And the recent Update issue, was a none issue. I believe that the DNDBeyond crew geniuinly wanted to do something nice and give FREE ACCESS to the spells for everyone, while they also have the issues that spells (and magic items and rules text) are hyperlinked all over DNDBeyond, making it a major hassle to figure out a way to make it link to the correct versions for everyone. It seem they have found a workaround, or they only can do it on a the sheets but the rest will still link to the 2024 versions, we will see.
I think the latter is a big thing. Having 400 identically named spells is a coding nightmare and likely not something the system was designed to handle.
They have to go through and change every single link that refers to a spell in every product, while also adding code that lets you pick which version is displayed depending on if you chose the 2014 or 2024 version of the spell.
I imagine they haven't found a workaround so much as they decided it was worth actually doing the work to calm down the fanbase. Because fans protested, DnDBeyond staff is likely in for a week of super hard overtime.
The OGL issue? Much of the outrage could have been alleviated if they came out at the beginning and said “Hey, listen, our existing legal document was really poorly written, and we just had someone try to steal our intellectual property to make something horrifically racist. We were able to beat that down, but realized we had accidentally left D&D open to the same attack and are trying to close that loophole.” Most reasonable players would be fine with that - but, instead of saying anything, Wizards was silent for days, losing control of the narrative.
It also stated it could use any homebrew content on D&D Beyond without giving credit or renumeration. And so on.
That is a misrepresentation of what is generally a fairly standard policy that is less about theft and more about saving WotC's butt from frivolous lawsuits.
They're not actually going to steal homebrew content. Clauses like that exist on the off chance the professional designers write a feat/ spell/ monster that works like someone's homebrew, so the creator doesn't sue over a coincidence.
Building on the above, almost every single website you use - including D&D Beyond - has this terminology. It is not just about protecting the operator from frivolous lawsuits - these websites literally cannot exist without terms like this. Everything you write or produce that would be eligible for a copyright is copyrighted - even if you never get around to making a formal copyright filing. That’s just how copyright law works - you get more protections if you register your materials, but you get automatic protections regardless.
A website hosts your copyrighted forum posts, homebrew, etc. on their servers.. then they beam out your copyrighted materials to everyone. If they do not have a license to distribute your materials, then they would be violating your copyrights by performing their fundamental function. That’s why D&D Beyond has always had this terminology (even before Wizards bought it). Why Reddit has it. Why every other hosting platform has it.
This is a classic example of one layperson stumbling on a term, not having the legal wherewithal to know what the term was there for, and then building an entire baseless conspiracy around the term.
And the recent Update issue, was a none issue. I believe that the DNDBeyond crew geniuinly wanted to do something nice and give FREE ACCESS to the spells for everyone, while they also have the issues that spells (and magic items and rules text) are hyperlinked all over DNDBeyond, making it a major hassle to figure out a way to make it link to the correct versions for everyone. It seem they have found a workaround, or they only can do it on a the sheets but the rest will still link to the 2024 versions, we will see
I agree with this, I think they genuinely thought they were doing something nice for the community and fending off accusations of it being a cash grab by giving people some of the new stuff free. They just did it in a slightly naive way
And the recent Update issue, was a none issue. I believe that the DNDBeyond crew geniuinly wanted to do something nice and give FREE ACCESS to the spells for everyone, while they also have the issues that spells (and magic items and rules text) are hyperlinked all over DNDBeyond, making it a major hassle to figure out a way to make it link to the correct versions for everyone. It seem they have found a workaround, or they only can do it on a the sheets but the rest will still link to the 2024 versions, we will see.
I think the latter is a big thing. Having 400 identically named spells is a coding nightmare and likely not something the system was designed to handle.
They have to go through and change every single link that refers to a spell in every product, while also adding code that lets you pick which version is displayed depending on if you chose the 2014 or 2024 version of the spell.
I imagine they haven't found a workaround so much as they decided it was worth actually doing the work to calm down the fanbase. Because fans protested, DnDBeyond staff is likely in for a week of super hard overtime.
I think the same. The staff at DNDBeyond now has to work a lot of overtime in a very short time to get it done on time. While people scream bloody murder at the company, it is, as always the employees that suffer from that the most. Barking up the wrong tree and all.
They have to go through and change every single link that refers to a spell in every product.
All they actually promised was to allow them on character sheets, tooltips such as fireball or dire wolf may still get updated.
