Here here! I started playing DnD just few months ago and I have been very hyped about everything and have been looking forward to writing new characters with all kinds of races. And I like the DnD Beyond as a platform, but now I can't afford anything not already included in the basic version. Thanks for sort of ruining the experience for this new player!
It doesn't really matter what goes on behind the scenes. How it looks and feels is all that matters to a consumer. If it feels greedy and anticonsumer (it is greed. If you don't know that than you have not been paying attention to whats going on with this company or the parent company over the last several years or you are living in a world of pure imagination. ) then people are likely to vote with their wallets.
There are so many armchair experts here claiming to know the ins and outs of what’s best for the site. If Ala Carte was truly the money-maker everyone thinks it is, it's unlikely they would have discontinued it. A lot goes on behind the scenes that none of us, no matter how smart we think we are, fully understand.
For all we know, it just wasn't cost-effective to keep programming the feature for the return they were getting. And before someone responds with "it's just some coding!" — no, it isn’t. Many people think you just add a bit of code to make it work, but it’s not that simple.
I understand why people are upset about not being able to use it anymore. You have every right to be upset. But this hate and fear-mongering is out of line. Yes, I know I’ll be called a bootlicker and other names because that’s what people do when others disagree with them. But most of those against this move have already stated they are leaving or have already left the service, which is your right. As they say, "Vote with your wallet."
Take a step back, ditch the emotional responses, and actually look at the situation. Do your research on what was said and form a rational opinion. Right now, all I’m seeing is “WoTC is evil!” “They are destroying D&D!” “HASBRO needs to go down!” Comments like these don't help.
Have civil, articulated conversations, state your facts and opinions, and maybe, just maybe, they will respond in kind. But at the end of the day, they don’t owe us anything. We made purchases; they delivered on those purchases. End of contract.
If you want some good, free, and unsolicited advice on how to provide feedback in an official feedback forum and thread, try the following instead:
You are not a paid employee, nor are you a moderator. You do, of course, have every right to tell us how you believe we should respond to this company, but this makes you look like a very special kind of person that gets very special kinds of names called at them, so we tend to discourage this behavior. Some people here might even think you owe a bunch of folks with well written and articulated feedback on the matter an apology for claiming you see nothing but posts with hysteria.
Or you could instead choose to provide your own feedback on the issue, saying something like "I don't see any problem with these changes. I like paying full price when the previous method was clearly more pro-consumer and beneficial to me than what was just switched out." And then carry on.
Sorry, but no Chris Cocks decorated cookie for you. But you do get my apology for being such a hypocrite myself, as I take time to tell you how to do feedback!
There are so many armchair experts here claiming to know the ins and outs of what’s best for the site. If Ala Carte was truly the money-maker everyone thinks it is, it's unlikely they would have discontinued it. A lot goes on behind the scenes that none of us, no matter how smart we think we are, fully understand.
For all we know, it just wasn't cost-effective to keep programming the feature for the return they were getting. And before someone responds with "it's just some coding!" — no, it isn’t. Many people think you just add a bit of code to make it work, but it’s not that simple.
I understand why people are upset about not being able to use it anymore. You have every right to be upset. But this hate and fear-mongering is out of line. Yes, I know I’ll be called a bootlicker and other names because that’s what people do when others disagree with them. But most of those against this move have already stated they are leaving or have already left the service, which is your right. As they say, "Vote with your wallet."
Take a step back, ditch the emotional responses, and actually look at the situation. Do your research on what was said and form a rational opinion. Right now, all I’m seeing is “WoTC is evil!” “They are destroying D&D!” “HASBRO needs to go down!” Comments like these don't help.
Have civil, articulated conversations, state your facts and opinions, and maybe, just maybe, they will respond in kind. But at the end of the day, they don’t owe us anything. We made purchases; they delivered on those purchases. End of contract.
I actually have real life corporate career experience working for an extremely similar business model to DnDBeyond: free to sign up online platform, pay for additional content / access / features with a subscription.
I can tell you both as a consumer and an employee - this whole thing is shady as hell and only about money. Zero respect nor care for the customer.
I've seen it before in my career and I'm seeing it here now on DNDB: the higher-ups have taken a passion project platform that was by the community, for the community, it's now gone semi-mainstream and exploded in popularity, has been bought by a corporate who are 10 steps removed from their customers, community and OG employeers who helped make it the great success that it is and are shooting themselves in the feet by ignoring the outcry. All because money money money!!!
