While debating for change is a novel idea, you are debating how a private organization should be managing their assets.
Pretty sure that consumers pushing for change from companies is one of the driving forces of "capitalistic ventures" too, though. If consumers don't buy a product because it isn't what they're looking for, the manufacturer either has to switch up what they're doing or not make sales. I'm not saying that's the situation we're in right now--I've expressed my thoughts about DDB elsewhere, and I'm pretty much on board with the current model even if my ideal is different--but I really, really hate how prevalent this notion is, that consumers somehow have no right to complain or take issue with how a company does business. That's absurd.
They certainly can, and they do. However, you've listed the comparison itself in your statement: There is a huge difference between speaking with one's wallet, and merely complaining about what one dislikes.
Most of the replies I've observed throughout the multiple threads, are individuals suggesting those with complaints to speak with their wallet instead. This is likely due to the subject matter consisting of established prices, content delivery, and/or business model - artifacts which seem unlikely to change.
I think 4e had such a short life cycle compared to other editions because, as you said, it was not very popular. 5e seems to be a phenomenon, and WotC will want to keep it alive as long as it stays commercially viable. I know more people getting involved with the hobby now than ever before, and I have a long list of friends wanting to join in. 5e came out in 2014 (unless I'm mistaken), which means that if your 7 year life cycle holds true, it only has 4 years left. That means all of these new players only get to play 3 or maybe 4 of the published adventures before they become obsolete and the hype for the new edition takes hold. Furthermore, DDB would be opening shop at a really bad time. No business only plans to operate for 4 years.
I don't know.
On one side: 3.0 (2001) including 3.5 (2003) lasted 7 year and was subsided by 4e in 2008 which was subsided by 5e in 2015. It's not 7 years on the dot for each edition... buuuut. Yeah. This was my impression until now.
Again. These are not facts. I'm just interpolating.
On the other side: 5.0 is "anomalous" in the sense that they are not "printing money" and in turn by that i mean we don't have 20 books to buy now. If one doe not count adventures. But as i said i never counted adventures. And in fact... i just checked. Even counting adventures... yeah... there are strangely few right now.
So... by reasoning... yeah. This "7 year cycle" interpolation of mine one could be wrong and they could be trying to actually make this last.
I think the success of 5e has made something like DDB a viable business venture, and I think we'll see 5e for more than a decade. During that time, the features of DDB will grow, only adding to its worth. And if DDB continues to be successful, I don't think all 5e content will just be swept away when 6e drops. As players of the game, I'm sure they get that not everyone will make the transition immediately.
I can only cross finger. but my point is that aside from the fact that i should not even have to think about having to cross fingers... the current business model asks that i buy not only a subscription to a service to make character building but also each single "module" with which one could do character building. It's basically the same system of another commercial character builder. And i never used their service... well... for the same reasons. Because they aren't just asking me to buy their character builder. They are asking me to buy each single book that would work for their character builder. I would have understood a "per gaming system" business model, but a "per book"?
A different reasoning goes here for D&D Beyond. This is not a third party. I mean, of course it is a third party, but it is a third party with a direct line to Wizards of the Coast. So it's not like some guy "second guessing" how some rules should work.
That being said, I think your concerns about DDB eventually closing down are not without just cause. But unfortunately, that's the world we live in now.
I am sorry. Whatever you wanted to say with the rest of the paragraph. This one sentence just made it invalid and extremely wrong. So what? Should we not fight for our political beliefs? Should we not fight for our social beliefs? Whichever they are? If we feel strongly about a cause, should we just say: "Ah... well... i just like something, but it' never going to be. That's how things go. right now."
What i started this thread for is exactly because i did that mistake last time.
I don't want to do it again.
I want to know right now what the closure plans are once 6th edition comes along. Because i am not just paying a flat fee service here to have access to everything. I am paying a flat fee to have access to "the right to pay to access a database based on what i pay for".
I don't pay for steam.
I don't pay for GOG.
I don't pay for Origin
I don't pay for ... whatever a storefront is.
The store makes money on me paying for its items. The books in this case.
But that's besides my point.
My point here here is a different one. I am paying a fee? Okay, they are making me access a service.
A service which sells "a converted database containing information from play books".
Would i like to have this store free? It's their store. I don't care in the end.
I can throw that much money at them monthly for the character builder service, and it wont' hurt.
What i am denouncing here is a different thing.
And this thing is not the flat fee. It's annoying, true, but in the end unimportant.
It is the fact that they had a similar service before.
They closed it.
And it is now unreachable.
They.
Set.
A.
Precedent.
And it is a precedent i don't like if i want to buy each single book twice.
So:
I am willing to pay for the service.
I am even willing to pay for the books.
Would i have done things differently? That is completely besides the point.
Right now i want to know: What will happen 4 or 10 or even 70 years from now.
If GOG closes i know i still have the backups.
If Steam closes... again i have the backups... i suppose there will be ways in the future to play games after steam starting from the backups.
If origin closes... i don't care, never bought anything from them.
If this store closes... what do i have left? Because i am buying a "virtual access" but i don't get "backups" at this moment.
I am buying a token.
As an engineer here in italy i have to pay a fee to access the UNI-ISO database, and then i buy each single code i need for whatever job i need to do or i need to know what the official law-abiding norms are. And i can download those norms as well as accessing them online.
Here what do i buy? Will there ba a "download the rules" button? They are making me buy the books but they keep the books for themselves and make me just look at the shiny thing i just bought without making me hold onto it.
A "download the rules" button? That... would be nice... but it seems to me that it is against the rules set by WotC. Even if they produced something like the "errata" which contains no images and cannot be used onto illegal scans because it does not reflect the wording of the books. That would really make me happy.
But, again. There will be no PDFs until 6th edition. They did that with 3.5 and did that with 4.0 they will do it with this one. I understand. The financial security risk is too great.
So i am asking.
"Working within the rules set by WotC what can be done to accomodate me?"