That said, they probably don't need to update every link. In general the way the links seem to work is that there's a lookup table that converts a name to a link, so you change the lookup table to point to a dynamic page that returns the proper version (they should do that for MotM as well). Tooltips are already a dynamic page since they know to show the shop link for unowned products.
And the recent Update issue, was a none issue. I believe that the DNDBeyond crew geniuinly wanted to do something nice and give FREE ACCESS to the spells for everyone, while they also have the issues that spells (and magic items and rules text) are hyperlinked all over DNDBeyond, making it a major hassle to figure out a way to make it link to the correct versions for everyone. It seem they have found a workaround, or they only can do it on a the sheets but the rest will still link to the 2024 versions, we will see.
I think the latter is a big thing. Having 400 identically named spells is a coding nightmare and likely not something the system was designed to handle.
They have to go through and change every single link that refers to a spell in every product, while also adding code that lets you pick which version is displayed depending on if you chose the 2014 or 2024 version of the spell.
I imagine they haven't found a workaround so much as they decided it was worth actually doing the work to calm down the fanbase. Because fans protested, DnDBeyond staff is likely in for a week of super hard overtime.
I think the same. The staff at DNDBeyond now has to work a lot of overtime in a very short time to get it done on time. While people scream bloody murder at the company, it is, as always the employees that suffer from that the most. Barking up the wrong tree and all.
I think that they have had the better part of 2 years to generate and implement a plan to handle this better than they did regardless of the reason they chose the plan that was rejected immediately upon it becoming know to the general players. Blaming the angry customers whether or not they misunderstood WotC's intentions is misplaced judgement, WotC is the gatekeeper and as such decides both how and what information we get.
That doesn't mean I do not have empathy for the people that will be doing all of the work to fix the issues, but I doubt this was going to be a seamless rollout before this unexpected last minute change. The best we can do for them is to be patient with the inevitable glitches and bugs and help most by reporting them in the appropriate places.
Once again, the D&D community is dealing with the ripples and consequences of yet another decision from you that seemed aimed at alienating thousands, if not millions, of gamers.
Sorry, couldn't get past this opener. The assumption that any company implemented a policy/program with the express intended result of alienating their customer base is just silly.
Maybe it's just me getting older but I simply can't understand what all of the fuss is about. Anytime this game has made changes to the game, they have literally changed how you would bring over characters, spells, mechanics etc. to some extent.
We can go as far back as 2e to 3e, 3e to 3.5e and even 4e to 5e. Guess what happened then? Yep in most cases you couldn't use the same character, spells, mechanics etc. Why? Because the game was being revised one way or another.
Why now, is this such a big deal? What has changed in this community that understood there would be changes 10 years ago going from 4e to 5e? Yet ten years later, people are acting like this will be the doom of Hasbro's venture into rpg's? This is almost similar to when TSR revised 1e to 2e, except they limited level advancement to 20 and changed the attack tables to use THAC0 method.
🤔🤷🏿♂️
It's a big deal because they have repeated told us that this isn't a new version, so the expectation was that they'd deal with it the same way as other updated content, like MMotM, and archive the older content under a legacy tag. That's exactly what they were going to do for *most* content, so the expectation was clearly correct, but for some reason they thought it would be ok to still delete some.
If they'd said 6-12 months ago that it was a new edition and that 5E would no longer be supported, there'd still be complaints, but nothing like the shock and anger of having the rug pulled from under you with only 2 weeks notice.
And the recent Update issue, was a none issue. I believe that the DNDBeyond crew geniuinly wanted to do something nice and give FREE ACCESS to the spells for everyone, while they also have the issues that spells (and magic items and rules text) are hyperlinked all over DNDBeyond, making it a major hassle to figure out a way to make it link to the correct versions for everyone. It seem they have found a workaround, or they only can do it on a the sheets but the rest will still link to the 2024 versions, we will see.
The Update issue wasn't a None issue. It probably wasn't malicious because it doesn't do them any good, but it was stupid. It should have been obvious that it wouldn't be popular, and if you aren't sure... ask the users. Just announcing "here's our tentative plan, what do you all think" two weeks ago would have had the same final outcome without all the annoyance.
That's what they did. They showed proudly their plans, nearly 4 weeks in advance of the real launch, and still more then 1 weak for master subscribers. This was no shadow patch that got anyone unawares. They probably expect some feedback here and there that they could fix until the real launch, not that overblown screeching of a nonsensical issue.
