The only reason OrcPub could do it at that price was because he wasn't paying anything to WotC, in other words, it was illegal. Guess what? If he had done it legally, it would've cost a lot more. Not only that, but OrcPub is not the same thing as DDB. It was a character creator. DDB is far more than that and if you understood even a smidgeon of what it takes to build a site like this, you wouldn't be comparing the two at all.
You are correct, OrcPub and DDB are not alike. I wanted comprehensive character creator with a user friendly interface and clean outputs for PDFs, which OrcPub provided. DDB is a sort of digital materials repository that also happens to have a character builder that is less functional, less friendly, is overly expensive to use for that singular purpose, and outputs PDFs with far less information.
What's your idea of "user friendly" and "clean outputs for PDFs", if I may ask?
I personally find the character creation process user-friendly enough as it is, and I am pretty sure that after the overhaul it will be even more so. Hell, a couple of friends of mine, with very limited english knowledge and using the automatic website translation from google (which is horrible) were perfectly able to create two characters a month ago, and we used them with no problem whatsoever.
Now, I have not seen what OrcPub would have offered, but as far as I got it you are avoiding the focal point of the incorrectness of the comparison in terms of possible offer and business model: OrcPub had no official licensing.
As for the clean outputs of PDFs, I can only assume you mean the manuals themselves. That is something that has been said over and over again is not going to happen, because not providing PDF version of the manuals is a caveat WotC wanted, it has nothing to do with DDB itself. That being said, could you tell me what you do not like of the way the manuals have been divided for view here on the website? I'd be curious to know what kind of challenges or shortcomings you are finding with them (merely because I find them pretty nicely done).
If, on the contrary, you meant in terms of character sheets, that's something that as far as I know it's being worked on as well, and in any case a little bit of copy-pasting work between the info in the digital character sheet and the PDF export (in terms of description of race/class features and the like) solves the problem in very few minutes (done it myself for 5 characters, even having to add stuff that is not official therefore not available on the website, took me roughly 1hr [if not less, was not keeping count the time] to do all of them). I find the final result is really clean and clear.
On another note, I am curious to see what the OP will reply to all the possible solutions he has been provided with.
See, this response leads me to believe that you maybe are not grasping the scope of what is being asked for. To get what I want out of DDB in a builder, I need to up-front about $185, not $26.
Except you don't need 10 adventures' non-DMG magic items, since I doubt you've played through all of those and there's no way to buy items a la carte. What possible use do you have for $70 worth of magic items that are only available in specific adventures?
You generally don't need the DMG subclasses unless you're running NPCs, nor do you need Volo's subraces (if you buy the races, you can still choose any of the Aasimar subraces in the character creator) so that's another $6 off.
And obviously you can't buy individual parts of XGtE right now; they don't exist, since the book's not even out yet. But for whatever it's worth, a lot of people can save themselves the $8 on the SCAG subclasses since 4 of them are being reprinted in Xanathar's Guide.
So, yeah, if you buy a bunch of stuff you don't need you're going to pay a lot more than you'd otherwise have to.
It's called completionism. And not running published adventures.
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
According to Stormknight in another thread, "It is currently planned to add the ability to homebrew races & subclasses (not full classes)."
So... potentially you will be able to make a PC with the free character builder using the free basic rules classes, then you can modify those with your own home-brewed sub-classes, which you could potentially make using the official sub-classes (as long as you don't publish them) within your own campaign by entering them manually for free.
Seems like there are options, but OP just wants to be angry?
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"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing) You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Seems like there are options, but OP just wants to be angry?
Or maybe--I'm sorry, I just can't help myself--they don't understand that those options exist.
Possibly, although they have an entire thread of options now. ;-)
I keep hearing people saying that the DDB pricing structure is hard to understand, but by this point so much has been written about it, that even a cursory google or forum search should find articles, discussions, and youtube videos that explain it.
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"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing) You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Myself I am extremely happy with DDB I bought the Legendary bundle and a DM subscription, I sent my Wife the link to an account and she can make any type of character she wants, She likes to then download the pdf and works on making the character complete by adding a character pic, backstory and all that she loves doing this.