So to answer your question, what are you buying with your money? An added immediate convenience. It's not a required component for playing D&D. If anything, it is a luxury. If it is not for you, that's unfortunate (as I strongly believe even the free version has a lot of value at the table). It's not an investment, but no digital resources (not even PDFs, as they too will one day reach obsolescence) are.
Yes i am buying an added immediate convenience not required for playing D&D. This can be said of any "non core mechanics" book that is out here on the shelves of WotC. Including the game itself, which is by definition "a luxury". Since when has a game been anything else but "a luxury" at its very core?!
At this moment i am the only one guy in the entire group that likes to play D&D 5e when it's his turn to be the GM. 2 other like pathfinder and 3 others like... whatever stuff they like at the moment. One played Savage Worlds the last 3 times, one seems to be changing every time and last two times we played numenera first and cypher system second, the last one seems to like changing games each time, but the last two times we played Dungeon World.
So, not only is this a luxury, it is a luxury that is competing with much cheaper stuff. So if i wish to spend my money here single handedly making other people play D&D 5e... i want to get something for all the money i am going to throw here. Because they have already shown me that they will close this storefront. It has already happened and they set a precedent.
And yes, what you're saying is true "at the moment this is not for me". What i am asking here is: "Does it really have to not be for me?" and also "How many "me" are out here?" Are they losing just me? A single person? Are they losing 1% of the potential buyers? Are they losing 10-20-50-90% of their buyers?
This is a forum thread. It's supposed to be a discussion. Total agreement is never a discussion. I wanted to make a discussion about this one subject.
Your entire argument is based on precedent.
Okay let's use an example of Xbox Live. You can use Xbox live for free but it is really useless without a gold Subscription. When you have one you can use it with BOTH Xbox one and 360.
When they released New Consoles the games were not backwards compatible. I could not play a 360 game on my XBOX one. That set a precedent by Microsoft and the Game Makers.
Then they changed their minds because it was good business and it got more people to buy XBOX ones.(Which is a Better system) Microsoft changed the precedent. It moved slowly to do so.
WOTC has said they will if and when a new edition comes around will honor the D&D beyond experience for 5th edition. They are changing the precedent. The question then becomes do you trust them. I do. I trust them because of what they did with 5th edition to start with. They listened to the fans. They changed their business model as well. I am going to honor them by subscribing. If they are not true to their word then money talks and walks. I can walk away at anytime. If I make a purchase that they give warranty I will have access to then I will hold them to that promise. Read your terms of Service. By the way the Terms of Sale are with Twitch Not WOTC and they are revocable at anytime without reason.
I would argue that Wizards has sold these rights to Twitch and at this point they are beyond their control until they reply and say otherwise. Also for a long time older editions of D&D had been taken off of Drivethrurpg and are now available again.
Pretty sure that consumers pushing for change from companies is one of the driving forces of "capitalistic ventures" too, though. If consumers don't buy a product because it isn't what they're looking for, the manufacturer either has to switch up what they're doing or not make sales.
Interesting thought here is that we don't know how well this is all doing for Curse and WoTC. I don't think we'll ever get numbers, but maybe we'll get an above/at/below expectations explanation.
When you purchase a subscription to World of Warcraft, what are you keeping? The character and servers are theirs to shut off as they see fit, which are required for the game to function.
I don't think of D&D as an MMO, nor i ever played an MMO for the very same reasons i'm protesting here.
When you buy a movie ticket, what are you keeping? You watch the film, and leave for the night empty-handed.
True. However. If i want to see a movie over and over again i buy a DVD or a netflix access. And since i play games over and over again should i consider this "the netflix of D&D"? Because if i were to... then netflix i pay a fee and leaves me with unrestricted access and does not make me pay for each book. Viceversa if i were to consider this the "DVD of D&D", well... a DVD i can play even after the company making it has lost rights or is not interested anymore. True in 20 years i would have to convert the DVD to something else (holo-ray? :rofl: ) but aside from jokes, i would still have something to start from.
When you buy a summer pass to an amusement park, what are you keeping? You enjoy the thrills for a set period of time, then it's over.
Sooo.... are you telling me this is a summer pass to an amusement park? That's a new way of thinking that i had not considered. True. I'm not completely fine with this but at least it's much more approachable as a comparison to your MMO suggestion.
They certainly can, and they do. However, you've listed the comparison itself in your statement: There is a huge difference between speaking with one's wallet, and merely complaining about what one dislikes.
Most of the replies I've observed throughout the multiple threads, are individuals suggesting those with complaints to speak with their wallet instead. This is likely due to the subject matter consisting of established prices, content delivery, and/or business model - artifacts which seem unlikely to change.
There's "speaking with wallets" and there's "giving feedback". Feedback is essential to running a company because "wallets" are just numbers and numbers might tell "people like" or "people no like" in a very dumb and ungrammatical way. Wallets don't tell company managers why people like or why people don't like. This is why companies manage forums like this one. And this is why i started this conversation.
To. Give. Feedback.
I'm not on board with this business model. I wanted to say "why". And the "Why" in my case is "Last time you shut down everything and now nothing's left but brambles in the wind. This time in addition to the basic fee i have to pay for each book. Since each book costs a lot, what am i getting after this will be shut down too?" if they don't answer this basic question i am not on board.
I do not desire to join the discussion, but I must correct misinformation.
To buy and use the digital books, the subscription is not required. The books are unlocked only with a one-time purchase. The subscriptions unlock other features as explained by some here in this thread and on the subscription page.
Okay let's use an example of Xbox Live. You can use Xbox live for free but it is really useless without a gold Subscription. When you have one you can use it with BOTH Xbox one and 360.
When they released New Consoles the games were not backwards compatible. I could not play a 360 game on my XBOX one. That set a precedent by Microsoft and the Game Makers.
Then they changed their minds because it was good business and it got more people to buy XBOX ones.(Which is a Better system) Microsoft changed the precedent. It moved slowly to do so.
