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By virtual offering, I am talking about Fantasy Grounds & Roll20, who are the only other licensees that I am aware of.
It is my understanding that Wizards of the Coast are firmly against PDFs of their current edition being sold (they have allowed PDF sales of some older editions).
The Compendium content is available offline through use of the mobile app (iOS and Android). Currently, anyone who has purchased "compendium only" content cannot view that through the app - this is going to change (this has been confirmed by Badeye). The app is in beta currently and a lot of additional functionality is being added.
edit: I think it's also important to add that D&D Beyond is not trying to totally replace the physical books. Their goal of providing an official digital toolset is primarily directed at people who have access to the internet. Whilst the app is addressing the offline access, I've always felt that the criticism of, "Your internet website doesn't work when I am offline" to be a little odd.
No. You lived in a well-known hurricane zone, which constantly got hit by hurricanes, and got hit by a particularly severe hurricane in an era where hurricanes are steadily worsening and will continue to do so. It sucks, really badly, I agree. I mean, that's horrible, but it's not luck. It's almost predictable.
I don't want to derail the discussion but I've never lived on an area that gets flooded, for example, because I don't want to get flooded. I find it a little questionable when people do choose to live in such places and then act surprised when it happens. I once considered moving to Cascadia but the chance of a massive effective tsunami dissuaded me from doing so. In many situations you can also pay for insurance, or receive some sort of compensation when that happens (I admit that US laws heavily favour insurers in not paying out here, but such is US law). Probably a discussion for PMs or something. Personally I would feel that was my responsibility, though.
And yeah I've torn books, spilled stuff on them (luckily 99% of pricier RPG books seem to be decently spill-resistant), dropped countless ones and so on. But I'm not talking about aesthetic damage, I'm talking about significant damage that makes them non-usable. That's never happened. I have treasured ultra-used books from the 1990s held together with book tape and love, but they are held together, and it was me who kept them that way, just like it's me who backs up my PDFs.
With a proprietory format it's not luck either. The odds are good that format is going away inside of a decade, maybe inside of five years. It's very very likely that the Beyond app will be gone from the iOS and Android stores by, say, 2025, which seems like a long way away, but dude, 2000 seemed like a long way away once. 5E seemed like it was a long way away until it was announced (I felt like 4E was barely getting into its stride!). But point is it's not luck. Even we think your physical losses were luck - proprietory format loss isn't. It's predictable - more predictable than hurricanes. Companies don't have to go under, either, to stop with them. They just decide some department is insufficiently profitable, and pooof, that's over, and I have no doubt the EULA here allows for that.
Re: dealbreakers, sure, but they're relatively uncommon and much more common with the person who wants the license, than the person giving it (though both sides do have them and with IP license with characters and so on it can be very different, but that's no the issue here - Beyond is not creating any new content). The only dealbreaker that seems likely here is perhaps "no PDFs". I can believe that. But "no undercutting of our pricing"? Well, clearly not that, as Stormknight himself pointed out, they do undercut the prices (just not enough to justify it, I feel, given the proprietory format and lack of offline access). Equally I very much doubt that WotC dictated that they had to charge both one-off fees and sub fees. It is possible they did, but I just find it a little hard to believe that was dealbreaker rather than a point of negotiation.
Re: C&D, you're entitled to your view, but it's an extreme minority view. In 2018, if WotC isn't providing a viable digital product, then people are right to be contemptuous of them. I also don't regard character builders with all the correct options as being remotely the same thing as illegal PDFs. Chances are, anyone using the character builders has the books, or has access to them via their group. But WotC has ensured no-one can make a character builder without getting C&D until it contains only material in free products (and it looks like even that isn't enough in some cases!).
Beyond's huge problem as a digital offering, in addition to what I've noted is that it hides material you could buy, for example hiding races and class options, so you can't even use it that way. That's a Curse decision, quite clearly - but I think a perverse one.
edit: I think it's also important to add that D&D Beyond is not trying to totally replace the physical books. Their goal of providing an official digital toolset is primarily directed at people who have access to the internet. Whilst the app is addressing the offline access, I've always felt that the criticism of, "Your internet website doesn't work when I am offline" to be a little odd.
You do?
I find it odd that you find that odd. This is the year 2018. Not the year 2000, or 1994 or whenever.
In 4th edition, WotC offered a subscription-only product which featured a character builder, a monster builder, and a full compendium with all product rules in it (which tended to be updated pretty rapidly once things got going). It was absolutely understandable that it was online-only, because it was solely subscription-based. And it was trivially easy to print out any material you did need as a PDF of just that material, which you could then use offline. It was missing some of the flavour and advice text, but that was fine, because that's what physical books were good for - if you just needed one feat from book X, or even a class or race, it was perfect, and it didn't destroy book sales (I imagine) because they still had value.
Prior to 4E, with 3E, I know the situation got a bit complicated, but I don't remember the entire saga - the practical reality was that we had a mix of PDF and hardcopy books, and we had character generators that worked, but we didn't have a good online compendium.
What you have, though, is far worse situation for the consumer than anything this century, effectively, because you are charging one-off prices the same as the real-world prices of physical books in addition to the subscription (I'm not even going to discuss the microtransaction deal, that horrible but it does appear at least that once someone has bought MTs equal the price of the product, they get the product, so there's that), and essentially, without the books unlocked, the subscription gives you very little (I won't say nothing, but it isn't much).
Also, I find "we're not seeking to replace physical books" a bit odd when you're charging the same as what I pay for physical books, and offering the full content of such books and so on. That was a viable position for the DDI - less so here. And you don't seem to have any kind of virtual tabletop, unlike Fantasy Grounds, so... if you're not seeking to offer a viable alternative to physical books, what even is Beyond? Aggrandized and incredibly expensive campaign-management software?
