... 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.
Again, the old store specifically sold the compendium content and character builder c9ntent separately. This was the a la carte purchasing that was removed recently. In the new marketplace it specifically states that by buying the book you are purchasing the compendium content *and* unlocking content for the character builder.
I am not trying to claim that the character builder is the only use, but it is one that is specifically mentioned as part of the purpose, and one that was going to be removed.
As for updating, you can quibble over terminology if you wish, but the end result is that the 2014 spells would no longer exist. Whether you want to call it updating, overwriting, deleting or whatever, the content/features that we had purchased would be gone.
(P.s. this has no bearing on whether the new spells are better or worse than the old, the point is that both should have remained available so that people could switch on their own timeline. DdB have agreed with us on this point)
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.
We're in agreement. I'm just doing that annoying semantic thing.
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.
🤔🤷🏿♂️
Sure, games move on, when they were strictly physical you stuck with the version you liked or bought into the new one. You and your group already had everything you needed. We can still do that to a some degree. At least some people can... However, that paradigm doesn't fully exist anymore as many people only have digital product. So what happens to their purchases when the Great Next Version happens? Are they still fully integrated into D&D Beyond? Relegated to 'read only' documents or similar, which are indeed usable, but only outside of the software tool that most people rely on? Are they just gone?
That's one, of many, concerns, IMO, that customers have.
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.
No, it assumes that the character builder isn't content. Which is, strictly speaking, correct (it's functionality) but that's not the type of argument that's likely to go over well with people unhappy about the change.
I mean, isn’t the character builder a free extra? There’s no charge to use the builder itself in relation to your owned content, just for storage space- either in sheets or homebrew- and content sharing. The first three or four campaigns I played online, I didn’t use the builder, I was either manually rolling on Roll20 or used their sheet. It’s a nice side feature, but hardly essential for using digital content.
You don’t even need to buy any books or join a campaign to use it, since the basic rules are freebies.
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.
We're in agreement. I'm just doing that annoying semantic thing.
In that case, all I'll say is please try and be clear that you're just arguing terminology, there's been far too many people arguing that we're not losing anything (whether content or functionality), and with tensions as high as they've been in the last few days you're likely to just wind people up further.
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.
No, it assumes that the character builder isn't content. Which is, strictly speaking, correct (it's functionality) but that's not the type of argument that's likely to go over well with people unhappy about the change.
I'd argue that a spell (for example) in the character builder is content, seperate from (although obviously very similar to) the same spell in the compendium. But if people want to call it functionality rather than content I'm happy to say they were removing functionality we'd paid for instead. It doesn't change anything about what they were doing, or why people were angry.
There are definitely people I've argued with in the last few days who *aren't* just making a semantic point though, who think that having a 2024 spell is the same as having the 2014 one, and therefore nothing has been lost, or that purchases have only ever been for compendium content and not the character builder too.
I mean, isn’t the character builder a free extra? There’s no charge to use the builder itself in relation to your owned content, just for storage space- either in sheets or homebrew- and content sharing. The first three or four campaigns I played online, I didn’t use the builder, I was either manually rolling on Roll20 or used their sheet. It’s a nice side feature, but hardly essential for using digital content.
You don’t even need to buy any books or join a campaign to use it, since the basic rules are freebies.
The character builder itself is free, as you can use it free with the basic rules, but then the compendium is free as you can access the basic rules in it for free.
What we are talking about is specific content (or functionality if you prefer) that we have purchased within the character builder. That content/functionality was specifically sold separately to the compendium content, and was going to be removed.
Being able to use compendium content, or whether you *need* to use the builder to play or not is a completely different and irrelevant discussion. DDB have sold me spells for use in the builder, they cannot then remove them (morally speaking, I'm sure legally their covered).
Luckily they have not attempted to argue this, it's only some people on the forums that are weirdly convinced that the builder is some optional extra that DDB have thrown in for free, rather than the main component of the site (you know, the one that calls itself the "Official Toolset) for D&D).
The marketplace even specify that you are buying compendium content and unlocking content/functionality for the character builder.
“Morally speaking”; I see. Forgive me if I don’t see the arrangement of features on a virtual character sheet as a matter of any particular moral principle. I’ve been talking in terms of functionality and what a transaction likely actually involved as opposed to the assumptions people made about it.
“Morally speaking”; I see. Forgive me if I don’t see the arrangement of features on a virtual character sheet as a matter of any particular moral principle. I’ve been talking in terms of functionality and what a transaction likely actually involved as opposed to the assumptions people made about it.