Due to this very reason: i don't buy consoles.
Microsoft learned. But too little and too late.
Sony unlearned
Nintendo never learned and is actually fighting even youtube streaming, that's something akin to unlearnig what has not even been learned.
WOTC has said they will if and when a new edition comes around will honor the D&D beyond experience for 5th edition. They are changing the precedent. The question then becomes do you trust them. I do. I trust them because of what they did with 5th edition to start with. They listened to the fans. They changed their business model as well. I am going to honor them by subscribing. If they are not true to their word then money talks and walks. I can walk away at anytime. If I make a purchase that they give warranty I will have access to then I will hold them to that promise. Read your terms of Service. By the way the Terms of Sale are with Twitch Not WOTC and they are revocable at anytime without reason.
Personally... yeah. I can see your point. About WotC having a change of hears. I hope they can see it. But it does not seem so right now. I will stay here and watch the scene change and evolve. If things will change in a way i like i will "speak with my wallet" as somebody else said.
And the comment on twitch is exactly why i'm here and asking what will i get after the team behind D&D Beyond (i don't think it's actually twitch. Twitch has just the hosting servers) will change their hearts.
However... if what you say is true. And they will not only add PDFs or other stuff (i'm okay even with a proprietary DRM-ridden "thing" of some sort that holds what i bought, but that i can save locally), but also do stuff like supporting previous editions (such as D&D 4, which... again... i [CENSORED] love) then, fine... i'm on board.
I would argue that Wizards has sold these rights to Twitch and at this point they are beyond their control until they reply and say otherwise. Also for a long time older editions of D&D had been taken off of Drivethrurpg and are now available again.
I... don't think WotC has sold the rights. They would never do that. It's financially unsound.
And if you read my argument on PDFs. Exactly. If i buy the "books" here. Will i get the PDFs once this is discontinued? Because yes... i even suggested in post #6 to connect that dmsguild site they made to this one and purchases over there to reflect purchases over here and viceversa. Either that or make me pay a smaller extra.
Let's put it this way: I value more this site than the PDFs. A PDF literally has to be made in order to publish the book, it's nearly the standard for a lot of printing companies. So getting a PDF for free with a book should be the standard in today's age.
But WotC does not think so.
Fine by me. It's their business.
But given instead that the people here ARE actually working and re-making the system from scratch to build this thing. Can WotC at least give us a "physical" file of some kind and send the money to these people here anyway? Because all this work will be for naught once D&D 6 comes around.
D&D Beyond is made by a 3rd party company called Curse. Curse is owned by Twitch. WotC licenses their content out to Curse (in turn, Twitch) to use in their product.
If WotC were to release PDFs, it would likely be on their own and not through D&D Beyond. DDB is a certain product that provides a certain service. PDFs would be a different product.
And I don't disagree that you, as a potential consumer, have a right to speak your mind about the product. The frustrations you're seeing from the people on this board are due to the fact that your concerns have been addressed time and time again on here, and have been explained over and over. We keep seeing people with limited knowledge of what the product actually is chiming in to say what they think the product should be.
Also, as was said before by myself and others, the subscription does not have anything to do with content access. You don't buy the books and then pay a subscription to be able to view them. Once you buy them, they are yours to view any time you log in with your account (and will soon be made available offline when the native app launches). The subscription merely offers additional features to the overall service. If all a person wants is the "PDF" equivalent, they can buy just that and never spend another dime.
I do not desire to join the discussion, but I must correct misinformation.
To buy and use the digital books, the subscription is not required. The books are unlocked only with a one-time purchase. The subscriptions unlock other features as explained by some here in this thread and on the subscription page.
Sorry, i did not mean to say that the two things are connected. It is true. They are disconnected. To make full use of this site they must be used together. But they are not completely connected.
First. Sorry about the Subscription/Book confusion. In my mind they were connected, because as a DM i have to be able to make use of more than 6 characters and in fact i will need to be able to use the full site. Hence my insistence on the 6$ plan, instead of the reduced "player's plan" (or whatever was the name.
That was also why i was insisting on the fact that i don't mind the extra flat plan and fee.
However i did not make it clear.
I am sorry about that.
I also repeatedly said that D&D Beyond this is not WotC. I said it was a subcontractor. I never named them, because i've been redacted multiple times in my original post and i was (and still am) unsure what can and cannot be said in here. Don't point me to the FAQs about what can be written in here. They are so vague as to be near to complete useless. Thus i do not wish to lose even more points and even if i started this discussion, basically very much like a troll. I'd like to keep it civil.
D&D Beyond is made by a 3rd party company called Curse. Curse is owned by Twitch. WotC licenses their content out to Curse (in turn, Twitch) to use in their product.
If WotC were to release PDFs, it would likely be on their own and not through D&D Beyond. DDB is a certain product that provides a certain service. PDFs would be a different product.
As i said before: the subcontractor which is neither Twitch nor WotC will be paid monthly for their work. Will also receive next to nothing in revenue, which will probably go towards WotC for the major part and to Twitch... well... i don't think twitch is going to get paid more than a "fee per month" anyway. I don't have access to the actual signed contracts nor i intend to have access to them.
But i've seen this kind of deals before and usually the Contractor (twitch) gets paid a monthly fee by an Employer (WotC or, probably, Hasbro) and the SubContractor (Curse) gets paid a monthly fee which gets decided by the Contractor and that the Employer usually never even reviews.
However the Employer (again (Hasbro or WotC, probably the first) will review stuff like "Requirements" to compare to "Performance of the Services" and possibly make sure that in the mean time stuff like "Standards of a Reasonable and Prudent Operator" are met by subcontractors and contractors (though they rarely do).
So. What i'm counting here is that: by writing here, somebody will take notice and forward upstairs.
So either this forum gets (as you said) flooded with identical requests and thus somebody upstairs takes notice, or i try to make my proposal seem good enough for the "people above" to consider it.