What I'd like to see is the ability to export to 3rd party VTTs like Roll20. Then 6 free slots is more than enough. Make a character, then export to Roll20 where you can have unlimited.
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"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing) You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
What's your idea of "user friendly" and "clean outputs for PDFs", if I may ask?
Here is an example "fresh off the presses" so to speak. On a lark, I made two identical characters in both DDB and OrcPub just now. Feel free to peruse the PDFs and see the difference.
Which one is more use friendly for use at a table? Is it the one that summarizes powers while giving reference page numbers as needed as well as offering printed spell cards for spells? OrcPub offers an option to add character pictures and actually prints them. DDB Does not (or I can't seem to find it still?).
Now, I have not seen what OrcPub would have offered, but as far as I got it you are avoiding the focal point of the incorrectness of the comparison in terms of possible offer and business model: OrcPub had no official licensing.
I don't feel that I'm avoiding this issue. I'm pretty sure that if DDB's character builder was as good and user friendly as OrcPub's was (and still kinda is, even with the new limitations) I would not mind paying a fair market price for that content. It is just that I feel that a fair market price is much lower than the almost $200 upfront cost that it would currently set me back. I was previously a D&d Insider subscriber with WotC back in the 4th Ed days. For less that $10 per month, I got a functional builder that had access to all the content that was ever produced for 4th Ed, including Items, Spells, Feats,etc. that were released in their Dungeon and Dragon magazine lines (which I also got as PDFs as part of my subscription). It would have taken me two or more years of subscription fees to get to where DDB is now in terms of character building content (and yes, again, I want all of it, not just the PHB) and that's not counting costs for any new material. And on top of that I only get to ever make six characters before I need to start dumping old ones to make room because more character slots cost extra (again, something that never seemed to be an issue when WotC was running the show with the DDI builder).
So yes, right now I'm sort of in a holding pattern, waiting for DDB to get around to negotiating some sort of payment structure that mimics D&D Insider accounts of old while also waiting on them to get their builder comparable to what one guy in his spare time built and released before their whole team did. I hope the new builder/sheet update fixes things, but there are a lot of other moving parts that are being worked on as well and I don't expect what I want to materialize any time soon. In short, I want to give official channels money as long as those official channels want to make what I want to pay for and sell it to me for a fair price.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
What's your idea of "user friendly" and "clean outputs for PDFs", if I may ask?
Here is an example "fresh off the presses" so to speak. On a lark, I made two identical characters in both DDB and OrcPub just now. Feel free to peruse the PDFs and see the difference.
Which one is more use friendly for use at a table? Is it the one that summarizes powers while giving reference page numbers as needed as well as offering printed spell cards for spells? OrcPub offers an option to add character pictures and actually prints them. DDB Does not (or I can't seem to find it still?).
Now, I have not seen what OrcPub would have offered, but as far as I got it you are avoiding the focal point of the incorrectness of the comparison in terms of possible offer and business model: OrcPub had no official licensing.
I don't feel that I'm avoiding this issue. I'm pretty sure that if DDB's character builder was as good and user friendly as OrcPub's was (and still kinda is, even with the new limitations) I would not mind paying a fair market price for that content. It is just that I feel that a fair market price is much lower than the almost $200 upfront cost that it would currently set me back. I was previously a D&d Insider subscriber with WotC back in the 4th Ed days. For less that $10 per month, I got a functional builder that had access to all the content that was ever produced for 4th Ed, including Items, Spells, Feats,etc. that were released in their Dungeon and Dragon magazine lines (which I also got as PDFs as part of my subscription). It would have taken me two or more years of subscription fees to get to where DDB is now in terms of character building content (and yes, again, I want all of it, not just the PHB) and that's not counting costs for any new material. And on top of that I only get to ever make six characters before I need to start dumping old ones to make room because more character slots cost extra (again, something that never seemed to be an issue when WotC was running the show with the DDI builder).