Maybe moral was the wrong word, I was merely trying to distinguish between what is the "right" thing to do rather than what they legally can do. Some people are very eager to point to the TOC's and say (mostly correctly) that they have the legal right to change/remove content, as if that's the end of the argument.
I still don't get what you mean about people making assumptions? The old store and new marketplace both explicitly advertised compendium content and character builder content/functionality as seperate items.
In the old store you could purchase them separately, and while in the new marketplace you can only buy them as a combined package, they are both listed in the description as separate "things" that you will recieve.
At no point has anyone "assumed" they were getting character builder content/functionality, they have clearly been told that that is what they were purchasing.
“Morally speaking”; I see. Forgive me if I don’t see the arrangement of features on a virtual character sheet as a matter of any particular moral principle. I’ve been talking in terms of functionality and what a transaction likely actually involved as opposed to the assumptions people made about it.
Maybe moral was the wrong word, I was merely trying to distinguish between what is the "right" thing to do rather than what they legally can do. Some people are very eager to point to the TOC's and say (mostly correctly) that they have the legal right to change/remove content, as if that's the end of the argument.
I still don't get what you mean about people making assumptions? The old store and new marketplace both explicitly advertised compendium content and character builder content/functionality as seperate items.
In the old store you could purchase them separately, and while in the new marketplace you can only buy them as a combined package, they are both listed in the description as separate "things" that you will recieve.
At no point has anyone "assumed" they were getting character builder content/functionality, they have clearly been told that that is what they were purchasing.
You keep saying "character builder content" like it's something different from a compendium entry; it's not. If you'd purchased a specific spell, you could view its entry from the master spell compendium. It was not only accessible via and within the character builder; you could view the basic entry for that feature just as you gained access to that feature if you purchased the whole book. Every option that can appear on the character sheet is a compendium entry, you were just able to purchase that specific portion of a compendium rather than the whole book at once. And advertising that entries are currently integrated with the character sheet is not a promise that will remain the case exactly as it was at the time you purchased it for the rest of eternity. As has been previously pointed out, the way they've errata'd or otherwise adjusted content after publication already sets the precedent, and there was almost certainly something in the terms of use that no one bothered to actually read when they agreed to it for their purchases to that effect as well. People simply assumed that because something was the state of affairs when they'd made a purchase, it was locked in indefinitely, just like they assumed that because a la carte was an option initially it would always be an option. You can attempt to claim that you were led on by WotC's conduct if you really want, but there's an old business adage you should keep in mind: "past performance is not a guarantee of future results". Just because a business chooses to initially conduct itself one way does not automatically lock it into that model, nor does it create a "moral imperative" or whatever you want to call it for them to decline to make changes that will inconvenience a portion of its customer base.
“Morally speaking”; I see. Forgive me if I don’t see the arrangement of features on a virtual character sheet as a matter of any particular moral principle. I’ve been talking in terms of functionality and what a transaction likely actually involved as opposed to the assumptions people made about it.
Maybe moral was the wrong word, I was merely trying to distinguish between what is the "right" thing to do rather than what they legally can do. Some people are very eager to point to the TOC's and say (mostly correctly) that they have the legal right to change/remove content, as if that's the end of the argument.
I still don't get what you mean about people making assumptions? The old store and new marketplace both explicitly advertised compendium content and character builder content/functionality as seperate items.
In the old store you could purchase them separately, and while in the new marketplace you can only buy them as a combined package, they are both listed in the description as separate "things" that you will recieve.
At no point has anyone "assumed" they were getting character builder content/functionality, they have clearly been told that that is what they were purchasing.
You keep saying "character builder content" like it's something different from a compendium entry; it's not. If you'd purchased a specific spell, you could view its entry from the master spell compendium. It was not only accessible via and within the character builder; you could view the basic entry for that feature just as you gained access to that feature if you purchased the whole book. Every option that can appear on the character sheet is a compendium entry, you were just able to purchase that specific portion of a compendium rather than the whole book at once. And advertising that entries are currently integrated with the character sheet is not a promise that will remain the case exactly as it was at the time you purchased it for the rest of eternity. As has been previously pointed out, the way they've errata'd or otherwise adjusted content after publication already sets the precedent, and there was almost certainly something in the terms of use that no one bothered to actually read when they agreed to it for their purchases to that effect as well. People simply assumed that because something was the state of affairs when they'd made a purchase, it was locked in indefinitely, just like they assumed that because a la carte was an option initially it would always be an option. You can attempt to claim that you were led on by WotC's conduct if you really want, but there's an old business adage you should keep in mind: "past performance is not a guarantee of future results". Just because a business chooses to initially conduct itself one way does not automatically lock it into that model, nor does it create a "moral imperative" or whatever you want to call it for them to decline to make changes that will inconvenience a portion of its customer base.