In addition I notice you haven't engaged with any of my points re: disability-friendly-ness. Do Curse have any intentions here?
Yeah, it's predictable. Like an electrical fire or a burst pipe. You focused entirely too much on my anecdote and missed the point of what I was saying, so I'll phrase it more directly and leave it without anecdotal elaboration: Something bad not having happened over a given period of time, no matter how long that period ends up being, does not make something bad happening impossible.
... it's an extreme minority view.
I've never felt that more people holding an opinion was inherently related to the quality of said opinion, so I don't mind if my views happen to be the minority (though in this case, I'm not entirely sure of that being the case, as it usually seems like an extremely vocal but numerically small group of people that have a problem with things like WotC saying "No, you can't give our stuff away without our permission.").
...it looks like even that isn't enough in some cases!
Which cases? I ask because it is important to make sure everyone that cares to know does know, should WotC actually be issuing any inappropriate C&D orders.
Equally I very much doubt that WotC dictated that they had to charge both one-off fees and sub fees.
I expect that WotC is the one that decided that game information would have to be purchased in one-off rather than subscription style. That would have left Curse with the decision of whether to sell the extra bits (ad-removal, unlimited character slots, and sharing of materials) as a one-off purchase or as a subscription. So while WotC likely did not say "You have to use both types of fees", they likely did have input on not having a subscription fee unlock any content (I say that because something other than "what will make us the largest sums of money in the long run?" has clearly been involved in making that decision, since the often asked for subscription that unlocks content option would be the way to make the most money in the long run, assuming customers sticking around to use D&D Beyond for the rest of the life of this edition).
So yeah, I agree that WotC probably didn't mandate Curse using both... but I am glad that Curse chose what they did so that someone in my group can pay the $4 or $5 a month during the months we've got D&D 5th edition campaigns running, rather than us having to wait to get the sharing feature up and running until we get together something like the $149 one-time fee that Fantasy Grounds asks for if you want to use their software for your whole group and not pay a monthly subscription alongside the one-time purchases of digital version books.
Re: burst pipe etc. - sure, but those can be insured against, whereas flood etc. is much harder to insure against.
You cannot, however, insure against "company decided to stop supporting a product" or "company ruins a product". So I think you need to admit it's a little different.
Re: minority opinion, sure, but you're appealing to morality in order to try and claim people in general are wrong, and you are right, and if your moral view is in the minority well, you can't really do that. It's not reasonable position. It's particularly off re: PR damage. Yeah, tons of stuff is legally fine, and morally fine under some minority moral view (I mean, there's nothing someone somewhere doesn't think is "A-okay!"), but obviously so against the majoritarian views that it damages you in the eyes of said majority.
If you think most people side with large US companies on IP laws well... hahahahahaha ok buddy. Not even most lawyers agree with US IP laws.
Re: looks like that isn't enough, ForgedAnvil's one was, as I understand it, cut down to just free content, but then C&D'd after that. Historically WotC have done that to a number of fan-made products which were only using free material (taking them to court in the US is a non-option because of the way the US legal system works, even if the little guy wins in a case like this, he loses - in the UK it would be, but still risky and expensive).
"So yeah, I agree that WotC probably didn't mandate Curse using both... but I am glad that Curse chose what they did so that someone in my group can pay the $4 or $5 a month during the months we've got D&D 5th edition campaigns running, rather than us having to wait to get the sharing feature up and running until we get together something like the $149 one-time fee that Fantasy Grounds asks for if you want to use their software for your whole group and not pay a monthly subscription alongside the one-time purchases of digital version books."
Well, that's a different approach re: sub, isn't it? The big difference with Fantasy Grounds is that they've been around for years, and are diversified. If 5E goes the way of the dodo, Fantasy Grounds will still be around (they've been around in the modern form since about 2009, and are even on Steam!). Whereas Beyond is 5E-specific, and much more of an extinction-risk.
Re: "$4 or 5 a month", um, it's $5.99/month if you pay monthly I'm not sure why you're saying it's less. You can't share content unless at least one person is paying that. So if your group uses Beyond for more than 24 months, they'll be paying more, overall, than FG. That moves to 36 months if you go with a yearly sub.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but that $149 with FG presumably also allows you to actually use homebrew content and so on, right?
Whereas (again correct me if I'm wrong), it looks like with Beyond, if a player wants to use ANY homebrew content his DM (or anyone else) has come up with, he then has to pay $2.99/month. So say you, like most DMs, sometimes make up magic items or the like. With FG you can just do that (I presume), after the $149. With Beyond, the player who has the item, has to pay $2.99/month (presumably for as long as they play the game) to be "allowed" to have that homebrew item!
Which seems outrageous so I'm asking if I'm misunderstanding. It also means that if even one or two players had homebrew items, or feats or backgrounds even (and backgrounds are designed to be homebrewed!), then the total cost to the group would skyrocket for Beyond - even assuming 1-year plans, 1 DM on Master, and 1 player on Hero is $81/per year. 1 DM and 4 players on Hero (again annual plans, the best case scenario) is $159. So again, if I'm understanding correctly, to get the same functionality as FG, for 4 players and 1 DM, would be, best case, $159/per year, instead of $149-one-time-cost. And the latter lets you play a bunch of different games, not just 5E. Surely I'm missing something?
EDIT - The sad thing is, I'm actually okay with a lot of what Beyond is doing, kinda like the interface and styling, find the website fast and responsive and so on, it's just those one-time-costs are hilariously out-of-whack for what you actually get (especially as there is only the one bundle), and if I'm right about Hero subs, that's a total permanent "Never give this company money"-type dealbreaker. Hopefully I'm not though.
OK, last post for today from me on this and I'll keep it short.
I'm not in a position to be able to answer on disability/usability questions. A good place to ask is on the Developer Q&A stream on Friday 16th (if you can't watch the stream live, you can ask questions in advance on the thread linked).