So yes, right now I'm sort of in a holding pattern, waiting for DDB to get around to negotiating some sort of payment structure that mimics D&D Insider accounts of old while also waiting on them to get their builder comparable to what one guy in his spare time built and released before their whole team did. I hope the new builder/sheet update fixes things, but there are a lot of other moving parts that are being worked on as well and I don't expect what I want to materialize any time soon. In short, I want to give official channels money as long as those official channels want to make what I want to pay for and sell it to me for a fair price.
That's pretty much not going to happen. The pricing structure for access to the non-basic core material is set by Wizards, not DDB. DDB had to negotiate with WotC just to get the price as low as it is, and to offer a sale in the first week.
Orc Pub might have nicer character sheets, but that doesn't change the fact that if OrcPub were to stay in existence legally you would likely be paying the same as DDB charges, or more, like Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds.
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"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing) You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
That's pretty much not going to happen. The pricing structure for access to the non-basic core material is set by Wizards, not DDB. DDB had to negotiate with WotC just to get the price as low as it is, and to offer a sale in the first week.
Maybe not, but if it does, I've got money on the table that DDB can start taking.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Ok folks, here's a few things, even though this thread is going off-topic:
The current export to PDF function uses a standard form-filled PDF and was created quickly as a placeholder to ensure D&D Beyond had that functionality. It will be replaced by a significantly better export function during the character sheet revamp.
Comparing Orcpub character creator to the D&D Beyond character creator, in terms of design and function is totally fair, however please realise that Orcpub has over a year of additional time to design, build & evolve the site. The Curse team are working hard on a huge (and really cool) update to the character creator/sheet.
Orcpub is pretty much JUST a character creator, whereas D&D Beyond is much more than that, with the character creator/sheet being just a fraction of the site.
Price comparison to Orcpub is not a thing to discuss, for the reasons given by others above.
Here I am, trying to bring the joy of D&D to 46 people who have never played before... and we are having to trudge through a PDF character creator instead of using the developers tools...
I expect by now you've gotten more of an earful than you were hoping for - there are a lot of very passionate users here on the DDB forums. While the illegality of OrcPub has been pointed out, as that often comes up as a legitimate competitor to DDB, I don't believe anyone pulled this comment out of your post for a response. I'm going to guess that you're speaking of the MorePurpleMoreBetter auto-calculating PDF? If not, then one very similar, no doubt. It's worth mentioning then, that it too was pulled due to the illegal content it freely provided. It was an amazing, fantastic tool, as was OrcPub, but the reality is that WotC can't let those sort of things freely disseminate their IP. If you compare he legally licensed, authorized sources for digital 5E info (Beyond, Roll20, Fantasy Grounds) they are ALL charging comparable prices. Users need to pay for licensed content no matter the source, just as we need to buy the books, or be limited to the free Basic & SRD content WotC provides - in print/PDF, or via these same digital tools.
Hopefully all the comments have been enlightening for you. Good luck with your school group - it sounds like a great thing for all of them!
What's your idea of "user friendly" and "clean outputs for PDFs", if I may ask?
Here is an example "fresh off the presses" so to speak. On a lark, I made two identical characters in both DDB and OrcPub just now. Feel free to peruse the PDFs and see the difference.
Which one is more use friendly for use at a table? Is it the one that summarizes powers while giving reference page numbers as needed as well as offering printed spell cards for spells? OrcPub offers an option to add character pictures and actually prints them. DDB Does not (or I can't seem to find it still?).
Now, I have not seen what OrcPub would have offered, but as far as I got it you are avoiding the focal point of the incorrectness of the comparison in terms of possible offer and business model: OrcPub had no official licensing.
...So yes, right now I'm sort of in a holding pattern, waiting for DDB to get around to negotiating some sort of payment structure that mimics D&D Insider accounts of old while also waiting on them to get their builder comparable to what one guy in his spare time built and released before their whole team did. I hope the new builder/sheet update fixes things, but there are a lot of other moving parts that are being worked on as well and I don't expect what I want to materialize any time soon. In short, I want to give official channels money as long as those official channels want to make what I want to pay for and sell it to me for a fair price.
