They could simply sell codes to unlock specific content in your account, but if you buy them upon buying the material book you only pay a fraction. EG. want the code for Volo? 25$. However if you are buying Volo's material book, you can add the code for Beyond for 2.5$, so you have it there as well. I'd happily pay 2.5$ extra when I buy manuals, I'm not a fan of monthly subscriptions!
Seriously there will not be a credit of digital content for any physical content you already own.
A long shot is a change to that system in the future, but if you want the tools this place is hoping to provide your going to end up paying for something you've already bought at this point cause that is done.
The assumption otherwise is toddler talk. Moving forward they may have codes in the books or some such but that means a new business model and changes to current practices. Say they add these codes now you have to protect the codes so they shrink wrap the books. Now you can't open them up at a LCS to investigate the content. A LCS can't take a return on something you opened. It presents a sell barrier which is bad business.
Plus your talking TWO different arms of the D&D IP here. Curse has been granted digital domain, whoever distributed the physical media gets their share that way. So to give you credit for physical media Curse has to take a revenue hit, that again is bad business.
So lets all take a deep breath and prepare for the inevitable.
I know that some brick and mortar stores are already doing an initiative where you can buy a physical book and they can provide a pdf with your physical purchase. It seems to be exclusive to LGS, and specific to 3PP. Still, it's an encouraging change.
Wouldn't be bad, except that most people who WOULD purchase the whole shebang already have multiple books already, and would not want to repurchase content that they already have. If there were a way to reduce cost based on what content was already available to them. This is a neat site, but something like that would be very steep for people on a limited budget.
This is probably my biggest concern. SRD/PHB lookup is well and good, but I can't reliably use it because so many of my players/monsters fall outside of its ruleset. I might have it up on my computer, but still have at least 3 books I thumb through in any given session.
I see no reason why this shouldn't ultimately include stats/spells/items from EE, Volo's, etc. For those worried about overlap with the books, I'd argue that spells and monsters are a pretty small part of recent releases. Personally, the lore in Volo's was more important than the stat blocks; the maps, quests and idea threads are the most important part of any campaign book. At the very least, give us the companion material for all the recent releases and than have codes in future releases for a fuller picture.
Having a place where I can reliably look up Froghemoths, Earthbind and Rage mechanics quickly and easily would be really valuable, but there's a very fine line for what I'd pay for that considering I already have all that material in another (albeit more inconvenient) form. Anything more than $5 a month for a DM might push me out, and I really want to use this.
Let me just put it like this, 4th Editions digital model was simply $15 a month for a character builder, monthly digital magazine (pdf), and Compendium access, ie the Rules. So if for $15 a month you got unlimited character sheets, access to all content digitally, and monthly content moving forward. That would be above and beyond what was in place previously.
As far as getting access to digital content that you already have in printed format, I do not believe that is going to happen. It intrudes on Wizard/Hasbro's sales model so I imagine much like the previous digital offerings they will be separate.
I'm still subscribed to DDI. A few things:
1. It's $10 a month, not $15.
2. The. DDI Compendium isn't just the "rules", which is a fair description of D&D Beyond's non-searchable rules compendium. The DDI Compendium is literally the whole of 4th edition made into a filterable, sortable database. Monsters, powers, rules for leveling, items, classes, etc. All of it.
3. There were two digital magazines, one for players and one for DMs. Dungeon and Dragon, specifically.
Free access to SRD content and use of the character builder.
Cheap subscription pricing for access to player supplemental content, and expanded features like unlimited character sheets, homebrew content.
More expensive tiered pricing for DMs including all 5e content, encounter builders, random generators, NPC tracking, DM tools like initiative trackers AND - the ability for DMs to invite other users to a 'hosted' game so that the DM has access to view player characters.
Anything more nuanced than that would fracture the userbase too heavily.
Arguing price points less than a week into the beta of a project is a little aggressive no?
Whatever they decide to charge someone somewhere will pay why because some of our fellow gamers are hardcore addicts.
