription. I might check in again this fall sometime, in 6 months or so.

 

[kmdietri]

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