Homebrew on D&D Beyond can be shared within a campaign without requiring a subscription, so the DM can come up with feats/items/spells and allow a player to use them.
I've bought the Players Handbook, even though I already have it in print just to see how DnDBeyond works with the content. I really like what I see here but I want BOTH the books AND DnDBeyond. The current model demands I make a choice as purchasing BOTH isn't something I'm willing to do.
On top of this, to share my content with players so they can make characters (without all the limitations), I have to spend another $6 per month so they can access the material. So that's $360 you want from me PLUS another $6 per month.
I'm a fairly well to do middle-aged man so it's not that I can't afford this...BUT IT IS INSANE! I didn't find my success by spending my money foolishly.
Here is what I WOULD be willing to do...How about a "Legendary Tier" that is $20 per month that includes access to ALL of the official content and everything the Master Tier offers as well? The difference is, you only have access to the content while your subscription is active and new content is delayed by 30 days for Legendary subscribers to incentive those who are purchasing the material outright. I'd be willing to sign up for that.
In this way, those who purchased the Master Tier wouldn't fee like they got ripped off because, over time, that would be less expense for regular players than the Legendary Tier I am proposing.
I think this solution would go a long way to get people onboard with DnDBeyond. As is, too many people already have an investment in the books and aren't going to repurchase them here.
Personally...I think this is the inevitable solution that is going to have to happen for DnDBeyond to be successful. I believe that so strongly that either its going to happen, or support in this platform will wane. If the former, I'm waiting on it. if the later, I don't want to put money into this as the books are a safer bet (too many services come and go on the Internet).
Anyone out there feel me on this?
Public Mod Note
(Stormknight):
post merged into thie thread
I've moved your post to this thread, which is already discussing the pricing and purchase options. It's going to be read by more people here.
I suggest having a read through the pages of this thread, which cover both sides of the discussion around what you have suggested.
Please note that the current model doesn't demand that you make any choice then whether or not you see value in purchasing content here on D&D Beyond. :)
edit: I think it's also important to add that D&D Beyond is not trying to totally replace the physical books. Their goal of providing an official digital toolset is primarily directed at people who have access to the internet. Whilst the app is addressing the offline access, I've always felt that the criticism of, "Your internet website doesn't work when I am offline" to be a little odd.
And I think here is the problem. We need a solution to totally allow to replace physical books. And that needs to be the primary goal of the solution. I know WoTC is opposed to PDFs. And I know DDB has rolled a good solution. But it sounds to me like digital rulebooks is not the primary goal of DDB. The ultimate goal is to get subscribers to pay you guys a monthly fee, and I get that. But your business model is at odds with my use case. I want digital books only, and I want them available offline everywhere. The reader for iOS and Android it good. But I need a reader for Mac, Windows and Linux. And I need to have more than 2 copies of my books offline without a subscription.
I get that the books are addons to your business model. And I'm OK with that. What I am not OK with is WoTC not licensing rule books to anyone else to distribute in a non-DRM format.
While I am also totally disatisfied with the fact that there is no rebate coupon/reduction for the paper book owners or even temporary sales for a few months... the new mobile app (beta for iOs/android) works in offline mode. You can download the free rules at least and work perfectly in airplanemode (tested). More should be added as the app will evolve they say. I agree that we need something similar for PC and Mac.
Personally...I think this is the inevitable solution that is going to have to happen for DnDBeyond to be successful. I believe that so strongly that either its going to happen, or support in this platform will wane. If the former, I'm waiting on it. if the later, I don't want to put money into this as the books are a safer bet (too many services come and go on the Internet).
What indication do you have that D&D Beyond isn't successful already?
I didn't find my success by spending my money foolishly.
Here is what I WOULD be willing to do...How about a "Legendary Tier" that is $20 per month that includes access to ALL of the official content and everything the Master Tier offers as well? The difference is, you only have access to the content while your subscription is active and new content is delayed by 30 days for Legendary subscribers to incentive those who are purchasing the material outright. I'd be willing to sign up for that.
I find it quite humorous that you complain that the purchase cost for the Legendary tier is too expensive, yet propose a solution that will cost you MORE money in the long term.
$20 a month equates to $240 a year.
Currently the Legendary tier subscription is $360. If the current release schedule is continued we'll see 1 $30 content book and 2 $25 adventures per year. With the 15% discount that comes to $68 per year.
Add to that the legendary bundle of $72 per year (if you pay monthy) Which brings us to a total of $360 up front + $140 per year moving forward. It's a simple math problem to figure out when those costs become equivalent. 360 + 140x = 240x. X=3.6 years.
So, with you're proposal, after 3.6 years, you're literally throwing money away. Not to mention that you have to KEEP throwing money away if you want to continue to use the content. Whereas with the current model you get to continue to use your purchased content if you stop buying new things.
There's a few things to note:
If D&D Beyond were to offer a subscription, it would almost definitely NOT allow for content sharing. Meaning each of your players would also need a subscription
If you don't need to have every book, a subscription makes even less sense. Do you *really* need every adventure? If you only get content book each year, you're looking at $180 + $102.year. At this point you begin paying more after 1.3 years.
I calculated this using the $72 annual cost for a master-tier subscription if it's paid monthly. If you pay yearly, that drops to $55, further reducing the break-even point to 3.1 years (or .8 years for the non-adventure model).
I don't know about you, but I want the solution that costs me the least money. A one-time upfront cost will *always* be less expensive long-term. Granted, the upfront cost may be hard to swallow, but you can certainly buy items piecemeal until you have everything. Nobody is forcing you to buy everything at once.
So honestly, are you actually arguing that you want a plan that costs more money, and is less useful because it doesn't require you to "re-purchase something you already own"?
You cannot, however, insure against "company decided to stop supporting a product" or "company ruins a product". So I think you need to admit it's a little different.