Firstly, I can't check the wording on the old store, but the current marketplace clearly states the following (apologies, I don't know how to put it in a quote box on mobile)
Jump Into Play with D&D Beyond
Purchasing a digital copy of this book unlocks it for use in the D&D BEYOND compendium and toolset. D&D BEYOND is the official digital toolset for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. Create characters in minutes, play directly on your character sheets with digital dice, and prep less and play more with Dungeon Master tools like the Encounter Builder and Combat Tracker. Unlock Maps, D&D BEYOND's virtual tabletop, with a Master Tier subscription. Host game sessions on dozens of official maps, or make your own and use our player and monster tokens to take your gaming to the next level!
The very first sentence confirms that you are buying the compendium content & the toolset content/functionality. I see no argument that anyone is only buying compendium content, with the character builder just an extra.
Secondly, you mention that this was the same treatment as other "errata". The new PHB is not errata, WotC has been very clear on this. Therefore the expectation (and what DDB had led us to believe) was that this would be treated the same as other rules updates, such as Mordenkainens Monsters of the Multiverse, where older content was archived under a legacy tag. You'll note that this is not only what DDB planned to do with everything *except* spells and items, but is what it is now doing with everything, and at no point has it suggested that we were wrong to believe this.
Lastly, you seem to have gone off on a tangent about how businesses can go back on what they have agreed. Which is exactly what I wanted to avoid by differentiating between moral/legal. We're all aware that businesses write their ToC's to give themselves legal permission to do whatever they want. Few sane people would agree that that means everything a company does is ethical.
If a company says "We will give you X & Y", and then turns around and says "Actually, we're taking away X, you'll only get Y now, but our fine print says we can change things at any time", they may not be acting illegally, but you'd 100% be entitled to be angry and complain until you got what you'd paid for.
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.
This assumes they coded their stuff differently than homebrew and aren't using the same [spell] [/spe ll]] code that we use when making homebrew or adding comments to the forum
Thank you, that confirms that the character builder content/features are and always have been at least part of what we were purchasing.
I will conceed that even with the individual purchases you were buying compendium content as well, I thought it was individual toolset options *or* the entire compendium.
I don't think that affects the original point however. We purchased toolset content (along with the compendium), and that toolset content would have been taken away.
Or, if you want to split hairs and claim that toolset and compendium are one and the same then this whole thing has just been semantics over whether its "content" or "functionality" that we're losing from the toolset. Which, other than linguistically, is completely irrelevant to what people have been complaining about. We had (among other things) purchased the ability to use certain spells in the character builder and that ability was going to be removed.
Again though, I don't know why this is even being argued. DDB have reversed their plans and have not even hinted that we didn't have the right* to keep that content. They clearly accept that they were taking something away, so I don't understand why people are arguing otherwise.
(* I'm not talking about "legal rights", before you start off on that diversion)
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
We purchased toolset content (along with the compendium), and that toolset content would have been taken away.
There is no such thing as "toolset content". [REDACTED]
There was never any proposal to remove 2014 content. What was being lost was a convenient way to access that content
Oh God, another one 🤦♂️
You can describe it however you want, but we were sold items that could, among other things, be used in the toolset. Whether you view that as seperate "toolset content" and "compendium content" or singular "content" that could be used in both the compendium and the toolset is irrelevant. The fact is that content was being removed from the character builder. Whether that content was available elsewhere is immaterial.
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.
This assumes they coded their stuff differently than homebrew and aren't using the same [spell] [/spe ll]] code that we use when making homebrew or adding comments to the forum
The tooltips already have a [spell src=“????”] inclusion tag that can pull the relevant information from a specific source. DDB could just add tags such as PHB14 and PHB24 to the list, and tooltips ( and possibly the digital char sheet) could be coded to reference the relevant information via toggle. DDB is probably running out of database server space, and the cheapest option is to just replace the old data with the new.
I suspect it's less server space (as they wanted everyone to make homebrew copies) and more just that by overwriting the old spells/items the id# would be preserved and they wouldn't have to go and update all the tooltips to point at the new entries.