Rebuying content while a pain is not the end of the world especially if that content is locked inside DND Beyond (for an INSANELY reasonable price). If it's a separate PDF that is able to be exported all the better especially if they use a similar price model to Paizo at $10ish bucks a pop and a watermark (for most materials) for a legal PDF that I can use in play (looking at their older materials over on Dungeon Master's Guild looks like the majority of the older books are going for about that price point too) I'm there in a heartbeat. Hell I'm there in h.
Face it if the tool lives up to the hype and hope we'l pay the prices. So far it's not bad, and it's just getting it has just cleared the birth canal and is still getting wiped off by the nurses and it's ass smacked by the Doc. I'm interested in seeing what it becomes, I'm a notorious cheapass with kids to support if it's starting this decent and grown on a model similar to DDI than I think I might be willing to subscribe.
*****ing about price points this short in instead of kicking tires and making sure the platform can survive is like trying to say your newborn child will be a doctor... in the end that decision is out of our hands, why not focus on what we can actually do to help the endeavor succeed?
Arguing price points less than a week into the beta of a project is a little aggressive no?
Whatever they decide to charge someone somewhere will pay why because some of our fellow gamers are hardcore addicts.
*****ing about price points this short in instead of kicking tires and making sure the platform can survive is like trying to say your newborn child will be a doctor... in the end that decision is out of our hands, why not focus on what we can actually do to help the endeavor succeed?
Arguing price points this early should be something that the Curse team is welcoming, frankly. There's vert few tools like this out there that can operate legally, and therefore little precedent for what people will consider a valid price. The more data they get on that, the better they'll be able to set a price people are willing to pay.
Of course, stress-testing the site and discussing hypothetical prices aren't mutually exclusive.
Arguing price points less than a week into the beta of a project is a little aggressive no?
Whatever they decide to charge someone somewhere will pay why because some of our fellow gamers are hardcore addicts.
*****ing about price points this short in instead of kicking tires and making sure the platform can survive is like trying to say your newborn child will be a doctor... in the end that decision is out of our hands, why not focus on what we can actually do to help the endeavor succeed?
Arguing price points this early should be something that the Curse team is welcoming, frankly. There's vert few tools like this out there that can operate legally, and therefore little precedent for what people will consider a valid price. The more data they get on that, the better they'll be able to set a price people are willing to pay.
Of course, stress-testing the site and discussing hypothetical prices aren't mutually exclusive.
Hero Lab is similar, though not entirely the same, and their current pricing model is pay a one time fee to unlock a license number, and then purchase digital content either in massive bundles, or as microtransactions per book. I use Hero Lab for gaming with D&D's competitor, and have probably spent $300 on it all told over seven years. Quick maths breaks that down to less than $5 a month, but, as with some others here, I'm also a notorious cheap-arse. If Beyond is going to go with a subscription model, $5 a month would more than likely be my maximum price point, and if that didn't come with unlimited characters, and access to, at the very least, complete/searchable PHB, DM Guide, and Monster Manual, I wouldn't pay it.
I really hope, at the very least, Wizards learns from this experience and puts those lessons to use on the next big version of D&D.
I really hope that future books come with access to that same content online for free (ie built into the price of the book).
I really hope that they treat future versions of Beyond as a value added service that will sell more physical books and drum up good will and brand loyalty in their customers.
I really hope that the tools will be good quality and make organizing campaigns at my table faster and easier.
I really hope that they have one user account owned and managed by Wizard's for everything that is D&D: their website, adventurer's league, dmsguild content, and digital versions of the books.
They could simply sell codes to unlock specific content in your account, but if you buy them upon buying the material book you only pay a fraction.
EG. want the code for Volo? 25$. However if you are buying Volo's material book, you can add the code for Beyond for 2.5$, so you have it there as well. I'd happily pay 2.5$ extra when I buy manuals, I'm not a fan of monthly subscriptions!
Seriously there will not be a credit of digital content for any physical content you already own.
A long shot is a change to that system in the future, but if you want the tools this place is hoping to provide your going to end up paying for something you've already bought at this point cause that is done.
The assumption otherwise is toddler talk. Moving forward they may have codes in the books or some such but that means a new business model and changes to current practices. Say they add these codes now you have to protect the codes so they shrink wrap the books. Now you can't open them up at a LCS to investigate the content. A LCS can't take a return on something you opened. It presents a sell barrier which is bad business.