I see, the new have a different concept of user-friendly, my bad for assuming. For me user-friendliness in a digital tool is how easy it is to use that tool for people that have never used it before, while for you it's the ease of use and time-saving of the final result of said digital tool. Your point is fair, albeit I have to admit that I still find it still slightly flawed at its core DDB was primarily designed to be used as a digital medium, and therefore, as Stormknight also said, the exported character sheet is quite simple in its output (for the moment, as it's going to be overhauled together with the rest of the character creator), this is because it was primarily developed to be used from within the website. Is it flawless? Most definitely not, but they are working on it and they have been listening to the community, so it might be naive of me, but i'd like to see what they come up with before comparing further with other characters creators (which in DDB is only part of the offered service, anyway). Is it easy to use? Most definitely yes, as the creation process, even with some debatable design choices (order of the elements to chose, for example), is clear and easy to follow, so much so that even people with very little english and 5ed system knowledge are perfectly capable of creating characters quite quickly.
As for the second point (sorry for cutting down your reply), I am sorry, but "fair price" is quite subjective term, especially with digital content. For me, the price they ask for is already fair, especially considering all the work the team is pouring into improvements and new functionalities, for you it is not. As often happens, the truth lies in the middle, I guess. One thing is for sure, though: I would be extremely surprised if we see anything like you are requesting. WotC, I can only assume, already saw that a business plan and pricing like the DDI of old was not a good thing for them, so they put in place assurances that this won't happen again. As for "what one guy in his spare time built and released before their whole team did" remains to be seen how much time this one guy really spent on the thing, and how much of it was already in place before he even started talking about it, and compare that with the amount of time the DDB team (which is not that enormous anyway) spent to create the whole toolset, not just the character builder. I think that would be a more appropriate comparison, as a still limited number of people had to work on a whole lot of things more than just the builder. Also (and then I promise I will stop adding stuff to this reply XD) the more support Curse get, the more there are hopes and means for them to expand the team and make the development quicker and bigger so, imho, if someone sees the potential, sees the appeal, finds DDB already useful for them but feels there are things that could be done better, I think the best course of action is to give support to it, both in the forums and monetarily.
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Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
maybe i'm off point here, but maybe the point is also that two random people, MorePurpleMoreBetter and orcpub were able, on their own, to build a friendlier, more useful tool than the business that is charging money and taking massive profits off of digital content. i think it's pretty fair to expect that the reinvestment in terms of building better tools on a commercial website far exceed what some guy does in his basement as a hobby.
maybe i'm off point here, but maybe the point is also that two random people, MorePurpleMoreBetter and orcpub were able, on their own, to build a friendlier, more useful tool than the business that is charging money and taking massive profits off of digital content. i think it's pretty fair to expect that the reinvestment in terms of building better tools on a commercial website far exceed what some guy does in his basement as a hobby.
There are two separate issues here, especially where the OP is concerned; 1. the quality of the product; and 2. the cost of the product.
People are comparing both the quality and usefulness of the character builder to OrcPub, and also the cost compared to OrcPub for the same functionality.
The first criticism may currently be justified, and that's fine. Currently OrcPub may offer a character builder that is more user-friendly and nicer looking. If that's one's biggest concern, then go ahead and continue to use OrcPub. Since the DDB character builder is free (with basic or full PHB), there is no loss either way to try both.
The second criticism, however, is way off base, and needs to be shown for what it is - brazenly mistaken. OrcPub is/was offering the full PHB for use in its character builder without having a license to do so. This is why they were shut down, because what they were doing was illegal. So the fact they were charging less than DDb for using the full PHB in the character builder is irrelevant. It's comparing apples to oranges, as the saying goes.