I have admitted that it's different - I said as much plainly. But the difference is not that one sort of thing has a "guarantee" of longevity and another sort of thing doesn't.
I'm not even trying to say that the potential methods of loss are equal in number or likelihood - just that potential loss exists regardless of the format the product takes.
And while you say I can't insure against "company decided to stop supporting a product", that's not entirely accurate - for a concrete example, I've still got and can still use my AD&D 2nd edition Core Rules software from back in the day despite the aforementioned natural disaster.
Re: minority opinion, sure, but you're appealing to morality in order to try and claim people in general are wrong, and you are right, and if your moral view is in the minority well, you can't really do that.
I'm just going to say that I find it very difficult to discuss issues of morality, such as whether something currently defined as theft is or is not wrong (which is what those C&D orders say "stop stealing from us", and people viewing that as bad behavior on WotC's part to issue the C&D are inherently arguing the morality - specifically that it's not morally wrong to steal in that circumstance), without some kind of appeal to morality being made. Also, you seem to be misapplying that fallacy in the first place since my statement doesn't take the form said fallacy refers to.
If you think most people side with large US companies on IP laws well... hahahahahaha ok buddy.
That's not quite what I said. What I said is that I am not sure which opinion is the majority because the evidence I have seen (that of a significantly vocal minority complaining against, and an equal or greater number in support of companies protecting their IP) suggests one thing, but 'everyone' says another thing.
Re: looks like that isn't enough, ForgedAnvil's one was, as I understand it, cut down to just free content, but then C&D'd after that. Historically WotC have done that to a number of fan-made products which were only using free material
So... any citations of evidence? Without evidence this is just hearsay, even if it is true.
Re: "$4 or 5 a month", um, it's $5.99/month if you pay monthly I'm not sure why you're saying it's less.
I was working from memory, and misremembered the discounted price for subbing for a year at a time as the normal price.
Whereas (again correct me if I'm wrong), it looks like with Beyond, if a player wants to use ANY homebrew content his DM (or anyone else) has come up with, he then has to pay $2.99/month. So say you, like most DMs, sometimes make up magic items or the like. With FG you can just do that (I presume), after the $149. With Beyond, the player who has the item, has to pay $2.99/month (presumably for as long as they play the game) to be "allowed" to have that homebrew item!
I want to point out that this is 100% untrue. Private homebrew is sharable within a campaign, without a subscription.
Public homebrew is also browsable without a subscription, so there's nothing stopping you from recreating a public homebrew item as a private one.
Personally...I think this is the inevitable solution that is going to have to happen for DnDBeyond to be successful. I believe that so strongly that either its going to happen, or support in this platform will wane. If the former, I'm waiting on it. if the later, I don't want to put money into this as the books are a safer bet (too many services come and go on the Internet).
What indication do you have that D&D Beyond isn't successful already?
I didn't find my success by spending my money foolishly.
Here is what I WOULD be willing to do...How about a "Legendary Tier" that is $20 per month that includes access to ALL of the official content and everything the Master Tier offers as well? The difference is, you only have access to the content while your subscription is active and new content is delayed by 30 days for Legendary subscribers to incentive those who are purchasing the material outright. I'd be willing to sign up for that.
I find it quite humorous that you complain that the purchase cost for the Legendary tier is too expensive, yet propose a solution that will cost you MORE money in the long term.
$20 a month equates to $240 a year.
Currently the Legendary tier subscription is $360. If the current release schedule is continued we'll see 1 $30 content book and 2 $25 adventures per year. With the 15% discount that comes to $68 per year.
Add to that the legendary bundle of $72 per year (if you pay monthy) Which brings us to a total of $360 up front + $140 per year moving forward. It's a simple math problem to figure out when those costs become equivalent. 360 + 140x = 240x. X=3.6 years.
So, with you're proposal, after 3.6 years, you're literally throwing money away. Not to mention that you have to KEEP throwing money away if you want to continue to use the content. Whereas with the current model you get to continue to use your purchased content if you stop buying new things.
There's a few things to note:
If D&D Beyond were to offer a subscription, it would almost definitely NOT allow for content sharing. Meaning each of your players would also need a subscription
If you don't need to have every book, a subscription makes even less sense. Do you *really* need every adventure? If you only get content book each year, you're looking at $180 + $102.year. At this point you begin paying more after 1.3 years.
I calculated this using the $72 annual cost for a master-tier subscription if it's paid monthly. If you pay yearly, that drops to $55, further reducing the break-even point to 3.1 years (or .8 years for the non-adventure model).
I don't know about you, but I want the solution that costs me the least money. A one-time upfront cost will *always* be less expensive long-term. Granted, the upfront cost may be hard to swallow, but you can certainly buy items piecemeal until you have everything. Nobody is forcing you to buy everything at once.
So honestly, are you actually arguing that you want a plan that costs more money, and is less useful because it doesn't require you to "re-purchase something you already own"?
Seems a bit.. foolish... to me
I agree with this.
However, I just want to point out that there is actually a solution to the "after x years, it would cost more" and that is to discount the amount you've spent on the subscription in excess of $6/mo toward the purchase price of the legendary bundle. If at any point before it is fully paid for they stop subscribing they'd lose access to ALL the content. But the price of the legendary bundle would now be reduced for that person (at $20/mo subscription) by $14 per month they subscribed. If they subscribe for a period of time where $14 x months >= $price of LB, then the subscription would automatically end and they will have unlocked the legendary bundle.
On the other side (current model), character builder content in its entirety costs less than $90 right now total (including the full PHB, compendium included). If you want these options, but also want to run an adventure, buy them and the adventure you want to run. Tack on a single subscription and you can share that content with up to 36 people! This is all you'd really "need" to get started with all of the character creation options. At $20/mo you'd exceed the cost of this plan in just half a year. Meanwhile you can "choose" to start completing the rest of the content you "want" piecemeal at a rate of $20/mo or whatever you think you can budget. This makes it more flexible for people who might not be able to afford to pay $20 per month. This (the current model) is probably the best option as of right now. While it might be possible to accomplish it with a subscription, it just isn't economically feasible for everyone.