It's truly quite bizarre how closely aligned this is to my own experience. They have every reason & opportunity to fix this. What passionate employees they have left who are no doubt on the frontlines of community outcry are telling them this is a problem yet they don't give a rat's behind.
But sure: call it speculation, call me an armchair expert, whatever.
As a software developer myself with 20+ years of experience , everything boils down to the user stories and the plan for any software .
the plan was to screw the previous user experience and force ppl to buy whole books by removing a la carte . As simple as that. Makes sense ? IMHO no. I already own the physical books and dndbeyond was used only to build characters . And most of the ppl here used it for that purpose . Eventually you cross a threshold were you buy the whole book. As stated before , I won’t recommend either dndbeyond to new players just to try a couple of feats for a convenient sheet that calculates everything for you.
As stated above , with our wallets is how we can make them see if they did the right thing to do .
Wallets and the public outcry. Keep telling them "I'm not spending money because you did this thing" and maybe they'll get it through their incompetent skulls.
There are so many armchair experts here claiming to know the ins and outs of what’s best for the site. If Ala Carte was truly the money-maker everyone thinks it is, it's unlikely they would have discontinued it. A lot goes on behind the scenes that none of us, no matter how smart we think we are, fully understand.
For all we know, it just wasn't cost-effective to keep programming the feature for the return they were getting. And before someone responds with "it's just some coding!" — no, it isn’t. Many people think you just add a bit of code to make it work, but it’s not that simple.
I understand why people are upset about not being able to use it anymore. You have every right to be upset. But this hate and fear-mongering is out of line. Yes, I know I’ll be called a bootlicker and other names because that’s what people do when others disagree with them. But most of those against this move have already stated they are leaving or have already left the service, which is your right. As they say, "Vote with your wallet."
Take a step back, ditch the emotional responses, and actually look at the situation. Do your research on what was said and form a rational opinion. Right now, all I’m seeing is “WoTC is evil!” “They are destroying D&D!” “HASBRO needs to go down!” Comments like these don't help.
Have civil, articulated conversations, state your facts and opinions, and maybe, just maybe, they will respond in kind. But at the end of the day, they don’t owe us anything. We made purchases; they delivered on those purchases. End of contract.
I'm adding my voice to bring back the "a la carte" feature. Owning all the books (I mean. All. The books.), this was the feature that got me started on Beyond. Tonight, I just realized that I don't have the magical item I need for one of my players. I would have bought the whole bundle of magic items from that adventure book, but nope, Beyond wants me to buy a whole book I already own. What will happen is that I will customize or homebrew that item. So, Hasbro will make me lose time AND they won't make another $5.99. That is a lose-lose situation right there.
Please, bring back the "a la carte" model and recognize that it's one of the many reasons that made Beyond successful and led you to buy it in the first place.
I'm adding my voice to bring back the "a la carte" feature. Owning all the books (I mean. All. The books.), this was the feature that got me started on Beyond. Tonight, I just realized that I don't have the magical item I need for one of my players. I would have bought the whole bundle of magic items from that adventure book, but nope, Beyond wants me to buy a whole book I already own. What will happen is that I will customize or homebrew that item. So, Hasbro will make me lose time AND they won't make another $5.99. That is a lose-lose situation right there.
Please, bring back the "a la carte" model and recognize that it's one of the many reasons that made Beyond successful and led you to buy it in the first place.
You know... I don't know how or why but your post made me think... (scary I know). Why not just make EVERYTHING here be a la carte by default instead of making the whole bundle be default? Like a whole section of monsters, races, feats, etc and then get a notification that the book it comes from has been reduced in price upon purchase? Wouldn't that make more sense and be more consumer friendly? Now I know, reality is that since what I came up with attempted to use logic and reason, therefor it will never happen. But what if we IMAGINE that it could happen?
There are so many armchair experts here claiming to know the ins and outs of what’s best for the site. If Ala Carte was truly the money-maker everyone thinks it is, it's unlikely they would have discontinued it. A lot goes on behind the scenes that none of us, no matter how smart we think we are, fully understand.
For all we know, it just wasn't cost-effective to keep programming the feature for the return they were getting. And before someone responds with "it's just some coding!" — no, it isn’t. Many people think you just add a bit of code to make it work, but it’s not that simple.
I understand why people are upset about not being able to use it anymore. You have every right to be upset. But this hate and fear-mongering is out of line. Yes, I know I’ll be called a bootlicker and other names because that’s what people do when others disagree with them. But most of those against this move have already stated they are leaving or have already left the service, which is your right. As they say, "Vote with your wallet."