I started this thread as an "obvious troll" because i wanted to see what can actually be named and considered. I care for people contradicting me because they will be the same voices contradicting my proposals all the way uuuuupstairs.
Problem is that this is a ladder with maaaany steps.
And the people above already have a lot on their mind and will probably not take notice of my rants.
I already know that. Somebody before me said "This is how things go".
But again.
If a problem does not get voiced.
If a problem does not get stressed.
If a problem does not get addressed.
Well... people like me are not interested in giving money for the current plan.
I don't think that people at WotC have ever lit cigars with hundred dollar bills.
TSR never did i doubt WotC now can do it either right now.
Even if they are doing a much better job than TSR ever did.
However they are listening to feedback.
I am giving feedback.
I hope by listening to your objections i can tweak this feedback until it is considerable enough that somebody can push it at least up a step.
While I can see where you come from (and I am sorry for not have read everything in this thread, so apologies if someone already raised the following points), I cannot help but feel you anchoring your whole feedback on the concept (correct) that you are "paying for something I am not going to be able to keep".
One flaw I can find in this logic is: you are not paying the same amount as the original product, in fact you are almost paying half the price (i.e. Tomb of Annihilation 49.95$ hardback against 29.99$ digital here on DDB. Therefore you are saving money in order to have access to the same information, but integrate in a comprehensive system that allows you to use the information in a much easier and immediate way with other content.
Another flaw I can find is (and this has been said multiple times already): as far as I am aware (I might be wrong) WotC is not a big fan of their official products being distributed in PDF format, in fact, I cannot really find any official PDF version of any manual published so far, so you are technically asking for something that WotC has NO APPARENT INTEREST in pursuing (again, should there be an online marketplace that does indeed offer official D&D PDFs I apologise for the incorrectness of this point).
To all of the above you can easily reply "All correct, but it does not change the fact that I cannot keep what I am buying, and once DDB is gone it will be gone with it". True and not, for a few reasons: - We have no way of knowing how this tool and the relationship between Curse and WotC will evolve [given good "sales" the relationship could change a great deal] in the course of time, so saying you will NEVER be able to keep anything is a stretch (as is a stretch to say the contrary, I understand); - We have no indication that DDB will be scrapped as soon as the 6th edition comes out; as you yourself pointed out, the work behind DDB is ginormous, and I do not really see Curse quietly going away once D&D 6 rolls about, I would find it much more believable that they would immediately start working on a D&D 6 version of DDB; - WotC, while not supporting them, as far as I know is not against material from previous editions still being available, so I do not see any reasons for DDB5thed to disappear from one day to the other once D&D 6 comes to be; it could even remain active as far as we know.
You also spoke about no offline access, I hope (and I think someone did make you aware) you know that there is going to be an already announced and confirmed app that will allow users to do just that: have access to everything you have in DDB offline.
So, my main problems with your argument, which I do understand, I just do not share it, are: - you (or me or anyone here) have no way of knowing how DDB will evolve (aside from the plans that the devs and moderators shared with us here on the forum) and we are not even ONE MONTH from launch, so things will indeed change, and the more successful DDB is, the more "power" Curse will have to make things as the community wants them; - If you really, really need to have all the manuals to keep forever, I can see a simple solution: you can buy them, in hardback, once D&D6 is announced, or even when it will be out, they are not just going to disappear from one day to the other, and all your characters, campaigns and such that YOU create here you can easily copy-paste in a file and save.
All this to say: I am sorry you feel like you expressed and being frustrated and the lack of to-keep material, but it does not justify, in my opinion, bashing on DDB for a service they never said they would provide; they might do it, they might not, at current they do not, but if as you say you can see the use for the tools DDB provides, that is no reason (imho) to deny your support, because is exactly the support that can help achieve what the community wants (not at all sure it will happen, but it certainly helps).
These are just my two cents, hope you won't take them in the wrong way or as an attack, because they are not at all.
Edit: With the above I do not want to say that you should NOT express your feelings or give feedback, quite the contrary, but expressing them from a position of active contribution certainly gives more weight to your opinion, in my opinion.
My main concern is voicing my concern. I am voicing it now, one month after release, because last time i kept quiet until the end and it ended badly. If i can steer future months all the better.
We don't know if D&D Beyond will be scrapped but they did put down a precedent. I am voicing now that i did not like that precedent. If i did that 7 years from now when the same situation had already happened. It would be worthless. By voicing it now i am ensuring a tiny bit that the same situation WILL NOT happen again. It might be ignored, but at least i was not quiet. At least i said something. At least i did something. Short of buying WotC i cannot do much more.
I am well aware of the PDF problem. I suggested in post #6 in this thread that AFTER 5th edition ends, just as they did with 4th edition that they released the PDFs, then they give free PDFs AT THAT TIME to the people who bought the books here and now. I am well aware of the financial security risk of PDFs.
I was not aware of the announced offline character builder/compendium. It was not in the announcements forum which is the only one i subscribed (also i get weekly mails from that one).
I already have bought hardbacks of Sword Coast, volo's guide, DM's guide, Player's Handbook and monster manual. Also the DM scren. I paid them their EURO price which is the same dollar price, only with an euro sign instead of a dollar sign besides them. Which is already quite... a lot. Usually an euro is worth an eight to a fifth more than a dollar. And I paid taxes (which here in italy are 22%) and shipping (which... welllllll... try and see for yourself how much it costs to ship a book to italy. Just try and use any kind of shipping calculator.) So it's not that i don't already have something to hold on my hands.
But it's not that owning those books has given me access to something here. Not even a discount. And it's not that having something here will give me access to something i can hold locally on my PC. You say there will be an app. I will wait for that. But given what happened to the last app... i must say i am doubtful it will be something more than an unwieldy phone "thing" which will just be a front to load this very page, thus useless offline and unwieldy to print character sheets from. (we do have a printer there at the ludoteque... it's just that we can't access internet due to internal policies, and connecting a phone to something to print... is fiddly at best.)