So... my suggestion at this point. If Curse feels they need to tweak pricing in specific ways, bring it up under focused discussions. I think this thread is a waste of time and only invites trolls. if the established business model is working for Curse and they are on a path of sustainability then great. If not then keep discussing pricing. What is Curse after? Market Share? If so then make stuff free you'll get maximum market share. Profits? then price as high as you can until you start losing customers and dial it down just enough to keep a fat margin. A competitive price as compared to other legal digital resellers? Then go for that (which seems to be case here mostly). Then that's that. People can buy the service and products as-is or not. Very rarely have I seen forums setup by a company to discuss it's pricing.... Don't get me wrong... we'd reach a million pages of posts if the pharma companies did what Curse is doing here with this thread. It may have been useful when the product was in beta. But now it's in production. Drastically changing the pricing model is no longer viable. You'll enrage your existing base if a discount is given to future customers (that they can't get). All you can do now is tweak benefits not pricing (ie sharing now extends to 4 campaigns, or character slots are now 15 per campaign, etc).
My suggestion keep growing the product with the current pricing model, that in itself will keep attracting new customers.
DnDBeyond.com has NOTHING to offer to physical book people, so stop asking. Dump your BitCoin investments and get gold bullions (and not a gold ETF, that's no good when the zombie apocalypse hits).
Now specific pricing discussion that can still occur: Coupons. I love that Curse offers coupons (such as Critical Role Season 2 one). However, for people who have bought everything. We'd like coupons not to expire (sorta). I'd like to claim a coupon on my account and have it sit there until I use it (like a gift card, never going away) or act as a positive balance (like when I add to my PS4 Account, balance just sits there). Or even allow me to gift my coupon to someone else later on. Luckily, new Tome of Foes came along and I was able to pre-order and apply the coupon.
But seriously, shut this thread down please. Stop wasting moderator time on this.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to see Virtual Table Top like no other before it built within DnDBeyond.com? Upvote the feature request. It's 2nd highest voted so far:
NOTE: You will need to setup a zendesk account (which is not your DnDBeyond.com account, the team uses this 3rd party software). It's easy to do and your votes are needed!
we daily get people posting new threads to either query pricing - usually asking if they can get everything on D&D Beyond for free, because they bought the physical books.
We move those posts to this thread, because it keeps the conversation in one place and we believe that it would be unreasonable to just delete such posts.
I know this is a bit of an aside at this point, but I just wanted to state that the comment about accessibility/disability friendliness is an important one and I don't want to see it go unaddressed. I recognize that it's tangential to the topic of the thread so I'm glad to continue the conversation via PM or move it into a new thread. So, that said:
Eurhetemec, you mention that you're making assumptions about the mobile app and its accessibility. Unless I"m misunderstanding you, I"m curious why you assume that it is entirely lacking the kinds of features you're talking about? That seems like a bad faith argument as a reason why DDB doesn't meet your needs. If you're merely looking for clarification, I sorry that you haven't gotten it yet. Hopefully I can provide some here.
It's probably (almost certainly) not perfect/doesn't address every accessibility need, but there are a number of features built in that imo go a long way toward improving accessibility, namely you can change text size and alignment, line spacing, and "display style," much like on any e-reader I've used. The display style setting is actually pretty cool in and of itself and gives you three display options: one which mimics the layout and design of the books, and two that are more "plain text": one is black text on a white background, and the other is white text on a black background.
Now, again, I recognize that this doesn't address every accessibility need, but it does seem to go at least as far if not further than most reader applications, and maybe I just don't know the PDF magic you do, but I've never been able to adjust a PDF to the level I can make adjustments in the DDB app. (Seriously if I'm missing some PDF functionality I'd love to know more about it.) If there are features beyond these that you would like to see included, I have no doubt that the Curse team would want to hear them. Wizards and Curse both seem very dedicated to making the game more inclusive, and I'm certain that making products more accessible to those with disabilities would be something they'd like to do. I'd second Stormknight's recommendation for bringing up that specific concern during the live stream, either during the stream itself or in the dedicated thread beforehand. (In fact, I'd actually recommend posting in that thread, since it seems to me more likely that someone will see it and it will get addressed, but I don't actually know how they pick the questions for the streams so I guess I can't really say.)
I personally want to thank you for expressing this concern and hope that DDB is able to deliver the kind of user experience that makes the game more accessible to folks with disabilities.
Edited to add one other point, because I think it may be related: you mentioned concerns that the content in the app is encrypted, while I'm not entirely sure what you mean, I would like to note that you are fully able to copy and paste text from the app (or the website of course). That leads me to think that it's not encrypted in the way you meant (though again I'm not sure if I understood fully), and could also be important on the topic of accessibility. I do not know what IOS and Android offer in terms of accessibility features, but if you needed to use a third party text-to-speech app you could easily copy and paste the text into it. Not the most elegant solution obviously, and it'd be great to eventually see a dedicated text-to-speech functionality built into the app like we see with Kindle, but this is another thing worth noting when discussing accessibility issues for those with disabilities.
I want to point out that this is 100% untrue. Private homebrew is sharable within a campaign, without a subscription.
Umm, no it isn't. Someone has to have a Master Tier subscription and has to enable Content Sharing. Also, whether you've got Content Sharing on or a subscription or not, you still can't share private monster homebrew.
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By virtual offering, I am talking about Fantasy Grounds & Roll20, who are the only other licensees that I am aware of.
It is my understanding that Wizards of the Coast are firmly against PDFs of their current edition being sold (they have allowed PDF sales of some older editions).