Take a step back, ditch the emotional responses, and actually look at the situation. Do your research on what was said and form a rational opinion. Right now, all I’m seeing is “WoTC is evil!” “They are destroying D&D!” “HASBRO needs to go down!” Comments like these don't help.
Have civil, articulated conversations, state your facts and opinions, and maybe, just maybe, they will respond in kind. But at the end of the day, they don’t owe us anything. We made purchases; they delivered on those purchases. End of contract.
It's not a money maker. That's the problem. They're trying to force people to pay full price for a product they only want a part of. They are making a greed move, expecting that people will just pony up and pay more than they are now. If they do not just pony up, they'll have lost the revenue stream they get from ala carte.
Hasbro is evil. They think they have a much more lucrative IP than they really do, and are over-playing their hand. Their greed is evident if you've been following their most recent moves.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I, for one, will no longer be purchasing anything from the marketplace. I've purchased quite a few individual items from different sourcebooks, but I refuse to reward this greedy decision. All of the information from these books can be found online & I will simply go back to paper character sheets from now on.
i just found an easy way. Just click on the sources tab and then view all. You will see everything in your library and if it doesn't say it is then when you click on it it brings you to the marketplace.
I genuinely thought D&D Beyond was being superfair about their practices. Of course, I understand that Beyond is a separate platform, that takes time and effort to make and maintain, and that some flow of money must me made of it to justify its existence. I therefore understand that you cannnot attach 'codes' for digital books in your physical ones (which was my first assumption, but I changed that opinion soon after).
Being a DM that purchased many physical books, it feels to me that I would have some form of 'priviledge' in terms of the digital content, because buying content twice just seems ridiculous. So the A La Carte option was a perfect middle ground. I pay big money for my sweet, sweet physical books, and in order to support and be able to use D&D Beyond, I buy small amounts of content specific to digital use. I genuinely applauded them for this level of fairness.
Now, however.... well.. we all know. If I want my players to all make use of Beyond, without restricting them in their choice of character-race-subclass... I'd have to buy every single book that has content in it. I am not a professional DM. I run one- maybe two campaigns with 4-5 characters each. The math says no for me.
I truly hope that the big number fall into the direction of this being a bad financial decision for them as well, because I can't fault them for wanting to make more money, but it's sad to see that all those DM's (and their players) who aren't professional-fully kitted badasses are the ones suffering for Beyond's wish to make a little more profit.
Here here! I started playing DnD just few months ago and I have been very hyped about everything and have been looking forward to writing new characters with all kinds of races. And I like the DnD Beyond as a platform, but now I can't afford anything not already included in the basic version. Thanks for sort of ruining the experience for this new player!
It doesn't really matter what goes on behind the scenes. How it looks and feels is all that matters to a consumer. If it feels greedy and anticonsumer (it is greed. If you don't know that than you have not been paying attention to whats going on with this company or the parent company over the last several years or you are living in a world of pure imagination. ) then people are likely to vote with their wallets.
If you want some good, free, and unsolicited advice on how to provide feedback in an official feedback forum and thread, try the following instead:
You are not a paid employee, nor are you a moderator. You do, of course, have every right to tell us how you believe we should respond to this company, but this makes you look like a very special kind of person that gets very special kinds of names called at them, so we tend to discourage this behavior. Some people here might even think you owe a bunch of folks with well written and articulated feedback on the matter an apology for claiming you see nothing but posts with hysteria.
Or you could instead choose to provide your own feedback on the issue, saying something like "I don't see any problem with these changes. I like paying full price when the previous method was clearly more pro-consumer and beneficial to me than what was just switched out." And then carry on.
Sorry, but no Chris Cocks decorated cookie for you. But you do get my apology for being such a hypocrite myself, as I take time to tell you how to do feedback!
Hear hear.
I couldn't agree more.
Yes but you now have to click into each book to see this. Before it was listed on the main page for easy reference.
I actually have real life corporate career experience working for an extremely similar business model to DnDBeyond: free to sign up online platform, pay for additional content / access / features with a subscription.
I can tell you both as a consumer and an employee - this whole thing is shady as hell and only about money. Zero respect nor care for the customer.
I've seen it before in my career and I'm seeing it here now on DNDB: the higher-ups have taken a passion project platform that was by the community, for the community, it's now gone semi-mainstream and exploded in popularity, has been bought by a corporate who are 10 steps removed from their customers, community and OG employeers who helped make it the great success that it is and are shooting themselves in the feet by ignoring the outcry. All because money money money!!!