Thus. For all the above reasons i am voicing my opinion here and now. Paying twice (okay, by your point: one and two thirds? But also, by what i paid and described above... twice and a bit more?) for something and getting "just" the original product and an easy way out to filling a character sheet in a clean way instead of using a pencil? True. As a service i like it. But they are asking too much for what little more i get and i wish at least they would give me back something that costs them very little for the price i paid (such as the PDFs related to the books i bought access to, which are part of the process to print the books, or a copy of the databases i bought access to) once they decide that 6e is the new 5e.
Also: i just noticed you're italian... where did you find books very cheap?! Because by your reasoning it almost seems you paid them the dollar price in dollars withotu taxes and without shipping.
totaly agree but... wouldnt cost anything more from WOTC to just give a pdf or even sell the damn think
So you would be willing to pay $30-50 for each PDF? Because that is the sort of pricing they would be looking for. It is what will maintain their brand value.
The book or pdf isn't what is valuable with D&D (or any IP) it is the content. The content is worth the $50 (and oh so much more to many)
In the end, D&D Beyond is an optional product, there is nothing exclusive about it. If you don't want to use this service, there are others.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The most memorable stories always begin with failure.
My main concern is voicing my concern. I am voicing it now, one month after release, because last time i kept quiet until the end and it ended badly. If i can steer future months all the better.
We don't know if D&D Beyond will be scrapped but they did put down a precedent. I am voicing now that i did not like that precedent. If i did that 7 years from now when the same situation had already happened. It would be worthless. By voicing it now i am ensuring a tiny bit that the same situation WILL NOT happen again. It might be ignored, but at least i was not quiet. At least i said something. At least i did something. Short of buying WotC i cannot do much more.
I am well aware of the PDF problem. I suggested in post #6 in this thread that AFTER 5th edition ends, just as they did with 4th edition that they released the PDFs, then they give free PDFs AT THAT TIME to the people who bought the books here and now. I am well aware of the financial security risk of PDFs.
I was not aware of the announced offline character builder/compendium. It was not in the announcements forum which is the only one i subscribed (also i get weekly mails from that one).
I already have bought hardbacks of Sword Coast, volo's guide, DM's guide, Player's Handbook and monster manual. Also the DM scren. I paid them their EURO price which is the same dollar price, only with an euro sign instead of a dollar sign besides them. Which is already quite... a lot. Usually an euro is worth an eight to a fifth more than a dollar. And I paid taxes (which here in italy are 22%) and shipping (which... welllllll... try and see for yourself how much it costs to ship a book to italy. Just try and use any kind of shipping calculator.) So it's not that i don't already have something to hold on my hands.
But it's not that owning those books has given me access to something here. Not even a discount. And it's not that having something here will give me access to something i can hold locally on my PC. You say there will be an app. I will wait for that. But given what happened to the last app... i must say i am doubtful it will be something more than an unwieldy phone "thing" which will just be a front to load this very page, thus useless offline and unwieldy to print character sheets from. (we do have a printer there at the ludoteque... it's just that we can't access internet due to internal policies, and connecting a phone to something to print... is fiddly at best.)
Thus. For all the above reasons i am voicing my opinion here and now. Paying twice (okay, by your point: one and two thirds? But also, by what i paid and described above... twice and a bit more?) for something and getting "just" the original product and an easy way out to filling a character sheet in a clean way instead of using a pencil? True. As a service i like it. But they are asking too much for what little more i get and i wish at least they would give me back something that costs them very little for the price i paid (such as the PDFs related to the books i bought access to, which are part of the process to print the books, or a copy of the databases i bought access to) once they decide that 6e is the new 5e.
Also: i just noticed you're italian... where did you find books very cheap?! Because by your reasoning it almost seems you paid them the dollar price in dollars withotu taxes and without shipping.
I am all for your right to voice your opinion, and I am glad that you did. However I doubt that the opinion of someone who isn't buying into the system (which had a very very successful launch) is going to carry much weight. I would guess that they are much more interested in guiding the system based on the people that bought into it and are actively supporting it, which, for me, is how it should be.
You bought the book, not the content. You may own your books, but you don't own the IP within those books. You are not allowed to copy and resell any part of them. If you wish to use the IP in another format you have to get another license. WotC has determined that they believe their IP has a certain value and they wish to maintain that value online, hence having to pay $20-30 for the content online. So in the end you aren't buying anything twice, you are licensing it twice, in two different formats. If you go buy the new Stephen King novel from the store, does the publisher give you the e-reader edition for free? How about the audio book version? Those are the same IP in different formats, and if you want access to each, you pay. Then if you want to subscribe to something like Audible, you get one free book a month but if you want more, or want to access that book after the month, you have to pay for the content on top of a subscription. This is the future of digital toolsets because this is what will allow them to best protect their IP value while also making them the most profit, which will allow them to do more cool things and make more awesome products.
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The most memorable stories always begin with failure.
I actually bought mine in London, while I was living there, therefore if anything I paid even more than the US retail price, but that's not the point. The point is you pay here is $ and at the change the price is really convenient all considered.
Your point #6 is what I do no understand of your (and others) "claims": yes, you are technically buying the same product in the sense that the same words written in the digital one are in the physical one, but it seems everyone making this point fails to realise the amount of integration everything has. Quick practical example: I own here on DDB the 3 core books, I have no subscription at the moment; I was able to create in a little less than 2 hours an introductory one-session adventure, with all the enemies, items and skill descriptions conveniently tooltipped and clickable to open the relevant page in a second and it's not like I am a genius, so just used the basic tag functionality of the tool ( Goblin like this one which is just [ monster]Goblin[ /monster] without spaces).
This is just an example of how convenient and useful this tool is, both for players with he already very well made character creator, and for DMs. Already now the tool is worth it, imho, and it's only going to get better.
Furthermore, it has been already highlighted that Curse has very little control on the price of the content, but even so right before launch they managed to deal the discounted core books for the first week and the big pack which gives access to everything at 15% discount plus the same discount for all material being release after purchase of the bundle.