The Compendium content is available offline through use of the mobile app (iOS and Android). Currently, anyone who has purchased "compendium only" content cannot view that through the app - this is going to change (this has been confirmed by Badeye). The app is in beta currently and a lot of additional functionality is being added.
edit: I think it's also important to add that D&D Beyond is not trying to totally replace the physical books. Their goal of providing an official digital toolset is primarily directed at people who have access to the internet. Whilst the app is addressing the offline access, I've always felt that the criticism of, "Your internet website doesn't work when I am offline" to be a little odd.
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Re: "luck".
No. You lived in a well-known hurricane zone, which constantly got hit by hurricanes, and got hit by a particularly severe hurricane in an era where hurricanes are steadily worsening and will continue to do so. It sucks, really badly, I agree. I mean, that's horrible, but it's not luck. It's almost predictable.
I don't want to derail the discussion but I've never lived on an area that gets flooded, for example, because I don't want to get flooded. I find it a little questionable when people do choose to live in such places and then act surprised when it happens. I once considered moving to Cascadia but the chance of a massive effective tsunami dissuaded me from doing so. In many situations you can also pay for insurance, or receive some sort of compensation when that happens (I admit that US laws heavily favour insurers in not paying out here, but such is US law). Probably a discussion for PMs or something. Personally I would feel that was my responsibility, though.
And yeah I've torn books, spilled stuff on them (luckily 99% of pricier RPG books seem to be decently spill-resistant), dropped countless ones and so on. But I'm not talking about aesthetic damage, I'm talking about significant damage that makes them non-usable. That's never happened. I have treasured ultra-used books from the 1990s held together with book tape and love, but they are held together, and it was me who kept them that way, just like it's me who backs up my PDFs.
With a proprietory format it's not luck either. The odds are good that format is going away inside of a decade, maybe inside of five years. It's very very likely that the Beyond app will be gone from the iOS and Android stores by, say, 2025, which seems like a long way away, but dude, 2000 seemed like a long way away once. 5E seemed like it was a long way away until it was announced (I felt like 4E was barely getting into its stride!). But point is it's not luck. Even we think your physical losses were luck - proprietory format loss isn't. It's predictable - more predictable than hurricanes. Companies don't have to go under, either, to stop with them. They just decide some department is insufficiently profitable, and pooof, that's over, and I have no doubt the EULA here allows for that.
Re: dealbreakers, sure, but they're relatively uncommon and much more common with the person who wants the license, than the person giving it (though both sides do have them and with IP license with characters and so on it can be very different, but that's no the issue here - Beyond is not creating any new content). The only dealbreaker that seems likely here is perhaps "no PDFs". I can believe that. But "no undercutting of our pricing"? Well, clearly not that, as Stormknight himself pointed out, they do undercut the prices (just not enough to justify it, I feel, given the proprietory format and lack of offline access). Equally I very much doubt that WotC dictated that they had to charge both one-off fees and sub fees. It is possible they did, but I just find it a little hard to believe that was dealbreaker rather than a point of negotiation.
Re: C&D, you're entitled to your view, but it's an extreme minority view. In 2018, if WotC isn't providing a viable digital product, then people are right to be contemptuous of them. I also don't regard character builders with all the correct options as being remotely the same thing as illegal PDFs. Chances are, anyone using the character builders has the books, or has access to them via their group. But WotC has ensured no-one can make a character builder without getting C&D until it contains only material in free products (and it looks like even that isn't enough in some cases!).
Beyond's huge problem as a digital offering, in addition to what I've noted is that it hides material you could buy, for example hiding races and class options, so you can't even use it that way. That's a Curse decision, quite clearly - but I think a perverse one.
Yeah, it's predictable. Like an electrical fire or a burst pipe. You focused entirely too much on my anecdote and missed the point of what I was saying, so I'll phrase it more directly and leave it without anecdotal elaboration: Something bad not having happened over a given period of time, no matter how long that period ends up being, does not make something bad happening impossible.
I've never felt that more people holding an opinion was inherently related to the quality of said opinion, so I don't mind if my views happen to be the minority (though in this case, I'm not entirely sure of that being the case, as it usually seems like an extremely vocal but numerically small group of people that have a problem with things like WotC saying "No, you can't give our stuff away without our permission.").So yeah, I agree that WotC probably didn't mandate Curse using both... but I am glad that Curse chose what they did so that someone in my group can pay the $4 or $5 a month during the months we've got D&D 5th edition campaigns running, rather than us having to wait to get the sharing feature up and running until we get together something like the $149 one-time fee that Fantasy Grounds asks for if you want to use their software for your whole group and not pay a monthly subscription alongside the one-time purchases of digital version books.
Re: burst pipe etc. - sure, but those can be insured against, whereas flood etc. is much harder to insure against.
You cannot, however, insure against "company decided to stop supporting a product" or "company ruins a product". So I think you need to admit it's a little different.
Re: minority opinion, sure, but you're appealing to morality in order to try and claim people in general are wrong, and you are right, and if your moral view is in the minority well, you can't really do that. It's not reasonable position. It's particularly off re: PR damage. Yeah, tons of stuff is legally fine, and morally fine under some minority moral view (I mean, there's nothing someone somewhere doesn't think is "A-okay!"), but obviously so against the majoritarian views that it damages you in the eyes of said majority.
If you think most people side with large US companies on IP laws well... hahahahahaha ok buddy. Not even most lawyers agree with US IP laws.
Re: looks like that isn't enough, ForgedAnvil's one was, as I understand it, cut down to just free content, but then C&D'd after that. Historically WotC have done that to a number of fan-made products which were only using free material (taking them to court in the US is a non-option because of the way the US legal system works, even if the little guy wins in a case like this, he loses - in the UK it would be, but still risky and expensive).