It's truly quite bizarre how closely aligned this is to my own experience. They have every reason & opportunity to fix this. What passionate employees they have left who are no doubt on the frontlines of community outcry are telling them this is a problem yet they don't give a rat's behind.
But sure: call it speculation, call me an armchair expert, whatever.
As a software developer myself with 20+ years of experience , everything boils down to the user stories and the plan for any software .
the plan was to screw the previous user experience and force ppl to buy whole books by removing a la carte . As simple as that. Makes sense ? IMHO no. I already own the physical books and dndbeyond was used only to build characters . And most of the ppl here used it for that purpose . Eventually you cross a threshold were you buy the whole book. As stated before , I won’t recommend either dndbeyond to new players just to try a couple of feats for a convenient sheet that calculates everything for you.
As stated above , with our wallets is how we can make them see if they did the right thing to do .
peace
Wallets and the public outcry. Keep telling them "I'm not spending money because you did this thing" and maybe they'll get it through their incompetent skulls.
As if you know everyone's background.
I'm adding my voice to bring back the "a la carte" feature. Owning all the books (I mean. All. The books.), this was the feature that got me started on Beyond. Tonight, I just realized that I don't have the magical item I need for one of my players. I would have bought the whole bundle of magic items from that adventure book, but nope, Beyond wants me to buy a whole book I already own. What will happen is that I will customize or homebrew that item. So, Hasbro will make me lose time AND they won't make another $5.99. That is a lose-lose situation right there.
Please, bring back the "a la carte" model and recognize that it's one of the many reasons that made Beyond successful and led you to buy it in the first place.
You know... I don't know how or why but your post made me think... (scary I know). Why not just make EVERYTHING here be a la carte by default instead of making the whole bundle be default? Like a whole section of monsters, races, feats, etc and then get a notification that the book it comes from has been reduced in price upon purchase? Wouldn't that make more sense and be more consumer friendly?
Now I know, reality is that since what I came up with attempted to use logic and reason, therefor it will never happen. But what if we IMAGINE that it could happen?
WHat part of anything i said has to do with knowing anyone's background?
It's not a money maker. That's the problem. They're trying to force people to pay full price for a product they only want a part of. They are making a greed move, expecting that people will just pony up and pay more than they are now. If they do not just pony up, they'll have lost the revenue stream they get from ala carte.
Hasbro is evil. They think they have a much more lucrative IP than they really do, and are over-playing their hand. Their greed is evident if you've been following their most recent moves.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
It was literally your first two paragraphs.
I, for one, will no longer be purchasing anything from the marketplace. I've purchased quite a few individual items from different sourcebooks, but I refuse to reward this greedy decision. All of the information from these books can be found online & I will simply go back to paper character sheets from now on.
i just found an easy way. Just click on the sources tab and then view all. You will see everything in your library and if it doesn't say it is then when you click on it it brings you to the marketplace.
I genuinely thought D&D Beyond was being superfair about their practices. Of course, I understand that Beyond is a separate platform, that takes time and effort to make and maintain, and that some flow of money must me made of it to justify its existence. I therefore understand that you cannnot attach 'codes' for digital books in your physical ones (which was my first assumption, but I changed that opinion soon after).
Being a DM that purchased many physical books, it feels to me that I would have some form of 'priviledge' in terms of the digital content, because buying content twice just seems ridiculous. So the A La Carte option was a perfect middle ground. I pay big money for my sweet, sweet physical books, and in order to support and be able to use D&D Beyond, I buy small amounts of content specific to digital use. I genuinely applauded them for this level of fairness.
Now, however.... well.. we all know. If I want my players to all make use of Beyond, without restricting them in their choice of character-race-subclass... I'd have to buy every single book that has content in it. I am not a professional DM. I run one- maybe two campaigns with 4-5 characters each. The math says no for me.
I truly hope that the big number fall into the direction of this being a bad financial decision for them as well, because I can't fault them for wanting to make more money, but it's sad to see that all those DM's (and their players) who aren't professional-fully kitted badasses are the ones suffering for Beyond's wish to make a little more profit.
Good day.
The unfortunate math is.
2 dollars for a tiddy bit of content v.s. 40 dollars for a book.
If 19 people stand firm, and refuse to now buy the book, but 1 does. It's already break even. That's huge.
Bye bye market....