So, yes, OrcPub may have a prettier Character Builder, but to say its cheaper is missing the point. It was cheaper because it was illegal. If OrcPub had gotten a license from WotC, the cost to use OrcPub with the full PHB would almost certainly be at least as much as DDB, since DDB has explained that in order to even get the price down to $30 they had to negotiate hard with WotC, since WotC gets to have a say in the pricing that is set for their content. It is probable that even if OrcPub got a licene, he would have had to charge at least $30 because that's what WotC would want. There is no way in hell that WotC would let OrcPub or any other digital vendor undercut the price on DDB, even though WotC doesn't own DDB, because they have a nice partnership going right now.
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"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing) You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
maybe i'm off point here, but maybe the point is also that two random people, MorePurpleMoreBetter and orcpub were able, on their own, to build a friendlier, more useful tool than the business that is charging money and taking massive profits off of digital content. i think it's pretty fair to expect that the reinvestment in terms of building better tools on a commercial website far exceed what some guy does in his basement as a hobby.
Except that your point there is subjective. I thought MPMB was difficult to use and unnecessarily complicated, and Orcpub was lacking features. Neither cared about having copyright protections in place, so they didn't have to worry about security, also both had patreon pages and were asking for money for their work, making much more per purchaser than Beyond does because they weren't paying licensing fees.
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The most memorable stories always begin with failure.
maybe i'm off point here, but maybe the point is also that two random people, MorePurpleMoreBetter and orcpub were able, on their own, to build a friendlier, more useful tool than the business that is charging money and taking massive profits off of digital content. i think it's pretty fair to expect that the reinvestment in terms of building better tools on a commercial website far exceed what some guy does in his basement as a hobby.
If you think Curse team is making "thebigmoneymakeitrain" from DDB, i am afraid you are quite mistaken my friend.
As lokibryce already pointed out, licensing is not a cost to scoff about, and on top of that you have to pay everyone in the team that is making sure everything works as it does and developing innovation and improvements for the tools, aside from additional tools.
Then, again, do you have a precise timeline of how and when things have been developed by MPMB and OrcPub in comparison to the timeline and how Curse has been developing DDB (which, again, offers much more than just a character builder, that is anyway about to receive a complete overhaul)? If you do, I would be more than happy to see these metrics and discuss them from an objective and fair standpoint.
Disclaimer: I am not in any way saying DDB is perfect, far from it actually, but people seem to fail to apply a bit of objectivity even when comparing similar things and they come up with comments and assumptions that could use a bit more thought.
Except that your point there is subjective. I thought MPMB was difficult to use and unnecessarily complicated, and Orcpub was lacking features. Neither cared about having copyright protections in place, so they didn't have to worry about security, also both had patreon pages and were asking for money for their work, making much more per purchaser than Beyond does because they weren't paying licensing fees.
1. The problem with dismissing comments as suggestive is that your own words are victim to the same claim ("I thought MPMB was difficult to use and unnecessarily complicated, and Orcpub was lacking features." <-subjective). If you are going to advocate that the free content offered by Beyond is equal or better than the free content that o2p offered, I'm not going to debate that point with you.
2. Pretty huge assumption that the average D&D player online would know which online company is paying royalty fees and which isn't. There are many models, including ad revenue. For all any consumer knew, they could have been paying a fee to use the materials.
3. Also, if the company1 offer's content is offered for free, and company2 doesn't, you can't logically draw the conclusion that consumers that use free content lead to higher earnings. Unless you assume the ridiculous notion that everyone that used company1's free content donated the same amount that company2 charges; then sure company1 has less expenses.
The consumer's woe is that lack of market competition for a product always leads to higher prices.
"The consumer's woe is that lack of market competition for a product always leads to higher prices. "
There is competition in this market. People who don't like the prices for D&D products can play other Fantasy RPGs that are cheaper.
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"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing) You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Except that your point there is subjective. I thought MPMB was difficult to use and unnecessarily complicated, and Orcpub was lacking features. Neither cared about having copyright protections in place, so they didn't have to worry about security, also both had patreon pages and were asking for money for their work, making much more per purchaser than Beyond does because they weren't paying licensing fees.
2. Pretty huge assumption that the average D&D player online would know which online company is paying royalty fees and which isn't. There are many models, including ad revenue. For all any consumer knew, they could have been paying a fee to use the materials.