They announce *2 weeks* in advance (the changes were being implemented with early access on Sept 3rd) that they were deleting a significant amount of content. Deleting that content would also break a lot of other content. There was then silence for 3-4 days as people complained and scrambled to find workarounds for the removed content.
The messaging was clearly that this is happening, not that it was a proposal that they'd consider feedback on. There was no attempt to communicate with us, the only response they made was a clarification of what they were doing, there wasn't even an acknowledgement of the issues raised.
Even a post saying "We hear you and are discussing the issue internally, please stand by and we will come back to you on Monday" would have calmed things down. Instead we were left to assume, much like with the Marketplace changes, that they had made a decision and would proceed no matter what we thought.
I suspect the only thing that made them change their minds this time was the number of people cancelling their subscriptions.
@Caerwyn_Glyndwr, I won't quote a specific post, as Ive seen a few similar posts from you ober the last few days.
As far as I can see, your position is that we should take WotC/DDB's eventual excuses for these scandals at face value. The OGL was an attempt to stop racism, everything else was just admin. The removal of a la carte was just a consequence of the new storefront, the removal of 2014 content was just overexcitement over the new stuff.
However these all seem to have pretty clear reasons behind them that benefit WotC over everyone else. The OGL would have claimed revenue from 3rd party products (and the fact it was only some of them isn't a good justification). The removal of a la carte means people have to buy whole books instead. The removal of 2014 content would have pushed people into buying the new books. Viewed through this lens there is a clear pattern of making changes that benefit the company and harm its customers and 3rd parties. We also know that there is a huge push at the corporate level to monetise D&D, as they feel we (as a group) do not pay enough.
When there are so many issues, one after the other, you cannot expect people to give them the benefit of the doubt and accept that these are just innocent PR mistakes, rather than attempts to take advantage of consumers that they've had to row back after opposition.
Maybe it is true that they thought they were doing a good thing and the free upgrades would compensate for the removal of content (although that leads to other questions about how well they understand their customers), but looking purely at their actions it appears that they tried to get away with removing content, realised they were going to lose subscribers, and reluctantly changed their mind).
They have lost the trust of the community, and until they earn it back they will have every move viewed with suspicion. Only they can fix that.
... that they were deleting a significant amount of content. Deleting that content would also break a lot of other content.
Stop with this lie. There was no deleting happening. If you think it was deleting it shows how you don't understand the issue.
The 2014 spells would no longer be available if they had gone ahead. You can quibble over whether overwriting is different to deleting if you wish, but the point is the content would be gone.
DDB have conceded the issue, I don't know why you'd still try and defend it.
... that they were deleting a significant amount of content. Deleting that content would also break a lot of other content.
Stop with this lie. There was no deleting happening. If you think it was deleting it shows how you don't understand the issue.
The 2014 spells would no longer be available if they had gone ahead. You can quibble over whether overwriting is different to deleting if you wish, but the point is the content would be gone.
DDB have conceded the issue, I don't know why you'd still try and defend it.
They would have still been accessible on the site, the entries simply would not have been linked to the character sheet. That is objectively not deleting.
And to respond to a couple of other posts, I too have sympathy for the devs who are no doubt in for a lot of work to get things sorted, and who probably raised many of these issues during the planning stages.
The people to blame however are management, who should have been planning for this since the new rulebooks were announced, rather than leaving it until the last minute.
Unfortunately "lazy devs" seems to have become shorthand for "devs aren't being given the time & staffing to do things properly".
... that they were deleting a significant amount of content. Deleting that content would also break a lot of other content.
Stop with this lie. There was no deleting happening. If you think it was deleting it shows how you don't understand the issue.
The 2014 spells would no longer be available if they had gone ahead. You can quibble over whether overwriting is different to deleting if you wish, but the point is the content would be gone.
DDB have conceded the issue, I don't know why you'd still try and defend it.
They would have still been accessible on the site, the entries simply would not have been linked to the character sheet. That is objectively not deleting.
Were they or were they not being deleted from the character builder?
I'll remind you that they were specifically sold for use in the character builder, merely having them in the compendium is not an adequate substitute (which DDB have now acknowledged).
As I've said in other threads, technically speaking no purchased content was deleted....but forcing players to use 2024 versions of updated spells was a very bad idea. For folks who use DDB for character sheets - which appears to be the majority of folks - this was de facto deletion of material.
... that they were deleting a significant amount of content. Deleting that content would also break a lot of other content.
Stop with this lie. There was no deleting happening. If you think it was deleting it shows how you don't understand the issue.