"So yeah, I agree that WotC probably didn't mandate Curse using both... but I am glad that Curse chose what they did so that someone in my group can pay the $4 or $5 a month during the months we've got D&D 5th edition campaigns running, rather than us having to wait to get the sharing feature up and running until we get together something like the $149 one-time fee that Fantasy Grounds asks for if you want to use their software for your whole group and not pay a monthly subscription alongside the one-time purchases of digital version books."
Well, that's a different approach re: sub, isn't it? The big difference with Fantasy Grounds is that they've been around for years, and are diversified. If 5E goes the way of the dodo, Fantasy Grounds will still be around (they've been around in the modern form since about 2009, and are even on Steam!). Whereas Beyond is 5E-specific, and much more of an extinction-risk.
Re: "$4 or 5 a month", um, it's $5.99/month if you pay monthly I'm not sure why you're saying it's less. You can't share content unless at least one person is paying that. So if your group uses Beyond for more than 24 months, they'll be paying more, overall, than FG. That moves to 36 months if you go with a yearly sub.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but that $149 with FG presumably also allows you to actually use homebrew content and so on, right?
Whereas (again correct me if I'm wrong), it looks like with Beyond, if a player wants to use ANY homebrew content his DM (or anyone else) has come up with, he then has to pay $2.99/month. So say you, like most DMs, sometimes make up magic items or the like. With FG you can just do that (I presume), after the $149. With Beyond, the player who has the item, has to pay $2.99/month (presumably for as long as they play the game) to be "allowed" to have that homebrew item!
Which seems outrageous so I'm asking if I'm misunderstanding. It also means that if even one or two players had homebrew items, or feats or backgrounds even (and backgrounds are designed to be homebrewed!), then the total cost to the group would skyrocket for Beyond - even assuming 1-year plans, 1 DM on Master, and 1 player on Hero is $81/per year. 1 DM and 4 players on Hero (again annual plans, the best case scenario) is $159. So again, if I'm understanding correctly, to get the same functionality as FG, for 4 players and 1 DM, would be, best case, $159/per year, instead of $149-one-time-cost. And the latter lets you play a bunch of different games, not just 5E. Surely I'm missing something?
EDIT - The sad thing is, I'm actually okay with a lot of what Beyond is doing, kinda like the interface and styling, find the website fast and responsive and so on, it's just those one-time-costs are hilariously out-of-whack for what you actually get (especially as there is only the one bundle), and if I'm right about Hero subs, that's a total permanent "Never give this company money"-type dealbreaker. Hopefully I'm not though.
OK, last post for today from me on this and I'll keep it short.
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I've bought the Players Handbook, even though I already have it in print just to see how DnDBeyond works with the content. I really like what I see here but I want BOTH the books AND DnDBeyond. The current model demands I make a choice as purchasing BOTH isn't something I'm willing to do.
On top of this, to share my content with players so they can make characters (without all the limitations), I have to spend another $6 per month so they can access the material. So that's $360 you want from me PLUS another $6 per month.
I'm a fairly well to do middle-aged man so it's not that I can't afford this...BUT IT IS INSANE! I didn't find my success by spending my money foolishly.
Here is what I WOULD be willing to do...How about a "Legendary Tier" that is $20 per month that includes access to ALL of the official content and everything the Master Tier offers as well? The difference is, you only have access to the content while your subscription is active and new content is delayed by 30 days for Legendary subscribers to incentive those who are purchasing the material outright. I'd be willing to sign up for that.
In this way, those who purchased the Master Tier wouldn't fee like they got ripped off because, over time, that would be less expense for regular players than the Legendary Tier I am proposing.
I think this solution would go a long way to get people onboard with DnDBeyond. As is, too many people already have an investment in the books and aren't going to repurchase them here.
Personally...I think this is the inevitable solution that is going to have to happen for DnDBeyond to be successful. I believe that so strongly that either its going to happen, or support in this platform will wane. If the former, I'm waiting on it. if the later, I don't want to put money into this as the books are a safer bet (too many services come and go on the Internet).
Anyone out there feel me on this?
Hi LordGrognard,
I've moved your post to this thread, which is already discussing the pricing and purchase options. It's going to be read by more people here.
I suggest having a read through the pages of this thread, which cover both sides of the discussion around what you have suggested.
Please note that the current model doesn't demand that you make any choice then whether or not you see value in purchasing content here on D&D Beyond. :)
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If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
While I am also totally disatisfied with the fact that there is no rebate coupon/reduction for the paper book owners or even temporary sales for a few months... the new mobile app (beta for iOs/android) works in offline mode. You can download the free rules at least and work perfectly in airplanemode (tested). More should be added as the app will evolve they say.
I agree that we need something similar for PC and Mac.
I don't know about you, but I want the solution that costs me the least money. A one-time upfront cost will *always* be less expensive long-term. Granted, the upfront cost may be hard to swallow, but you can certainly buy items piecemeal until you have everything. Nobody is forcing you to buy everything at once.
I have admitted that it's different - I said as much plainly. But the difference is not that one sort of thing has a "guarantee" of longevity and another sort of thing doesn't.
I'm not even trying to say that the potential methods of loss are equal in number or likelihood - just that potential loss exists regardless of the format the product takes.
And while you say I can't insure against "company decided to stop supporting a product", that's not entirely accurate - for a concrete example, I've still got and can still use my AD&D 2nd edition Core Rules software from back in the day despite the aforementioned natural disaster.