I would prefer to describe what happened accurately, thanks
It's not "semantics" to point out that functionality and content are very different things, given some of the more ridiculous accusations toward WOTC that have been flying around these forums. It's that kind of confusion that breeds things like people accusing WOTC of theft, or threatening class action lawsuits when they have no grounds to do so
You at least seem to have finally gotten to a place where you realize that tossing around statements like "content was being deleted!" isn't correct and was needlessly inflammatory -- especially after WOTC had already changed course on how the switchover was being handled
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Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I would prefer to describe what happened accurately, thanks
It's not "semantics" to point out that functionality and content are very different things, given some of the more ridiculous accusations toward WOTC that have been flying around these forums. It's that kind of confusion that breeds things like people accusing WOTC of theft, or threatening class action lawsuits when they have no grounds to do so
You at least seem to have finally gotten to a place where you realize that tossing around statements like "content was being deleted!" isn't correct and was needlessly inflammatory -- especially after WOTC had already changed course on how the switchover was being handled
I've already said earlier in the thread that I'm happy to refer to it as functionality being deleted rather than content being deleted if that's what you prefer. It doesn't change the fact that we had paid for that functionality and DDB were planning to remove it.
I don't see why you think calling it content is any more inflammatory. I think virtually everyone invilved is aware that this only affected the character builder, and were complaining about the removal of content in that context, but for most people that is the main part of the site and if it's not in the character builder it might as well not exist.
Twenty months ago I was running two longstanding 5E Campaigns. The first for a group of my friends who, like me are getting older and have played through decades of changes with this game. My other group is with a group of all new high school age players. Before that point I purchased basically every 5E product I could get my hands on. Print, DDB whatever. My older group is made up of all DM's who do not get a chance to play much anymore. Each of them used to purchase most everything as well. My young group mainly owns a PHB each in print and relies 100% on DDB for access to content.
Since this series of difficulties started twenty months ago I've watched things change withing my groups. Today I heard about this latest kerfuffle. None of my players or I had any clue it was happening. If this had moved forward as planned it would have badly effected both of these campaigns. I don't see any need to dive into details.
What I did want to point out. NONE OF US NOTICED IT WAS HAPPENING Twenty months ago everyone of these players would have been engaged and up in arms immediately. I watched it happening. The level of engagement with DND was crazy. Every book, Every Forum Post, Every Youtube that was 5E related was a topic of discussion.
Today my groups realized that NO ONE NOTICED.
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Again, the old store specifically sold the compendium content and character builder c9ntent separately. This was the a la carte purchasing that was removed recently. In the new marketplace it specifically states that by buying the book you are purchasing the compendium content *and* unlocking content for the character builder.
I am not trying to claim that the character builder is the only use, but it is one that is specifically mentioned as part of the purpose, and one that was going to be removed.
As for updating, you can quibble over terminology if you wish, but the end result is that the 2014 spells would no longer exist. Whether you want to call it updating, overwriting, deleting or whatever, the content/features that we had purchased would be gone.
(P.s. this has no bearing on whether the new spells are better or worse than the old, the point is that both should have remained available so that people could switch on their own timeline. DdB have agreed with us on this point)
We're in agreement. I'm just doing that annoying semantic thing.
Sure, games move on, when they were strictly physical you stuck with the version you liked or bought into the new one. You and your group already had everything you needed. We can still do that to a some degree. At least some people can... However, that paradigm doesn't fully exist anymore as many people only have digital product. So what happens to their purchases when the Great Next Version happens? Are they still fully integrated into D&D Beyond? Relegated to 'read only' documents or similar, which are indeed usable, but only outside of the software tool that most people rely on? Are they just gone?
That's one, of many, concerns, IMO, that customers have.
No, it assumes that the character builder isn't content. Which is, strictly speaking, correct (it's functionality) but that's not the type of argument that's likely to go over well with people unhappy about the change.
I mean, isn’t the character builder a free extra? There’s no charge to use the builder itself in relation to your owned content, just for storage space- either in sheets or homebrew- and content sharing. The first three or four campaigns I played online, I didn’t use the builder, I was either manually rolling on Roll20 or used their sheet. It’s a nice side feature, but hardly essential for using digital content.
You don’t even need to buy any books or join a campaign to use it, since the basic rules are freebies.
In that case, all I'll say is please try and be clear that you're just arguing terminology, there's been far too many people arguing that we're not losing anything (whether content or functionality), and with tensions as high as they've been in the last few days you're likely to just wind people up further.