Except for the fact that (usually) licensed products and services use the official logo of the licensed products.
Try do that without a license for a product or service linked to something that can earn you money, and let me know how long passed before you get a "cease & desist" or comparable order
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
According to Stormknight in another thread, "It is currently planned to add the ability to homebrew races & subclasses (not full classes)."
So... potentially you will be able to make a PC with the free character builder using the free basic rules classes, then you can modify those with your own home-brewed sub-classes, which you could potentially make using the official sub-classes (as long as you don't publish them) within your own campaign by entering them manually for free.
Seems like there are options, but OP just wants to be angry?
"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing)
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing)
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Myself I am extremely happy with DDB I bought the Legendary bundle and a DM subscription, I sent my Wife the link to an account and she can make any type of character she wants, She likes to then download the pdf and works on making the character complete by adding a character pic, backstory and all that she loves doing this.
What I'd like to see is the ability to export to 3rd party VTTs like Roll20. Then 6 free slots is more than enough. Make a character, then export to Roll20 where you can have unlimited.
"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing)
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing)
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
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D&D Beyond FoundersOk folks, here's a few things, even though this thread is going off-topic:
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Your point is fair, albeit I have to admit that I still find it still slightly flawed at its core DDB was primarily designed to be used as a digital medium, and therefore, as Stormknight also said, the exported character sheet is quite simple in its output (for the moment, as it's going to be overhauled together with the rest of the character creator), this is because it was primarily developed to be used from within the website.
Is it flawless? Most definitely not, but they are working on it and they have been listening to the community, so it might be naive of me, but i'd like to see what they come up with before comparing further with other characters creators (which in DDB is only part of the offered service, anyway).
Is it easy to use? Most definitely yes, as the creation process, even with some debatable design choices (order of the elements to chose, for example), is clear and easy to follow, so much so that even people with very little english and 5ed system knowledge are perfectly capable of creating characters quite quickly.
One thing is for sure, though: I would be extremely surprised if we see anything like you are requesting. WotC, I can only assume, already saw that a business plan and pricing like the DDI of old was not a good thing for them, so they put in place assurances that this won't happen again.
As for "what one guy in his spare time built and released before their whole team did" remains to be seen how much time this one guy really spent on the thing, and how much of it was already in place before he even started talking about it, and compare that with the amount of time the DDB team (which is not that enormous anyway) spent to create the whole toolset, not just the character builder. I think that would be a more appropriate comparison, as a still limited number of people had to work on a whole lot of things more than just the builder.
Also (and then I promise I will stop adding stuff to this reply XD) the more support Curse get, the more there are hopes and means for them to expand the team and make the development quicker and bigger so, imho, if someone sees the potential, sees the appeal, finds DDB already useful for them but feels there are things that could be done better, I think the best course of action is to give support to it, both in the forums and monetarily.
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
maybe i'm off point here, but maybe the point is also that two random people, MorePurpleMoreBetter and orcpub were able, on their own, to build a friendlier, more useful tool than the business that is charging money and taking massive profits off of digital content. i think it's pretty fair to expect that the reinvestment in terms of building better tools on a commercial website far exceed what some guy does in his basement as a hobby.
"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing)
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
The most memorable stories always begin with failure.
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
2. Pretty huge assumption that the average D&D player online would know which online company is paying royalty fees and which isn't. There are many models, including ad revenue. For all any consumer knew, they could have been paying a fee to use the materials.
3. Also, if the company1 offer's content is offered for free, and company2 doesn't, you can't logically draw the conclusion that consumers that use free content lead to higher earnings. Unless you assume the ridiculous notion that everyone that used company1's free content donated the same amount that company2 charges; then sure company1 has less expenses.
The consumer's woe is that lack of market competition for a product always leads to higher prices.
"The consumer's woe is that lack of market competition for a product always leads to higher prices. "
There is competition in this market. People who don't like the prices for D&D products can play other Fantasy RPGs that are cheaper.
"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing)
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games