Plus your talking TWO different arms of the D&D IP here. Curse has been granted digital domain, whoever distributed the physical media gets their share that way. So to give you credit for physical media Curse has to take a revenue hit, that again is bad business.
So lets all take a deep breath and prepare for the inevitable.
A tauren in a big Browncoat.
I know that some brick and mortar stores are already doing an initiative where you can buy a physical book and they can provide a pdf with your physical purchase. It seems to be exclusive to LGS, and specific to 3PP. Still, it's an encouraging change.
Wouldn't be bad, except that most people who WOULD purchase the whole shebang already have multiple books already, and would not want to repurchase content that they already have. If there were a way to reduce cost based on what content was already available to them. This is a neat site, but something like that would be very steep for people on a limited budget.
This is probably my biggest concern. SRD/PHB lookup is well and good, but I can't reliably use it because so many of my players/monsters fall outside of its ruleset. I might have it up on my computer, but still have at least 3 books I thumb through in any given session.
I see no reason why this shouldn't ultimately include stats/spells/items from EE, Volo's, etc. For those worried about overlap with the books, I'd argue that spells and monsters are a pretty small part of recent releases. Personally, the lore in Volo's was more important than the stat blocks; the maps, quests and idea threads are the most important part of any campaign book. At the very least, give us the companion material for all the recent releases and than have codes in future releases for a fuller picture.
Having a place where I can reliably look up Froghemoths, Earthbind and Rage mechanics quickly and easily would be really valuable, but there's a very fine line for what I'd pay for that considering I already have all that material in another (albeit more inconvenient) form. Anything more than $5 a month for a DM might push me out, and I really want to use this.
Dungeon Master - Writer - Mini Enthusiast
A simple approach would be
Free access to SRD content and use of the character builder.
Cheap subscription pricing for access to player supplemental content, and expanded features like unlimited character sheets, homebrew content.
More expensive tiered pricing for DMs including all 5e content, encounter builders, random generators, NPC tracking, DM tools like initiative trackers AND - the ability for DMs to invite other users to a 'hosted' game so that the DM has access to view player characters.
Anything more nuanced than that would fracture the userbase too heavily.
I hate forum signatures.
I like that model, Clarinch.
Arguing price points less than a week into the beta of a project is a little aggressive no?
Whatever they decide to charge someone somewhere will pay why because some of our fellow gamers are hardcore addicts.
Rebuying content while a pain is not the end of the world especially if that content is locked inside DND Beyond (for an INSANELY reasonable price). If it's a separate PDF that is able to be exported all the better especially if they use a similar price model to Paizo at $10ish bucks a pop and a watermark (for most materials) for a legal PDF that I can use in play (looking at their older materials over on Dungeon Master's Guild looks like the majority of the older books are going for about that price point too) I'm there in a heartbeat. Hell I'm there in h.
Face it if the tool lives up to the hype and hope we'l pay the prices. So far it's not bad, and it's just getting it has just cleared the birth canal and is still getting wiped off by the nurses and it's ass smacked by the Doc. I'm interested in seeing what it becomes, I'm a notorious cheapass with kids to support if it's starting this decent and grown on a model similar to DDI than I think I might be willing to subscribe.
*****ing about price points this short in instead of kicking tires and making sure the platform can survive is like trying to say your newborn child will be a doctor... in the end that decision is out of our hands, why not focus on what we can actually do to help the endeavor succeed?
I really hope, at the very least, Wizards learns from this experience and puts those lessons to use on the next big version of D&D.
I really hope that future books come with access to that same content online for free (ie built into the price of the book).
I really hope that they treat future versions of Beyond as a value added service that will sell more physical books and drum up good will and brand loyalty in their customers.
I really hope that the tools will be good quality and make organizing campaigns at my table faster and easier.
I really hope that they have one user account owned and managed by Wizard's for everything that is D&D: their website, adventurer's league, dmsguild content, and digital versions of the books.
Additional pricing talk can be found in this thread. It was pinned by staff for this sort of discussion.
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