I'd argue that a spell (for example) in the character builder is content, seperate from (although obviously very similar to) the same spell in the compendium. But if people want to call it functionality rather than content I'm happy to say they were removing functionality we'd paid for instead. It doesn't change anything about what they were doing, or why people were angry.
There are definitely people I've argued with in the last few days who *aren't* just making a semantic point though, who think that having a 2024 spell is the same as having the 2014 one, and therefore nothing has been lost, or that purchases have only ever been for compendium content and not the character builder too.
The character builder itself is free, as you can use it free with the basic rules, but then the compendium is free as you can access the basic rules in it for free.
What we are talking about is specific content (or functionality if you prefer) that we have purchased within the character builder. That content/functionality was specifically sold separately to the compendium content, and was going to be removed.
Being able to use compendium content, or whether you *need* to use the builder to play or not is a completely different and irrelevant discussion. DDB have sold me spells for use in the builder, they cannot then remove them (morally speaking, I'm sure legally their covered).
Luckily they have not attempted to argue this, it's only some people on the forums that are weirdly convinced that the builder is some optional extra that DDB have thrown in for free, rather than the main component of the site (you know, the one that calls itself the "Official Toolset) for D&D).
The marketplace even specify that you are buying compendium content and unlocking content/functionality for the character builder.
“Morally speaking”; I see. Forgive me if I don’t see the arrangement of features on a virtual character sheet as a matter of any particular moral principle. I’ve been talking in terms of functionality and what a transaction likely actually involved as opposed to the assumptions people made about it.
Maybe moral was the wrong word, I was merely trying to distinguish between what is the "right" thing to do rather than what they legally can do. Some people are very eager to point to the TOC's and say (mostly correctly) that they have the legal right to change/remove content, as if that's the end of the argument.
I still don't get what you mean about people making assumptions? The old store and new marketplace both explicitly advertised compendium content and character builder content/functionality as seperate items.
In the old store you could purchase them separately, and while in the new marketplace you can only buy them as a combined package, they are both listed in the description as separate "things" that you will recieve.
At no point has anyone "assumed" they were getting character builder content/functionality, they have clearly been told that that is what they were purchasing.
You keep saying "character builder content" like it's something different from a compendium entry; it's not. If you'd purchased a specific spell, you could view its entry from the master spell compendium. It was not only accessible via and within the character builder; you could view the basic entry for that feature just as you gained access to that feature if you purchased the whole book. Every option that can appear on the character sheet is a compendium entry, you were just able to purchase that specific portion of a compendium rather than the whole book at once. And advertising that entries are currently integrated with the character sheet is not a promise that will remain the case exactly as it was at the time you purchased it for the rest of eternity. As has been previously pointed out, the way they've errata'd or otherwise adjusted content after publication already sets the precedent, and there was almost certainly something in the terms of use that no one bothered to actually read when they agreed to it for their purchases to that effect as well. People simply assumed that because something was the state of affairs when they'd made a purchase, it was locked in indefinitely, just like they assumed that because a la carte was an option initially it would always be an option. You can attempt to claim that you were led on by WotC's conduct if you really want, but there's an old business adage you should keep in mind: "past performance is not a guarantee of future results". Just because a business chooses to initially conduct itself one way does not automatically lock it into that model, nor does it create a "moral imperative" or whatever you want to call it for them to decline to make changes that will inconvenience a portion of its customer base.
Firstly, I can't check the wording on the old store, but the current marketplace clearly states the following (apologies, I don't know how to put it in a quote box on mobile)
Jump Into Play with D&D Beyond
Purchasing a digital copy of this book unlocks it for use in the D&D BEYOND compendium and toolset. D&D BEYOND is the official digital toolset for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. Create characters in minutes, play directly on your character sheets with digital dice, and prep less and play more with Dungeon Master tools like the Encounter Builder and Combat Tracker. Unlock Maps, D&D BEYOND's virtual tabletop, with a Master Tier subscription. Host game sessions on dozens of official maps, or make your own and use our player and monster tokens to take your gaming to the next level!
The very first sentence confirms that you are buying the compendium content & the toolset content/functionality. I see no argument that anyone is only buying compendium content, with the character builder just an extra.