I'm just going to say that I find it very difficult to discuss issues of morality, such as whether something currently defined as theft is or is not wrong (which is what those C&D orders say "stop stealing from us", and people viewing that as bad behavior on WotC's part to issue the C&D are inherently arguing the morality - specifically that it's not morally wrong to steal in that circumstance), without some kind of appeal to morality being made. Also, you seem to be misapplying that fallacy in the first place since my statement doesn't take the form said fallacy refers to.Feature Requests || Homebrew FAQ || Pricing FAQ || Hardcovers FAQ || Snippet Codes || Tooltips
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So... my suggestion at this point. If Curse feels they need to tweak pricing in specific ways, bring it up under focused discussions. I think this thread is a waste of time and only invites trolls. if the established business model is working for Curse and they are on a path of sustainability then great. If not then keep discussing pricing. What is Curse after? Market Share? If so then make stuff free you'll get maximum market share. Profits? then price as high as you can until you start losing customers and dial it down just enough to keep a fat margin. A competitive price as compared to other legal digital resellers? Then go for that (which seems to be case here mostly). Then that's that. People can buy the service and products as-is or not. Very rarely have I seen forums setup by a company to discuss it's pricing.... Don't get me wrong... we'd reach a million pages of posts if the pharma companies did what Curse is doing here with this thread. It may have been useful when the product was in beta. But now it's in production. Drastically changing the pricing model is no longer viable. You'll enrage your existing base if a discount is given to future customers (that they can't get). All you can do now is tweak benefits not pricing (ie sharing now extends to 4 campaigns, or character slots are now 15 per campaign, etc).
My suggestion keep growing the product with the current pricing model, that in itself will keep attracting new customers.
DnDBeyond.com has NOTHING to offer to physical book people, so stop asking. Dump your BitCoin investments and get gold bullions (and not a gold ETF, that's no good when the zombie apocalypse hits).
Now specific pricing discussion that can still occur: Coupons. I love that Curse offers coupons (such as Critical Role Season 2 one). However, for people who have bought everything. We'd like coupons not to expire (sorta). I'd like to claim a coupon on my account and have it sit there until I use it (like a gift card, never going away) or act as a positive balance (like when I add to my PS4 Account, balance just sits there). Or even allow me to gift my coupon to someone else later on. Luckily, new Tome of Foes came along and I was able to pre-order and apply the coupon.
But seriously, shut this thread down please. Stop wasting moderator time on this.
Want to see Virtual Table Top like no other before it built within DnDBeyond.com? Upvote the feature request. It's 2nd highest voted so far:
https://dndbeyond.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115008597088-Virtual-Tabletop-Gameboard
NOTE: You will need to setup a zendesk account (which is not your DnDBeyond.com account, the team uses this 3rd party software). It's easy to do and your votes are needed!
Hi Envaris,
we daily get people posting new threads to either query pricing - usually asking if they can get everything on D&D Beyond for free, because they bought the physical books.
We move those posts to this thread, because it keeps the conversation in one place and we believe that it would be unreasonable to just delete such posts.
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"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
I know this is a bit of an aside at this point, but I just wanted to state that the comment about accessibility/disability friendliness is an important one and I don't want to see it go unaddressed. I recognize that it's tangential to the topic of the thread so I'm glad to continue the conversation via PM or move it into a new thread. So, that said:
Eurhetemec, you mention that you're making assumptions about the mobile app and its accessibility. Unless I"m misunderstanding you, I"m curious why you assume that it is entirely lacking the kinds of features you're talking about? That seems like a bad faith argument as a reason why DDB doesn't meet your needs. If you're merely looking for clarification, I sorry that you haven't gotten it yet. Hopefully I can provide some here.
It's probably (almost certainly) not perfect/doesn't address every accessibility need, but there are a number of features built in that imo go a long way toward improving accessibility, namely you can change text size and alignment, line spacing, and "display style," much like on any e-reader I've used. The display style setting is actually pretty cool in and of itself and gives you three display options: one which mimics the layout and design of the books, and two that are more "plain text": one is black text on a white background, and the other is white text on a black background.
Now, again, I recognize that this doesn't address every accessibility need, but it does seem to go at least as far if not further than most reader applications, and maybe I just don't know the PDF magic you do, but I've never been able to adjust a PDF to the level I can make adjustments in the DDB app. (Seriously if I'm missing some PDF functionality I'd love to know more about it.) If there are features beyond these that you would like to see included, I have no doubt that the Curse team would want to hear them. Wizards and Curse both seem very dedicated to making the game more inclusive, and I'm certain that making products more accessible to those with disabilities would be something they'd like to do. I'd second Stormknight's recommendation for bringing up that specific concern during the live stream, either during the stream itself or in the dedicated thread beforehand. (In fact, I'd actually recommend posting in that thread, since it seems to me more likely that someone will see it and it will get addressed, but I don't actually know how they pick the questions for the streams so I guess I can't really say.)
I personally want to thank you for expressing this concern and hope that DDB is able to deliver the kind of user experience that makes the game more accessible to folks with disabilities.
Edited to add one other point, because I think it may be related: you mentioned concerns that the content in the app is encrypted, while I'm not entirely sure what you mean, I would like to note that you are fully able to copy and paste text from the app (or the website of course). That leads me to think that it's not encrypted in the way you meant (though again I'm not sure if I understood fully), and could also be important on the topic of accessibility. I do not know what IOS and Android offer in terms of accessibility features, but if you needed to use a third party text-to-speech app you could easily copy and paste the text into it. Not the most elegant solution obviously, and it'd be great to eventually see a dedicated text-to-speech functionality built into the app like we see with Kindle, but this is another thing worth noting when discussing accessibility issues for those with disabilities.
DM: The Cult of the Crystal Spider (Currently playing Storm King's Thunder)
Player: The Knuckles of Arth - Lemire (Tiefling Rogue 5/Fighter 1)
The questions for the stream are picked as follows:
Pun-loving nerd | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
Thank you for that clarification, Stormknight!
DM: The Cult of the Crystal Spider (Currently playing Storm King's Thunder)
Player: The Knuckles of Arth - Lemire (Tiefling Rogue 5/Fighter 1)