Also (I can't find he post but it's there) DDB will be continuously update with all errata and possible updates to the manual that is going to come out, same-day release of the manuals etc.
I mean, this amount of work, and design put into this tool is impressive, and it deserve recognition.
"But I already paid for this stuff" no, you paid WotC for the manuals, DDB is something else, for all the above and more. If you mostly play in person you do not even necessarily need a subscription, you can just buy the books (again, discounted from retail price and in $) and use your 6 slots to create either the players character to then print out and use, or export in PDF and send to your players, and keep them updated or use the manuals on DDB to create the characters the old way (paper sheet) and use your 6 slots to create NPCs needed, exporting and deleting them to make space for more.
At least I believe all of the above, and I will repeat it to nausea: DDB is already am extremely powerful toolset, and it's only going to get better, the more support they receive, the more it's going to improve.
And to reply to your doubts on the mobile app: they are working on it, that implying it won't just be a bulky horrible thing just redirecting you here, there's a nice post from BadEye I believe that explain how they'd like to make it.
I would suggest to give a look at the dev post tracker, you're bound to find it.
Also, sorry if I sound a bit snarky, I am just sad people don't seem to realise the convenience and potentially total.of this toolset, which is already good compared to having to flip.througg a lot of pages and, frankly, not-so-useful indexes and appendices across 4 or 5 manuals to find what you need (in case you don't know, everything you buy gets grouped per.cstegory, so i.e. if you have the phb and the sword coast guide you get all your backgrounds in one place and your clases entry will feature the additional subclasses from both manuals, just saying).
Edited for typos (most probably.more left there, I don't really have time to proofread and I am on mobile ^^")
I'm rather hoping that WotC's stand on PDF will change. Fear of Piracy is not a good reason. An archival format like that would be great to have around. Maybe later in the 5e cycle. Hopefully they don't wait until 6e.
I'm rather hoping that WotC's stand on PDF will change. Fear of Piracy is not a good reason. An archival format like that would be great to have around. Maybe later in the 5e cycle. Hopefully they don't wait until 6e.
I don't' think fear of piracy is their reasoning (although it could be, I haven't really heard) I think it is more about maintaining the value of the brand.
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The most memorable stories always begin with failure.
totaly agree but... wouldnt cost anything more from WOTC to just give a pdf or even sell the damn think
So you would be willing to pay $30-50 for each PDF? Because that is the sort of pricing they would be looking for. It is what will maintain their brand value.
The book or pdf isn't what is valuable with D&D (or any IP) it is the content. The content is worth the $50 (and oh so much more to many)
In the end, D&D Beyond is an optional product, there is nothing exclusive about it. If you don't want to use this service, there are others.
you should have quote all my post instead of juste one part ... if you read it all you would understand my point was i find everything #1 here so far .. my point was if we buy the digital content its not costing more for them to add the pdf and we can use it as a book ... i dont think WOTC care much of we share the books .. they cant do anything agains that anyways... but they could have tell curse they dont want us to share it with other people in our campaing but they didnt so they open at us to share the content with people we play with ...so why blocking the pdf .. if its for mass piracy sorry to annonce to them its a fail its already everywhere ... so only person you guys punish its your customers who demand for it ...
that was my point and yes if they ask 5$ more to get us the pdf 99.9999% of the person who ask for it will pay for it ... they cant ask us to pay 50$ for the content and 50$ for the content printable i know they like money but they probably not dumb enough to get everyone in the community fire at them.
i know the value here it the content + the tools that integrate it so we can use it more efficiently but like i said throwing the pdf at us for free or for 5$ thats just what people ask for we already pay for whats in the book just let us print it for future use or when no internet is available etc.. there is lots of reason we can use the pdf once in a while ... could be because my tablet is broken or the internet is broken or i cant get my tablet charged etc.. etc...
btw there is too many post about that everywhere in this forum its like repeating again and again some admin need to do something about that :( seem like every day there is another one not reading the old thread and starting a new one .. so its my last post on that subject
I knew it would come across like that. Only the first sentence was meant to reply to you the rest was more for the other people in the thread. Sorry.
And while maybe 99.99% of people will pay that $5 more, we don't know that they would make more money that way. Server hosting and transfers for that amount of data might be incredible, also they may not sell PDFs for every book sold (unless they rolled it into the price, but then we would be paying even more for a book and people would be pissed about that)
There really is no winning trying to please everyone, so what they did was create a system that works based on the information they have, which is considerably more than any of us talking on the outside. They have been doing this for a very long time and if we look at just the things we do know, we know that they have learned a lot from their past mistakes and are taking D&D into a direction that, so far, has made it the most successful version ever. I trust them with the decisions they make that they are in the best interest of the brand and the game, while maybe not necessarily the cheapest or exactly what some people may want.
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The most memorable stories always begin with failure.
You bought the book, not the content. You may own your books, but you don't own the IP within those books. You are not allowed to copy and resell any part of them. If you wish to use the IP in another format you have to get another license. WotC has determined that they believe their IP has a certain value and they wish to maintain that value online, hence having to pay $20-30 for the content online. So in the end you aren't buying anything twice, you are licensing it twice, in two different formats. If you go buy the new Stephen King novel from the store, does the publisher give you the e-reader edition for free? How about the audio book version? Those are the same IP in different formats, and if you want access to each, you pay. Then if you want to subscribe to something like Audible, you get one free book a month but if you want more, or want to access that book after the month, you have to pay for the content on top of a subscription. This is the future of digital toolsets because this is what will allow them to best protect their IP value while also making them the most profit, which will allow them to do more cool things and make more awesome products.
There is value and there is perceived value.
The value of an IP is only worth as much as the perceived value of the people who want to buy the IP.
By saying that if they wish to sell me the "right to make it easier to fill a sheet of paper" at the sound of 30$ per book with which i "wish to use in aid of the filling the sheet of paper"...