Secondly, you mention that this was the same treatment as other "errata". The new PHB is not errata, WotC has been very clear on this. Therefore the expectation (and what DDB had led us to believe) was that this would be treated the same as other rules updates, such as Mordenkainens Monsters of the Multiverse, where older content was archived under a legacy tag. You'll note that this is not only what DDB planned to do with everything *except* spells and items, but is what it is now doing with everything, and at no point has it suggested that we were wrong to believe this.
Lastly, you seem to have gone off on a tangent about how businesses can go back on what they have agreed. Which is exactly what I wanted to avoid by differentiating between moral/legal. We're all aware that businesses write their ToC's to give themselves legal permission to do whatever they want. Few sane people would agree that that means everything a company does is ethical.
If a company says "We will give you X & Y", and then turns around and says "Actually, we're taking away X, you'll only get Y now, but our fine print says we can change things at any time", they may not be acting illegally, but you'd 100% be entitled to be angry and complain until you got what you'd paid for.
This assumes they coded their stuff differently than homebrew and aren't using the same [spell] [/spe ll]] code that we use when making homebrew or adding comments to the forum
Thank you, that confirms that the character builder content/features are and always have been at least part of what we were purchasing.
I will conceed that even with the individual purchases you were buying compendium content as well, I thought it was individual toolset options *or* the entire compendium.
I don't think that affects the original point however. We purchased toolset content (along with the compendium), and that toolset content would have been taken away.
Or, if you want to split hairs and claim that toolset and compendium are one and the same then this whole thing has just been semantics over whether its "content" or "functionality" that we're losing from the toolset. Which, other than linguistically, is completely irrelevant to what people have been complaining about. We had (among other things) purchased the ability to use certain spells in the character builder and that ability was going to be removed.
Again though, I don't know why this is even being argued. DDB have reversed their plans and have not even hinted that we didn't have the right* to keep that content. They clearly accept that they were taking something away, so I don't understand why people are arguing otherwise.
(* I'm not talking about "legal rights", before you start off on that diversion)
There is no such thing as "toolset content". [REDACTED]
There was never any proposal to remove 2014 content. What was being lost was a convenient way to access that content
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Oh God, another one 🤦♂️
You can describe it however you want, but we were sold items that could, among other things, be used in the toolset. Whether you view that as seperate "toolset content" and "compendium content" or singular "content" that could be used in both the compendium and the toolset is irrelevant. The fact is that content was being removed from the character builder. Whether that content was available elsewhere is immaterial.
I suspect it's less server space (as they wanted everyone to make homebrew copies) and more just that by overwriting the old spells/items the id# would be preserved and they wouldn't have to go and update all the tooltips to point at the new entries.
I would prefer to describe what happened accurately, thanks
It's not "semantics" to point out that functionality and content are very different things, given some of the more ridiculous accusations toward WOTC that have been flying around these forums. It's that kind of confusion that breeds things like people accusing WOTC of theft, or threatening class action lawsuits when they have no grounds to do so
You at least seem to have finally gotten to a place where you realize that tossing around statements like "content was being deleted!" isn't correct and was needlessly inflammatory -- especially after WOTC had already changed course on how the switchover was being handled
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I've already said earlier in the thread that I'm happy to refer to it as functionality being deleted rather than content being deleted if that's what you prefer. It doesn't change the fact that we had paid for that functionality and DDB were planning to remove it.
I don't see why you think calling it content is any more inflammatory. I think virtually everyone invilved is aware that this only affected the character builder, and were complaining about the removal of content in that context, but for most people that is the main part of the site and if it's not in the character builder it might as well not exist.
Twenty months ago I was running two longstanding 5E Campaigns. The first for a group of my friends who, like me are getting older and have played through decades of changes with this game. My other group is with a group of all new high school age players. Before that point I purchased basically every 5E product I could get my hands on. Print, DDB whatever. My older group is made up of all DM's who do not get a chance to play much anymore. Each of them used to purchase most everything as well. My young group mainly owns a PHB each in print and relies 100% on DDB for access to content.
Since this series of difficulties started twenty months ago I've watched things change withing my groups. Today I heard about this latest kerfuffle. None of my players or I had any clue it was happening. If this had moved forward as planned it would have badly effected both of these campaigns. I don't see any need to dive into details.
What I did want to point out. NONE OF US NOTICED IT WAS HAPPENING Twenty months ago everyone of these players would have been engaged and up in arms immediately. I watched it happening. The level of engagement with DND was crazy. Every book, Every Forum Post, Every Youtube that was 5E related was a topic of discussion.
Today my groups realized that NO ONE NOTICED.