The 2014 spells would no longer be available if they had gone ahead. You can quibble over whether overwriting is different to deleting if you wish, but the point is the content would be gone.
DDB have conceded the issue, I don't know why you'd still try and defend it.
They would have still been accessible on the site, the entries simply would not have been linked to the character sheet. That is objectively not deleting.
Were they or were they not being deleted from the character builder?
I'll remind you that they were specifically sold for use in the character builder, merely having them in the compendium is not an adequate substitute (which DDB have now acknowledged).
It's posts like this that made it so hard to find more sympathy for those this was affecting...
"Updated" would be the appropriate term. You may think they are the same, but they are not.
And they are absolutely NOT "specifically sold" for use in the character builder. There are many reasons they list for selling the digital product (how about not having to lug around 100 pounds of books to every session, or hyperlinks in the compendium, or a search function, or...?) and integration with the character builder was only one of them. Just because that's the specific reason YOU bought them does not change that.
I'm seriously glad for you that the game devs were able to gloss over the blatant hyperbole and realize that there was a better solution than what they originally came up with when the complaints started coming in. But maybe consider yourself lucky that they didn't just ignore or delete posts that had obvious falsehoods in them.
As I've said in other threads, technically speaking no purchased content was deleted....but forcing players to use 2024 versions of updated spells was a very bad idea. For folks who use DDB for character sheets - which appears to be the majority of folks - this was de facto deletion of material.
Sorry, to go on at you, as you seem to more or less agree, but that's only correct if you view the "content" as being the text of the spell, which I agree was not being removed. But that would assume that the character builder is just a free extra.
If you view the content as unlockable features for the character builder, which is what it was advertised as in both the old store (with a la carte purchasing) and in the new (under DnDBeyond Unlocks). Those unlockable features were 100% being removed (or overwritten), there's no technically about it.
Anyone claiming content wasn't being removed either a) thinks that the character builder is a free bonus to the compendium, rather than the main point of the site, or b) they're quibbling over the term "content" instead of "feature".
Again though, I don't know why people (not you) are still trying to defend DDB and claim that we weren't losing content when DDB themselves have acknowledged it.
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I think the latter is a big thing. Having 400 identically named spells is a coding nightmare and likely not something the system was designed to handle.
They have to go through and change every single link that refers to a spell in every product, while also adding code that lets you pick which version is displayed depending on if you chose the 2014 or 2024 version of the spell.
I imagine they haven't found a workaround so much as they decided it was worth actually doing the work to calm down the fanbase.
Because fans protested, DnDBeyond staff is likely in for a week of super hard overtime.
Building on the above, almost every single website you use - including D&D Beyond - has this terminology. It is not just about protecting the operator from frivolous lawsuits - these websites literally cannot exist without terms like this. Everything you write or produce that would be eligible for a copyright is copyrighted - even if you never get around to making a formal copyright filing. That’s just how copyright law works - you get more protections if you register your materials, but you get automatic protections regardless.
A website hosts your copyrighted forum posts, homebrew, etc. on their servers.. then they beam out your copyrighted materials to everyone. If they do not have a license to distribute your materials, then they would be violating your copyrights by performing their fundamental function. That’s why D&D Beyond has always had this terminology (even before Wizards bought it). Why Reddit has it. Why every other hosting platform has it.
This is a classic example of one layperson stumbling on a term, not having the legal wherewithal to know what the term was there for, and then building an entire baseless conspiracy around the term.
I agree with this, I think they genuinely thought they were doing something nice for the community and fending off accusations of it being a cash grab by giving people some of the new stuff free. They just did it in a slightly naive way
Unfortunately I have worked for companies with upper management even less aware of their customer and employee needs than Hasbro.
it would be great if they at least saw the financial benefit of being more open and honest about upcoming products, and expected life cycles.
I think the same. The staff at DNDBeyond now has to work a lot of overtime in a very short time to get it done on time. While people scream bloody murder at the company, it is, as always the employees that suffer from that the most. Barking up the wrong tree and all.
All they actually promised was to allow them on character sheets, tooltips such as fireball or dire wolf may still get updated.
That said, they probably don't need to update every link. In general the way the links seem to work is that there's a lookup table that converts a name to a link, so you change the lookup table to point to a dynamic page that returns the proper version (they should do that for MotM as well). Tooltips are already a dynamic page since they know to show the shop link for unowned products.