(....because let's remember that the whole point of this site is "just" an easier way not to lug 5 books around and not to put a pencil onto the character sheet and fill it by hand....)
...i wish (maybe not IMMEDIATELY, because i understand the financial security risk, but at the very least AT SOME POINT IN THE FUTURE) to hold onto the thing which they are selling me each time, that is: "some form of the database or the book which i am buying", then i am giving feedback to them onto "why aren't people like this person buying our product".
If they are content with the people already buying or have bought this product, then they might very well disregard my opinion and there is nothing more i can do. If they wish to broaden their buyer base then i am telling them why they are not selling it to me.
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I don't think of D&D as an MMO, nor i ever played an MMO for the very same reasons i'm protesting here.
True. However. If i want to see a movie over and over again i buy a DVD or a netflix access. And since i play games over and over again should i consider this "the netflix of D&D"? Because if i were to... then netflix i pay a fee and leaves me with unrestricted access and does not make me pay for each book. Viceversa if i were to consider this the "DVD of D&D", well... a DVD i can play even after the company making it has lost rights or is not interested anymore. True in 20 years i would have to convert the DVD to something else (holo-ray? :rofl: ) but aside from jokes, i would still have something to start from.
Sooo.... are you telling me this is a summer pass to an amusement park? That's a new way of thinking that i had not considered. True. I'm not completely fine with this but at least it's much more approachable as a comparison to your MMO suggestion.
I do not desire to join the discussion, but I must correct misinformation.
To buy and use the digital books, the subscription is not required. The books are unlocked only with a one-time purchase. The subscriptions unlock other features as explained by some here in this thread and on the subscription page.
D&D Beyond is made by a 3rd party company called Curse. Curse is owned by Twitch. WotC licenses their content out to Curse (in turn, Twitch) to use in their product.
If WotC were to release PDFs, it would likely be on their own and not through D&D Beyond. DDB is a certain product that provides a certain service. PDFs would be a different product.
And I don't disagree that you, as a potential consumer, have a right to speak your mind about the product. The frustrations you're seeing from the people on this board are due to the fact that your concerns have been addressed time and time again on here, and have been explained over and over. We keep seeing people with limited knowledge of what the product actually is chiming in to say what they think the product should be.
Also, as was said before by myself and others, the subscription does not have anything to do with content access. You don't buy the books and then pay a subscription to be able to view them. Once you buy them, they are yours to view any time you log in with your account (and will soon be made available offline when the native app launches). The subscription merely offers additional features to the overall service. If all a person wants is the "PDF" equivalent, they can buy just that and never spend another dime.
Sorry, i did not mean to say that the two things are connected. It is true. They are disconnected. To make full use of this site they must be used together. But they are not completely connected.
That was also why i was insisting on the fact that i don't mind the extra flat plan and fee.
However i did not make it clear.
Hi Simone (hope I'm allowed to call you by name),
While I can see where you come from (and I am sorry for not have read everything in this thread, so apologies if someone already raised the following points), I cannot help but feel you anchoring your whole feedback on the concept (correct) that you are "paying for something I am not going to be able to keep".
One flaw I can find in this logic is: you are not paying the same amount as the original product, in fact you are almost paying half the price (i.e. Tomb of Annihilation 49.95$ hardback against 29.99$ digital here on DDB. Therefore you are saving money in order to have access to the same information, but integrate in a comprehensive system that allows you to use the information in a much easier and immediate way with other content.
Another flaw I can find is (and this has been said multiple times already): as far as I am aware (I might be wrong) WotC is not a big fan of their official products being distributed in PDF format, in fact, I cannot really find any official PDF version of any manual published so far, so you are technically asking for something that WotC has NO APPARENT INTEREST in pursuing (again, should there be an online marketplace that does indeed offer official D&D PDFs I apologise for the incorrectness of this point).
To all of the above you can easily reply "All correct, but it does not change the fact that I cannot keep what I am buying, and once DDB is gone it will be gone with it". True and not, for a few reasons:
- We have no way of knowing how this tool and the relationship between Curse and WotC will evolve [given good "sales" the relationship could change a great deal] in the course of time, so saying you will NEVER be able to keep anything is a stretch (as is a stretch to say the contrary, I understand);
- We have no indication that DDB will be scrapped as soon as the 6th edition comes out; as you yourself pointed out, the work behind DDB is ginormous, and I do not really see Curse quietly going away once D&D 6 rolls about, I would find it much more believable that they would immediately start working on a D&D 6 version of DDB;
- WotC, while not supporting them, as far as I know is not against material from previous editions still being available, so I do not see any reasons for DDB5thed to disappear from one day to the other once D&D 6 comes to be; it could even remain active as far as we know.
You also spoke about no offline access, I hope (and I think someone did make you aware) you know that there is going to be an already announced and confirmed app that will allow users to do just that: have access to everything you have in DDB offline.
So, my main problems with your argument, which I do understand, I just do not share it, are:
- you (or me or anyone here) have no way of knowing how DDB will evolve (aside from the plans that the devs and moderators shared with us here on the forum) and we are not even ONE MONTH from launch, so things will indeed change, and the more successful DDB is, the more "power" Curse will have to make things as the community wants them;
- If you really, really need to have all the manuals to keep forever, I can see a simple solution: you can buy them, in hardback, once D&D6 is announced, or even when it will be out, they are not just going to disappear from one day to the other, and all your characters, campaigns and such that YOU create here you can easily copy-paste in a file and save.
All this to say: I am sorry you feel like you expressed and being frustrated and the lack of to-keep material, but it does not justify, in my opinion, bashing on DDB for a service they never said they would provide; they might do it, they might not, at current they do not, but if as you say you can see the use for the tools DDB provides, that is no reason (imho) to deny your support, because is exactly the support that can help achieve what the community wants (not at all sure it will happen, but it certainly helps).
These are just my two cents, hope you won't take them in the wrong way or as an attack, because they are not at all.