I think that they have had the better part of 2 years to generate and implement a plan to handle this better than they did regardless of the reason they chose the plan that was rejected immediately upon it becoming know to the general players. Blaming the angry customers whether or not they misunderstood WotC's intentions is misplaced judgement, WotC is the gatekeeper and as such decides both how and what information we get.
That doesn't mean I do not have empathy for the people that will be doing all of the work to fix the issues, but I doubt this was going to be a seamless rollout before this unexpected last minute change. The best we can do for them is to be patient with the inevitable glitches and bugs and help most by reporting them in the appropriate places.
Sorry, couldn't get past this opener. The assumption that any company implemented a policy/program with the express intended result of alienating their customer base is just silly.
You skipped over the word "seemed."
It's a big deal because they have repeated told us that this isn't a new version, so the expectation was that they'd deal with it the same way as other updated content, like MMotM, and archive the older content under a legacy tag. That's exactly what they were going to do for *most* content, so the expectation was clearly correct, but for some reason they thought it would be ok to still delete some.
If they'd said 6-12 months ago that it was a new edition and that 5E would no longer be supported, there'd still be complaints, but nothing like the shock and anger of having the rug pulled from under you with only 2 weeks notice.
They announce *2 weeks* in advance (the changes were being implemented with early access on Sept 3rd) that they were deleting a significant amount of content. Deleting that content would also break a lot of other content. There was then silence for 3-4 days as people complained and scrambled to find workarounds for the removed content.
The messaging was clearly that this is happening, not that it was a proposal that they'd consider feedback on. There was no attempt to communicate with us, the only response they made was a clarification of what they were doing, there wasn't even an acknowledgement of the issues raised.
Even a post saying "We hear you and are discussing the issue internally, please stand by and we will come back to you on Monday" would have calmed things down. Instead we were left to assume, much like with the Marketplace changes, that they had made a decision and would proceed no matter what we thought.
I suspect the only thing that made them change their minds this time was the number of people cancelling their subscriptions.
Stop with this lie. There was no deleting happening. If you think it was deleting it shows how you don't understand the issue.
The 2014 spells would no longer be available if they had gone ahead. You can quibble over whether overwriting is different to deleting if you wish, but the point is the content would be gone.
DDB have conceded the issue, I don't know why you'd still try and defend it.
They would have still been accessible on the site, the entries simply would not have been linked to the character sheet. That is objectively not deleting.
And to respond to a couple of other posts, I too have sympathy for the devs who are no doubt in for a lot of work to get things sorted, and who probably raised many of these issues during the planning stages.
The people to blame however are management, who should have been planning for this since the new rulebooks were announced, rather than leaving it until the last minute.
Unfortunately "lazy devs" seems to have become shorthand for "devs aren't being given the time & staffing to do things properly".
Were they or were they not being deleted from the character builder?
I'll remind you that they were specifically sold for use in the character builder, merely having them in the compendium is not an adequate substitute (which DDB have now acknowledged).
As I've said in other threads, technically speaking no purchased content was deleted....but forcing players to use 2024 versions of updated spells was a very bad idea. For folks who use DDB for character sheets - which appears to be the majority of folks - this was de facto deletion of material.
It's posts like this that made it so hard to find more sympathy for those this was affecting...
"Updated" would be the appropriate term. You may think they are the same, but they are not.
And they are absolutely NOT "specifically sold" for use in the character builder. There are many reasons they list for selling the digital product (how about not having to lug around 100 pounds of books to every session, or hyperlinks in the compendium, or a search function, or...?) and integration with the character builder was only one of them. Just because that's the specific reason YOU bought them does not change that.
I'm seriously glad for you that the game devs were able to gloss over the blatant hyperbole and realize that there was a better solution than what they originally came up with when the complaints started coming in. But maybe consider yourself lucky that they didn't just ignore or delete posts that had obvious falsehoods in them.
Sorry, to go on at you, as you seem to more or less agree, but that's only correct if you view the "content" as being the text of the spell, which I agree was not being removed. But that would assume that the character builder is just a free extra.
If you view the content as unlockable features for the character builder, which is what it was advertised as in both the old store (with a la carte purchasing) and in the new (under DnDBeyond Unlocks). Those unlockable features were 100% being removed (or overwritten), there's no technically about it.
Anyone claiming content wasn't being removed either a) thinks that the character builder is a free bonus to the compendium, rather than the main point of the site, or b) they're quibbling over the term "content" instead of "feature".
Again though, I don't know why people (not you) are still trying to defend DDB and claim that we weren't losing content when DDB themselves have acknowledged it.