Edit: With the above I do not want to say that you should NOT express your feelings or give feedback, quite the contrary, but expressing them from a position of active contribution certainly gives more weight to your opinion, in my opinion.
Cheers,
A fellow Italian and fan of D&D
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
To LeK:
Thus. For all the above reasons i am voicing my opinion here and now. Paying twice (okay, by your point: one and two thirds? But also, by what i paid and described above... twice and a bit more?) for something and getting "just" the original product and an easy way out to filling a character sheet in a clean way instead of using a pencil? True. As a service i like it. But they are asking too much for what little more i get and i wish at least they would give me back something that costs them very little for the price i paid (such as the PDFs related to the books i bought access to, which are part of the process to print the books, or a copy of the databases i bought access to) once they decide that 6e is the new 5e.
Also: i just noticed you're italian... where did you find books very cheap?! Because by your reasoning it almost seems you paid them the dollar price in dollars withotu taxes and without shipping.
The book or pdf isn't what is valuable with D&D (or any IP) it is the content. The content is worth the $50 (and oh so much more to many)
In the end, D&D Beyond is an optional product, there is nothing exclusive about it. If you don't want to use this service, there are others.
The most memorable stories always begin with failure.
You bought the book, not the content. You may own your books, but you don't own the IP within those books. You are not allowed to copy and resell any part of them. If you wish to use the IP in another format you have to get another license. WotC has determined that they believe their IP has a certain value and they wish to maintain that value online, hence having to pay $20-30 for the content online. So in the end you aren't buying anything twice, you are licensing it twice, in two different formats. If you go buy the new Stephen King novel from the store, does the publisher give you the e-reader edition for free? How about the audio book version? Those are the same IP in different formats, and if you want access to each, you pay. Then if you want to subscribe to something like Audible, you get one free book a month but if you want more, or want to access that book after the month, you have to pay for the content on top of a subscription. This is the future of digital toolsets because this is what will allow them to best protect their IP value while also making them the most profit, which will allow them to do more cool things and make more awesome products.
The most memorable stories always begin with failure.
I actually bought mine in London, while I was living there, therefore if anything I paid even more than the US retail price, but that's not the point. The point is you pay here is $ and at the change the price is really convenient all considered.
Your point #6 is what I do no understand of your (and others) "claims": yes, you are technically buying the same product in the sense that the same words written in the digital one are in the physical one, but it seems everyone making this point fails to realise the amount of integration everything has. Quick practical example: I own here on DDB the 3 core books, I have no subscription at the moment; I was able to create in a little less than 2 hours an introductory one-session adventure, with all the enemies, items and skill descriptions conveniently tooltipped and clickable to open the relevant page in a second and it's not like I am a genius, so just used the basic tag functionality of the tool ( Goblin like this one which is just [ monster]Goblin[ /monster] without spaces).
This is just an example of how convenient and useful this tool is, both for players with he already very well made character creator, and for DMs. Already now the tool is worth it, imho, and it's only going to get better.
Furthermore, it has been already highlighted that Curse has very little control on the price of the content, but even so right before launch they managed to deal the discounted core books for the first week and the big pack which gives access to everything at 15% discount plus the same discount for all material being release after purchase of the bundle.
Also (I can't find he post but it's there) DDB will be continuously update with all errata and possible updates to the manual that is going to come out, same-day release of the manuals etc.
I mean, this amount of work, and design put into this tool is impressive, and it deserve recognition.
"But I already paid for this stuff" no, you paid WotC for the manuals, DDB is something else, for all the above and more. If you mostly play in person you do not even necessarily need a subscription, you can just buy the books (again, discounted from retail price and in $) and use your 6 slots to create either the players character to then print out and use, or export in PDF and send to your players, and keep them updated or use the manuals on DDB to create the characters the old way (paper sheet) and use your 6 slots to create NPCs needed, exporting and deleting them to make space for more.
At least I believe all of the above, and I will repeat it to nausea: DDB is already am extremely powerful toolset, and it's only going to get better, the more support they receive, the more it's going to improve.
And to reply to your doubts on the mobile app: they are working on it, that implying it won't just be a bulky horrible thing just redirecting you here, there's a nice post from BadEye I believe that explain how they'd like to make it.
I would suggest to give a look at the dev post tracker, you're bound to find it.
Also, sorry if I sound a bit snarky, I am just sad people don't seem to realise the convenience and potentially total.of this toolset, which is already good compared to having to flip.througg a lot of pages and, frankly, not-so-useful indexes and appendices across 4 or 5 manuals to find what you need (in case you don't know, everything you buy gets grouped per.cstegory, so i.e. if you have the phb and the sword coast guide you get all your backgrounds in one place and your clases entry will feature the additional subclasses from both manuals, just saying).
Edited for typos (most probably.more left there, I don't really have time to proofread and I am on mobile ^^")
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
I'm rather hoping that WotC's stand on PDF will change. Fear of Piracy is not a good reason. An archival format like that would be great to have around. Maybe later in the 5e cycle. Hopefully they don't wait until 6e.
The most memorable stories always begin with failure.
I knew it would come across like that. Only the first sentence was meant to reply to you the rest was more for the other people in the thread. Sorry.
And while maybe 99.99% of people will pay that $5 more, we don't know that they would make more money that way. Server hosting and transfers for that amount of data might be incredible, also they may not sell PDFs for every book sold (unless they rolled it into the price, but then we would be paying even more for a book and people would be pissed about that)
There really is no winning trying to please everyone, so what they did was create a system that works based on the information they have, which is considerably more than any of us talking on the outside. They have been doing this for a very long time and if we look at just the things we do know, we know that they have learned a lot from their past mistakes and are taking D&D into a direction that, so far, has made it the most successful version ever. I trust them with the decisions they make that they are in the best interest of the brand and the game, while maybe not necessarily the cheapest or exactly what some people may want.
The most memorable stories always begin with failure.
There is value and there is perceived value.